Very busy with Saturn image analysis, studying certain art, architecture and math topics, and traveling. It's been a while since i had time to read, but now i can catch up on some of my favorite topics - economics, astronomy, various blogs by smart people even in fields i normally wouldn't pay attention to, and antique computing.
Just found, thanks to one of the emailed "green" newsletters i receive, a great article on speed, power, and the value systems of industry vs. hippies, if you want to put it that way. Or, dominator system values vs. caring and living. “Cob Speed” by Coenraad Rogmans - I offer a short quote from that article at House Alive
".... Tractors, mortar mixers, bobcats, plastering guns, and other tools can make things go really fast. Of course there is a cost to this speed: one of the reasons cob houses last so long is because they were hand-built and therefore instill the owner with a strong desire to care for the house. Many conventional houses in the USA don’t last long not due to structural failures but due to the fact that nobody cares about them: at some point it may become more profitable to bulldoze them down then fix them up."
Always interested in the value systems supported by our economic system, and the value systems most of us would prefer to follow instead, the way these affect our everyday lives, and most importantly, how deliberate changes in our everyday lives could tilt things from the dominator system to something we'd be happier with, i went off to Riane Eisler's site (author of the book Real Wealth of Nations) and Real Wealth Economy for a bit of good reading.