An interesting read on oil, some seriously neat news from NASA, and in the "just how bag-of-hammers stupid do you need to be a Republican in Congress these days?" department...
Color me worried.
The other day while out shopping, I was appalled to see that yams/sweet potatoes were selling for $1.79 a pound. Which, I'm pretty sure you'll agree, is a whole lot of money for what I've always thought of as "poor-people food". Two years ago, I'd never even consider buying yams if they went over sixty-nine cents a pound.
The thing is, I can't recall hearing or reading about some awful yam blight or large scale infestation of sweet potato eating bugs that might account for such a steep price rise. It seems to be that someone just decided to raise the price.
What I have been reading in the news is that the powers-that-be keep threatening to send back the workforce that actually does the grunt work of harvesting the produce we eat and, if that comes to fruition, the added costs in labor with the impossible to avoid resulting scarcity of produce will make $1.79 yams start to look cheap.
Provisioning in "interesting times" is going to take some lateral thinking...
We'll be talking a lot more on the subject in the near future. But, in the meantime, check out this interesting bit of thought from Shanty Boat Living and while you're at it you might want to download the PDF of "Sailing the Farm" as well.
Listening to the Pogues and Mekons
So it goes...
Plans Change, Martinique version
1 week ago
