The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
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    What's Old Is Now New Again....Homemade Prosperity

    By cmaukonen on Fri, 12/17/2010 - 11:45am |

    Providing for ones necessities one's self. And Shannon Hayes gives a great insight into this phenomena.

    Americans from different walks of life all around the country are taking steps in their own households, whether they are rural, urban, or suburban. Even without a land base, they are finding ways to turn their homes from units of consumption to units of production. They are walking and biking, rather than driving; cooking rather than going out for fast food; playing music and creating art rather than buying entertainment from mass media; preserving the harvest from local farms rather than buying packaged foods from an industrialized food system; brewing beer in the corner of their apartments; learning how to fix their own toilets and cars; repairing their clothing or finding ways to repurpose it; networking with neighbors to barter for goods and services that they cannot produce.

    The upshot is a growing movement of Americans who are creating a new home economics where there is time for family members to enjoy each other, where the ecological footprint is greatly reduced, and where, instead of the family working to support the household, the household works to support the family. With this new home economy, relationships are deeper, children are more connected with the life systems that support them, and the family can make it through economic hard times with dignity and joy.

    Imagine that. Actually doing for ones self. What a radical idea.

    Comments

    I missed this. Good points.

    Yeah, I have learned that cooking your own burger and adding your own garnish; so much better. And I mean the middle restaurants, not the fast food places that I rarely visited.

    And baking a chicken can be so easy.

    The lady across the hall is in a wheel chair and supplements her income on the net selling stuff. Boxes show up at her door all the time.

    Americans are not stupid and eventually figure it out.


    by Richard Day on Fri, 12/17/2010 - 6:38pm

    Chickens for checkups, eh?

    That only seems sustainable on the micro-level. Still doesn't negate the need for a sound macro policy. There are many creative approaches to integrate micro-level production as supplemental support to social infrastructure. Like the urban farming Donel highlighted the other day.

    Interesting and cool ideas. Not really an answer for reparing the increasingly torn social fabric of America, I fear.


    by kgb999 on Fri, 12/17/2010 - 6:41pm

    Never said it was. But the the more you can do and the more you know, the more prepared you are for whatever comes.


    by cmaukonen on Fri, 12/17/2010 - 6:44pm

    I must have misinterpreted the intent of your final line's inflection.


    by kgb999 on Fri, 12/17/2010 - 6:52pm

    On (slightly) deeper reflection, I could be looking at this wrong. There is a certain delightful inverse-Randian quality to the idea of just regiggering society to bypass their bullshit system entirely. Still not sure about how it would work on a national scale (particularly dense urban)  ... but it sure would make an awesome counter-culture novel (in which instance, of course it would work out teh awesome for inverse-Randians and the rich would be left sitting in their decaying mansions having a big 'ole sad trading off their baubles for a sack of barley.)


    by kgb999 on Fri, 12/17/2010 - 6:51pm

    Hey...works for me.Smile


    by cmaukonen on Fri, 12/17/2010 - 7:32pm

    Many people is rethinking how they live because there is less money.   With a little imagination and time you can do many things that don't cost much.  

    I find the term "foodies"  rather funny discribing people who have discovered home cooked meals.


    by trkingmomoe on Sat, 12/18/2010 - 2:32am