text:
Preparing for Collapse, A Few Rants
Off the keyboard of Irvine Mills
Follow us on Twitter @doomstead666
Friend us on Facebook
Published on The Easiest Person to Fool July 25, 2018
Discuss this article at the Kitchen Sink inside the Diner
|Beans and Squash in My Front Yard Garden
For a while now I been promising that when I got some other things out of the way, I'd actually talk about preparing for collapse. And that is just what I'm going to be doing in this and the next few posts.
Unfortunately, my crystal ball isn't any better than anybody else's, probably worse than some. What I'll be recommending will reflect my own biases and weaknesses. But even so, I think I do have some insights that will be of value to many people.
Among these insights are a few things that I feel the need to rant about. Let's get that out of the way first.
Rant 1: A Fast and Hard Collapse, NOT
I should admit that by using the phrase "preparing for collapse" I am really being somewhat misleading. As I see it, collapse is not a single event that will occur at some point in the future, but a process that has already been going on for several decades, since the oil shocks of the 70s. Progress has been coasting slowly to a stop while collapse gains momentum. This will continue.
I certainly don't buy into the whole idea of a hard, fast, apocalyptic collapse. That is a fantasy that allows us to imagine getting rid of many of the less pleasant aspects of modern life all at once. Get it over with and start fresh, so to speak. In particular, I think many people see the complete and final collapse of the financial system as freeing them from oppressive debts and jobs they hate. A pretty drastic way to solve those problems….
And of course many of us have been influenced by apocalyptic fiction. A sudden and cataclysmic event certainly sets the stage for a dramatic story. But let's try to keep reality and fiction clearly separated in our thinking here.
At any rate, what I want to talk about is how to survive the slow and unsteady collapse that I believe we are experiencing, so that is what I'm going to do. There is much less to be said about surviving hard, fast, widespread collapse because it is much harder to do and there are fewer strategies that are likely to succeed. Still, much of what I have to say would apply to some extent, should I turn out to be wrong and things all fall apart all at once.
As I have said before this that collapse has been and will continue to be uneven geographical, unsteady chronologically, and unequal socially. Certainly there will occasionally be sudden downward bumps, but in some locations more than others and effecting various social strata differently. And then there will be a partial recovery and things will carry on for a while, somewhat worse than they were before.
This will continue on for quite a few more decades before we finally reach the bottom and the dust begins to settle. At that point, in a few lucky locations, there will still be people arguing that nothing much has really changed. For most of us, though, it will be clear that a great deal has changed and not for the better. Already the world is significantly different than it was when I was young and the strategies that served well in those days are not something I would recommend now.
Perhaps most importantly, we'll need to recognize that collapse is happening and act appropriately rather than carrying on doing the same old thing, trying to fine tune a system that is fundamentally broken and wondering why things don't improve.
Rant 2: Lifeboats and Eco-Villages, NOT
For quite a while yet it will not be feasible for most of us to completely sever our ties with BAU (Business as Usual). We'll find ourselves going in two directions at once, trying to prepare for collapse while still being dependent for many of the necessities of life on the very system that is collapsing. Of course, part of our preparation will consist of reducing key dependencies. But it is challenging to reduce those dependencies when BAU can supply our needs for less than they can be produced locally. This makes it hard to earn much of living as a local, sustainable producer—the prices you have to charge mean that only those who are well off can afford to indulge themselves with your products.
Many have suggested setting up a lifeboat community or an eco-village in a remote location and waving BAU goodbye. Some days it is tempting, but there's a long list of problems with that approach. It's hard to find a group of people who are both interested, willing to sever their ties with BAU and competent. It costs a lot of money to set up such a project. There are getting to be fewer and fewer remote areas that BAU has not claimed and/or spoiled, and where the locals would welcome you. Those that are left are less than ideal (to cold, too hot, too dry, too wet, poor soil, etc.). In any area where farming is feasible, there are likely to be property taxes and building codes. So you can't completely withdraw from the money based economy if you are going to pay your taxes, and it may be difficult to build the way you'd like to without running afoul of the building code.
Better to reconcile ourselves to having a foot in both worlds for now, and whole heartedly become a part of the communities in which we find ourselves living. We can quietly prepare for the day when BAU is more obviously faltering and local production can compete successfully. Of course some communities are more suitable for this than others.
Rant 3: Renewable Energy and Eco-Modernism, NOT
There are some people who recognize problems like peak oil and climate change but think they can be solved by switching over to high tech, low-carbon renewables (mainly wind and solar) and re-organizing things to be more efficient, allowing us to go right on with a green washed version of BAU, and keep the economy growing. These folks don't understand the economic problems with the low EROEI of renewable energy sources, or the degree to which those energy sources are dependent on fossil fuels for their manufacture, installation, operation and maintenance.
Eco-modernism is a particularly egregious example of a plan to fix our problems using technology. It relies on the idea of absolute decoupling. That is, being able to reduce our impact on the resource base and environment while still improving our standard of living and allowing the economy and our population to grow. So far, our best efforts have only achieved a small amount of relative decoupling. That is, at best, increases in population and standard of living have led to slightly less than proportional increases in impact, but nothing approaching decreases in impact.
Looking realistically at what technology can do, I find it hard to see how it could be otherwise and expect that collapse will force us to reduce both our population and level of consumption. At such lower levels of consumption, energy use and technology, renewable energy sources such as biomass, wind, moving water and passive solar will no doubt supply essentially all of the energy we use. But nowhere near enough to support the sort of high tech industrial civilization we have today.
Rant 4: Violence, NOT
Violence is another area where ideas based on apocalyptic fiction are likely to lead you astray. Conflict is necessary to make a story move along, and a long tradition of collapse porn saturated with interpersonal and inter-group violence has lead many people to see that as the only way things can unfold. Food becomes short, the "have-nots" go after the "haves" and mayhem ensures. This may make good reading, but it's not so much fun in reality, and certainly not something I'm interested in.
So, I am not a survivalist, and you won't find me talking much here about security and defense. There are lots of other sources of that sort of information, if it interests you. I'm more interested in not being where the fighting is likely to break out and setting things up in the community where I am so that co-operation is a more likely outcome than serious conflict. Like giving people better alternatives than violence, meeting them with food rather than guns. The trick is being able to do so.
Rant 5: Back to the Good Old Days, NOT
A number of well known voices in the "collapse sphere" have claimed that recent advances in social justice such as feminism and equal rights for LGBTQ people are likely to be rolled back during collapse. The argument is that these freedoms are possible only in a society with lots of surplus resources. These guys are men who are obviously uncomfortable with what they see as disadvantageous changes to the power structure of our society. They have a socially conservative fantasy of collapse putting them back in charge. But really, that is not the way it works.
First of all, while we will be returning to levels of energy use and material consumption that were common one or two or even more centuries in the past, it isn't really possible to go back to the way things were then. We are starting from a different place, we know a lot of things now that we didn't back then, and formerly oppressed people who have been given a chance at equality aren't going to give it up so easily.
Second, if you look across the world and throughout history, the patriarchy is far from universal and many societies working at very much lower levels of consumption than ours have functioned quite well as matriarchies or anarchies. A patriarchy is neither the most natural way to organize human societies nor the most efficient.
I am an old white guy too, if I can accept social changes, so can you.
Rant 6: Saving the World, NOT
Some have accused me of being out to save the world. It's pretty clear that by the world, they mean "Business As Usual" and in my opinion that world needs not to be saved, but to be shut down as quickly as possible. Sadly, this isn't going to happen voluntarily. Too many powerful people and institutions have a vested interest in keeping things going as they are. Heading straight toward collapse, in other words. A collapse that will see a drastic reduction in human population and consumption of resources per capita. This isn't going to be much fun to live through and many of us won't. The only good thing about it is that it will be the undoing of the very system that caused it. And when it is over it may be possible to continue on in a more modest, less destructive way.
Rant 7: Crunchies and Woo
I've noticed lately that posts on this blog often draw positive comments from people who go on to make it clear that they are "Crunchies" who believe in one sort or another of idea that isn't supported by the evidence, that isn't reality based—what I call "woo". After they've said such nice things to me, I always feel bad having to break it to them that I don't agree. Most of these folks are organic farmers or gardeners, who have bought into the "naturalistic fallacy" and think that everything that's natural must be good for you. In fact the products of organic farming and conventional farming about equal in terms of safety these days. That's good news for the many people who can't afford pricey organic food and don't have a garden to grow their own. The bad news is that both conventional and organic farming are also about equally unsustainable, mainly due to their reliance on energy from fossil fuels. We need to develop a "sustainable farming" that's based on science, not woo.
The tagline for this blog is "A reality based approach to life in the age of scarcity." When I use the terms "evidence based" or "reality based", I mean ideas that are supported by the scientific consensus. Many people today unfortunately believe that the scientific consensus supports BAU, and that's no wonder since BAU does its best to encourage that view. Fortunately, it's not true. The scientific consensus support some things on the Crunchy side and some things on the BAU side, because those things happen to be true. The scientific method is an excellent tool for filtering out biases, political or otherwise. There really isn't any good reason for ignoring its results.
But to be clear, comments from Crunchies of every sort are welcome here, just be aware of what the project of this blog really is and, that if you are pedlling woo, you'll get a gentle but firmly negative response.
But enough ranting for now. Time to talk about what we can do to prepare for the continuing process of collapse. We need to anticipate where current trends are taking us, and harder still, when things as likely to reach a tipping point and changing more drastically.
First off, I'd say that if you are new to this, give it a year or so to sink in before making any big decisions, and don't do anything rash in the meantime. Then you may want to consider some changes in the way you are living. What those changes might be will be the subject of my next few posts.
We'll be considering the following subjects, and probably a few more:
- where you want to be—where bad things are less likely to happen
- who you want to be with—people you know, trust and can work with
- what you are doing—something that can support you, and allow you to develop the skills and accumulate the resources you will need
While waiting for my next post (these things often take a while), here are a few links to articles which may be of help:
On this blog:
- What the heck do we do next?
- Emergency Preparation, Part 1
- Emergency Preparation, Part 2,
- Deliberate Descent, a series of posts
- the last post in my BAU, Crunchiness and Woo series, on life in the age of scarcity
- the last post in my Limits to Growth series, where I discuss NIcole Foss's Boundaries of Solution Space
Sharon Astyk hasn't been very active as a writer lately, but her earlier writings are a great source of practical advice on "Adapting in Place", which is exactly the sort of preparation I'd advise you to do.
This Week In Doom, July 9, 2017
From the keyboard of Surly1
Follow us on Twitter @doomstead666
Like us on Facebook
Originally published on the Doomstead Diner on July 9, 2017
"Many and sharp the num'rous ills
Inwoven with our frame!
More pointed still we make ourselves
Regret, remorse, and shame!
And man, whose heav'n-erected face
The smiles of love adorn, –
Man's inhumanity to man
Makes countless thousands mourn!"
― Robert Burns
Thinking it might be time to blow the dust off this long-neglected franchise and take a quick tour around the Internetz to see what's new in the world of Doom.
If you trolled this woman, eat a bag of salted dicks
No better place to start than here, with our basic oligarch-instilled and funded inhumanity to one another. Because if you're "the Other," you're not me, you're not worthy of consideration as human, amirite?
Alison Chandra contributed a story via Vox, entitled, I shared my toddler's hospital bill on Twitter. First came supporters — then death threats. It's a story of a Twitter post gone horribly awry– her son, who needed a life saving operation, received the care that he needed, and she posted an image of the $200,000+ bill, with her portion due $500, because medical insurance.
She snapped a picture of the bill and posted it to Twitter, thinking it a useful commentary on why people should care so much about laws that ensure our access to affordable health care, ban lifetime limits and ensure that no one is denied coverage simply because they'd been born with preexisting conditions. A feel good story, yes?
Uh, no. Then her thread blew up. Cue the haters.
The morning after I sent the tweets, I was at the market with my kids, choosing between scones and muffins, when a friend texted me: "That thread of yours really took off!"
I opened my phone, and instead of the usual 10 or so likes, I found my mentions and messages overrun. There were journalists reaching out to me, verified accounts with millions of followers retweeting me, and a few very angry men telling me that I shouldn't steal from them, that my child was better off dead, that I should have let him just succumb to natural selection.
I was offered a .22 bullet, although I'm still not sure whom he meant it for, me or my child.
I suggest following the link and reading the whole story, although it is anything but edifying. But if you're an old bastard like the author, you'll be amazed at how far we've fallen in the last 60-70 years. A tribute to the ceaseless propaganda commending market fundamentalism and the reduction of everything to the morality of the balance sheet. And if you commented adversely to Alison's post, do the world a favor and eat a bullet. Right now.
Klan and the Antifa
Closer to home, Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, based in Pelham, N.C., received a permit for a demonstration on Saturday, July 8. The ostensible point of the demonstration was to protest the Charlottesville City Council's decision to remove a statue honoring Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. They shouted "white power," burnished flags, and some wore white robes. Others carried handguns, as they approached the recently renamed "Emancipation Park," (formerly Lee Park.)
Virginia State Police, Albemarle County police and University of Virginia police were on hand to assist Charlottesville police as they escorted an estimated 30-40 Klansmen to and from the rally. Police in riot gear separated the rallygoers from approximately 1,000 counterprotesters who greeted them with jeers. Attempts by Klan leaders to address the crowd were repeatedly drowned out by boos and chants.
After the Klan rally ended, police led several people away in handcuffs after a large group of counterprotesters remained near the vicinity of the park. Police asked those still gathered nearby to disperse. Wearing riot gear and gas masks, the police declared the counterprotesters "an unlawful assembly" and used gas canisters to compel them to leave the area.
Because why get dressed in riot gear without making arrests and dispending tear gas, right?
Another hot day in Virginia.
Antarctic iceberg break the size of Delaware 'imminent,' say scientists
In the latest news about the global warming that the drooling right insists is not happening, an Antarctic iceberg break is 'imminent.' One of the world's biggest icebergs ever recorded is "hours, days, or weeks" away from breaking off an Antarctic ice shelf, scientists announced Wednesday.
We are told further that could the iceberg calve "within days" or hours, and that the volume of water contained will rival the volume of Lake Michigan. Business Insider reported that this may be the third-largest iceberg recorded since satellites began taking photos of Earth.
"In another sign that the iceberg calving is imminent, the soon-to-be-iceberg part of Larsen C Ice Shelf has tripled in speed to more than 10 meters per day between June 24th and June 27th," said Adrian Luckman of Project MIDAS, a British Antarctic research project that's keeping watch on the ever-growing crack.
"The iceberg remains attached to the ice shelf, but its outer end is moving at the highest speed ever recorded on this ice shelf. We still can't tell when calving will occur — it could be hours, days or weeks," he added.
Once the iceberg breaks off, it "will fundamentally change the landscape of the Antarctic Peninsula," he said.
But don't worry, be happy.
Catholic Church: Women are to Blame for Pedophile Priests
And as long as we're being happy, let's consider the latest pose from the Club for Kidfucking Priests that's been operating for 2000 years, ever since Paul and Silas spent "quality time" together: Let's blame the little ladies.
Seems that the problems in the Church don't stem so much from adult men telling young boys, "This is what God's love feels like," and more from the fact that little girls want to participate in the life of the church by being altar girls.
Cardinal Burke argues that serving mass is a "manly" job, and claims that the participation of women and girls into the daily life of the church has a chilling effect on priests, causing them to turn to "immoral and unpriestly vocations." This is much like Trump complaining that his team's failure to book a hotel at the recently ended G-20 meeting was Obama's fault.
"The radical feminism which has assaulted the Church and society since the 1960s has left men very marginalized," said the Cardinal, a member of one of the oldest and most enduring men's groups on earth.
"Apart from the priest, the sanctuary has become full of women. The activities in the parish and even the liturgy have been influenced by women and have become so feminine in many places that men do not want to get involved."
"The girls were also very good at altar service. So many boys drifted away over time. I want to emphasize that the practice of having exclusively boys as altar servers has nothing to do with inequality of women in the Church."
Yeah, we get that.
Irish Central reports: So it's not the international abuse crisis that has most led men to reconsider joining the church, it's girl cooties. And feminism, of course.
So we have it straight from a Prince of the Church that the problems facing Catholicism today, in particular the epidemic of pedophilia, are the fault of women. And feminism. We thank the good Cardinal for completely unmasking the contempt and hatred with which the institutional Church has long held women.
And since a consistent theme of this week's Doom Report is man's inhumanity to man, let's end with yet another human sacrifice to the logic of the spreadsheet:
Sending elderly to forests as tiger prey for compensation from government is as savage as it can get
India Today reports that families in Uttar Pradesh are sending the elderly members of their houses into forests as tiger prey to claim compensation worth lakhs from the government, giving the phrase "taking one for the team" to a whole new level.
The website reports that if locals are to be believed, elders of the family willingly go along with this scheme. "They think that since they can't get resources from the forest, this is the only way their families can escape poverty."
Authorities surmise that people are sending older members of the family into the tiger reserve for them to become a prey.
Once killed, their bodies are relocated to fields, and staged as victims of a tiger attack, so that the respective family can claim lakhs in compensation from the government.
On the other hand, if I had sent grandma into the forest, I'd probably say it was her idea as well.
Surly1 is an administrator and contributing author to Doomstead Diner. He is the author of numerous rants, screeds and spittle-flecked invective here and elsewhere, and once quit barking and got off the porch long enough to be active in the Occupy movement. Where he met the woman who now shares his old Virginia home and who, like he, is grateful that he is not yet taking a dirt nap, and like he, will be disappointed to not be prominently featured on an enemies list compiled by the incoming administration.
Estrogen Testosterone Soup
Off the keyboard of Gypsy Mama
Follow us on Twitter @doomstead666
Friend us on Facebook
Published on The Butterchurn on January 13, 2014
Discuss this article at the Doom Psychology Table inside the Diner
Ingredients only a cauldron can hold?
I'm writing to respond to a conversation/borderline dispute that is going on over at The Doomstead Diner. The discussion of the term, "Feminazi"
Many opinions have been spouted over at The DD about the usage of this term. I've skimmed over a few. I've written my own response with minimal reading of others opinions, because I wanted to make sure that my own opinion of the word shined through my writing, without the bias of having read the opinion of others' responses.
First of all, through my understanding, the word "Feminazi" is a combination of the words "feminist" and "Nazi." BOTH of these words are touchy topics to write about. Feminism has many facets. I have not studied much about the liberation of Women. Perhaps that is something that I SHOULD know more about as a woman. I should know how I'm able to be free to have the same rights as the male species. I should know more about the struggles of women in the past. I should, but I don't. I believe that this may be explained, minimally, by the fact that I have never had to feel repressed, looked down upon, or downtrodden just because I'm a female. I have not felt the need to take to the streets to fight for my right to be a person of equal rights. My life, at my age of 33, has not been affected by such matters.
The closest that I can relate to this issue is easily found through my experience with a hospital birth vs. a birth within a birthing center using a midwife. The hospital's treatment toward me, their "customer" opened my eyes to how sad it is that the system fails us (women) when it comes to the birthing process.
I made a fleeting comment to the gallant Surly, for him not to be "butt hurt" about a drawing that I sketched out while snickering about dick and ball jokes written all in fun by the strong population of male form members at The Diner. I enjoy crude humor. Dick and ball jokes? Laughable. Most of the time I can stomach it: jokes about spunk? Nope…I'm outta that conversation, thank you. I find myself able to overlook circumstances in which men make jokes about women. It's easy to feed those jokes backward into a reverse pattern, but why? Overall, this is something that the wrong type of feminist is unable to overlook, IMO.
There are three types of feminists that I have separated in my mind.
Feminist Type A: Has studied the journey that women have been on over the centuries. Knows the history of repression that females have fought through in the past. This feminist fights for, and will continue to fight for, the right for Women and Men to be treated equally, no matter the circumstance. Can accept and defend against sexually racist statements without getting too defensive or angry.
Feminst Type B: Has all of the abilities and knowledge of Feminist Type A, yet is unable to laugh at jokes poking fun at their specific internal reproductive organs. Takes offense easily to PMS jokes, but can throw backlash out in the form of television remote handling and other male centered comebacks. Type B is one sided. Females can poke fun at males: OKAY! Males poking fun at females? NOT okay. Not okay, indeed.
Feminist Type C: Has a distrust and overall dislike for the male species. Most of the time, this form of Feminist gets easily offended and borderline angry when a man makes a comment about a woman. Often, their understanding of said comment is twisted out of proportion.
Through the interaction with the men I've had in my life (friends, mostly), I've come to understand that most men don't have a problem making jokes about body parts. After all, men were all, at one time, boys. I don't have much of a problem with that myself. Boys have a penis. Girls have a vagina. We are different and unique. We each fill a position in the human population necessary to continue said population. Joke as we might about PMS and high testosterone levels…we are what we are.
Mix in the fact that we all also have our own belief systems and personalities, and you've got a complicated mixture, for sure. Overall, we are each our own. Sometimes we'll step on each others toes. Sometimes a male might say something that can push the wrong button in a female. Vice Versa. But whoa…swirl the testosterone and estrogen hormones into the wrong mix, at the wrong speed, or at the wrong time, and you've got an INSTA BATTLE soup de jour. Might as well throw your soup into a blender.
Some male and female ingredients aren't going to taste well together. Period. (no pun intended) I don't see much reason in attempting to make all of the worlds spices compliment each other. There are far too many psychological, environmental (and otherwise) personality traits involved with simply being human. Breaking ourselves down into male vs. female without considering personality will instantly set you up for an argument. I write this to explain: just because I'm a female doesn't mean that I'll always take the side of a feminist response to an argument.
We are creatures of not only our sexuality, but also of our past, our environments, our upbringing, our experiences. Simply put: Men, Women…respect the ingredients mixed into the soup. Communicate your feelings and thoughts on how to make the soup be more palatable for conversation. Tell someone when you think they've poisoned the soup. Wait for the soup to cool off. Try not to stir the pot too much.
The short version to understanding my thoughts:
1.Telling me I can't do something you can because I have different reproductive organs: NOT okay. Okay, I can't ejaculate or pee standing up (not gracefully, anyway) …but otherwise…not okay
2.Believing that you are more of a person than I am because we carry different body parts: NOT okay.
3.Believing that you are owed special treatment as a Woman because of the Women's Suffrage of our past is…well…kinda stupid. Get with the times. I'm sure our ancestors would tell you the same. Guess what? We've won most of the battle. Move on. Bask in the delight that we are living in different times, where the struggles and voices of the Women of our past have made great changes for us in the present. By dwelling on the past, you are allowing yourself to experience unnecessary distress. Be happy with the advancements.
#2 on that list brings in the term "Nazi." From my understanding, The infamous Nazis of Hitler's following believed in one master race. They believed that one skin color WAS more important than the other…to the extent that they believed in exterminating anyone who did not fit their belief of master race.
Overall, the term "Nazi" included into "Feminazi" is what makes it such a horrible term. It's really a slang word that shouldn't be used lightly. It deserves to be criticized. It should not be used loosely.
In my opinion, using a term like that loosely is like pissing on the graves of all of those who died because of one man's psychotic and manipulative dictatorship. It is like shaking hands with all of those who were brainwashed into following such a belief. One master race. How ugly is that? Who was Hitler to decide the elite race? Who are feminazis to do the same?
The Sound of One Hand Clapping
Off the keyboard of RE
Follow us on Twitter @doomstead666
Friend us on Facebook
Published on the Doomstead Diner on January 5, 2013
Discuss this article at the Doom Psychology Table inside the Diner
This week on the Diner I published an article on Peak Demand from Ugo Bardi, which he headed up with the old Zen Koan of "What is the Sound of One Hand Clapping", along with Bart Simpson's solution to this age-old riddle. In one of those interesting coincidences that periodically happen for inexplicable reasons, said Koan was also mentioned this week in a completely unrelated thread where one of the newer Diners Impertinance has been playing the Zen Mystic Guru game in response to all questions Energy & Economic related.
Diners are no strangers to philosophical arguments, in fact we have an entire board dedicated to these topics called Spirituality & Mysticism, or S & M for short. LOL. For some of the regular Diners interested in these topics, many long discussions hundreds of posts deep have gone on over the last couple of years. It's a concern of these folks that in a sense supercedes the practical problems faced with the Collapse of Industrial Civilization, which is the Main Topic of the Diner in all its manifestations on the physical level, Economic, Energy, Climate, Geophysical etc. It's interesting discussion often enough, and I participate sometimes, though usually just to poach. Mostly I am a practical CFS* sorta guy, and waxing philosophical on ideas that generally cannot be proven in any way seems like Navel Gazing to me. JMHO there though.
(*CFS- Diner Acronym for Common Fucking Sense)
However, Impertinance isn't posting up in those threads, rather he is poaching inside of threads off that board which aren't really concerned with Spiritual topics at all. The posting comes inside topics devoted to ideas like "How do you form a cohesive Group to handle the problems of Collapse"? Rather than discuss the practicalities of such a problem, instead Imp goes off on tangents which laud the Individual and ascribe all the Evil in the world to Groups. When confronted with all the examples of how groups work in the insect and animal kingdoms, from Honey Bees to Wildebeests to Lions to Gibbons to Homo Sapiens, rather than address these issues, we get back the Sound of One Hand Clapping. Questions about whether anyone can really know or understand anything at all.
This is a completely diversionary tactic, meant to sound intellectual and mystically savant, but really just a means to avoid answering difficult questions. Most often replies come back not with a statement of response to what was said, but one line Questions. "What do you mean by understanding"? "Can anyone really know anything"? "What do you think Reality is"? etc. Idea here is to get you off the actual topic and discussing a meta topic that really has no application at all, and arguing about it is a waste of time. For a while I handed out some answers to these Koan-style questions, but after a while of this go-nowhere nonsense I just started doing the same thing every time Imp put a question to me, which was rather than answer it, just ask another question.
This avoidance behavior of using Philosophy isn't limited to the Diner by any means either. As regular Diner readers know, I recently had occasion to go off-site and spar a bit with the regular commenters on Guy McPherson's blog, Nature Bats Last. In this case it's not Zen Koan style philosophizing you have to deal with, it's existential philosophy of how you deal with your Grief once you ACCEPT that Near Term Human Extinction is REALITY. The acceptance of this reality as looked at from the POV of the Group Think on NBL is a prerequisite to discussing anything else. If you don't buy this idea hook, line & sinker, then instead of any real discussion what you get is a fairly non-stop stream of Napalm from the regulars accusing you of denial, ignorance or often enough misogyny also. Passive-Aggressive attacks are made regularly by the Feminazi contingent on Male responsibility for oncoming Extinction, and how life would have been so much better if just the Women had been in charge here.
Now, I find current and many if not most historical memes of Patriarchal organization as abhorrent as the next Metrosexual Sensitive Male out there (lol), but first off you can't go back and change how society organized itself up over the millenia since the advent of Agriculture, and 2nd its a HUGE leap of faith to think life would have been any different with the Women running the show. It's all just speculation, because that is not how it played out and you can't go back and Replay it to see if the result would have been any different, and I suspect it would not have been.
Anyhow. after pondering on this a while, I had an epiphany WRT the psychology apparent on NBL, based on the demographics of the most prominent posters. This appears to be the residue of people active in the Environmental and Women's movements of the 1970s-80s. People who fought long and hard for Environmental protection and for Equal Rights for Women through that period. Sadly on both counts for them, neither movement had a major effect on changing the overall direction of the society, which was and is straight down the Toilet. So after some 40 years of a long string of DEFEATS on all levels, these folks have become Defeatist. Nothing can work, don't bother trying, be supportive of each other as we all die together. Embrace the Sadness, Embrace the Grief. Pass through the Kubler-Ross stages and join us as we reconcile ourselves to Imminent Extinction. Etc.
Now, I too have been appalled since the 1970s WRT to the destruction of the Earth and its Environment, but I never put my Heart & Soul into the movement. So I did not experience the frustration of being CRUSHED over and over again in every effort. Guy McPherson himself who is the Coalescing Thinker who established the NBL blog feels his efforts were a Failure over the years. This is going to give you a pretty negative viewpoint no matter what, so when you add in the various forms of destruction all ongoing now, a No Hope philosophy comes out of that. Once you have reached an ACCEPTANCE level of this, you don't really want to hear from anybody who still has some Hopium left. "Leave us ALONE in our GRIEF! GO AWAY!" This in fact was precisely the reaction I got from numerous of the regulars on NBL, though not from Guy himself who likes people to consider all possibilities and think for themselves. "Don't POISON our Blog with HOPIUM! This is our last Refuge away from that shit on all the Transition Towns Greeny blogs!". LOL.
So I did walk away from NBL because of this, despite requests from some other members to keep on keepin' on there with the dialogue. It was apparent I would serve as a nice target for anyone convinced there is NO HOPE and you should "Hospice" rather than attempt to be the "Last Man Standing". Do I really want to go round and round on this argument with True Believers? Not really, it consumes a LOT of time, even though I keyboard quite fast. Similarly, I don't generally bog down in the Philosophical Arguments that some of the Diners like to pursue either, though I am known for doing anti-Christianity rants WRT to the Spanish Inquisition and the Genocide of the First Nations People of Turtle Island, aka The New World, aka the Amerikas.
Of course, when you get a Troll like Impermanence showing up on your blog, he wants to turn any thread he participates on into a Philosophical Navel Gazing exercise. You know such a person is a Troll when they latch onto one thread and keep pulling the same Schtick over and over again. They don't show up in the zillion other threads constantly ongoing on the Diner discussing Bugout preps, Nuke Puke from Fukushima, or the ever expanding encroachment on Freedom being pursued by the Police State. For the Philosopher or Religious Zealot, such day to day Material World issues are unimportant distractions to the Deeper Meaning they are interested in discussing. They don't want to discuss the issue at hand, they want to discuss how you Know what you Know, and whether you can TRULY Understand the Nature of Being & Existence. Or WWJD do if they are a Fundy Zealot.
The thing here is, the Diner isn't meant to be a Philosophical Blog, because I'm not a Philosopher! While I do Cross Post quite a few different people from other Blogs who occassionally wax Philosophical, the Doomstead Diner is my Blog, like Nature Bats Last is Guy McPherson's blog or Off the Grid in Minneapolis is William Hunter Duncan's blog. The Diner is a COLLAPSE Blog, where we mainly are here to discuss the ONGOING & PRACTICAL problems involved with collapsing Industrial Civilization.
The Diner Forum is a bit different, it doesn't belong to me, it belongs to all the Diners, anyone can post up whatever they like there. So, since we have Philosophical and Religious types dropping in for a meal at the Diner all the time, we have a Spirituality & Mysticism Table at the Diner for said Philosophers to Navel Contemplate all they like from now until the Internet Goes Dark. Feel free to fill up the server disk on the Forum with all the philosophical discussion you like, but don't expect me to respond to most of it. It is not my area of interest for the most part, and Navel Contemplation is low on my list of Collapse Priorities.
I do admit to having written a couple of Philosophical Blogs on Existential Questions, mainly because after so many questions of "What do you REALLY believe about God, RE?" I felt it necessary to make some kind of statement there to get such questions out of the way. if I have more to say on such topics I will at some point, but at the moment I have other things on my mind. Like what is the best way to build the SUN website, what direction should we follow, how do we get the software set up, etc. PRACTICAL QUESTIONS!
Certainly, Hijacking threads on other questions and attempting to take them off topic into a discussion of why We Don't Know What We Don't Know will get nothing more from me than Cartoons, DeMotivational Posters and Wisecracking responses. If you want to talk about such shit, feel free to go over to the S & M board and start a discussion about it! That is what the damn board is set up for!
If a discussion is taking place on the Geopolitics board, talk abut GEOPOLITICS, not whether we Know or Don't Know anything about Geopolitics! By creating a meta-topic like this, you just create distraction from the issue itself. It may be something YOU think is important, but generally speaking I do not. I am not going to devolve into explaining to you WHY I don't think it is important either. Go chat it up with someone who does think it is important, ON ANOTHER THREAD! LOL.
Everybody has their own Agenda here as Collapse plays itself out, and for some people they prefer to remain in a very abstract world, not really dealing with the issues we face either because they consider such Material World problems to be secondary to the TRUE (sic) Existential problems of Humanity, or in the case of the Uber Doomers on NBL because they think the issues are a Done Deal and nothing anybody does can make the least bit of difference anymore anyhow, so let's just Commiserate on Imminent Extinction and Hospice together, OK? We'll pitch out Poetry, Haikus, Zen Philosophy and reach a Higher Plane of Existence before sadly (happily?), we Cease to Exist. LOL.
Pardon me for not buying into this Bullshit, either here on the Diner or offsite on NBL. From my POV, you are wasting your time and I am not going to waste my time with you, however long that timespan happens to be. I got some PRACTICAL ISSUES concerning me more these days, like HTF will I feed myself If/When JIT shipping collapses? Where is the best place to go to avoid being bombarded by radionucleotides FIRST here? Maybe I can't avoid this in perpetuity, but this is a timeline issue and I would like to avoid it for NOW!
I also am not going to be drawn into dumb ass pissing contests with Feminazis who blame the sorry state of the world on Patriarchy, nor will I get into thoroughly stupid arguments with Cornucopians who think the fucking Fusion Cavalry will ride to the rescue here and before you know it we'll be ditching the Chevys for Flying Deloreans powered by stale beer. When the Fusion Cavalry actually ARRIVES, I will be happy to chat this up with you, in the meantime stuff the Popular Science Star Trek Meme ideas in an orifice where the SUN don't Shine! LOL.
To conclude this rant, I'm not interested in spending my last days on Earth surrounded by people who are so fucking depressed and convinced the Game is Over that whenever I flick on the Laptop I am treated to an overdose of Internet Barbituates. Nor do I have a desire to spend those days listening to people who think all this shit is going to blow over and once a few minor glitches are worked out, we will get back to our inevitable Destiny to populate the Universe with Homo Sapiens jockeying Dyson Spheres around the Universe. I want to spend my last days together with people who have some CFS! Things are bad? Yes we agree. What can we do to make them not quite so bad? If we cannot help everyone, who can we help? If some people gotta DIE, who goes first, poor J6P schmuck who never had any control over this game, or Elite Banksters who ran the show into the toilet?
I don't know if anyone can survive the shit coming down the pipe here. It doesn't matter though either way. I will make one last gesture here, Futile as it might be, and leave this trip through life making the good fight. Your mileage may vary, as Surly so often says, and you pick your own Door here. Pick the Diner Door though, you ride with the TERMINATOR. COME WITH ME IF YOU WANT TO LIVE!
Fire, Feminism & Collapse: Part II
Off the keyboard of Gypsy Mama
Published on The Butterchurn on June 10, 2013
Zawacki vs. Orlov in the Thrilla in Doomervilla
Discuss this article at the Epicurean Delights Smorgasbord inside the Diner
Time to continue the bottle slingin'
Upon first glance at Gail's blog Wit's End, I connect with the sense of artistry that we seem to share. She posts many images to her blog, all designed to help her share her thoughts both visually and textually. I've always been one to visualize my thoughts and am most clearly a visual learner. She also posts many images of (and in) nature…which I also connect to. I feel the most spiritual when I am surrounded by nature.
I suppose it makes sense that I can connect to a female author's blog much faster than a male blogger's corner of the net. However, upon inspection, there are a few less welcoming aspects to Club Orlov. Orlov's blog typically has one or two images per post. (The Age of Limits post being an exception) His written word is shrunk by the banner of self promotion that careens down the right side of the screen. (Can't blame the guy for trying to make some cash off of his readership, I guess).
Also…I don't really understand the premise of naming your blog "club *insert author's last name*." This can easily come across as a bit egotistical…but maybe I am just not seeing the entire picture here. I mean…I DID just read the guy's blog for the first time yesterday.
It should also be noted that I respect both authors for what they are attempting to do in the doomer community. Spread the word, share their knowledge, give us some fair warning…all that. I have just heard about Gail because of the debate I'm discussing in both this blog and the last (good thing there was a debate so that I could learn about her, right?), but I have been aware of the name "Dimitry Orlov" for a few years now. My husband (author of Epiphany Now) has been following Orlov and his blog for years. He owns most (if not all) of his books. He respects the guy, and feels that he is an intelligent voice to listen to.
Anyhow, I'm writing not to belittle the knowledge and authorship of both Club Orlov and Wit's End…but to instead give a "newbie's" interpretation of both authors and their messages, while also chiming in about the bit of rivalry that has seemingly arisen between them.
Onward to my response of Gail's written word and visual stimuli:
I've obviously been on a "Mothering" kick, as you can see in the past few blog posts. Our second son is three weeks old today…so I suppose I have good reason to be bursting with nurture.
Gail seems to be focused on nurturing Mother Earth and protecting our throne (Nature/our shared planet) throughout her blog. When first reading Orlov's comment about Gail being a part of the 1% via an SUV escorted tour of dead leaves…I was intrigued to find out what the hell he was talking about. Gail is highly concerned about trees dying from pollution and climate collapse in general. Valid concerns. Any one who understands that our bodies need to breathe oxygen to survive should be concerned about the future of our trees, at least. So…after reading both sides of the attack, I find Orlov's jab and comment poke about "dead leaves" to be a bit callused.
"To be able to criticize, one must first rise above that which you wish to criticize."- Orlov
I will state, however, that I'm not sure that all of the photos of trees and leaves that Gail posted on her blog are proof of her theory. I'm no expert in horticulture, but I'd guess that poor soil conditions might cause some of the fallen leaves, maybe even some of the disfigured, withered leaves to appear. Now, are poor soil conditions a part of the Earth's dangerous CO2 levels that she speaks of? I'm not sure…but I'm skeptical. Maybe the trees she photographed were affected by all of the vehicles pulling up into their habitat to attend the conference? Perhaps they didn't care for the burnt petroleum coming from their tail pipes? Just sayin'…I'm curious.
My curiosity led me to this article about Maple Tree Decline, in particular. Looks like I've got a point? (any correction or input is appreciated). Although I assume Gail was photographing leaves surrounding the Age of Limits Conference and not an Urban area, there is still an argument to be made about the affect of vehicles invading the habitat of these photographed trees? I'm still unsure…she did mention that all different species of trees were affected. Hmm…
Overall, I applaud Gail's concern for nature and the dying trees and plants who are a part of it (I'm a plant lover, myself). I seem to notice that Males (especially male doomers) are more focused on the political spectrum of collapse study and debate. So there's some basic male vs. female generalization for ya.
I admire both Orlov and Gail in their ability to share their belief systems openly. I'm just saddened to see the battle of words slung around like the wet mop used to clean up the alcoholic spillage off the bar floor after the roadhouse romp has been played out.
The beauty of free thinking and free speech, as especially pertaining to the written word, is that we can all focus on the things that concern us most. We can be passionate about these topics…but we cannot belittle those who are focused on a topic that we don't care to pay as much attention to. That is, we can't make fun of someone for being hellbent on saving the bees when our own belief system says that we are facing a much larger problem, say…human extinction. (Which I haven't really researched into and at the moment, don't really believe is a possibility within my lifetime or the lifetime of my children).
In short, don't poke at someone's belief system as related to the big picture of what we should be concerned about in this world. Just be glad that they are showing concern about important issues that surround us. They could just be concerned about making sure their football team beats their rivals, and nothing else. Football being a topic that I could give…maybe a pinched off shit about. Football= the little picture.
Once Gail began describing her visit to the Age of Limits conference, I instantly connected with her reasoning for attending such an event. Aaron and I wished that we could have attended the conference, wholeheartedly, however unrealistic and ambitious that wish may have been (I had just given birth at the time of the conference).
Being a 30-something child of the 80′s…I don't find may people my age with whom I can connect with when it comes to my belief system of how I think the access to infinite resources will end. I'm still in the early stages of acceptance when it comes to understanding that collapse is coming. I'm not sure if I'd be able to give an educated opinion about how fast I believe said collapse will arrive…but I sure as Hell believe it is coming.
The infancy of acceptance.
I am at the stage of understanding, as of late, in which I'm beginning to expand my reading coverage of the topic of collapse. Before, I was just prepper hoarding useful materials that could be helpful to us when collapse hit: seeds, mason jars, needle and thread, gardening and cooking know-how. But still, no matter how deep I am into my collapse infancy beliefs, when I read Gail's words, "No matter how peacefully collapse is internalized, it's really lonely if you know hardly anybody else who shares that perspective." I understood. I had felt the emotion of those words before.
I also felt hope for acceptance after reading this paragraph: "I approached the weekend as a watershed event in my own personal journey towards reconciling with the irreversible and unavoidable morass that characterizes our foolish predicament. After five years since learning about the converging catastrophes that loom in our future (indeed have already begun), I am ready to move past grief, past attempts to persuade, and on to calm acceptance…and finding something worthwhile to do with the time that remains other than track the path of decline. It was refreshing to find it's possible to share bemused laughter at our intractable conundrum."
Hopefully, with the support of my partner and online community, I will be able to get to the stage of true acceptance much quicker than 5 years from now… I'm thankful for those who have lived this process of awakening before me! It helps me move along through the process much more fluidly than it was for the early doomers before me. I'd imagine there is much more information out there for the new batch of Neos than there may have been before the "green" movement.
Further into reading, I saw that Dimitri Orlov's speech was not the only one criticized by gender issues from the members of the crowd. Apparently Carolyn Baker was also approached by issues. She told a fable of a wife who practiced getting close to a tiger to help her husband overcome his PTSD rage after returning from war.
There were a few women who looked at the story from the perspective of the tiger…who they felt was abandoned and neglected of trust after the wife had achieved her goal of attaining a whisker. A strange perspective on the overall message of the story… I feel that the tiger in the story, if it felt any form of loss…was probably more upset that it wasn't getting fed every day vs. depressed about being abandoned. I doubt that it felt betrayed. I think it might probably be more on the HUNGRY side I also feel as if the women who made this comment MIGHT possibly be animal rights activists…who are a little on the extreme side of their support of animal preservation? Are we preserving the feelings of animals now…I mean, since we know what they are thinking and how they feel and all? Sure…the tiger may very likely go through a bit of depression after the story's wife stops coming to him daily. But…how do we not know, without being a Dr. Doolittle, that he tiger was depressed because he missed the juicy tenderloins he'd been gobbling up over the past few months?
Then there was a point made by a few women in the audience who complained of the apparent weight put on the story's wife to perform the role of nurturer because this husband had made the decision to go to war. This husband, they complained, was putting undue pressure onto his wife by choosing to go to war in the first place…making the wife the victim of the actions of her husband and the PTSD he'd been afflicted with while at war.
Well, well well…could these women have possibly been married in the past? I find this doubtful. In my opinion, a husband and wife are a TEAM. Surely the wife and husband discussed the man's decision to go to war in the first place, right? I mean…did he just come home one day and say, "Hey honey, pack your shit, we're moving! Oh, and… I'm headed off to war! Hang in there while living alone! I don't care what you think about my decision. Peace, woman!"
Here, one might argue that perhaps the husband in the story was a member of the armed forces, and that he HAD to go to war. Perhaps the decision for him to go to war had been made for him by his superior officers and the Department of Defense. But still, my point remains…didn't the husband and wife discuss his decision to become an active member of the forces in the first place? Think they might have made that decision together? A good husband and wife would. A healthy husband and wife always communicate their true feelings and thoughts when an important decision is made that involves both of their futures. Because I feel this way, I find the audience members response to the topic of "it was the man's decision to go to war" pretty flippin' ridiculous and downright annoyingly feminist. In fact, it is this sort of logic that makes the word "feminist" pretty close to a slur in the minds of many.
Enter our adversary, Dimitry Orlov, and his presentation on communities. Orlov's question and answer session was RIPE for some feminist fueled debate. Carolyn Baker's presentation seemed to get the estrogen protection flowing…so when Dimitry spoke of communities that were patriarchal and known to carry histories of abuse among their community members…a wildfire was sure to erupt once the comments were welcomed.
Orlov's mistake of mentioning an Amish "gunshot wound" inside a discussion involving all things domestic violence really got them going. So, when he continued into his question and answer session by discussing how Russian women believe that feminism is a failed experiment in the west…and then carried on even further to claim that the Pussy Riot women were idiots (which he may have stated to try to get a quick laugh?)…it is no wonder that the women hung around after the speech to shoot eye darts at him in their firing circle. Mr. Orlov should have spoke before Ms. Baker, I guess. At least the attackers aren't sexually racist when it comes to picking their targets, right?
To the speakers' defense, it must be fearfully difficult to answer any question appropriately among a group of highly passionate doomers. For instance, "Hey Dimitry! You're facing animal rights, freedom of speech and PTSD…Fuck one, Marry one, Kill one…annnnnnnd…. GO!"
Looks like this bar fight between Gail and Orlov, as seen in their blog comments, may have started up just before "last call for alcohol." That roadhouse was, again….RIPE for a fight!
One thing that I have truly noticed, being new to the idea of collapse, is that those who are "aware" are also passionate. They are, in fact, usually passionate about more than one basic issue, too. I suppose it makes sense that when you are of the opinion that the entire structure for which our society is based on is set up to fail, you might want to be informed and loaded with mounds of facts to back up your claim. This requires one to be passionate about their belief. If you have researched the idea that our industrial civilization is eventually going to regress or cease to exist…and STILL believe that it will after said researching process…you know what he hell you're talking about. You are PASSIONATE, downright LUSTFUL about your beliefs.
Passion Flower
Passion (from the Latin verb patī meaning to suffer) is a term applied to a very strong feeling about a person or thing. Passion is an intense emotion compelling feeling, enthusiasm, or desire for something.
The term is also often applied to a lively or eager interest in or admiration for a proposal, cause, or activity
(yes…I keep using Wikipedia references…which, I am aware can be altered by just about anyone with a brain…but when I use these references, I agree with their definitions)
Note this particular Wiki definition's Latin root: "Pati: meaning– TO SUFFER" Well, well,welllll…there we have it, doomers. We have gotten so deep into our beliefs, so deep into acquiring the TRUTH, that is, that we are destined to become passionate about said beliefs and are therefore, destined to SUFFER for them.
Sadly, this suffering will include arguments between not only those who have not yet been awakened to the truth, but also among our fellow believers…our DOOMER COMMUNITY. Let's try to remember this the next time one of the main passionate speakers in our community has the balls to get up in front of a group of OTHER suffering, open eyed, open eared sponges to give their thoughts and emotions about topics that we all agree upon.
Can't we all just be tolerant of each others opinions? Time to ban together, put down the broken bottles and help clean up the mess, folks. Let's just all go have some coffee, eat a little fruit, over at The Diner and talk it out like adults.
Passion Fruit
Fire, Feminism & Collapse: Part I
Off the keyboard of Gypsy Mama
Published on The Butterchurn on June 8, 2013
Orlov vs. Zawacki in the Thrilla in Doomervilla
Discuss this article at the Epicurean Delights Smorgasbord inside the Diner
The next set of blogs are my initial response to the little virtual bar fight I see going on between Stout drinking Dmitry Orlov at his blog, Club Orlov and his article, "Communities that Abide (Preamble)" vs. Pale Ale sipping Gail Zawacki's post, "Our Revels Are Now Ended" over at her blog, Wit's End.
Disclaimer: Before hearing about this battle between forces, I had never read either blog. I came across a description of each side's argument inside a thread over at the Doomstead Diner Forum. I am going to attempt to read each blog, give my thoughts on the articles written by both authors, and share those thoughts with you. This might bring up some tension…but it is about time I took on a blogosphere challenge when it comes to comparison of ideas.
Let the bottle breaking begin:
In this post, I will respond solely to Orlov's blog. In a following post, I'll respond to what I read in Gail's.
The type of woman who can get so riled up about a man claiming that women who sacrificed their motherhood (raising their children) in exchange for some political activism (see: Pussy Riot) are idiots PROBABLY doesn't have children. That would be my guess. I cannot see how someone could see a Mother who is in jail because of her political beliefs as anything other than a egotistic failure to her children.
Sure…you could think on the opposite end of the spectrum: you could consider these women to be leaders, warriors, heroes or a list of other terms related to making change in the world…but in MY opinion…it is NOT the job of a Mother to take a stand in exchange for being there to support her children. It is just irresponsible.
I have plenty of opinions about the way the world is and will become. I get agitated and passionate about these topics. But I would never riot or chance being arrested for the sake of my beliefs. I am a Mother. My responsibility is to BE THERE for my children. To teach them, mold them, answer their questions and support their decisions the best I can. Children will not understand that "Mommy made a stand for freedom and her beliefs." They will only remember that Mommy can't come to the "Mommy and Me" pancake breakfast. They will remember having to tell other children that their "Mommy is in jail." They will likely place resentment on Daddy for not being able to handle the support system of actions that two parents can provide together. "Daddy couldn't take me to the movies because he had to work"…"Daddy won't play pretty pretty princess with me as well as Mommy could." These are all basic reasons that would cross my mind, many, many times as a Mother when the thought ever-so-slightly entered my mind that I should go out and set fire to that statue of Ronald McDonald and then use his big red boots as a wedge to shove up the ass of all of the corporations who promote that fast food is safe and nutritious. (A few topics I might be tempted to riot against are the fast food industry and our industrial food system).
Children's needs should always be placed before a personal agenda (political or not).
The organizer of the age of limits conference, Orren Whitten, called the group of women who were angered by parts of Dimitri's speech and answers to their questions a sort of "Circular Firing Squad." With this term, I can just imagine them hissing fire and throwing eye death-darts with Orlov trapped in the center. I picture this group of women (who hung around the tent sulking together after the speech was over) as a sort of teenage Clique. They were all mad at Orlov and his responses…and they wanted EVERYONE to know it. Instead of approaching him individually like adults after the speech, they gathered in their ring of fire and pouted out their lips and talked about how totally unfair it was that they had not gotten Orlov to see and agree with their point of view. What an oppressor he must be to not think that Pussy Riot was, like, totally cool.
What must be considered here is that the original speech was downsized from a three hour seminar to the length of a stack of index cards. I'm sure PLENTY of information could have been provided to avoid this entire attack if the full speech had been given. When you summarize a topic, you leave wide holes in the subject matter. Easy prey for attack. Totally easy for the Clique to circle around.
Also…a question and answer session (probably timed to leave space open for the next speaker) will not provide enough time for complete responses and supported facts and information. Loud topics such as the Pussy Riots deserve complete responses when an opinion is asked of them. It was a "pussy" move to try to get your personal beliefs across through a question and answer session. Just have a t-shirt printed next time, okay?
So…here we are…a group of individuals who have "taken the red pill." We have educated themselves on the state of the union. We see things as they are in the world, and not as they are presented through the media. Here we are… a collective assortment of educated, informed minds…bickering with each other after a speech about the importance of COMMUNITY, and tactics on how to form one that works, together, as based on past examples throughout history. Here we are…acting like a group of angry teenage girls. GEEZ people!!!!! Be an adult! Entertain the thought of another educated individual without picking out keywords and phrases that set off your liberation-o-meter! Approach the speaker after the event, if possible. Ask him to expand on the topics that bothered you. Ask him to write a blog in response to your politely stated rebuttal to his comments. If the response still bothers you, continue to tell him why you feel he is wrong…with logical, thought out meaningful responses. Don't make all of us others who dream of a functioning post petroleum community see how quickly you can get your panties into a wad over someone else's opinion. Don't SHOW YOUR ASS…in PUBLIC to the rest of us. Give us some hope? Maybe show the leaders of our belief system that men and women can function together without some fucking DRAMA?????? Quit being such whiny little Skipper dolls in front of everyone while the rest of the women in the movement still have a chance to join a community without being drilled about the fucking pussy riots and what we think of them.
Stop pouting in public and deal with it over a nice, fluffy pile of cotton candy…in private. Drown your agenda in sugar, Skippers.
Why aren't there any Matriarchal communities? Because women, lets face it, can over-exaggerate things. We can be DRAMATIC. We are filled with hormones. We are sensitive. We are more nurturing and sympathetic to the needs of others. We are less likely to be able to kick someone out of a group or to defend ourselves from a pack of predators.
Now…I feel as if I am a pretty strong woman…but there is no way in Hell (especially a pink, glittery, sprinkle covered Hell) that I could ever see myself being a part of a community who's main leaders were women. I DO know some strong women in my life whom I look up to, but even they do not have the genetic coding that Men do when it comes to a few of nature's characteristics: Hunter, gatherer, protector, defender, provider. A woman might possess a few of these characteristics, but ALL of them is very unlikely. Why do you think that Xena, Warrior princess was such a hit? She was dreamily manifested by the script writers and creators to be exceptionally, genetically different from all other women. She could kick your ass, defend the villagers from your drama, track you through the woods and cook you for supper. Women just aren't genetically bred that way. Xena was fictional.
She'll kick Skipper's ass and maybe Ken's too.
With all that said…there is a place for a Patriarchal community. Men typically don't react with their emotions first. Women do. That's just how it is. Emotional responses can be toxic if acted upon in a fleeting moment, without being thought out first. I know that I am guilty of emotional responses. I know many other women who are, too. This is why I'd much rather have the critical thinking male handle all of the important decisions…but with consulting others first. That is to say, I don't want a leader of my community to act upon his beliefs alone.
What a community needs is a leader (or group of leaders) who can remain level headed the majority of the time. Leaders who can analyze the situation, come up with a list of possible solutions and choose the best approach based on those tactics and the advice of others are valuable. An exceptional leader would be one who could handle all of these actions quickly if a threatening situation arose that required his sole decision.
Repression and subordination are some of the downfalls of past patriarchal communities. Now…no man is going to repress my thoughts. No woman will either. I should, as you should, always be allowed to speak your mind. Just take care in how and where you do it. I'm also not going to accept authority being held over me. I am an individual who does not conform well. I don't like being told what I can and cannot do. The thing to remember about that last sentence, however, is that I KNOW what I can and cannot do. I can accept that I probably couldn't kill a deer for food unless I was starving. I am thankful that I have a husband who can HUNT and PROVIDE that for me. I know that I don't like people bossing me around only to stroke their own ego…so I work for myself. I take responsibility for my strengths and weaknesses. Subordination just…shit…probably AIN'T GONNA HAPPEN with this woman.
The natural instinct of a person when they are told what they cannot do is to prove the accuser wrong. Sometimes, you just can't. Men and Women each have our place in this world. Men do some things better than women. Women do other things better than men. This is how it is. This is how it should be. This should not be questioned.
To summarize, I'd rather be involved in a community led by men. I get ticked off at people who show their asses to make a point like a twitty teenager. I find joy in free thinking. That joy will be not be taken away from me by any man (or woman).
So…is the Foxstead ready, yet? I am a member of the forum over at the Doomstead Diner. I am one of few commenting women there. I have to smell virtual farts and abide dick and ball jokes. I wouldn't trade it. The men (and few women) that I have come to know and befriend over at the Diner each have their own unique characteristics that make them exquisite. On the forum, we discuss all aspects of a collapsed post-petroleum world. I am still fairly new to being "awake" about our predicament, but am learning a lot of valuable information through perusing comments and answers on the forum.
Over at the Diner, you're allowed to say whatever you want. There is a lock on the delete button for comments. Granted…even though the delete button is barely ever used, you'd better be prepared to back up your comments. No matter how vulgar or wrong they are, your comments will remain…but you must give us all a good, logical reason for your thinking. Make us believe or understand your comment, or face the napalm
Well…I don't really throw much napalm…but…I'm a lady
My favorite place in the diner to comment is in the SUN (Sustaining Universal Needs) thread. Here, we are all planning and discussing a way to create a money-making, sustainable community for ourselves and those we love in the event of collapse. We are searching out a spot for land (the Foxstead). We each have our individual roles. We know who can make power out of hydro and who can dig the pond the fastest. We know who our spokesman will be, who our master gardener is, who can gather the most pertinent information the fastest and who can sniff out the funds to make it all happen.
I am, (so far) the only woman involved in this project. So… when I wrote (above) that I'd much rather be in a community led by Men…I had the SUN project as a basis for this decision. The bonus to this particular group and our plans for a community? Talent. Talent abounds. Intellectual thought fires are set daily. Each member throws their own scraps of knowledge into the fire through comments. We are building a community of individuals who are stable, logical and who each carry their own important talent to the table. The dudette abides.
In a following blog, I will discuss any thoughts that arise after reading the Wit's End blog. Interesting how reading another writer's blog can prompt so many ideas for a blog of your own. I suppose it makes sense that the more you read, the more you'll have to write about. Let's see if I can get more posts up using this tactic…after I finish snuggling this baby.


text:
Content count8
Last visited
Community Reputation1 Neutral
About TORMENTiUM
General Info
Car Type
Nissan Silvia
Car Model
********************FOR SALE 30k! ****************
TORMENTiUM replied to STR8E180's topic in Members Ridesi love this car. end of
hope all of your business was problem free with the situation at shred at the moment
180sx // RB20
TORMENTiUM replied to Danie l's topic in Members RidesFu*k me a rb30 bottom end for $50, an a rb25det head for $750, thats an awesome score, will be good to see the car an engine all finished, if i kill my sr(touch wood i dont) i will build a rb30/25 setup. Best of luck bro
' i think you an i, are in the same boat. Well on the "if I ever complete it" bit haha
TORMENTiUM replied to TORMENTiUM's topic in Members RidesCheers, appreciate it!
TORMENTiUM posted a topic in Members RidesHi guys, this is my 1994 Nissan RPS13 180sx, have been building it for the last 3 years off an on, mostly off haha, but have decided to get it finished an road legal in new zealand again. Engine/Engine Bay - 100km from Japanese spares blacktop sr20det - Sinco top mount - Sinco pipping - Sinco Re circ system - Sinco Catch can - Sinco modified apexi 3.35inch exhaust, apexi cannon for street, Sinco twin pipes for track - DSR 430 turbo - TiAL 38mm mvs watercooled wastegate - TiAL 50mm bov - Mild porting(flapper wheel) - Red Anodized Pulleys - Metal headgasket - Oil filter relocation kit - Greddy style winged sump, holds 6.5 liters of HKS Racing oil - Greedy style plenum - ID1000cc Injectors - HKS copy fuel rail - Xtreme Heavy duty racing clutch Wheels/Suspension - BC golds - Work meister Reps, 17x9 15p - Front castor arms - Hardrace rear upper camber arms - Hardrace rear traction arms - Hardrace rear toe arms Interior - Sinco half cage - NZKW pair of fixed bucket seats - Sylvester 3 inch 5 point racing harness - HKS Boost gauge - HKS type 0 turbo timer - Nismo White gearknob - Custom Carbon fibre panel Fuel system - Walbro intank 500hp - Bosch 044 fuel pump - 2.5 litre surge tank - Tomei type s fuel reg - Tomei Gauge NEXT ON THE PLANS; Get the fabrication finished then get a new ecu, would love a d-jetro power fc but they are hard to find for my engine an harder to get in new zealand, going offshore would be the best bet to secure one, either that or a link ecu. looking for a modest 250rwkw i will be happy with that, then to be road registered again an who knows my rb30 block will be next haha Any comments/flames or suggestions are welcome. cheers Surge tank setup all done Custom adapter, was cheaper to machine one than buy a tomei one How the engine looks at the moment, the fuel rail is no good so sinco will make a custom one for me an have the fuel presure regulator coming off that Wound the bc golds as low as they could go in the rear, then brought rear arms to bring wheels back out The seats an cage, its all black on black, like to keep it simple This is how the engine was before i started to do fuel an intake, was fresh from sinco customs Side view of the intercooler an radiator setup Video's: Start up an engine view: Walk around from twin pipes: First test drive, found a few bugs: Second test drive, 10psi twin pipes an screamer: Third test drive, 10psi no screamer an apexi canon on:
Check your cam angle sensor, there are many tutorials online, even get your mechanic mate to have a look, takes ten minutes, my sr20det was similar to this, turned out to be 1 tooth out.
Sorry dude, sounds like you flux capacitor

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Morphy Richards 48822 Stainless Steel Soup Maker
This Soup Maker makes it quick and easy to make homemade soup to your own preference. Simply select the smooth or chunky soup setting to make your favourite soups.
1.6L capacity
serving up to 6 people
Simple, one step use operation
Making it easy to create homemade nutritious soup
- Wattage: 1000
- Material: Stainless Steel
- Functions: 4
- Capacity: 1.6 Litre
|Weight (KG)
|Main Colour
|Stainless Steel
|Power (W)
Product is not eligible for finance.
Would you like to pay by Finance?
Finance Calculation for your - order
I would like to pay a deposit of -
- 0%
- 10%
- 20%
- 30%
- 40%
- 50%
- 60%
I would like to pay over months, with the first payment deferred for months
|10 Monthly payments of
|10% APR (representative)
|Finance Amount
|Interest Payable
|Total Amount Payable
Total Amount Payable Includes Deposit Amount.
The figures shown are an illustration based on the cost of goods. Final details including shipping and discounts where applicable will be displayed on the checkout page.
Credit subject to status and affordability. Terms & Conditions Apply. Crampton And Moore (Television) Limited trading as Crampton And Moore (Television) Limited is a credit broker and is Authorised and Regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.
Credit is provided by Hitachi Personal Finance, a trading style of Hitachi Capital (UK) PLC, authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Financial Services Register no. 704348. The register can be accessed through http://www.fca.org.uk
IMPORTANT: Hitachi Personal Finance rounds down the monthly payments, which may result in your total amount payable being less than the total cash price.


text:
Product Description
|Quick Overview
Available NOW. Thank you for your patience.
- Currently the most capable controller in its price range – your best smart home gateway
- Control over 220 devices at a time from Vera Edge (can be extendend to even more)
- Supports all Z-Wave certified devices in AUS/NZ/BR frequency of 921.42MHz, including Z-Wave Plus!
- User-friendly app for Apple IOS and Google Android with 300+ plug-ins
- Geo fencing feature lets your house or office know when you're coming or going
- No monthly fees
- One of the most resourceful smart home communities online (visit their famous forum)
- Frequent firmware updates
|Product Details
With VeraEdge you can do anything today's most advanced smart homes can do. A Z-Wave gateway allows you to control your smart home devices from a mobile device or computer. It lets you schedule events based on motion or light triggers. You will also be able to save your favorite temperature or lighting settings and apply them with one click anytime.
This new model has some cool features like geo fencing which notifies the system when you're coming home. The controller will make sure you have just the right temperature in your bedroom or living room when you arrive. It will help you save energy by switching off all lights and unnecessary equipment when you leave. There are thousands of ways to make your home or office more secure and efficient. Vera is designed to let you experiment with all of them until you find the smartest way to live.
Your VeraEdge system can do many different things, depending on the accessories you add to it:
- Build a security system by adding door locks, door/window sensors, motion sensors, wireless video cameras, and sirens.
- Create an energy saving system with thermostats, light dimmers, and AC controllers.
- Set up a home safety monitoring system with smoke detectors, carbon monoxide detectors, and flood detectors.
- Make your life more convenient by connecting garage door openers, light switches, and lawn sprinklers that operate automatically.
- Feel free to combine all these functions into one system!
VeraEdge controls all leading brands of Z-Wave sensors, locks, thermostats, cameras, switches and other devices so you don't have to worry about compatibility when selecting accessories. The manufacturer has significantly improved their Z-Wave Plus support since the first version of UI7 and they continue to release updates to keep up with the latest technology.
What's new:
- Faster processor allows greater compatibility with devices
- More memory for better response times and flexibility
- WPS easy push button pairing for Wi-Fi devices
- Improved multi-camera management
- Intuitive user set-up and control
- Local Z-Wave control of devices so the scenes and schedule work locally even when your Internet goes down
Vera UI7 features:
- One simple user interface across all platforms (PC/Mac desktops, smartphones, tablets)
- Integrated Help – contextual help callouts and links to detailed documentation on the support site
- Preconfigured Device Settings for Easy Setup
- At a Glance Reporting of Household Energy Consumption (Daily, Monthly, and Annual Reporting)
- Improved access control with PIN management
- Customizable dashboard – pin your favorite devices for quick monitoring, instant access and control
Plug the unit in and connect it to the Internet with the Ethernet cable provided in the box. Go to VeraControl's website and follow the step-by-step instructions to set up an account and register your controller. Make sure you follow the directions carefully. If you encounter any issues during this process, feel free to contact us or Vera directly (email@example.com).
If you come across a screen prompting you to manually enter the serial number and mac address for the unit it is most likely because the you have not updated the Vera's firmware during the setup process. If you've missed that step you can always go back and perform the firmware update or use this link: firmware.getvera.com
Another reason for the screen to pop up might be that your Vera is not properly connected to your router. Make sure all indicators on the Vera hub are lit up in green. But when in doubt, you may always contact Vera Control – they have access to all account information ever associated with a given unit by its unique serial number.
Adding devices later is easy too with preconfigured settings for most Z-Wave products. If you can't pair a device, Vera will offer to unpair it first – complete this process to erase any configuration errors which might have occurred during previous pairing attempts.


text:
Artist: Nur Michael Keith
Songs: [two excerpts from first piece]
Recorded at The Steady Café (Track Could Bend #31), October 3, 2017.
Nur Michael Keith - [first piece, excerpt 1]
Nur Michael Keith - [first piece, excerpt 2]
This was, as usual, a joyful night of acoustic and electronic sounds that was rendered a little bittersweet in retrospect with news of The Steady's closing. A close relative of local bluesman Michael Keith, Nur Michael Keith is continuing his spiritual exploration of simple string instruments. Streamlining things further from the three-stringed baritone ukulele journeys he's been making for the past couple years, he's now playing a custom two-stringed dotar, which allows a similar palette of drones and note-bursts as he unfurls ancient-sounding melodies in continuous explorations. A real gem of Toronto's creative music scene (there are some excellent recordings over on his bandcamp), this brought the intense stillness of focused listening to the room, and I was glad to have another set from someone who appeared all the way back at the very first TCB.
[You'll be able to find Track Could Bend at The Belljar Café on Tuesday, December the 5th.]


text:
Asparagus Tart
Prep time
30 mins
Cook time
30 mins
Ready time
60 mins
A simple but stylish dish which can be enjoyed for lunch or dinner!
Pre-heat the oven to 200°C/400°F/gas mark 6.
Roll out the pastry into a rectangle approx. 25 cm by 30 cm. Grease a deep-pan baking tray or pie dish and place the rolled out pastry into this. Put the pan into the fridge to chill while you prepare the asparagus.
Wash and trim the asparagus. If large, slice lengthways into halves.
Add the olive oil into a frying pan and gently fry the asparagus until slightly browned. When the asparagus is close to being cooked, add the chopped garlic and cook for a further 2-3 minutes. Add salt, pepper and lemon juice.
In a separate bowl, measure out the cream and add 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard and 2 teaspoons plain flour and mix well.
Take the pastry tray out of the fridge and arrange the cooked asparagus onto this in a line, leaving a small rim around the edges.
Pour the cream mixture over the asparagus and place the dish into the oven. Cook for approx. 30 minutes.
Additional notes
Watch MFM's one-minute commercial, It's Not Complicated!, by Archer's Mark, which highlights the excitement of cooking with children and enjoying vegetable-centred Mondays – and includes this recipe!


text:
The Internet of Things is here to stay. More and more devices communicate with each other or with their user. The purpose is to provide added value and extra comfort to our daily life. Our customer In the Pocket built his own beacons platform called Harald. Their platform at Brussels airport did not go by unnoticed for Z-ICT, the IT TV show broadcast on KanaalZ.
Z-ICT Report episode 3 on KanaalZ
What are beacons?
Beacons are very small battery-, Bluetooth-driven devices which you can hang from the wall. They emit a signal, a Bluetooth signal that can be picked up by all modern equipment, smartphones, you name it. When it is picked up by a telephone, an app can be woken up and certain interactions can actually be triggered in the background which may be important at certain locations.
Harald actually consists of three important components: software, hardware and professional services. The software consists of an SDK which can be used in the apps and a CMS to manage interactions and campaigns. For the hardware In The Pocket has a team that goes on the road to implement installations and actually monitor the project. And the last bit, the professional services, is about helping companies set up their strategy to start using beacons.
Reliable hosting required for beacons and the Internet of Things
For platforms and applications which need to adjust their capacity quickly, cloud hosting is the best solution.
Such scalability should be covered with cloud hosting. Cloud hosting is designed to switch quickly in any direction. Therefore, it is important to provide a system within the cloud solution which automatically measures when certain resources are in higher demand and which can add capacity accordingly. Feel free to call it (auto)scaling in the cloud.
Besides, hosting solutions for these platforms are a complicated matter. They require good agreements between the hosting provider and the developer of the applications.
For these things you must consider redundancy and high availability matters. You have to make sure to avoid every single point of failure in your hardware platform and then ensure a system where everything is at least available in twofold. Therefore, it is important to help our customers design their applications. We call it "Design for failure". They have to learn to accept the fact that they need to provide everything in twofold, i.e. when one system fails, a database for example, their application must be able to switch to another system.


text:
Serves 8-10
Preparation 15 minutes (plus 1 hour refrigeration time)
Cooking 65 – 70 minutes
I love summer fruits and nectarines and macadamias make good friends. Based on a frangipane tart, macadamias in the pastry and the filling take it to a new level.
1/3 cup (45g) whole raw macadamias
1 cup (150g) plain flour
2 tablespoons caster sugar
pinch salt
90g cold butter, chopped
1 egg yolk
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
2 teaspoons iced water
3 (500g) nectarines or peaches, cut into eighths
Ice-cream to serve
Macadamia Filling
1 ½ cups (210g) macadamias
½ cup (70g) plain flour
150g butter
2/3 cup (150g) firmly packed brown sugar
2 eggs
2 egg yolks
1/3 cup maple syrup
Process macadamias until finely chopped, add flour, sugar, salt and butter until crumbly; add egg yolk, vanilla and water, process only until ingredients just come together. Do not overwork. Turn onto plastic wrap and gently knead together to form a disc. Wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
Roll pastry between sheets of baking paper until large enough to line the base and side of a 24cm round loose-based flan tin. Peel away one sheet of baking paper, invert the pastry into the tin. Gently press pastry into the side then peel away the top sheet of paper. Trim the edges with a sharp knife. Prick with a fork and place in the freezer for 30 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 180'C. Place pastry in tin on a baking tray, cover pastry with baking paper, fill with dried beans or rice. Bake in a moderate oven for 15 minutes, then remove paper and weights and bake for a further10 minutes or until browned lightly.
Meanwhile, make the filling: Process the macadamias and two tablespoons of the flour until fine, add the butter and sugar and process well until pale. Add in the eggs, egg yolks and syrup and combine. Stir though the macadamia mixture and remaining flour.
Spread the Macadamia Filling into the pastry base, arrange the nectarine segments over the filling. Bake in a moderate oven for about 40 – 45 minutes or until golden brown and firm to touch. Cool.(If necessary shield the edges with foil to prevent burning.)
Dust with sifted icing sugar if desired or serve as is with ice-cream.
Celebrity Cook Lyndey Milan Goes Nuts For Macadamias This Christmas
Lyndey Milan, one of Australia's most loved celebrity cooks with a long-standing reputation for supporting local growers, has joined the legion of famous faces to fly the flag for Aussie macadamias.
Lyndey has been instrumental in changing the way Australians think about food for over 30 years and her latest take on traditional festive fare not only tastes divine, but thanks to a generous dose of home-grown macadamias, is loaded with good fats, vitamins and minerals.
Thanks to Lyndey's love of our finest nut and the growers who work around the clock to produce them, Aussies can now have their own 'macadamia momen
t' with family and friends, recreating these delicious recipes for loved ones at Christmas. Our versatile delights are the best quality, best tasting macadamias on earth. Australia is the birthplace of macadamias and has been leading the world in production of the delicious premium nut for more than four decades.


text:
I know you're very curious about what your favorite love teams did this Valentine's Day! So read on to find out!
Single or not, tuning in to the love teams in the country during the season of love is fun. Personally, I love seeing how famous couple celebrate their February 14 especially when media would do their best to get on the juiciest detail. And of course, the kilig that comes with it is real!
With that, here's what your favorite love teams did this Valentine's Day!
Juanchoyce- Juancho Trivino & Joyce Pring
Juancho Trivino planned an early Valentine's Day romantic dinner for Joyce Pring before her departure to Singapore for the events following the Captain Marvel Red Carpet.
Here's Juancho's sweet post and video of his early surprise for Joyce Pring in Tagaytay!
View this post on Instagram
Panliligaw 101 Valentines Special ❤ So ito yung story behind this naman, since Joyce will not be here for Valentines Day I decided to surprise her in advance. Sinabi ko sa kanya na may lakad ako kaya hindi ko sila masasamahan ng friends nya sa Anilao. Pero ang hindi niya alam ka-kunchaba ko na ang mga kaibigan niya, na pag pabalik na silang Manila, dadaan muna sila ng Tagaytay sa @sonyasgarden and I'll be waiting for her there na may set-up na ganito. It worked perfectly, Mission Accomplished and sana napasaya ko naman siya. 😋 • • • Salamat sa aking mga ka-kunchaba na sina @nicoarciaga @justinebenitez @danaevernisse at @ronabaguio19 Salamat sainyo Kapuso Basketball team! • • • Happy Valentines guys! ❤🙏 Hi @joycepring #SagutinMoNaAko (please) #Juanchoyce
But of course, Joyce Pring kept up with Juancho's never-ending surprises for her. And it's the sweetheart's turn to make the loverboy cry.
View this post on Instagram
Hindi ko din alam bat sya iyak ng iyak. 😆 Everyday may surprises sakin si Juancho. Minsan small surprises na dadalhan nya ako ng food, or magpapa deliver sya ng coffee sa trabaho ko, or kahit simpleng tatawag lang just to check up on me and how my day is going. Minsan meron syang grand gestures (mejo naloloka na ako as many of you know) pero syempre kinikilig ako because I really appreciate all his efforts. 🤪 This week will be the longest amount of time we'll be spending apart. Since December last year (?) we've basically been inseparable, what with every morning spent in @unanghirit together, o kaya we hang with my friends pag walang work; sometimes we have shoots and shows together, then on weekends we spend time with his friends / fam then church on Sundays. So finally I decided to get even and surprise him too. Sabi ko birthday ni @charismalico so we'll be with my friends the whole day and pagbalik ko nalang kami next week may bonding. Pero nung pag sundo nya sakin may setup na ako and I also arranged for us to have dinner. 🤗 I also made a video of the first few weeks we spent together and played it for him. He cried even more. 😂 Video is up on my YouTube also. 🤓 Sobrang simple lang cos first time ko din mag effort like this for Vday hahahaha but I hope I made him happy. ❤ Hindi ko sure kasi umiyak lang sya for mga 2 hours. Hahahahaha happy heart's day @juanchotrivino! Wait for me. 😋 #juanchoyce
These two are ultra mega sweet even when it's not Valentine's Day, I stan!
LizQuen- Liza Soberano & Enrique Gil
Enrique Gil surprises Liza Soberano in a very sweet way. Recently, the couple gave out statements about how they shun expensive gifts in order to save up for their future.
Not only did Enrique Gil surprise his girlfriend, but posted a very sweet message that had everyone crazy! Check it out:
View this post on Instagram
Hayy kung ganyan nmn ako makikita ko araw araw mababaliw talaga ako 🥰 Happy Valentine's Day to this gorgeous woman over here who stole my heart.❤ For once im happy i was stolen☺ Baby You are my heart, my soul and the blood that flows in me I don't think any words in ig can really fit in what i feel for you. But One thing i do know is that i am the luckiest guy in the world and i am forever grateful to our Lord Jesus Christ for giving me the most precious gift of all. Napaka swerte ko talaga 😊 because this woman right here has the biggest heart in the universe and i want to share you to the whole world so that they can feel the love and happiness that you bring me. Pero minsan lng nmn madamot ako gusto ko sakin lang hehe joke! You give me hope every single day. when i feel down I always go to you and instantly im up again. I just can't live without you and i will always love you no matter what baby😚 happy valentines day bubu ko! I love you so much, always and forever🤗❤
Liza Soberano, on the other hand, posted a simple yet genuine post on her Instagram account as well.
But of course, this couple's Valentine's Day is extra special. Because their new movie 'Alone/Together' is showing in cinemas nationwide!
JaDine- James Reid & Nadine Lustre
One of the hottest love teams in the country has not only celebrated the season of love on the 14th of February. In fact, it seemed like JaDine has been spending the entire month in a special way in time for their 3rd year anniversary.
Here's a series of the relationship goals photos that the couple posted this month!
This couple is always on fire!
MayWard- Maymay Entrata & Edward Barber
The sweet couple exchanged Valentine's promises to each other in the morning show "Umagang Kay Ganda". Maymay expresses how she wants to see both of them grow and promises to support him in every step. Edward promises to his girlfriend that every day would be Valentine's Day for their relationship.
Maymay Entrata posted this superb photo with her boyfriend:
Happy Love Day! ❤ pic.twitter.com/cOujc3107M
— Maymay (@maymayentrata07) February 14, 2019
And Edward Barber posted this beautiful shot of them with a very genuine caption.
GabLil- Khalil Ramos & Gabbi Garcia
And of course, one of the most romantic Valentine's Day celebration yet! Khalil Ramos and Gabbi Garcia posted a video of their very romantic candlelight dinner date overlooking the city lights. Check it out right here:
Khalil also posted a photo of Gabbi Garcia on his Instagram account with a heartwarming caption.
And of course, Gabbi Garcia posted a photo of their date as well.
Ahhh love is definitely in the air. Famous or not, every couple out there should treat Valentine's Day and any other day in a very special way to express your love for one another. Happy Valentine's again everyone!
Which showbiz couple were you on the lookout for this year? Tell us what your favorite love teams did this Valentine's Day! Leave a comment down below or send us a message on our Facebook or Twitter @UDoUPh. We'd love to hear from you!