~ ~ ~ Another in the Mad Jubilado series ~ ~ ~ I can’t remember not working with wood. My father was an amateur woodworker. He built some really nice furniture for our house – a hallway entry table, a coffee table, and end tables in the “early American” style – with little more than … More Some Words on Wood and Wings
It is so easy to ridicule a buffoon. I have done so more than once in various blog posts on this site. I referred to Trump as an empty clown suit because of the vacuous nature of his essentially false and tragically comic-book persona. He could easily pass for Batman’s “The Joker.” But really, isn’t … More Why Trump Does Not Matter, and Why He Does
It seems that little effort to understand fully the costs and benefits of the transition from fossil fuel to PV energy production has accompanied the rush to install utility scale solar and wind farms. However, it is very important to examine the environmental costs of achieving the environmental benefits of low carbon emissions energy production, … More Hidden Costs Constrain the Benefits of Transitioning to Renewable Energy
Someone quoted Jeff Bezos as saying that the biggest mistake is not to evolve. But what exactly does it mean to evolve? In the case of Amazon.com, it has always meant to grow Amazon by growing sales above all else, including profit. Well, the entire history of the industrial era has focused on growth as … More How to Evolve
As I watch the seemingly endless cable news video recap of the Parkland Florida high school shooting, I watched the fully swat-outfitted police move toward the danger of an “active shooter” who had set off the fire alarm to bring out his victims for execution—17 dead, 14 wounded at last count. These officers were willing … More Running Toward Danger
A power outage is not that uncommon on the high plains of New Mexico near the City of Santa Fe. In a rural or “rural residential” area, the redundancy of the power grid is reduced to nothing in some spots. In more densely populated areas, if a transformer blows out, alternate routes for electricity to … More Power Out, Pause, Power Up
Oh my! Seventy-five! Seems like it happened just yesterday. Actually, it was two and a half years ago. Copper is no longer a puppy. Yet, full-grown now, she still has quite a lot of that puppy playfulness. I have not changed much. When I turned seventy-five years of AGE, three quarters of a century seemed … More Seventy-Five and One
Resist we must. But what will that get us, really? Well, catharsis yes. However, that is clearly not enough. Will resistance bring a slower unraveling of American Democracy? Maybe, maybe not. The deep entanglement of political institutions with the increasingly monopolistic “technosphere” is so extensive that only resistance that borders on revolution might make a … More Beyond Resistance: Replacement and Restoration for Resilience
I just watched the condensed version of the award winning film, “The Economics of Happiness.” It is available on the Local Futures website. It confirms just about all the research findings on climate change, globalization, poverty, pollution, violence, and a host of other issues I have followed for the past decade while writing my forthcoming … More Economics of Happiness vs. Corporate Globalization
Choices multiply with time, or maybe not. Potential decisions proliferate as knowledge grows, but we may not necessarily make them as obligations set in. With good health, the Jubilado [retiree, en español], if modestly financed with a decent pension, has many choices, not all costly. Unfortunately, many Jubilados either never had a pension or it … More Choices and Freedom, Decisions and Destiny
Robert MacNeil Christie, Author 