La Alternativa

...Power of Community How Cuba Survived Peak Oil for more on Cuba’s inventive urban gardening. While we hope that the US does not face a Cuban style economic crisis, we at SurviveLA believe that it’s time for la alternativa for other reasons, namely reducing our environmental impact and rampant consumption. If you speak Spanish, please enjoy Gálvez’s recipe for vinegar made from pineapple rinds or banana peels. There is an recipe in English (not quit...

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Rainwater Harvesting with Joe Linton

...e will be the subject of a future hands-on permaculture workshop, hopefully in early fall 2008. Watch for details. Fee: $35 (sliding scale available) – bring a bag lunch. Registration required: 213/738-1254 or crsp@igc.org (workshop size limited) About Joe Linton Joe is an artist and urban environmental activist. He’s been involved for many years in efforts to restore and revitalize the Los Angeles River, including writing and illustrating the gui...

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Acedia Part II: An Internet of Narcissism

...ures, of style without substance” thinking of, I imagine, moments like the time the Yippies cast a spell to levitate the Pentagon or, in our time, throwing soup cans at paintings. He also targets therapeutic culture (much like Mark Fisher) and delivers a spot-on evisceration of New Age and Gnostic spirituality all of which he considers as support structures for a narcissistic ideology. I couldn’t help thinking about Lasch as I viewed the new Max d...

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De-Cluttering for DIYers, Homesteaders, Artists, Preppers, etc.

...from experience, I know I don’t need a hundred canning jars on hand at all time, much less their dented and rusty rings to be able to preserve food a couple of times a year. You might not really need that bin full of fabric scraps. But somehow this stuff does accumulate. Thin it out. Also, as we develop experience with any skill, we tend to find tools and techniques which work best for us, and we drop tools and techniques which don’t fit our style...

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A Three Step Strategy for Curing Internet/Smart Phone Addiction

...Silicon Valley elite who profit from our distraction. Still, there will be times that problem #1 gets the best of us. We won’t always succeed in avoiding the interweb hole and we might, as Newport suggests, even schedule some time to mindlessly surf just to get it out of our system. But the more we get out and just do stuff the less we’ll end up internet surfing and the better we’ll feel. In short, schedule a time to surf a real wave rather than a...

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