LATEST BLOG POSTS

Living in Greenwich Village means receiving tons of mailings from democratic politicians. For years I’ve contacted people and companies that spam me with paper mail. I’ve gotten it to near zero, except political mail. Any time there’s an election, they send me tons of their polluting, depleting mailings, unsolicited, unwanted. I don’t know how to stop it because it’s different people each time. Here are a few pieces of pollution[…] Keep reading →

Over and over, people refer to societies that were colonized as indigenous. For example, I see nearly all Native American groups referred to as indigenous. Here’s a dictionary definition of indigenous, which covers the meaning here. indigenous adjective in·​dig·​e·​nous 1 a : produced, growing, living, or occurring natively or naturally in a particular region or environment b usually Indigenous : of, relating to, or descended from the earliest known inhabitants[…] Keep reading →

The other day I happened to watch a video on YouTube not in my usual way and saw an ad there in the video for the first time in five years or so. The surprise prompted me to write how I watch videos I find online, as well as listen to podcasts. I almost never watch videos I find online online. I download them using a browser plugin. I used[…] Keep reading →

I just returned from another event by environmentalists. As usual, they promote climate most, mainly through emissions, but also through ESG and DEI. As usual, they promote anything but sustainability. When they talked about circular economy stuff, they talk about mining waste streams, but not ending nonrenewable inputs. When they talk about plastic, they talk about increasing recycling rates, but not that its mere production creates pollution that we have[…] Keep reading →

This week I finished: Caste: The Origins of Our Discontent, by Isabel Wilkerson: I don’t know if or when I’ll meet Isabel Wilkerson, but I can’t wait. Her book begins and ends with significant talk about sustainability. I think she sees her work on caste, race, and racism as relevant, but I suspect it’s far more relevant than she expects. I think we’d enjoy learning from each other. I think[…] Keep reading →

The more I learn from different traditions, the more I find each group claims that their intellectual and cultural forebears are the people everyone likes and says the others descend from the ones everyone dislikes. I grew up in liberal, progressive households and schools. I learned that people who worked for liberty and freedom, and who fought against slavery and tyranny were the ones our traditions descended from. I learned[…] Keep reading →

Living in New York City means eventually many people will pass through my neighborhood so I host people for visits in my home a fair amount. Though I spend most of my time here and visitors average maybe a few hours a week, I think they cause more pollution and depletion in my apartment than I do. One big reason is that they use hot water for everything and heating[…] Keep reading →

Almost a decade ago I wrote a post The bigger your achievement, the more it’s a beginning. The effect applies all over in life, but my usual way of describing it is with marathons. Today, I’m posting about completing Turkish Get-Ups, but I’ll give context with marathons. Context with marathons Before you finish a marathon, it seems like a superhuman feat, even knowing that millions of people have run them.[…] Keep reading →

After chopping down half a continent’s forests, coal must have seemed like manna from heaven, and later oil, gas, and uranium. Bounty of nature. But you could see why they’d love it. It rewarded people for being smart, for being clever, and most of all for helping others. It enabled people to cross distances faster than ever, to build taller and stronger, to warm the cold, to cool the hot,[…] Keep reading →