Sheep “mow” an orchard. This relatively inexpensive livestock will eat both grass and tender weeds, and can be rotationally grazed using movable electric fencing. PHOTO: DEBORAH RENDON

Sheep aren’t the only livestock that can serve multiple purposes. Each type of livestock has natural habits with potential uses around your homestead. Pigs are nature’s plows. Geese feast on grassy weeds. Ducks eat slugs and bugs.

Though using working animals on your homestead has many benefits, it involves some work, too. Unlike gas-powered equipment, animals can’t be put away in the garage until the next time you need them. They need food, water, shelter, fencing and occasional veterinary care. So, why keep them?

Multipurpose Livestock

Integrating working animals into your landscape makes your backyard more of a natural ecosystem in which flora and fauna interact. John Hayden, who runs an integrated farm called “The Farm Between” in Jeffersonville, Vt., raises plant crops and livestock. He manages his livestock to reduce the amount of labor and fertilizer he puts into his plant crops. He refers to the technique of using animals for more than one purpose as “stacking functions.”

“We use our animals for their animal purpose — for meat — and we have draft horses we use for work, but we also use them for their manure or to work the ground, control weeds or graze cover crops,” Hayden says.

Matt Elston and Kirk Fackrell own Cascade Meadows Farm, a diversified farm in Sandy, Ore. Their livestock consist of Dexter cattle, pastured poultry, American Guinea hogs, Icelandic sheep and miniature dairy goats. They recently had piglets from their pair of Guinea hogs, and they plan to use this small breed of swine to remove unwanted vegetation. Elston and Fackrell find their miniature dairy goats to be especially effective at blackberry control, and they provide tasty milk, as well. “What we’re trying to do here is bring together a new understanding of old techniques, to have our farm work holistically with as few outside inputs as possible, and get as much as we can out of each individual on the farm,” Elston says.

Sheep Shear Shrubs and More

Though he no longer keeps sheep, Hayden found them useful for controlling vegetation. “We had some stone walls that were overgrown and brushy, and we mobbed sheep on them and let the sheep kill everything there,” he says. “Now we have nice stone walls to look at again.” (“Mob” grazing means confining a group of animals in a small space so they feed on vegetation that may be less desirable to them.)

(Continue reading page 2 at Mother Earth News) >>

About This Talk
Using wikis and digital fabrication tools, TED Fellow Marcin Jakubowski is open-sourcing the blueprints for 50 farm machines, allowing anyone to build their own tractor or harvester from scratch. And that’s only the first step in a project to write an instruction set for an entire self-sustaining village (starting cost: $10,000).

About Marcin Jakubowski
Marcin Jakubowski is open-sourcing a set of blueprints for 50 farming tools that can be built cheaply from scratch. Call it a “civilization starter kit.” Full bio and more links.

H/T to Brad Spangler for the link:

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Coffee in a Post-Collapse Society
By James Wesley Rawles

I have read many articles stating that if you have any addictions to nicotine, caffeine or alcohol that now is the time to change your habits so that your dependency on them in their absence are easier to tolerate. My coffee habit is less a habit-at least that’s what I tell myself-and more of an enjoyment of life. That being said, in moderation coffee actually has an anti-oxidant property- justification is always a sign of a habit I know – not to mention the benefit of assisting in staying alert during a night watch task.

As a previous specialty coffee shop owner-prior to the commercialization of the industry by Starbucks -no I am not bitter- the storage of “freshly” roasted coffee has always been an issue. In fact, there is really only one method for long term storage of coffee since once the bean is roasted the oils and converted sugars begin to deteriorate and go rancid very quickly. Most off the shelf coffees that you buy in vacuum sealed containers or bags are actually made stale so that they can be vacuum sealed. Otherwise the bag would burst from the off gassing of the beans. Vacuum sealed freshness is a marketing term that actually means vacuum sealed staleness. I would always tell my customers you would never buy stale bread, why do you insist on paying a premium for stale coffee?

As I said there is a method for long term storage, unless you plan on rotating your roasted/ground coffee on a regular basis-eventually the coffee you have stored will become undrinkable. Or unless you live in the very narrow band of coffee producing countries that are 20 degrees on each side of the equator and 3,000 feet above sea level- coffee in a post-collapse society will disappear quickly. The answer is to purchase green coffee beans. These are the natural unroasted beans. There are many sites available on the internet where you can purchase anywhere from one pound to fifty pound bags. One advantage is that you will save 50% on your coffee budget paying anywhere from $5-7 per pound by purchasing green coffee beans. The prices of coffee have been escalating just as other commodities and the anticipation of future inflation on coffee is expected to continue. If ordering by the internet and paying shipping costs are to be avoided then you could also check your local coffee roaster in the yellow pages and inquire, they may sell you coffee thus avoiding the shipping costs. Most however will make you pay a small fee above their costs to account for their lost profit, it never hurts to ask though.

Now that you have purchased a twenty five pound bag of beans it will arrive in a burlap bag, long term storage in a five gallon bucket and Mylar should follow your preferred method. You may want to store in multiple smaller Mylar bags for extended storage times. At this point the beans are not off gassing so vacuum sealing with oxygen absorbers is possible. Stored in this method your beans will stay fresh from 2-5 years until you decide to roast them. Some Columbian Estate coffees are actually aged prior to roasting and command premium prices.

The fear of roasting your green beans is not scary at all. In fact, I would expect readers of SurvivalBlog to see it as a challenge to learn how to and master it. It should not take any longer than fifteen minutes on the stovetop or in a Dutch oven over a fire if necessary to roast enough beans for a week. I roasted our coffee for the week this Sunday in a Panini Pan (a pan with ridges on the bottom to help distribute the beans and heat) but any pan will work. To roast coffee, start by placing a layer of beans on the bottom of the pan with medium-high heat. As the pan begins to roast your beans, continue to stir your beans slowly, your technique will develop over time, just don’t leave the beans unattended, continue to stir or move the beans around or you wont get an even roast. You may need to decrease or increase the setting on your stove accordingly, but you will start to get the feel of the right setting after your second roast of beans. The oils in the bean will begin to heat up and caramelize, as they do you will hear them begin to crack open, this is the first of two pops you will hear during the roast.

The color will change from green to yellow to a light caramel and finally to a dark brown to black depending on how dark a roast you like. Also, the chaff from the beans outer coating will start to smoke, if you are inside on the stovetop, turn on the exhaust fan-trust me. About ten minutes into your roast and continual stirring you will have a mix of color ranging from light brown to dark brown and the second crack will begin. The last five minutes the colors change over very quickly to dark brown to black and you will need to monitor the color. Unless you like an espresso roast where you have now burnt the sugars and oils you will need to stop the roasting process just prior to the desired roast or color. As the second crack subsides remove the pan from the heat store and continue to stir. There will be a lot of chaff, you do not want this in your beans so I put mine in a colander and toss them out side and either let the breeze remove the chaff or blow across the beans to remove as much chaff as possible. Let the beans cool before grinding. Once you grind your first truly freshly roasted coffee you will be amazed at the depth of flavors. In some coffees you will not have to add milk or sugar. Bitterness that is in brewed coffee comes from staleness not the true nature of brewed coffee. In a post-collapse society a hand operated coffee grinder will be necessary and can be found online as well.

As for brewing your coffee in the absence of an electric coffee brewer, the Cowboy coffee and French press coffee methods work great and both make a great cup of coffee.

Cowboy Coffee
Over a campfire
Fill coffee pot with cold water.
Add one rounded tablespoon of ground coffee for each two cups of water.  (Add the coffee directly to the water.)
Bring the water just to a rolling boil.  Take off heat.  

Add a splash (a couple of tablespoons) of cold water.  This is to settle the coffee grounds.  Allow the coffee to set for a couple of minutes for the settling to take place.

French Press Coffee
Over a campfire
Heat water in a container
Place ground coffee in French Press, about 1tbs per cup

Pour hot (almost to a boil) over coffee
Put lid back on the press, leave in the up position
Steep for about four minutes
Slowly press down plunger after four minutes
Pour coffee to strain grounds v

Post-Collapse Coffee Equipment and Costs

I always appreciate sources for procurement so I will make mine that seem to be the most affordable. Some items-camp coffee pot, heavy bottomed pan, Dutch oven, and coffee press-you can locate at your local big box store. I would still recommend doing your research for the best product for the best price.

• Green Coffee beans $5-7 per pound (Guatemalan $143 for 25# plus shipping from Coffee Bean Corral)
• 5 gallon pails with Gamma Seal lids
• Oxygen absorbers (I always order from HoneyvilleGrain.com along with other items)
• Mylar bags, include smaller sizes for use as a barter item (your favorite supplier)
• Manual Coffee Grinder (such as a Kyocera Ceramic Coffee Grinder Model CM-50 CF $49.99 #1678)
• Camp style coffee pot or French Press (Primula 6-Cup Coffee Press – Black  Item # PCP2906 $9.99)
• Heavy-bottomed pan or Dutch oven for roasting

My last thoughts concern bartering coffee. During the Civil War the Northern states had coffee for their soldiers in the field because of their ability to import from coffee producing countries. The South was not as fortunate and had to rely on Chicory as a substitute–a poor one at that. Southern troops however had an abundance of tobacco, which the Northern Troops lacked. And through barter each side would arrange for a truce to trade, in fact there are many stories of agreements being yelled across the lines- where soldiers much to their officers disapproval would make unapproved but look the other way arrangements of tobacco for coffee. I can envision trading some scarce freshly roasted coffee for rice/beans or bullets. As a bartering item that contains one of those things that can be habit forming, in the grand scheme of things, coffee is less destructive than alcohol or tobacco.

Having coffee in your provisions could be a very valuable commodity from enjoyment, staying alert and to use as a barter item for other needed provisions.

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Post image by cgfan on flickr.

Here is the first issue of Gonzo Times for Print. We ask that you print not only one for yourself but others to distribute in your area. Coffee Shops, Libraries, Campuses, Book Stores and Community Centers may be some places you can do this. Please tell us how many you publish and where you have distributed. I would love to know.

You can order copies here at Gonzo Times. We will be selling copies in bulk seeking only to cover printing costs starting March 10th. This is a publication supported by mutual aid only. This is not a for profit publication. We will however offer ad space in the next issue for people who order certain quantities this will be to fund continued printing only. Take part in this mutual aid publication by distributing all around your area.

There are currently three PDF’s available:

• The Full Print Version (includes crop marks ready for publication)
• The Print Version (no crop marks best printed on 8 sheets of 11×17 to make all 36 pages)
• The Web Version (slightly smaller and easier to download)

The publication was designed to be printed on 11 x 17 both sides 8 sheets folded and side stapled to create a 36 page publication. You can print on 8.5 x 11 if those are your only printing capabilities.

Be sure to check the link for ways to help spread this zine far and wide.

Meg joins Alex Himmelbaum who shows us how to shape hot steel into a rustic paper towel holder for the kitchen. More info: http://bit.ly/gH7YgI

This time around, Bob shares his favorite methods for making sauerkraut at home.

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So around thanksgiving the snows were getting two feet deep and it was getting cold enough to just about freeze solid all the fruits and vegetables we store outside our home in a big ‘ol busted down chest freezer by the woodshed.

The ol’ chest freezer before the snows hit:

So y’all know what that means, it’s time to finish preserving the stuff we wanted to keep but not freeze solid. As part of our annual fall “stocking up” trip we’d gone to cash and carry and I’d gotten a fifty pound sack of onions for five bucks, forty-five pounds of cabbage for nine bucks and change, and the carrots had gone up to six bucks for twenty five pounds so we only got fifty pounds of those. The cabbages were starting to silver in the cold, so it was time for cabbage chopping and sauerkraut salting!

We hauled all the stuff into the cottage and I set my wife to chopping while I scrounged around for suitable containers. The containers I usually use for kraut were not gonna be big enough this time around. I was never happy with the mold growing on my kraut anyway, and my wife never cared for the smell of tubs of fermenting cabbage in our tiny cottage so I thought I’d try a new trick this year.

The raw materials stacked by the back door:

We chopped up two heads of cabbage, one onion and grated a carrot or two, threw it in a large bowl then mixed in a small salt shaker of salt.

The bowl was dumped into a clean five gallon bucket and I packed it down firm with a wooden mallet. Don’t ask me how many times we did this or how many heads of cabbage it takes to fill a five gallon bucket because before long it all became a blur!

When the bucket was close to full we still had cabbages left over. We decided to keep six heads in the fridge and experiment with two small batches of kraut. One was cabbage, onions and chunks of some very strong home grown garlic.

The next was cabbage and apples.

Now to seal the kraut. Traditionally a plate is placed on top of the kraut and weighted down with a clean stone. This is how my wife’s great grandmother made kraut.

The trouble is mold can grow on the liquid above the plate and the fermenting kraut smells a bit, especially is you’re leaving the crock on the kitchen counter. Stuffed in a root cellar nobody would care about the smell, but we don’t have a root cellar yet.

This year, I tried a new trick to seal the kraut. I took two plastic garbage bags and put one inside the other, then put the bags over the kraut. The inner bag was filled with water and tied closed and the outer bag was draped over the outside of the container. This formed a perfect seal!

No smell, no mold formation (yet) and any odd shaped jar can be used because you don’t have to worry about fitting a plate down in there.

Two plastic bags over the kraut, filling the inner with water:

The five gallon bucket with the bags in and water added to weigh the kraut down:

One of the small batches all sealed up and the kraut is starting to produce plenty of liquid:

A week later I started eating the kraut and the stuff from the bucket is excellent!

I like it kinda crunchy and not salty, and this stuff is excellent, rather more like coleslaw but with a nice tang than the limp, salty kraut you get in a store. I placed the bucket right by our French doors, the coldest place in the cottage. Hopefully this is cold enough to keep it pleasantly crisp all winter long.

Too warm a temp and it will ferment fast, and you’ll get limp sauerkraut. I have read that the right amount of salt is about 2% of the weight of the cabbage, but I’ve always just guessed the amount and have learned what seems to work for me.

The garlic kraut is coming out very strong, I think I’ll give that away to a brother in law who thinks garlic is one of the major food groups. Sadly the apple kraut is a failure, so don’t try that one at home!

The next day we made a year’s supply of apple butter and apple sauce, but that’s a different story…

Found a great post on lewrockwell by SEKIII about his view on the fallacy of copyrights. These ideas can be expanded to the current digital media debate with the RIAA. A novel take on copyright licenses that allows free use of someones work in the public domain, is called copyleft. This basically gives each person possessing a copy of the work the same freedoms as the author, including:

1. the freedom to use the work,
2. the freedom to study the work,
3. the freedom to copy and share the work with others,
4. the freedom to modify the work, and the freedom to distribute modified and therefore derivative works.

We practice this method on our site which is detailed in the footer at the bottom of every webpage.
_______

This originally appeared in The Voluntaryist, July 1986.

Samuel Edward Konkin III (1947–2004) was the author of the New Libertarian Manifesto and a proponent of free-market anarchism.

Having done every step of production in the publishing industry, both for myself and others, I have one irrefutable empirical conclusion about the economic effect of copyrights on prices and wages: nada. Zero. Nihil. So negligible you’d need a Geiger counter to measure it.

Before I move on to exactly what copyrights do have an impact on, one may be interested as to why the praxeological negligibility of this tariff. The answer is found in the peculiar nature of publishing. There are big publishers and small publishers and very, very few in between. For the Big Boys, royalties are a fraction of one percent of multi-million press runs. They lose more money from bureaucratic interstices and round-off error. The small publishers are largely counter-economic and usually survive on donated material or break-in writing; let the new writers worry about copyrighting and reselling.

Furthermore, there are a very few cases of legal action in the magazine world because of this disparity. The little ‘zines have no hope beating a rip-off and shrug it off after a perfunctory threat; the Biggies rattle their corporate-lawyer sabres and nearly anyone above ground quietly bows.

Book publishing is a small part of total publishing and there are some middle-range publishers who do worry about the total cost picture in marginal publishing cases. But now there are two kinds of writers: Big Names and everyone else. Everyone else is seldom reprinted; copyrights have nothing to do with first printings (economically). Big Names rake it in – but they also make a lot from ever-higher bids for their next contract. And the lowered risk of not selling out a reprint of a Big Name who has already sold out a print run more than compensates paying the writer the extra fee.

So Big Name writers would loose something substantial if the copyright privilege ceased enforcement. But Big Name writers are an even smaller percentage of writers than Big Name Actors are of actors. If they all vanished tomorrow, no one would notice (except their friends, one hopes). Still, one may reasonably wonder if the star system’s incentive can be done away without the whole pyramid collapsing. If any economic argument remains for copyrights, it’s incentive.

Crap. As Don Marquis put in the words of Archy the Cockroach, “Creative expression is the need of my soul.” And Archy banged his head on typewriter key after typewriter key all night long to turn out his columns – which Marquis cashed in. Writing as a medium of expression will continue as long as someone has a burning need to express. And if all they have to express is a need for second payments and associated residuals, we’re all better off for not reading it.

But, alas, the instant elimination of copyrights would have negligible effect on the star system. While it would cut into the lifelong gravy train of stellar scribes, it would have no effect on their biggest source of income: the contract for their next book (or script, play or even magazine article or short story). That is where the money is.

“You’re only as good as your last piece” – but you collect for that on your next sale. Market decisions are made on anticipated sales. Sounds like straight von Mises, right? (Another great writer who profited little from copyrighting – but others are currently raking it in from Ludwig’s privileged corpse – er, corpus.)

The point of all this vulgar praxeology is not just to clear the way for the moral question. The market (praise be) is telling us something. After all, both market human action and morality arise from the same Natural Law.

In fact, let us clear out some more deadwood and red herrings before we face the Great Moral Issue. First, if you abolish copyrights, would great authors starve? Nope. In fact, the market might open a trifle for new blood. Would writers write if they did not get paid? Who says they wouldn’t? There is no link between payment for writing and copyrights. Royalties roll in (or, much more often, trickle in) long after the next work is sold and the one after is in progress.

Is not a producer entitled to the fruit of his labor? Sure, that’s why writers are paid. But if I make a copy of a shoe or a table or a fireplace log (with my little copied axe) does the cobbler or wood worker or woodchopper collect a royalty?

A. J. Galambos, bless his anarchoheart, attempted to take copyrights and patents to their logical conclusion. Every time we break a stick, Ug The First should collect a royalty. Ideas are property, he says; madness and chaos result.

Property is a concept extracted from nature by conceptual man to designate the distribution of scarce goods – the entire material world – among avaricious, competing egos. If I have an idea, you may have the same idea and it takes nothing from me. Use yours as you will and I do the same.

Ideas, to use the ‘au courant’ language of computer programmers, are the programs; property is the data. Or, to use another current cliché, ideas are the maps and cartography, and property is the territory. The difference compares well to the differences between sex and talking about sex.

Would not ideas be repressed without the incentive (provided by copyrights)? ‘Au contraire’ the biggest problem with ideas is the delivery system. How do we get them to those marketeers who can distribute them? (Ed. note: most readers probably know the answer to this in 1996, this was written in 1986)

My ideas are pieces of what passes for my soul (or, if you prefer, ego). Therefore, every time someone adopts one of them, a little piece of me has infected them. And for this I get paid, too! On top of all that, I should be paid and paid and paid as they get staler and staler?

If copyrights are such a drag, why and how did they evolve? Not by the market process. Like all privileges (emphasis added), they were grants of the king. The idea did not – could not – arise until Gutenberg’s printing press and it coincided with the rise of royal divinity, and soon after, the onslaught of mercantilism.

So who benefits from this privilege? There is an economic impact I failed to mention earlier. It is, in Bastiat’s phrasing, the unseen. Copyright is a Big publisher’s method, under cover of protecting artists, of restraint of trade. Yes, we’re talking monopoly.

For when the Corporation tosses its bone to the struggling writer, and an occasional steak to the pampered tenth of a percent, it receives an enforceable legal monopoly on the editing, typesetting, printing, packaging, marketing (including advertising) and sometimes even local distribution of that book or magazine. (In magazines, it also has an exclusivity in layout vs other articles and illustrations and published advertisements.) How’s that for vertical integration and restraint of trade?

And so the system perpetuates, give or take a few counter-economic outlaws and some enterprising Taiwanese with good smuggling connections.

Because copyrights permeate all mass media, Copyright is the Rip-off That Dare Not Mention Its Name. The rot corrupting our entire communications market is so entrenched it will survive nothing short of abolition of the State and its enforcement of Copyright. Because the losers, small-name writers and all readers, lose so little each, we are content – it seems – to be nickel-and-dime plundered. Why worry about mosquito bites when we have the vampire gouges of income taxes and automobile tariffs?

Now for the central moral question: what first woke me up to the problem that was the innocent viewer scenario. Consider the following careful contractual construction.

Author Big and Publisher Bigger have contracts not to reveal a word of what’s in some publication. Everyone on the staff, every person in the step of production is contracted not to reveal a word. All the distributors are covered and the advertising quotes only a minimal amount of words. Every reader is like Death Records in Phantom of the Paradise, under contract, too; that is every reader who purchases the book or ‘zine and thus interacts with someone who is under contract – interacts in a voluntary trade and voluntary agreement.

No, I am not worried about the simultaneous creator; although an obvious victim, he or she is rare, given sufficient complexity in the work under questions. (However, some recent copyright decisions and the fact that the Dolly Parton case even got as far as a serious trial – means the corruption is spreading.)

One day you and I walk into a room – invited but without even mention of a contract – and the publication lies open on a table. Photons leap from the pages to our eyes and our hapless brain processes the information. Utterly innocent, having committed no volitional act, we are copyright violators. We have unintentionally embarked on a life of piracy.

And God or the Market help us if we now try to act on the ideas now in our mind or to reveal this unintended guilty secret in any way. The State shall strike us – save only if Author Big and Publisher Bigger decide in their tyrannous mercy that we are too small and not worth the trouble.

For if we use the ideas or repeat or reprint them, even as part of our own larger creation – bang! There goes the monopoly. And so each and every innocent viewer must be suppressed. By the Market? Hardly. The entire contractual agreement falls like a house of cards when the innocent gets his or her forbidden view. No, copyright has nothing to do with creativity, incentive, just desserts, fruits of labor or any other element of the moral, free market.

It is a creature of the State, the Vampire’s little bat. And, as far as I’m concerned, the word should be copywrong.

This is the ninth chapter from Les’ online novel titled, Spiritual Survival In A Temporal World, for our companion site JustGetThere. This chapter again covers diet on multiple levels and how it relates to  inner peace and relative harmony.

Spiritual Survival in a Temporal World

Chapter 9

I’ve been thinking about what’s been said so far and I thought it might be a good idea to do another chapter on diet before moving along to something else. Although ‘eating’ is a physical act, it has major spiritual implications. In a certain sense there is no such thing as the physical. It is just a more manifest expression of the spiritual which is… everything. It’s all spiritual. Light is life and there are degrees of light precipitating downward into the manifest until light becomes solid. The sun is an expression of something finer and that is, itself, an expression of something finer and so on and so on up and in; the reverse being more and more down and out; for the sake of illustration.

The sun causes plants to grow. There is a fiery nutrition there which is absorbed by animal forms which consume them, including your own. Sunlight transforms into a power which makes the physical body possible. So, let us think of your body as frozen sunlight; light in extension.

This power can take the form of many things beneficial and many things poisonous. It’s a mere alteration of one thing assuming a myriad of states all as a result of the operation of the sun which, as has been said, is itself an expression of something finer.

Alcohol is a poison. Snake venom is a poison, whereas the serpent power is the resident motive force in everything. Snake venom anti-toxins are made from snake venom. There are many powerful truths that can be intuited from this by the inquiring mind. It appears from this that life and the conditions in which we find ourselves are all a result of the choices that we make. We make these choices based upon our reasoning and knowledge. When reasoning and knowledge are sound we make profitable and correct choices. When they are not, our choices are unsound and lead to undesirable conditions and complications. One of these is dis-ease or, the loss of harmony. Harmony in being is the optimum goal.

In today’s world, the common diet is more garbage than gold. So it is with our other diets; what we take in with our minds, what provokes our feelings, what we breathe and HOW we breathe. Proper breathing and eating both require a similar degree of attention. Fifty percent of the digestion takes place in the mouth. If you don’t chew your food long enough for this to take place well, …you do the math. It is the same with breathing. People who do not have control of their breath are in a poor position to manage negative emotion or to center their mind. Their energy is much less than it could be. Every organ is affected because posture is affected which effects everything else. Much of what I say may seem simplistic. It is up to the reader to extrapolate from what they read.

It’s the reverse of what it natural and normal for you to put shit into your body. Shit is supposed to come ‘out’ of your body. We’ve come to a point as a society where we put garbage in and garbage out. It’s a small percentage of humanity that takes the proper course.

Unfortunately, with many who are attempting to do the right thing another feature enters the mix and that is to become extremist in one’s practice and in one’s judgment of others. Keep in mind what has been said about snake venom. You can poison yourself trying to do the right thing, just as much as by doing the wrong thing. It is harmony you want, not some idealized white dove in the meadow of personal purity. Don’t scrub the pot so hard that you break it.

Some alternative dietary modalities verge on insanity, such as those who proclaim that eating honey is stealing from the bees, or that milk is only for calves and so on. I’m not a meat eater but I know that for some people at their level of personal development it is necessary. I’ve seen as many healthy meat eaters as I have unhealthy vegetarians. The thing to remember is that some meat may well be better than other meat. Some vegetables are better for you than others and, more importantly, some vegetables are better for you personally than others. A lot depends on your heritage and where you live and the particular genetic complex you have arrived at in your ongoing journey which does not end with death or begin at birth.

You can stop all input from the world outside and wind up unhappy in a room alone with no idea where to go. Consider balance above everything else and include ‘intention’ and a sincere desire to encounter the indwelling self. I have said in other places that if anyone were to go into a room for several days and take only water and for the duration ‘pray without ceasing; falling to sleep when it is unavoidable and awakening to immediate prayer with out ceasing that they could not fail to have an experience with the indwelling self. Think about it. You could not fail to have an experience. But who would do this? Not many would do this.

This is preferable to walking away from the world when you are not ready. But you do want to step away from the world at this time because the world has become a whirlpool that is sucking the inattentive and the willing down into a maelstrom of darkness. It is so because the opportunity for spiritual transformation is so great. Whenever the door begins to open for a spiritual quantum leap, all of the forces of ‘the world’ manifest strong attractions for the purpose of distraction from this possibility. It’s physics really.

Develop a burning need for union within. Let is accompany you on your daily rounds. In the midst of the chaos and lies and false advertisements for something that cannot be acquired or purchased in the marketplace, let your mind and heart be made aware that all is well and that none of this can touch you.

Diet is one of the keys to being able to do this. Breathing is also diet because you are eating air. Investigate the blood, oxygen exchange. The mind eats as well. Controlling your diet on all of these levels will grant you a positive state in which to experience inner peace and relative harmony.

People get stoned because they don’t feel good. They don’t feel good because of all the bad diet on all the levels of consumption. You would become very high if you were judicious and cautious about your diet. When you practice meditation as well, the collective benefits are truly impressive. It’s not only the bad advice that you need to avoid. It is also the bad advice that masquerades as good advice.

The key to gaining benefit from this book is to think about what you have read and then let your intuition guide you toward realizations that are uniquely your own. You must seek out your intuition and thereby widen the gateway through which the information passes. Think of it as doing spiritual sit-up and push-ups because it is just that. You must exercise something in order to develop strength and ability. Good diet on all levels is a good start.

In That Shape Again

___

By Les Visible | JustGetThere Featured Author

Letters from the Devic Realm

Les Visible is a writer and recording artist. He has had a lifelong love affair with the Hermetic Sciences and the Martial Arts. He is a seasoned traveler in psychedelic realms and prefers the Devic Kingdom over the suffocating confinements of the Sub-Matrix. Along the way he has matriculated from the military to prisons and the maximum security wards for the criminally insane.

He has owned a metaphysical bookstore and some restaurants and worked in construction, as a cook, a club bouncer, a newspaper editor, a resort manager, a radio announcer, a standup comedian, as a lead singer in a rock and roll band and whatever he had to do to get by.

He lives somewhere in Europe with his wife Susanne and his memories. The truth has not been injured in the writing of this blurb. A collection of his works in various media can be found at www.lesvisible.com

Before currency, people used barter to exchange services or goods in the marketplace. Within the last decade, there has been a renewed interest in bartering, especially online. Below is a free online bartering site that allows you to swap, sell, buy or giveaway services and items.

Via ~Swapace

3 Easy Steps To Using SwapAce

SwapAce allows you to SWAP, SELL, BUY & MEET.

You can exchange items and/or money. The diagram below shows how SwapAce can be very powerful for swapping items and/or money.

For more information, you can view our help article for Getting Started

Our Vision

SwapAce is an organisation with the vision to be “the fun, unique, trusted marketplace, where millions worldwide interact”.

Buy, Sell, Swap, Meet

• Want to barter and swap?
• Want to buy and sell?
• Want to meet people?
• Want to recycle and save money?

If you’re here, it means you are looking for an online marketplace with a difference. Frustrated with traditional forms of buying and selling online (which has mostly been limited to auction sites and classifieds), SwapAcewas born from the desire to trade with versatility.

If you wanted to simply buy something online for the best price, then some of these existing systems would be adequate for the task. But what if you wanted to choose who you bought from? What if you wanted to make a choice based on factors like distance, feedback, or simply how much you like the person selling what you want? Existing systems would not allow this sort of versatility, and so SwapAce was created to bring you a greater range of choice.

We wanted to give sellers a bit more of this choice as well. Normally, you would simply advertise your item and at the end of the advertisement period you would be pretty much stuck with having to sell your item to a particular person. We make it possible to negotiate the terms of an agreement with other parties. You can make offers and counter-offers until both of you are happy.

The vision of SwapAce is also to extend the online marketplace to people who might want to swap or barter goods and services. If you don’t use something anymore, you could certainly give it away and recycle. But you don’t have to; you can also swap it for something you might want to use. Bartering worked long before the introduction of currency, and it works today. Swapping or trading stuff is a great way to recycle.

You can also meet people at SwapAce. We think this is a simple extension of a marketplace; meeting people with similar interests and forming online communities. To this end we’ve created forums for people to discuss well, anything, and we encourage people to trade within their communities (either interest based or location based).

Okay, if you’ve read enough about how SwapAce rules and other sites drool (no more bad jokes, we promise), then why don’t you give it a try? Register an accountand see for yourself.

Hat Tip PuppetGov

An article from the Vancouver Sun, is a great illustration of how black markets rise in response from increased theft from the State. The article highlights the rise of Canada’s black market trade of cigarettes, due to increased taxation from the state.

The State seeks to invade every facet of our human experience, in this instance, gaining revenue from the invasive taxation of behavior. The social controllers believe a tax increase targeted on behavior, will be easier to implement on the public. Although they say it’s for behavior modification, they simply want your money, the trick is how to get you to go along with it. As the State seeks to increase their theft, people inherently turn to the Agora for solutions.

Via Vancouver Sun

High tobacco taxes intended to cut the smoking rate in Canada help create a black market where organized crime profits from the increased demand for contraband cigarettes, according to a new report from a Canadian public policy think-tank.

“Smuggling and trafficking of contraband cigarettes is an unintended consequence of federal and provincial tobacco tax policies,” said Diane Katz of the Vancouver-based Fraser Institute in a statement.

The study, Contraband Tobacco in Canada, documents various federal and provincial tobacco tax policies and anti-smoking initiatives that have been implemented in Canada since the 1980s, and describes how governments have attempted to counteract the black market.

The research showed that the illicit trade of cigarettes increased whenever tobacco taxes were raised, and that anti-smoking campaigns are just as effective at cutting smoking rates.

“If smokers are evading taxes by purchasing black market cigarettes, increasing taxes to discourage smoking is essentially ineffective,” said Katz.

This is the inherent flaw of the statist, they believe that they are justified stealing money from you in order to keep you safe. If someone wants to ingest something, it’s their right to do so. In addition, the State always seeks new ways to extract wealth from the public, transferring it into their corrupt system, with little to no benefit for the citizens.

Through propaganda public relation campaigns, they target demographics, then categorize it as negative social behavior. Citizens who live in fear of true liberty, applaud these efforts, even though it’s highly likely that a demographic that they fit in will be targeted next. This is how government works; they tax the public dry, say it’s not enough, increase taxes more, complain that people are cheating the system, then claim the need to increase taxes even more. Complete insanity.

No matter how regulated and oppressed society might become due to statist policies, the Agora is always present. The organic market will always be ready to provide a beneficial solution for the public, whenever the State interferes with liberty.

Agora! Anarchy! Action!

Another useful DIY from instructables could help you resurrect your old iPod without having to shell out FRN’s for a new one.

Via member bryceronie

If you have a broken ipod , with a business card and five minutes it will be fixed!

I enjoy instructionables that are easy to do , short to complete, and will work for anyone!

(!!Please VOTE for me so I can win a prize!!)

This is a common problem among many, many people that have a warranty that has expired.

Now you could just send it back to apple to get a new one, but if your warranty expired, like mine did, they won’t give you a new one. You need to fix this pretty $350 piece of apple!!

Instead of having a nice paperweight (hopefully you didnt throw yours out) , you will need these with three things before starting:

1. a flathead screwdriver
2. a broken ipod and 5 minutes
3. a new and or old, but crisp, business card

p.s. No memory loss either, all songs, data, ect will still be on the iPod.

Step 1. Easy does it

The first thing is to take the iPod apart.

This is not a big deal, there are little plastic holds around the iPod, and the flat head screwdriver will allow you to pry it open at the plastic parts. (see pic)
Once completed, you can just snap the ipod back together so it looks exactly the same, just dont get too frustrated if it takes a few minutes to get the first clip.

Use a MICRO flat head screw driver. Go in from the side as shown in the demo, but to get it started angle the screwdriver down so that it slides in between the plastic and metal, then take a bigger sized micro screw driver to open it the rest of the way.

Step 2. Careful

When all the plastic parts are un-snapped ,  you can pull the ipod apart an inch or so , you only need to do one more step.

Here is where this gets neat:

Fold the business card twice. So it is still springy.

Put the folder business card in the iPod on top of the blue sponge that is inside.

shut and snap the iPod back together.

So now it your iPod is back to normal, and all you needed was a folded business card!!

The blue sponge needed a little more pressure over time.

Another great diy project from instructables.com by member hpstoutharrow. If you plan on working on this project, check out the original article for comments to improvise your design, and additional pictures to help you visually. Below are step-by-step instructions and a quick video showing the setup process, build and sink in action.

While this new wash station can’t make campers wash their hands, it can make it easier, and prevent a soaking; all while conserving water.

Pumping water, even with a foot pump, requires effort so you know water use will be kept to a bare minimum…letting gravity spill it on the ground is easy… and fast!

The same 5 gallons now lasts all day even with everyone washing their hands for meals.

Intro: Field Sink

Bring running water to remote locations with this foot pump operated wash station. Perfect for camp or the patio. Ideal for campfire or BBQ grill-side food prep clean-up.
Ready for a duch oven or BBQ outdoor cook competition yet miles from running water? Our scout troop uses this Hand Washing Station to clean up before, and during meal food prep.

Even if you are just grilling on the back deck, use this set-up grill-side to keep from from running into the house for a quick rinse every time sauce is slopped.  And if its a party…just watch guests try to open a screen door with sticky BBQ covered hands. This pump is made to be operated with a foot…can’t say the same for a sliding screen door!

This is ideal for an outdoor group washing-up before meals. Especially when cooking at camp, it would be nice for the cooks to easily clean-up while preparing food with a more traditional sink with running water to promote:

Safe Food Handling Practices

- No Faucet Handle to turn  ON and OFF with Dirty Hands.

- Its easy (and fun) to use…so it gets used!  (apparently its cool to squirt water with a foot pump)

- There’s room for a soap dispenser right there on the table (up off the ground).

It also helps with:

Water Conservation

- The on-demand pump system uses a lot less water (compared to letting gravity spill it from a water jug spigot.

How it works:
A foot pump transfers clean water from the lower bucket up and out the spout for hand washing. The wash water is collected a basin and drained and stored in a gray water bucket receptacle.

When all the fresh water has been transfered to the in the gray water bucket, the gray water is emptied into the fire ring to douse the campfire

The video shows the set-up, convenient “all-in-the-bucket” storage, and the Hand Washing Station in action.

Step 1: Materials

The central components of this project are 5 gallon buckets with lids and a marine (outboard motor) fuel primer squeeze bulb and hose assy.

The Squeeze Bulb is the pump
that moves the water from the Fresh Water Bucket
up to the Spout and out,
collected and funneled by the Basin
into the Gray Water Bucket
the rest is just plumbing and support

Major Components
(3) 5 gallon utility buckets
(2) 5 gallon bucket lids
Marine fuel primer bulb and hose assy
3/8″ brass fittings
Rubber O-ring
3/8″ tubing
various 1″ and 1/2″ plumbing pipe sections and fittings
Automotive steel fuel/brake line
Door hinge
Scrap wood

Step 2: Fresh Water Bucket

Drill a 3/8″ diameter hole about 1″ from the bottom of what will be the Fresh Water Bucket.

1. From the inside of the bucket, feed the male end of a 3/8″ 90 degree brass fitting though the hole in the bucket.

(Place an O-ring on the inside of the bucket at the base of the 90 degree fitting before pushing it though the bucket wall (Photo 2).  When the fittings are tightened the O-ring will seal the hole in the bucket.)

2. From the outside of the bucket, thread on a female 3/8″ barbed hose fitting.

3. Thread a second male barbed hose fitting into the 90 degree fitting inside the bucket. (Photo 3)

4. Angle the open end of the barbed fitting downward until it touches the bottom of the bucket. (photo 3) This will help to pull water from the very bottom of the bucket allowing it to almost completely empty the bucket before it needs refilling.

Alternate Construction Note: If you don’t want to add a hole to a perfectly good bucket to dedicate it to this project, you may be able to cut a hole in the fresh water bucket lid at the very outer edge and snake the hose down into the bucket (make sure the buckets will still stack).  This should also work, and eliminate the need for the brass hose fittings (less $) but, the hose may curl and not stay submerged especially because the hose will be coming out of the top of the bucket and will have to travel down to the pump on the ground.

Step 3: Basin

The Basin is a nice finishing touch.  It is not entirely necessary but it serves a few purposes.

Number one…it is a lid for the Grey Water Bucket. It keeps you from staring at bucket of dirty, soapy water from the last guy, while you wash your hands.  It also keeps that same dirty, used water from splashing back up on your clean hands while your are washing.

The Basin also allows hands to be washed inside the basin’s high side walls – keeping the falling spout water from splashing off your hands onto your pants.

Because the Basin sits almost entirely above the grey water bucket it does not compromise the storage capacity of the gray water bucket. This means that the gray water bucket does not need to be emptied until the fresh water bucket is exhausted and ready to be refilled.

Hand washing could be done directly over an open Gray Water Bucket without the Basin but, as it fills; imagine trying to wash-up with water splashing into a nearly full bucket of used water.

A similar commercial product (Wishy Washy) selling for $90 (buckets not included, shipping extra) is set up with an open gray water bucket.
The addition of the basin shown here and the provisions for stacking the two buckets to bring hand washing to counter height, improves on the comercial product and go a long way to make the system more practical than splashing water from a waist high spout into a open bucket of gray water on the ground.

By the way, the material to make the system shown here did not cost anywhere near $90..nor even Half that!   And both systems use similar Marine Outboard fuel primer squeeze bulb and hose assemblies that cost around $15-20. (or buy cheaper hardware hose (Chemical resistant hose is not necessary with water) and the squeeze bulb with check valve is around $12 by itself).  Another $15 for plumbing, tubing & fittings; throw in some scrap wood and it will land far less than $90!

Step 4: Basin Construction – The Bottom

The Basin is constructed from the the upper portion of a third bucket and a bucket lid.

Removing the Outer Rim of a lid creates the Trimmed Lid which will be the bottom of the Basin.

1. Remove the rubber seal from the underside of a bucket lid.

2. Cut along the bottom of the trench that the seal was in. (dotted path in Photo 2)
Cut all the way around the lid to remove the Outer Rim. (Photo 2 & 3 shows where to cut)

3. After cutting off the Outer Rim, clean-up the outer diameter of the lid by trimming any excess material so that the outer diameter of the lid is flush with the Upstanding Rib Wall.

When complete the overall lid diameter should not extend beyond the Upstanding Rib Wall.

Note: In the completed basin photos in step 5, notice that the bottom of the basin is concave.  To achieve this “bowl shape”,  the lid was heated in the oven at about 275 degrees F for about 15 minutes to soften the plastic.  While hot, it was worked over the bottom of a large glass mixing bowl to impart the concave shape.  The removal of the Outer Rim was done after this forming.

“Stretching” the lid to form this shape is not necessary, and was in fact, the most difficult part of the process.  (handling hot plastic while stretching and keeping it from buckeling and over-thinning is not so easy).  Well worth the effort thought…It gives it a true sink look and better funnels the water to the center drain…much better than a flat lid basin bottom.

Step 5: Basin Construction (cont.) – Join the Side Wall & Bottom

The Basin is just a shorter bucket with a center drain hole, that sits inside the top of the Gray Water Bucket.
The Trimmed Lid from the previous step, added as a bottom to the cut off top portion of another bucket, creates a shortened bucket Basin.

1. Cut-off the top rim portion of a third bucket.  The cut should be about 3/4 of an inch below the last flange on the bucket.  When cut, the removed upper portion of a bucket forms the Basin Side Wall.

2. Fit the the Trimmed Lid from step 4 into the Basin Side Wall.

3. From the underside of the Basin Side Wall, make sure the Upstanding Rib Wall on the Trimmed Lid is flush with the bottom of the Basin Side Wall. (photo 2)

4. Drill (4) 1/8 inch diameter holes through the Upstanding Rib Wall on the Trimmed Lid and the Basin Side Wall. Drill the holes at North, South, East, West)

5. Use Aluminum pop-rivets (with washer) to secure these two components through the four drilled holes.

Note the interface between the Trimmed Lid and the Basin Side Wall does not have to be a full waterproof seal.  Because the finished Basin will fit inside the Gray Water Bucket, any water that seeps through at this joint will drip into the Gray Water Bucket.

Step 6: Foot Pump

The pump is made from a marine (outboard motor) fuel line primer squeeze bulb.  The hose and bulb (with integral check valve) was purchased as an assembly from a sporting good / hardware store that sells marine supplies for outboard motors.

The pedal assembly was made from scrap wood, a door hinge, wood dowels, and a foam rubber toy ball.

The dowels (glued into holes in the wood base) allow the bulb to move up and down freely when pumped. The open top of the dowels make for easy installation and removal of the bulb for storage.

The foam rubber ball prevents damage to the rubber squeeze bulb.
The ball was cut in half and epoxied into a recess on the underside of the pedal.  The recess was cut with a hole saw drill bit and then the material inside the hole saw cut was chiseled out.

Step 7: Support Table

The Support Table serves a few purposes.  The wider stance of the table provides stability for the two buckets.  A nearly filled Gray Water Bucket stacked on top of a nearly empty Clean Water Bucket can be a bit of a top heavy tip hazard on uneven ground.

The table also holds the Clean Water Bucket a few inches off the ground.  This reduces the impact to ground cover when compared to a a bucket sitting directly on the ground for an extended period of camping.

The table is also a place for a bottle of pump soap and a wrist watch removed for hand washing.

Step 8: Spout Riser

The main purpose of the Support Table is to attach the Spout Riser.  The Spout Riser is a combination of 1″ dia. and 1/2″ dia. galvanized pipe sections threaded together and attached to theSupport Table.

The galvanized pipes that make up the Spout Riser threads into a plumbing mounting flange attached to the table.

Step 9: Spout

The Spout is formed from an automotive steel fuel/brake line.  (purchased as a generic 4′ section at the local auto supply store)

1. Bend it into a 180 degree cane shape.
The diameter of the bend should be 1/2 diameter of the bucket.  This will position the Spout nozzle over the hole in the bottom of the Basin.

Note: The flared end of the brake line adds a finished look to the open “Nozzle” end of the Spout.

2. Slide a 2″ section of clear hardware tubing onto the other end of the Spout.

3. Slide a 1/2″ to 3/8″ galvanized reducer fitting on the Spout.

4. Then slide about a 24″ length of tubing onto the Spout.
The reducer fitting will be trapped in location on the Spout by the two sections of tubing; yet free to spin and thread onto the Spout Riser.

Note: The contact area of several inches of tubing “sleeved” over the bottom edn of the Spout, and the low pressures involved, means a clamp is not required to retain the tubing or to prevent leaks at this joint.

5. Feed the Spout, and Tubing Assembly down through the Spout Riser pipes and thread the reducer fitting onto the top of the 1/2″ Spout Riser Pipe.

Ignore the wine cork shown in the photos it is remenents of an earlier spout locating scheme.

Step 10: Connect the Pump

After feeding the Spout and Tubing  through the Spout Riser pipes connect the clear tubing to the tubing attached to the squeeze bulb pump. (or it could connect directly to the squeeze bulb but because I bought the bulb and hose as an assembly I wanted to leave the factory clamps in place)

The reason there are two sections of tubing is so that the unit can be disassembled for storage.  The upper clear tubing remains attached to the Spout as a friction fit.  There is no room for a clamp inside the smaller diameter upper Spout Riser pipe so the servicable connection is made under the Support Table.

Step 11: Ready for Clean-up

Now that this handy wash station is assembled its time to clean-up.

Fill the lower Fresh Water Bucket with… you guessed it…fresh water.  Put a lid on the Fresh Water Bucket place the Gray Water Bucket on top and cover it up with the Basin.  Start pumping.

Health Note: One of the scouts suggested this would be a good “bug juice” (Lemonade) dispenser.  Sounds cool except, the Marine grade chemical resistant primer bulb specifically indicates it is not food grade safe. Water for hand washing should be fine…prolonged contact with ingestible liquids - not good.

Step 12: Storage

Note: Each of the components - Pump, Pedal, two sections of Spout Riser pipes and the Spout and Tubing Assembly are sized to fit within the height of the bucket for storage.

- Everything is stored inside the Gray Water Bucket.
- This bucket fits inside the Fresh Water Bucket
(The brass fittings in the Fresh Water Bucket are mounted low enough that they do not prevent the buckets from nesting fully together.)
- The Basin fits inside the top of the Gray Water Bucket
(the 1/2″ pipe portion of the Spout Riser fits through the drain hole in the Basin)
The Fresh Water Lid fits on top of the Basin to close everything up.

The article highlights a significant rise of “unbanked” households, seeking financial privacy from unwarranted actions by the state. Federal, state and local tax revenues are decreasing, due to the increase of personal transactions “off the books.”

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) released a report last week concluding that 7.7 percent of U.S. households, containing at least 17 million adults, are unbanked (i.e. those who do not have bank accounts), and an “estimated 17.9 percent of U.S. households, roughly 21 million, are underbanked” (i.e., those who rely heavily on nonbank institutions, such as check cashing and money transmitting services). As an economy becomes richer and incomes rise, the normal expectation is that the proportion of the unbanked population falls and does not rise as is now happening in the United States.

People also avoid having bank accounts because they are vulnerable to asset seizure, judgments, levies, etc. Increasingly, bankers and others who provide financial services are forced by governments to spy and snitch on their own customers, and this is a real turnoff for many people, which causes them to find other ways of maintaining financial privacy.

I think this is a good indication of the spread of agorism and the inverse relationship it has with the state. The beauty of this is the fact it’s not a movement, this is occurring as a natural reaction against the states growing oppression. I would say an overwhelming majority of the people involved have never heard of agorism, but we all share a common enemy, the state. This organic rise of agorism, also coincides with the growth of activists subscribing to the philosophy in the present liberty movement.

Many studies have shown that when people believe the taxes they are required to pay are reasonable and the political leaders tend to spend their tax dollars wisely, tax compliance rises, and vice-versa. In the United States, there is increased evidence that many tax dollars are not being spent wisely and are often used to pay off political cronies.

Over the past year in particular, the public has become aware that many in Washington who advocate higher taxes and argue that everyone has a responsibility to pay taxes are themselves not complying with the tax laws and regulations.

When you have a secretary of the Treasury and the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee (the tax writing committee) accused of cheating on their taxes, it greatly undermines the moral authority of the tax collectors, making the common citizens feel like chumps and, hence, much more willing to try to legally avoid or illegally evade taxes themselves.

These two rising vectors will further increase agorism in the social dynamic by social interaction on the web and direct actions publicly. The philosophically aware agorist explaining the basics to those already practicing it, will help demystify and introduce the concept.

The summation of the article, contends that the ever oppressive and corrupt state, conversely gives rise to the black market.

The evidence is unambiguous; governments cannot increase tax compliance and decrease the size of the underground economy by ever increasing and more onerous regulations.

It is no accident that those governments that allow their citizens a high degree of personal and financial liberty, including financial privacy, and spend taxpayer dollars wisely, honestly and competently, have much smaller underground sectors than corrupt and oppressive governments. Washington, take note.

The public is detaching from the statist mindstate incrementally, awakening to a paradigm shift of liberty from the state. There is no need to protest and hit the streets, just invest that energy into direct action in counter-economics that don’t empower the state.

Agora! Anarchy! Action!

This is the eighth chapter from Les’ online novel titled, Spiritual Survival In A Temporal World, for our companion site JustGetThere. This chapter highlights several different diet techniques that could best suit your lifestyle and goals for weight loss.

Spiritual Survival in a Temporal World

Chapter 8

Now where was I? Diet, right… Today I think we talk about types of diet and let me set them out and then discuss them. I won’t be discussing any of the specialized diets that deal with particular maladies, physical imbalances or weight loss programs. You can find this sort of thing in Cosmo where their relative merits can be considered in the context of the advertisers present in the magazine.

First off, there is ‘macrobiotics’, a system of bringing into balance ones physical being by eating particular foods in proportion to each other. It should be noted that the founder, George Ohsawa was a chain smoker who was working on making a macrobiotic Coca Cola when he died of heart disease. I practiced macrobiotics for a period of time and I can tell you that it is a near perfect diet for those it is suitable for. I had tremendous energy as well as a sense of enduring equilibrium. The downside to macrobiotics that I have seen involves two conditions. One of them is that a certain portion of practitioners become food Nazis. These people are no fun to be around. The other is having insufficient information followed by reduced benefits.

If I were to want to explore macrobiotics at this time I would not read George Ohsawa because it could well have you tired, confused and moving on in a short period of time. I recommend Michio Kushi and you can get all the information you want from one of his centers around the world. It makes sense to attend one or more of their courses. For those whose systems and temperaments are sympathetic to this diet you will find the changes that you experience to be remarkable and possibly even supernatural.

I’ve mentioned temperament and suitability. Let me be very clear here. No one diet is the answer for everyone. No diet will be successful if you ignore basic eating disciplines such as thoroughly chewing your food; not drinking during your meal or for twenty minutes before and after, observing correct posture and having a peaceful or ‘settled’ demeanor while you are eating. These are all big considerations whether they seem to be or not.

The next diet I would recommend is Arnold Ehret’s mucusless healing system. This basically presupposes that mucus in the body is responsible for most of the body’s ills. Arnold came up with a system that substantially eliminates the mucus from your body. Arnold was capable of incredible strength and endurance. Wikipedia (which I don’t like to use) has some interesting things to say about Arnold including his manner of death. I have practiced this diet as well and it’s a good one for those so disposed.

I suspect the raw foods diet might have evolved out of this and I’m not going to spend a lot of time on that one and here is why. I’ve observed the raw foods discipline and it’s another of those fanatically-disposed systems that one should be careful with. Elements of Veganism also fit into this category. This system can have you spending most of your waking hours preparing your food. It can be quite expensive and time consuming and has become a temporary trend among celebrities and trust fund babies. I’m not saying it isn’t a good system though I think it would cause a gas problem with a lot of people. You’ll have to look into it and see if it is for you. I think that saying cooked food is poison is a pretty stupid comment and makes everything else suspect to me. However… this diet is far superior to the ordinary human diet and you would be better off with this than with the rest of the options in the mass diet.

Basic vegetarianism is a good catchall for anyone seeking to evolve their diet. It’s a good place to start and after a period of adjustment and familiarization you can specialize further on. Veganism is a curious one for me and I find that I don’t generally like to be around Vegans because they have a real capacity to develop a fascist mindset. You might hear that, “I don’t eat anything with a face.” Well, potatoes have eyes. Sorry, I couldn’t resist. When I hear that eating honey is stealing from the bees, my bullshit meter starts to act funny. When I hear that a cow’s milk is for the calf or curious views on chicken eggs, I begin to wonder. I’m not saying milk and eggs are good for you. I rarely if ever consume them but I do eat cheese and yogurt on occasion. My system of operation violates tenants of every one of the systems I have mentioned but that’s me. I’m basically a vegetarian but I occasionally eat fish and have NO PLANS to stop. Probably the Hindu and Thai diets suit me most.

Kinesiology is something you might look into as you develop a diet for yourself. All of us have some intolerance to something and it would be good to find out what that was.

Here are some things you should absolutely avoid; soft drinks, refined sugar and artificial sweeteners, processed foods, commercial meats, milk as a beverage, commercial snack foods and candies, most canned foods. This isn’t a comprehensive list but it’s a good start. You will note that I don’t mention caffeinated products like coffee and tea. I think moderation is the key with these but you must remember that caffeine affects the adrenals in a way similar to continuously starting your car while it is already running. Certainly caffeine is no good for you.

You can’t go wrong by eating whole foods, fresh vegetables and fruits. I’m not sure about organic foods as a total commitment; then again, if you can afford it, why not? It’s good to maintain perspective. Eating right will not make you immortal. It will not change other bad behavior not connected to diet. It might make changes easier and that’s the idea. Diet is just one thing to be concerned with. It is a big concern. Take a look around you at the appearance of people who have no concern about what they eat. Look at the society as a whole. Need I say more?

Nothing that I will discuss or consider in this book is going to be comprehensive. You need to look into things on your own. One thing I will HIGHLY recommend is Robert Gray’s healing system. You want to get The Colon Health Handbook by Robert Gray and his healing products. There are a lot of colon cleansers out there and some of them are radical and uncomfortable to use. This is the best, the slowest program and the most complete. It takes around two months to accomplish it but you will NOT BELIEVE how you will feel after you have done it. It will blow your mind. I’ve done it several times now. It makes very good sense to clean your colon at the beginning. Follow the instructions exactly and do not waver. It may cost you 2 or 3 hundred dollars to follow the complete program but you will not regret it. You absolutely will not regret doing this and the energy harvested will give you a major jolt in terms of continuing.

Regardless of which diet you embrace you must remember that eating too much is a mistake no matter what. Try to learn to stop eating when you are only half to two thirds full. It will make a tremendous difference in your well being. Remember to eat slowly and consciously and with gratitude. Remember to fully chew your food and not to drink liquids while you are eating. Look into occasional fasting.

If you should choose to follow up on what you read here you will find the benefits to be priceless. Don’t get sucked down into the hole that the wider culture presents. That is not the way to go. We may have more to say about diet as we go along. For myself I usually eat only once a day. Don’t be a fanatic. George Ohsawa says that if you follow his diet 90% of the time you can eat ten percent of whatever you want. I don’t know where we are going next but we’ll find out when it happens. Be well.

And a song

Everlasting Love

___

By Les Visible | JustGetThere Featured Author

Letters from the Devic Realm

Les Visible is a writer and recording artist. He has had a lifelong love affair with the Hermetic Sciences and the Martial Arts. He is a seasoned traveler in psychedelic realms and prefers the Devic Kingdom over the suffocating confinements of the Sub-Matrix. Along the way he has matriculated from the military to prisons and the maximum security wards for the criminally insane.

He has owned a metaphysical bookstore and some restaurants and worked in construction, as a cook, a club bouncer, a newspaper editor, a resort manager, a radio announcer, a standup comedian, as a lead singer in a rock and roll band and whatever he had to do to get by.

He lives somewhere in Europe with his wife Susanne and his memories. The truth has not been injured in the writing of this blurb. A collection of his works in various media can be found at www.lesvisible.com

Host Francesca Rheannon talks with David Bollier about his latest book, VIRAL SPIRAL. It’s about how the Internet is building a new digital republic. And Cory Doctorow tells us about his science fiction novel, MAKERS. It imagines the birth pangs of a new remix culture.

I found the interviewees’ use of the term “market” to be a bit misapplied from a market-anarchist perspective, but since they are neither anarchists nor market-anarchists, that’s to be expected. They seemed to use it in the sense of any transaction involving money; when, of course, market-anarchists typically use the term to include all forms of voluntary interaction and transaction — whether money is involved or not — and exclude any non-voluntary forms, such as state-granted monopoly privilege (e.g., copyright itself, discussed but not conceptually dismissed in the interviews).

If, however, you can understand that the “market,” as referred to in the recording, means all monetary transaction (state-supported and not), then there is much to be gained from listening. The interviewees make fantastic points about non-monetary motivation, the emergence of a new free-culture, Creative Commons licensing, the IP monopoly, ignoring unenforceable state mandates, the downfall of dinosaur media companies with the rise of filesharing and instant worldwide distribution online, and more.

The idea of the commons is an ancient one. Peasants of medieval Europe seldom owned their own land. Legally, it was held by the nobles, the king or the Church. But they did have the right to use certain lands in common to grow crops, cut wood, or graze livestock. As capitalism took over from feudalism, the commons began to be privatized. First, land and forests were enclosed. As commodity relations spread, more natural resources, like water, followed suit. In our own era privatization has gobbled up a huge new arena of the commons as intellectual property, from the patenting of traditional plant varieties and the copywrighting of traditional folk tales to the human genome and biodiversity itself. [...]

I also dislike the conflation of intellectual “property” with physical property that occurs in the interviews. They speak to the idea that IP law is certainly overbearing and weighted in favor of state-tied industries and corporations, but they don’t dismiss the idea of IP altogether. Personally, I’d like to see the two subjects discussed as separate concepts, but unfortunately the prevailing view does not lend itself to this dichotomy.

In this vein, the interviewer makes reference to copyright as having been created to protect the rights of the artist, when in fact it was (and is) a monopoly system designed to protect the interests of publishers — artists be damned. This is touched on slightly, but Doctorow puts forward a watered-down version of his usual argument, referring instead to the intent of the US Constitution.

Despite these quibbles, I quite enjoyed the interviews, and they serve to reenforce the notion that the Internet is indeed a bastion of freedom and alternative interaction previously unimaginable. Long may it live!