FOSSIL FUELS

The society is run on a fossil fuel based economic system.of infinite complexity. One segment of the complexity is climate catastrophe. If you remove fossil fuels to solve the climate, every one of a huge and interlaced set of segments fall apart as well. So we have an incomprehensible fossil based economic system we are told must grow debt and per capita consumption to survive, although that is not helping natural systems (and even aspects of the economic system) to survive. Go figure.

https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/jep.30.1.117

JMG Health remedies

April 26, 2018 at 11:16 pm

Synthase, that’s very much up to the peoples in question. If they want to choose a different path from the one they’re currently following, they can do so — history is full of comparable examples — but they’re going to have to make that choice themselves, and nothing you or I can do will influence it much. Keep in mind that societies have life cycles, and if the ones you’ve named have reached the end of their lifespans, putting them on life support isn’t going to do much good.

Nando, yes, and they’re fairly common. William Butler Yeats, who was a Golden Dawn adept as well as a Nobel Prize-winning poet, wrote at length about the nonphysical scents that he encountered in the course of his magical work: roses, burnt feathers, cat droppings, etc.

aNeopuritan, thanks for this.

Jen, color as color doesn’t do much for me. When I was a child, the family would go for drives in the spring to a region south of Seattle where (at the time) a lot of flowers were grown — nowadays it’s mostly warehouses — and everyone else would ooh and ah; me, I could never see what the fuss was about. My tastes in visual art tend toward works that show a mastery of line and form, with color running a distant third.

January, that sounds like something from the spiritual plane, the highest of the planes, and thus also the hardest to make sense of. I’d say go with it, and see what you can learn by following it out.

J.L.Mc12, hmm! I was familiar with Napier’s Bones — an early mechanical computer — but not positional arithmetic. Thank you.

SMJ, I’m very fond of the work of Morris Graves.

Jaznights, yes, and I should have announced that here. Huzzah! Get those stories written.

Phil, thanks for this.

Booklover, by the spiritual path I mean something more than ordinary formal religion — I mean the practices and insights that lead to Gwynfydd, which you may interpret as “enlightenment” if you wish.  As for reincarnation, have you ever noticed how even very small children have their own distinctive characters and personalities? In occult teaching, that’s all determined by previous lives, and character plus circumstances result in actions that shape the current life.

Karim, I don’t know, I wasn’t there at the time. 

Patricia, I read several of the Darkover fanfic anthologies Daw put out — remind me of the titles of your stories, please!

Aged Spirit, no, it’s just a convenient way to teach people to use their entire torso to breathe with, rather than just breathing from the shoulders, or the chest, or the belly. You can do it the way that’s more familiar to you if you wish.

Questioning, it’s entirely possible that Landmark put something into its work to make life miserable for people who quit — or that they’re doing something to mess you over right now. I’ve tangled with someone who learned a lot of “positive thinking” exercises in an est clone, and he was a first-rate malefic magician — it took me quite a bit of work to get the upper air on him. Since you’re already getting medical care, let’s go on to the magical side of things.

I’m going to suggest several things to do. The first is to take a daily protective bath — this is distinct from whatever your personal bathing habits might be. Fill a basin with cool or cold water, and put into it a teaspoon of ordinary salt, a tablespoon of vinegar (any kind), and a pinch of any kind of pepper — black, cayenne, you name it. Stand in the tub or shower stall, dip a washcloth in the water, and wash yourself from head to foot, moving the washcloth always down from above, and rinsing and wringing out the washcloth at intervals in the water. When you’re done, put your clothing back on without toweling yourself dry, and then take the remaining water and if you can, throw it onto the roots of a big healthy tree — if not, pouring it onto the ground will do. Do this every day. It’s a traditional Southern conjure practice, and it’s very effective.

Second, get a small bowl or saucer, put it in the room where you sleep, and pour some vinegar into it. Leave it to evaporate. Refill it whenever it’s close to empty. This will keep certain subtle energies from being able to concentrate there, and give you the chance to get a good night’s sleep.

Third, learn a banishing ritual and practice it daily. If you can handle Judeo-Christian symbolism, the standard Lesser Ritual of the Pentagram will do very well; if not, you might consider this alternate version, or the one in my book The Celtic Golden Dawn, or the Sphere of Protection ceremony as given in my book The Druid Magic Handbook. Any of these, practiced daily, will clear away hostile energies from your aura and change your “vibes” to the point that nasty magic can’t affect you at all. None of these things will bring an instant cure, but keep at them and you’ll begin feeling better much sooner than you expect.

GREEN FOLLY

(Un) Affordability
Energy for materials extraction and education and manufacture and maintenance implied
Most of all, ugly and hard.

https://www.facebook.com/InTheKnowInnovationAOL/videos/1855080604784594/

A CONVERSATION WITH THE BRITISH COUNCIL?

https://earlyamericanists.com/2018/04/20/qa-with-daniel-livesay-author-of-children-of-uncertain-fortune-mixed-race-jamaicans-in-britain-and-the-atlantic-family-1733-1833/

A CONVERSATION WITH THE BRITISH COUNCIL?

- Deportation is a disaster for these people, who have lost pensions, homes, medical insurance.

- You deport them to a country that is very poor, with a hard pressed government system; that is a disaster for the country

- How does that help the British Commonwealth?

- Since labor costs are cheaper in Jamaica and energy needs are fewer, can Britain address this emergency in an affordable manner that limits damage for the commonwealth while easing the drastic and destabilizing effects of deportation to the deportees and to the island of Jamaica? 

- Can the British Commonwealth, leveraging the lower labor and energy costs, create a resettlement program that uses British strategic funding to leverage more funding?

- Use British Colonial resource--abandoned buildings, etc.--purchasing and refurbishment them to achieves the preservation goals of the island, the reputation of the Commonwealth (presumably), achieving at least two goals at once.

The resettlement Program would also provide:

 

1) Basic needs

- housing

- food and water

- transportation to obviate need to buy cars and clog roads

2) Train a team of program managers

3) Inventory skills that could benefit the Jamaican economy along sustainable lines, including:

- building repair

- new sustainable forms of building

- local food production

- small businesses suited to the Jamaican economy (community tourism, etc.)

MAKING CHANGE

David, I’d phrase things a little differently: t’s impossible to fix the system by using the tools the system wants you to use to fix it. Quite a bit can still be done, and many existing institutions can be repurposed once the changes are under way, but you can’t start the changes within those institutions, because they’ve evolved a hefty collection of tools to render your efforts useless. Instead, actions from within carefully chosen institutions (such as local government) need to be paired with actions entirely outside existing institutional structures, to build the momentum that will make change possible.

"NEED" FOR MORE ENERGY CONSUMPTION PER CAPITA

Gail Tverberg says:

April 17, 2018 at 12:38 pm

Energy is what goes into creating jobs that pay well. Goods are made with a combination of (human labor + supplemental energy).

If supplemental energy is rising relative to human labor, we are in good shape. Human labor can be leveraged with more and more tools of various types, such as computers and bigger trucks. If supplemental energy is falling relative to labor, we end up with an increasing proportion of low-paid service jobs. Lots of greeters at Walmart, but not much else available for jobs.

We need jobs that pay well is what give rise to “demand.” A person with a job that pays well can afford new cars and often a larger home. Also, that person can afford to have children. A family that has only one child ultimately leads to a situation with less demand, because one person, on average uses less resources than two or more.

Reply

Trench Town Culture Yard

Restoring that building establishes TTCY as the de facto peoples heritage preservation organization for the island. There is no other group to do it that is not completely dysfunctional. It's Culture Yard or nothing.

Thoughts for temporary wall cover...

- to save on tarp expense and technical complexity, wrap small srtrips of tarp over the top of the walls (like an upside down U)

- to postpone technical challenge, cover any sensitive section at the floor level, and drain it off the missing wall side at the back

- then gradually install sectional "scaffolding" so as to do one little piece of roof replacement at a time. 

- this would be a "new" easier way to do repair in the absence of money. If I'm not mistaken, that is the methodology that started the Culture Yard restoration program

This looks like the way to fund peoples heritage preservation throughout the island (St. Ann's Bay first). 

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10216716233601538&set=pcb.234129413995362&type=3&theater&ifg=1

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10216716232001498&set=pcb.234129413995362&type=3&theater&ifg=1

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10216716237881645&set=pcb.234129413995362&type=3&theater&ifg=1

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10216716237081625&set=pcb.234129413995362&type=3&theater&ifg=1

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10216716238881670&set=pcb.234129413995362&type=3&theater&ifg=1

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10216716225201328&set=pcb.234129413995362&type=3&theater&ifg=1

VERNACULAR AND ESTABLISHMENT

"so no—you do not live on 650 a month, you live on the benefits that 200 years worth of industrial development has delivered and currently maintains.—you get 650 energy tokens each month to let you buy the end products of our colossal industrial system"

I'm aware of that. But I have a way to live somewhat comfortably within that system, while not making much effort. It suits me. Some people make far more energy tolens with each breath. There is probably a cost for the inequality. I am trying to keep down that cost (much as I don't know how to describe it). A great proportion of the population use energy avoiding my sort of relative poverty, and that probably has a cost too (equally hard to quantify and describe...for me anyway).

So I'm in an intermediate space between those who earn my monthly token worth every time they breath, and those who live way outside this bubble of luxury I'm aware that i live in. This imbalance between the poles on either side of me probably has a cost that would be better avoided.

You can give me some abstract formula for why things must continue on like this and get even more unbalanced, but I will insist on attempting to bring those poles more into the middle. Not that I'd expect them to MEET in the middle.

The fact that we have nuclear sites requiring eternal and sophisticated management means we need an unspecified but advanced-enough civilization to remain somewhere in some form. J. B. Jackson, who was "was influential in broadening the perspective on the 'vernacular' landscape" proposed two complementary systems: the "establishment" and the "vernacular." .https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._B._Jackson While I'm more oriented toward the vernacular than the establishment, OFW has helped me to better accept the role of the establishment--meaning for our discussion, some sort of networked economic system (that I admittedly don't understand, but that highly trained "experts" have a working grasp of). The vernacular and the establishment can be in better balance than they are. I'm quite sure there is theory that elegantly explains what I'm saying, but I won't search it out for you, and you wouldn't accept it anyway.

I'm talking about factors like nuance and balance. I suspect I'm no more equipped to see you point than you are to see mine. A pity. We generally do better when we can learn from each other. I'm also trying to be constructive.

Lewis Mumford

https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/148280-the-pentagon-of-power

OVERPRODUCTION OF ELITES (Turchin)

"One issue he gives special weight is what he calls “elite overproduction,” where a society generates more elites than can practically participate in shaping policy. The result is increasing competition among the elites that wastes resources needlessly and drives overall social decline and disintegration. He sees plenty of historical antecedents where elite overproduction drove waves of political violence. In today’s America there are far more millionaires than was the case only a couple of decades ago, and rich people tend to be more politically active than poor ones. This causes increasing political polarization (millionaires funding extreme candidates), erodes cooperation, and results in a political class that is incapable of solving real problems."

I found this quote helpful, since I totally am not into the overproduction of elites. My thing with the lower prices is that very poor people can somehow have a place within some kind of economic system that might also allow them to pay some degree of taxes. Oddly enough, I saw a video of post ISIS residue showing how good they were at governing, and how much they depended on and were able to collect taxes. If ISIS could do that under such pressure and in a war confirms that stringent circumstances ought not prohibit a poor people's civilization. I'm in no way equipped to understand any but an economic order suited to the poor.

World Economy

Artleads says:

April 9, 2018 at 5:48 am

“For these reasons, energy consumption needs to grow faster than population, even if technology is making individual processes more efficient.”

I’m sorry. I keep trying to understand, but so much of this is still isn’t getting through. Some points were a little easier to grasp than the above.

I’ve assumed that a global economy with depleting resources has to get more complex to survive the challenge. And that the ever increasing complexity can’t be afforded eventually.

Meanwhile, the entire global economy can’t be understood even by experts. Why aren’t we looking at first principles instead of simply considering what can keep an unworkable, overly complex system going? Where we are now, we need fossil fuels to survive. Many things can’t be wound back and have to grow somehow. But that might be a simple problem of physics that can be planned for? But why does *everything* have to grow in the same way? Why aren’t simple measures to compartment too much top down organization into more bottom up, small-scale units?

Why must the entire economy be viewed through the lens of unyielding top down, unevolved, growth? Why treat the species as hopelessly deranged and incapable of any kind of independent adjustment? For instance, moderately intelligent/educated workers from Mexico would produce oil at a quarter the wages of the average. And if that average pop would cause mayhem through unemployment, the fossil fuels would still be available to address the mayhem in some way…

Hillary's Article

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/apr/06/homaro-cantu-moto-chef-change-the-world

- I take solace in little things

- If big things are to be done, someone more capable has to do them. 

- Trying to help people wake up 

- I have done similar work in the past. Just quietly persevering, and little things start to happen. But it didn't come to a decisive triumph. It takes other people, and they weren't there. They'll either help or they won't in the case of .

- Enormous patience is required in all this effort

- I'm at peace with how things are unfolding under the challenging circumstances

- But I'm serious that there must be a clear reason to continue, or I quit come November.

LITTLE GLIMMERS OF LIGHT

- Dennis Higgins seems to think that Chris Blackwell and preservation architect Ann Hodges "think about SAB the way we do". 

- Michaerl Witter comes and goes, seems to have a SAB connection, and has made a proposal to help withthe market

- Jr. Arscott seems to be softening toward us. I think he knows we care and are are sincere

- Dennis connected me via email to a friend in the US who seems to visit SAB sometimes

- Donnette Ingrid Zacca actually drove to SAB and photographed the fire damage, showing the stonework and the thin strip of plaster remaining, and memorial stones for the 1870's rebuilding of the Methodist church

 -Then she asked me where she can go to photograph in one day

- Connecting Donnette Seville, a UNESCOI site. She might have some atypical photos of the site soon

- She was interested in the technology of scanning (which Dale Kopp posted and I was downplaying somewhat to her annoyance), a potential big step if we/she can get the art/architecture intelligencia to look into it; it can glean detailed information for rebuilding after disasters.

- Charlene Collins has been trying to keep Donnette focused on our issues--Chatlene lives in JA, is fairly well connected and has a good spirit. It took time to coax her to this position, and is a huge step, IMO.

 

HUGH LYONS

- 6 Bravo former owner

- very committed to SAB

- now in Miami but itching to return- good person, not computer literate but a fountain of help when we can phone or visit.

- referred me to another son who plans to return to SAB soon and start an ecotourism business on his 200 acres.

- made me see that we need to promote a program of ecotourism for SAB. Makes money and can protect the land

- Hugth is strong (and I've been lagging in understanding) that SAB must become a heritage town--like Falmouth.

- He explains that Columbus' ships are buried by the shore, that SAB British colonial town is older than NYC, being in excess of 300 years old. 

DARKER ISSUES (This is the area where we could do with on-the-ground contact)

- Connection with the Jamaica National Heritage Trust not there

- Trust involved with three SAB issues: 1) Seville Heritage Park; 2) Marcus Garvey birth house; 3) Marcus Garvey Youth Center (MGYC)

- We could ask them to move the 6 Bravo building to the MGYC. (No one knows how come it's still there.)

- That requires the ministry that runs the trust to persuade them

- Ann Hodges is some sort of adviser to the Trust, so she must be contacted and asked for her input and action

- I'm not getting a response from Hodges online, so it takes help from on high and elsewhere (which I believe will be forthcoming)

- We need to approach the Bob Marley Foundation to help with SAB, but that again requires help from people there and higher up.

Seville heritage Park

http://whc.unesco.org/en/tentativelists/5431/Full

I'm not sure I have the courage to post this on JCHF! https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09xnl51 JeremyT says: April 5, 2018 at 10:45 am Interesting how all civic architecture pre-abolition has a classical look-should that be slaved look? Reply Leave a Reply Cancel reply Interesting point. "Race" became codified into a social system during the 18th century, and that codification seems to be correlated to the emergence of the neoclassical style in architecture. Neoclassical architecture - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoclassical_architecture Neoclassical architecture is an architectural style produced by the neoclassical movement that began in the mid-18th century. In its purest form, it is a style principally derived from the architecture of classical antiquity, the Vitruvian principles, and the work of the Italian architect Andrea Palladio. ‎New Classical architecture · ‎Andrea Palladio · ‎Vilnius Cathedral Roman Slavery, In Our Time - BBC Radio 4 Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the relationship between slavery and the power of Rome. bbc.co.uk Chat Conversation End

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Ruby Wack, How to Be Human

http://metro.co.uk/2018/01/29/caveman-brains-arent-set-stone-ruby-wax-talks-neuroplasticity-new-book-human-manual-mental-health-podcast-mentally-7269335/

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  Economics of Preservation

  
  

  
  

  I imagine that hundreds of similar sites have been demolished. It's an international crisis. The following is copied from a US-based blog I follow: 

  
  

  Blog Host

  “The fact that there is little home building reduces the number of jobs available in the building industry. The lack of jobs in this industry helps hold down the demand for oil, because these workers would use their wages to buy goods for themselves, such as food and vehicles. Food is grown and transported using vehicles powered by oil.”

  
  

  Trevor Burrowes

  As you have recommended before, there could be a lot of jobs remodeling existing houses–many could go from single family to multiple family easily enough–especially remaining two-story Victorians. (Places like Detroit had a monstrous number of these demolished.) That would also have the effect of increasing tourism to such sites–more coming and going, more ancillary businesses, more publicity, etc. So I don’t see where not building new houses has to reduce jobs. Also, the current norm of tearing down old buildings to make more modern ones–the religion of progress–decreases the tourist attraction of the historic fabric. So that creates one kind of job at the expense of another. It also implies the loss of embedded energy lodged in the old, to say nothing about the environmental cost and aesthetic loss of new construction.

  
  

  Blog Host

  "Just thinking about costs involved, I think that demolition and rebuilding add more energy use and human jobs than simple remodeling. Also, it is easier to make the new structure energy efficient with the rebuilding. Needless to say, many people place a high priority on up to date styling of kitchens and bathrooms. Also, today’s fashion is more square feet of better insulated housing, and the demolition provides this. So as long as debt can be obtained cheaply by the well-to-do, I suppose they will be buying new homes. The not so well to do, not so much."

  
  

  Trevor Burrowes

  Yes. Such a pity. Humans can’t abide working a little harder for style and class, or to be vaguely civilized. Same problem everywhere with our contemptible species.

  
  

  Here’s another idea they won’t go for: Give preference to and subsidize shelter for the working homeless. You wouldn’t need to build much more than a shed roof to keep water off school bus or a retired-RV homes. Artists and landscape architects would get work making them beautiful tourist drive-bys. But I can hear the cries of disaster tourism….

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Historic Preservation in Jamaica

Trevor Burrowes Paul Chang I'm not there, and the upsurge in caring and consciousness since I was involved in the '60s is nothing short of astonishing. So a lot is happening, but what is bewildering is why it doesn't keep pace with the concrete Miamization as people make more money and the population soars (and governance declines?). Preservation consciousness is just not keeping pace. I have suggested that there needs to be a "man on a galloping horse" quick pass throughout the island--not trying to do el primo restoration of anything, just noting, recording, photographing what is there now. I truly believe that consciousness of what is there is the indispensable first step in awakening public consciousness. Then towns and parishes could engage in friendly competition to see who can do best at using and benefiting from colonial heritage. But my views don't seem to be widely shared, and I can't think of anything else that I could help with.