With thanks to Dan Adams of the wonderful self-sufficiency networking site Earthineer, here’s a perfect example of creativity (and freedom) arising from destruction. VOLOS, Greece — The first time he bought eggs, milk and jam at an outdoor market using not euros but an informal barter currency, Theodoros Mavridis, an unemployed electrician, was thrilled. “I felt liberated, I felt free for the first time,” Mr. Mavridis said in a recent interview at a cafe in this port city in central Greece. “I instinctively reached into my pocket, but there was no need to.” Mr. Mavridis is a co-founder of a…
Category: Practical Freedom
A broad category of things we can do, or things others are doing, to increase personal freedom
Been a bit busy since getting my yogurt maker last week. Today I’m finally attempting the first batch. I used Zoi unflavored Greek yogurt as the starter. Not sure of the exact amount (measuring is for wusses). From the 12:00 position, the variations are: Plain whole milk Whole milk with Karen’s fabulous apricot syrup stirred in Whole milk with extra milk solids Half-and-half with extra milk solids Half-and-half with Karen’s fabulous syrup on the bottom Plain half-and-half Not sure how much I added of either syrup or milk solids. I may have mentioned I think measuring is for wusses. 🙂…
Still working. Still working. I’ll produce something brilliant soon. I promise. Well … er, I’ll produce something soon. In the meantime, I thank Karen for reminding me that I did produce something pretty darned good a few years ago — something that relates to the recent and ongoing series here on “Responsibilities of a Resident of the Police State.” If you haven’t seen these before, or if you’d just like to bask anew in some freedom hopefulness, I give you: “The Quality of a Free Man” “Sustainable Freedom: The Dilemma” “Sustainable Freedom: Paradigms” “Sustainable Freedom: Shifting the World” Back soon…
Prosecutorial misconduct brings a mistrial in the Roger Clemens never-talk-to-the-feds case. How come we never see the feds on trial for lying to us? (ADDED: Good commentary.) Gary Marbut — bless his bold and principled heart — does it again. This time, he makes the Wall St. Journal. “The Good Short Life.” Touching. Cops are at it again, too. Portable facial-recognition and iris-scanning devices. Another gift of USACorp’s perpetual war machine. While junque shopping, I really would have bought that set of five poker-playing dog prints (especially “Pinched with Four Aces.”) They were too expensive (and does anybody really need…
This wonderful story found by Jim B. must be rescued from the comment section. Oh, don’t you wish this woman could be your doctor!
L (who might possibly be on some mind-altering substance) writes: For some time I have been frustrated with web-based pontificators with memberships/advertisers touting “the end is near.” I have no objections to the notion that we are headed for calamity, and in fact think we are. BUT My frustration(s): 1) Would someone toss me a freaking bone and tell me WHEN … I keep hearing “any day now” and have for the past 12 years … I am getting “survival fatigue.” (NOTE from Claire. Only 12 years, L? Why, you’re just a babe in the woods. “Any day now” has…
I’m deadlining this week and into next. So a couple of blog entries I’ve been noodling may have to wait. One was to be about attitudes of independence. Rather than making you wait, then drowning you in prose, I thought it might brighten your day (and seriously compress your reading time!) to have the great links I planned to build the story around. Here goes: Windfall. And its backstory. What do you do when your neighbor’s storm-fallen tree creates havoc in your backyard? Stop calling them victims! says a woman who created a summer of joy for herself and her…
I knew that. From Chris D. in recent comments: Maker Faires. Cool idea. Idiots. Savages. Liver disease. It’s not just for alcoholics any more. Arty Bollocks Generator. 🙂 Debt freedom = opportunity. Nice personal story. Westboro Baptist Church comes picketing. Target offers donuts. Great attitude.
DNA-based diets for health and fitness. (Tip o’ hat to PT.) The NY Times calls it dysfunction. Doesn’t it seem more like innovation to you? “Stray Cat Strut.” How one dedicated cat lady beat the IRS. Wendy McElroy: “The Next American Revolution Won’t Be Like the First.” Yep, I think we can count on that. 🙂 Via Ammoland. Alan Korwin and Mark Moritz present: “Sunshine Gun Laws.” This has been around quite a while, but it’s good for a little Monday cheer.
This is a follow-up to last week’s “Middle-Class Shrug” blog. —– We hear about economic “pressure on the middle class.” Business media tell us the middle class is being squeezed. Popular media try to break our hearts with profiles of couples who have fallen out of the middle class and into desperation. But the picture they paint is incomplete and distorted. The “squeezed” mostly remain an abstraction. The “fallen” families beloved of the media are, as often as not, a misrepresentation; they’re usually folk who made dumb decisions (mostly by buying houses they couldn’t afford at prices they should have…