Well, the supposed Mayan apocalypse has come and gone without incident or any noticeable change in the environment. Several area schools closed for the day partly for weather-related reasons but mostly because of rumors of weapons and violence. I was in the bathroom at work around ten when the power went out which caused a little anxiety until the generators kicked in but that was due to Winter Storm "Draco" and not anything to do with Mayan prophecy unless the Mayans had that figured in.
They still have not caught whoever threw the Molotov cocktails into the trailer park. They must have been amateurs, though, because they put the gasoline in plastic bottles when every Sixties radical knows you must use glass bottles or it won't work. More disturbingly it turns out that one of the homes targeted was next to me after all. I'm not surprised. The people who live there have a history of drug dealing and there are people in and out 24/7. Anyway, my heart just stopped a minute ago when I looked out the window and saw a parade of fire trucks and MILITARY VEHICLES coming up the street. What now? Turns out that one of my co-workers is on the fire department and they were delivering Christmas baskets to those in need. Gee, that's nice, but considering recent events here, don't you think that was a bit much?
Anyway, the other day I saw on the news an item about how brain implants were helping a paralyzed person move her arm. Now you'd think that'd be great news, but apparently not everyone feels that way. According to the article some disability rights activists are upset because they think that society needs to accept disabled persons as they are and those same disabled persons need to accept themselves as they are. Say what? Now, I know the idea of a cure is controversial, but please! What next? Shall we protest glasses because people with vision problems are just fine the way they are? That correcting vision, or hearing or any other problem is somehow going against the Blind community or the Deaf community or the Paralyzed community?
To me that is going backwards, and I am deeply concerned about trends I see happening, such as so-called Alternative Medicine which seeks to replace modern medicine with less-effective placebos. There seems to be an emerging Neo-Luddite movement, which, unlike the original Luddite movement, is not content with just destroying one type of technology, but all technology. Intertwined with this philosophy is that humans are bad and that there simply are too many of us.
I have been following the Peak Oil movement for some years now, ever since I read James Howard Kunstler's "The Long Emergency." What strikes me about the Peak Oilers is that while they are on a big back-to-the-land kick (shades of the 1960's and '70's) and into growing your own food (organically, of course), there is very little discussion of how do we keep knowledge alive in the face of mass societal collapse. Speaking of organic, the original, SCIENTIFIC meaning of the term is simply "carbon-based", not "grown without artificial chemicals". Therefore, ALL food is organic because it is carbon-based no matter what has or has not been put on it. The idea that only food grown without "artificial" fertilizers or pesticides is "organic" comes from Rudolph Steiner, founder of the Anthroposophy (not to be confused with Anthropology, which is a legitimate science) Movement. Similarly, "biodynamic" sounds scientific but is really a return to old folkways like planting during certain phases of the moon, etc.
I am not one to believe in conspiracy theories but I just wonder if some of the "population control" folks might be behind this "let's return to the good old days" when everything was natural, there was no evil Big Pharma, no animal experimentation, no vaccines to cause you know what, no GMO foods, no cancer-causing chemicals and such-not. Because abandoning those things and going back to that kind of lifestyle definitely will have an effect on reducing population. I suspect some of them know it. They're just hoping that they will be the ones who will survive.
If Kunstler and others are right then the new Dark Ages will be very dark indeed . . .
They still have not caught whoever threw the Molotov cocktails into the trailer park. They must have been amateurs, though, because they put the gasoline in plastic bottles when every Sixties radical knows you must use glass bottles or it won't work. More disturbingly it turns out that one of the homes targeted was next to me after all. I'm not surprised. The people who live there have a history of drug dealing and there are people in and out 24/7. Anyway, my heart just stopped a minute ago when I looked out the window and saw a parade of fire trucks and MILITARY VEHICLES coming up the street. What now? Turns out that one of my co-workers is on the fire department and they were delivering Christmas baskets to those in need. Gee, that's nice, but considering recent events here, don't you think that was a bit much?
Anyway, the other day I saw on the news an item about how brain implants were helping a paralyzed person move her arm. Now you'd think that'd be great news, but apparently not everyone feels that way. According to the article some disability rights activists are upset because they think that society needs to accept disabled persons as they are and those same disabled persons need to accept themselves as they are. Say what? Now, I know the idea of a cure is controversial, but please! What next? Shall we protest glasses because people with vision problems are just fine the way they are? That correcting vision, or hearing or any other problem is somehow going against the Blind community or the Deaf community or the Paralyzed community?
To me that is going backwards, and I am deeply concerned about trends I see happening, such as so-called Alternative Medicine which seeks to replace modern medicine with less-effective placebos. There seems to be an emerging Neo-Luddite movement, which, unlike the original Luddite movement, is not content with just destroying one type of technology, but all technology. Intertwined with this philosophy is that humans are bad and that there simply are too many of us.
I have been following the Peak Oil movement for some years now, ever since I read James Howard Kunstler's "The Long Emergency." What strikes me about the Peak Oilers is that while they are on a big back-to-the-land kick (shades of the 1960's and '70's) and into growing your own food (organically, of course), there is very little discussion of how do we keep knowledge alive in the face of mass societal collapse. Speaking of organic, the original, SCIENTIFIC meaning of the term is simply "carbon-based", not "grown without artificial chemicals". Therefore, ALL food is organic because it is carbon-based no matter what has or has not been put on it. The idea that only food grown without "artificial" fertilizers or pesticides is "organic" comes from Rudolph Steiner, founder of the Anthroposophy (not to be confused with Anthropology, which is a legitimate science) Movement. Similarly, "biodynamic" sounds scientific but is really a return to old folkways like planting during certain phases of the moon, etc.
I am not one to believe in conspiracy theories but I just wonder if some of the "population control" folks might be behind this "let's return to the good old days" when everything was natural, there was no evil Big Pharma, no animal experimentation, no vaccines to cause you know what, no GMO foods, no cancer-causing chemicals and such-not. Because abandoning those things and going back to that kind of lifestyle definitely will have an effect on reducing population. I suspect some of them know it. They're just hoping that they will be the ones who will survive.
If Kunstler and others are right then the new Dark Ages will be very dark indeed . . .
