Author: jennynazak

By traveling into a war zone, how many people did he jeopardize needlessly; how many resources were commandeered to protect him — etc etc etc.

To me this is just more U.S. hubris, vanity, self-serving. It’s easy to point the finger at the “bad guy” — but we the USA expanded NATO after pledging not to, so … (Added later: Actually there’s disagreement as to whether we broke a pledge. Some say yes, others say no. BUT, I tend to trust what Veterans for Peace says; admittedly I am biased.)

War serves governments & corporations.

The USA needs a true progressive candidate but I am skeptical that can happen. (Although I myself have anarchist leanings, I also find a lot of common ground with progressives.)

Democrats are as entrenched in vested interests as Republicans, in their own way.
Dems nowadays are conservative & authoritarian, while Repubs are reactionary & totalitarian. Less-entrenched is still not desirable.

And they’re all burning a lot of jet fuel and other resources (cognitive as well as fossil). I wish we (humans) could unanimously declare war on the destruction of the biosphere. Our life-support system.

Back to war tho — it’s just so sad that in our lifetimes we are back to the same old same old. Things were good w Russia; the USSR had dissolved but Russia seemed OK, we had peace, no more Cold War “scary Russia” thing … “Duck and cover” under our elementary-school desks back in the 60s; constant sense of nuclear dread as a kid in the 70s … but then an era came when the threat receded or vanished.

But now we are back to this old pattern. “Scary Russia”; looming threat of massive war between US and Russia. What set Russia off, I wonder; what got them scared again if not something we did to make them feel threatened?

Hey everyone! Found this gem while searching for “how to make fun of white supremacists”:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/17/opinion/how-to-make-fun-of-nazis.html

“Germany is not America. For one, neo-Nazis aren’t allowed to carry assault rifles through the streets there, let alone display swastikas. But we do have similar examples of humor being used to counteract fascists in the United States. In 2012, a “white power” march in Charlotte, N.C., was met with counterprotesters dressed as clowns. They held signs reading “wife power” and threw “white flour” into the air. … By undercutting the gravitas white supremacists are trying to accrue, humorous counterprotests may blunt the events’ usefulness for recruitment. Brawling with bandanna-clad antifas may seem romantic to some disaffected young men, but being mocked by clowns? Probably not so much.”

And let’s be clear: The anti-Semitic demonstrations seen most recently in Ormond & Daytona are WHITE SUPREMACY. Anti-Semitism is a subset of white supremacy. BTW there was a “white power” rally in Deleon Springs last year. (The sheriff & police chiefs were alerted of the event & kept close watch to ensure there was no physical violence. BUT, hate speech IS violence. And white supremacy IS violence.)

#DismantleWhiteSupremacy

PS. I just got an idea. What if we started organizing comedy shows that make fun of white supremacy? Standup comedy; skits; improv. Hmm …

My table at the FRESH Book Festival this weekend will include a carefully curated browsing library of a very select few of my top favorite books on DEEP GREEN living!

I will also be offering a limited-edition special printing of 50 copies of DEEP GREEN for sale — had not planned to print more, but it seems like people still want the print version even though I made the text available to read for free on my blog (which i did after the Covid shutdowns, to support people in navigating the challenging economy with creativity & joy).

And, I will also have available for sale, fresh off the presses, five copies of the Growing FREE book (Financial Resilience & Economic Empowerment), authored by Mike Hoag and Laura Oldanie, with myself and Eric Brown and Jason Padvorac as contributors.

The book festival is this coming Friday & Saturday! And the film festival is tomorrow evening – Thurs! Locals, Get your tickets & make plans to attend this incredibly rich, WORLD-CLASS festival!
💚💚💚🌏🦋

(Feel free to use any of this to promote natural landscaping in your community; adapt my wording as needed.)

The three latest recipients of the “Eco Beauty Landscape Star Award” from Daytona Beach Permaculture Guild. One commercial property (thanks Will Bittorf!!!), and two private residents.

What they all have in common is that they have taken the SIMPLEST approach to achieving natural beachside BEAUTY, plus pollinator support /biodiversity, heat mitigation, & stormwater mitigation on their properties.

Known as the “Managed Meadow,” this approach helps restore our natural beachside beauty & ecology, while saving greatly on water and maintenance.

All of the properties have an array of flowers, shrubs, & other dune plants that vary with the seasons and offer sustenance to the bees, butterflies, & other more-than-human species on which we all depend in the web of life!

One of the properties, additionally, constitutes a slope restoration of truly heroic magnitude (belying its small physical area). Excess mowing, unnecessary blowing, and other mainstream practices not appropriately customized to our beachside environment had turned the sloped part of the yard into a bare sand dune! Now plants are covering the slope, and the erosion which had started to pose structural dangers has been arrested.

A Managed Meadow can have a more deliberate, formal appearance if desired, with the addition of rocks, logs, or other border materials; sculptures or other outdoor art; benches and birdbaths.

Thank you to these 3 latest award recipients and to all the other beachside neighbors whose natural yards are helping to mitigate our city’s flooding & heat, while also adding to the beauty of Beachside!!!

One thing that helps is recognizing that the social norms for a “clean, well-kept house” — and the social norms for what kinds of furnishings a “proper, successful” homeowner must have in their house — are a product of patriarchy, which is in turn one element of white supremacy culture.

My response as a permaculturist has been to scale back on “stuff” so the work becomes minimal and a joy to DIY. #OptOut ; #degrowth #decolonize. And we need to determine *for ourselves* what we feel is clean and nice, not let corporate marketers and manufacturers set those “preferences” for us.

Another thing that turns daily living tasks into drudgery in “modern” culture is that we are isolated, toiling away each in a nuclear-family household instead of doing them in community. A friend who grew up in a less consumerist, less industrialized, non-Western place talked about how much they used to enjoy doing laundry together by the river, with the kids either helping or running & splashing about, depending on their ages and inclinations.

It takes a village … and capitalist/consumerist culture destroyed the village.

Soeaking of kids: Elsewhere on this blog I have shared about how we in “modern” culture have done ourselves and our kids a disservice by sidelining them from really participating in household tasks from a young age. Young kids often really want to help, and are teachable — and by not letting them share their energies in this way we create a “problem” that has to be “managed” (kids having “too much energy” and needing to be entertained with “activities”).

(This post goes for landscaping norms too.)

PS. Back in 2006 at EcoVersity’s Earth-Based Vocations program (Renewable Energy segment, taught by Mark Sardella), Mark told us that the amount of fossil energy available at the fingertips of typical USA Americans today is equivalent to each of us having 80 slaves. At that time I knew nothing about systemic racism. What he told us back then makes sense on a whole deeper level now.

Further Exploration:

• Danita Platt on TikTok (I love her content!!) explains how we arrived at the division of domestic labor. Historic roots in slavery; Jim Crow. Also check out her video “The Stuff that No One Wants To Do“; she made this in response to someone’s comment on her first vid.

There’s more free information out there than ever. And there’s always more information we could gather before starting this or that project.

At some point, however, the best thing is to just start. Start composting; start collecting rainwater. (I chose these two things to mention because they are two of the most beneficial things we can do for the planet — AND for our households, and for our communities — and yet I constantly hear from people who have been meaning for years to start doing these things.)

After a point, information just becomes a barrier; the discouraging tool of perfectionism. The way to learn and get better is START.

In permaculture, we observe and interact. That’s one of the core principles of permaculture design: observe and interact. And respond to the feedback from our environment (physical and social) and adjust accordingly, and so on.

If you start small, the stakes are low and the cost of failure is minimal to zero. Typucally if we start small, the knowledge gained exceeds any cost of failure. (And actually there aren’t really any failures.)

I’ve given more talks and workshops, and written more posts, about composting than I can count. Same with rainwater collection.

My approach is to simplify; de-mystify. But if you don’t trust that approach, there’s plenty of free info out there that takes the hard, complicated approach.

Finally though, regardless of how you choose to approach it, the thing is to just start. You will learn quickly. Nature teaches us.

Oh, and it’s even better, the learning & yields are multiplied, if you get other people involved in the effort. But if you’re working by yourself, don’t let that stop you!

Designing for the least advantaged makes things better for us all.

Making transportation easy for the nondriving public makes things better for drivers too.

Making a city a kind place for its residents to live automatically makes it a nice place to visit.

Posting on the fly; will add more later as I think of them.