Couldn’t resist posting one more video. A most energetic and inspiring older couple. I guess local food and organic food is possible. All you need is dirt and work.
Sustainable Living, All It Takes Is Work
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Category Archives: Frugal living
Food For All and Work For All
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A most interesting take on sustainable food and local food. I’m particularly fascinated by the part about training young people for meaningful work. A great alternative to college for many, perhaps.
Related articles
- UK News: Blanc backs food apprenticeships (walesonline.co.uk)
- Local Food and Happiness (ministryofhappiness.wordpress.com)
- Vermont professor to talk food systems at Clemson (thestate.com)
Thinking About Retirement (What To Do With The Rest Of My Life)
(Photo credit: 401(K) 2013)
The Super Bowl has come and gone, and Groundhog Day as well. And what do I have to show for the winter?
It’s been, first of all, a lazy winter. That would be an objective report.
However, I prefer to look at it as a winter of reading, thinking, planning. I haven’t done as much blogging as I’d like. On the other hand, I’ve finally joined Twitter, and I’m even beginning to see its usefulness. Feel free to follow along on Twitter @BJohnHayden.
I’ve joined the local gym, and I’m showing up on a regular basis. That’s important, because I’m now beyond denial. I recognize that if I want to do any useful work in the years I have remaining, it’s imperative that I exercise and conserve my health.
Mostly, I’ve been thinking about and preparing for retirement, Continue reading
The Best Gifts Are Homemade Chocolate-Chip Cookies
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Universal Health Care
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UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE — Possible or impossible? It’s already happening, to a limited extent. Where I live, in a remote corner of Maryland, the hospital has been providing free flu-shot clinics on multiple dates and locations throughout the county, every fall for several years. Highly efficient, low-cost, preventive health care. Are you for it or against it?
Related articles
- FLU SHOT CLINIC: Health Department Offers Drive Thru (whotv.com)
- Flu shot season starts with a bang in Triangle (newsobserver.com)
This post from Femme Vitale raises thoughtful issues about tiny houses and freedom to live as you wish, with links for folks seeking more information. Tiny houses offer a practical way for people to cope with limits created by debt, job shortages, and slow economic growth. Maybe tiny houses will change the size of the American Dream. Zoning laws need to be updated to provide places for tiny houses, preferably mixed in with housing of other sizes. Add major improvements in public transportation, and the future suddenly looks quite appealing. — John Hayden
Lately, I have been extremely discouraged by what I believe are very critical challenges facing my generation. One of the primary challenges I see is the crippling amount of debt accumulated by the average American college graduate in times of intense competition for work. In this climate in which individuals step out into the world with tens of thousands of dollars of debt, the dream of owning a home can seem impossible, even with a decent job. Furthermore, the prospect of taking on a huge mortgage, working for years just to pay off the interest, and paying off the home just in time for retirement is not especially appealing. Because we live in a society that is becoming more and more nomadic, and because children rarely choose to live where they were raised, working an entire life just to pay off a mortgage does not, in essence, better the next…
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Darkness in India, Drought in America; You Can’t Make This Stuff Up
The power grid in India failed this week, leaving half the population of the world’s largest democracy without electric power.
Half the counties in America have been declared drought disaster areas by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Half of India in the dark, half of America in drought. Makes you wonder: Where is the tipping point? How much failure can a country endure?
E-books By Bestselling Authors Priced @ $12.99
High Cost of E-books
When I bought my Nook last winter, I was hoping to buy e-books at lower prices than hardbacks and paperbacks. But prices aren’t necessarily lower in the digital world.
Despite owning a Nook, I’ve recently splurged on two hardbacks and a paperback. They’re very different novels by three long-established, bestselling authors.
“The Water Is Being Stolen”
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“We so often hear that the world is running out of water. People are dying from lack of water. Rivers are dewatered from lack of water. Because of this we need to take shorter showers. See the disconnect? Because I take showers, I’m responsible for drawing down aquifers? Well, no. More than 90 percent of the water used by humans is used by agriculture and industry. The remaining 10 percent is split between municipalities and actual living breathing individual humans. Collectively, municipal golf courses use as much water as municipal human beings. People (both human people and fish people) aren’t dying because the world is running out of water. They’re dying because the water is being stolen.”
— from “Forget Shorter Showers: Why personal change does not equal political change,” by Derrick Jensen in “Onion” Magazine. Profound and eye-opening! To read the full article, click here.
Related articles
- Forget peak oil, the global water crisis will shake humanity to its core (business.financialpost.com)
- Do You Take Navy Showers? (bellasugar.com)
“You Can Buy Happiness” by Tammy Strobel
Tammy Strobel blogs at “Rowdy Kittens” about simplifying her life, riding bicycles, and living in tiny houses (or as she puts it, finding “fulfillment in less stuff, less debt and less wage-chasing”). Simplicity! I’m in favor of it.
She has a print book scheduled for release in September. The title is: “You Can Buy Happiness (And It’s Cheap).”
If we had a Pulitzer Prize for book titles, that would be a winner. You can see the cover and read a little more about her book here. It’s nonfiction, and already listed for preorder in paperback on Amazon.com and Barnes & Nobel. I can’t wait to read it. I think I’ll probably order some happiness as well, since it’s cheap. Maybe I’ll buy happiness in large quantities, enough to share. Continue reading
Living Simply And Still On The Grid 