I was once a good little Catholic boy. I believed the earth was set here by G-d for our use. I wasn’t terribly concerned about environmental issues or animal rights or any of the problems that concern me now. When I first read Ishmael in high school was when that worldview was broken open, but not for the first several chapters—not until Quinn came to his exegesis of the Creation story in Genesis.

I feel sorry for George Bush. It can’t be easy to grow up in the shadow of a president—particularly when your mother is one of the most vile bitches in American history. Barbara’s iconic image as “America’s grandmother” hid the reality of how deeply dysfunctional one of the United States’ most powerful dynasties truly is. “Tricky Dick” Nixon, no gentle soul himself, said of her when they first met: “she knows how to hate.” In the Bush household, mother’s love was commensurate with advancement of dynastic ambitions, so for the black sheep that bore his father’s name, the first several decades of life were a spiral of failure, leading to dysfunctional family relations, leading to deeper failure.

I was in a debate on another website today with an individual who said he didn’t care what happened to animals; he only cared about humans. Apparently, he should have watched more Sesame Street for a basic understanding of ecology. Or, to quote one of my favorite passages from David Abram’s Spell of the Sensuous:

ADHD has been the hot new disorder of the Nineties and Noughties, replacing even depression, the formerly fashionable standby of Generation X. Like any trend worth its weight in beans, ADHD has its celebrity spokespeople, most notably Ty Pennington, who is one of the Queer Eye guys or a celebrity chef or burns people’s houses down or something. Anyway, my point is, you should care about him. He was diagnosed as being ADHD in elementary school by his mother, who coincidentally is also a psychologist who, in addition to being a certified sandplay therapist, focuses primarily on the treatment of ADHD and also is a certified sandplay therapist. Upon reading this, my brain was suddenly flooded with two pop-culture references: Zach Braff’s relationship with his father in the film Garden State, and SNL’s Church Lady remarking, “How conveeenient!” And, of course, sandplay therapy.

This short clip features Thomas Homer-Dixon, author of The Ingenuity Gap, talking about the 2003 blackout as an example of complexity, resiliency, and the potential for collapse—exactly what I was trying to get to in the weakest of the Thirty Theses, thesis #19. Homer-Dixon notes that we’re moving in the opposite direction from the resiliency that complexity requires; I was trying to explain why we’re compelled to do exactly that. I haven’t read The Ingenuity Gap yet, but I think it has to be the next book I read.

This was originally posted to Tim Boucher’s Pop Occulture blog, where there’s been much recent discussion of primitivism in general, and the Tribe of Anthropik specifically. That, and other discussions, have pointed to the need to retread some basic ground regularly. This was posted two days ago, but unfortunately overwhelmed in the comments. As suggested in that thread, we’re re-posting it here. I hope we won’t become bogged down in such basic arguments, but for those new to the site or to primitivism in general, I hope this summary can be helpful.

Yes, Seneca Rocks is a gorgeous region, with towering, mist-veiled mountains and acres of trees just beginning to turn their leaves. Yes, we feel a special connection to the place and love camping in the shadow of the magnificent rock formation for which the town is named. Yes, this tiny little town attracts rock climbers, cave divers, and nature lovers from all over the country. But we are still in West Virginia, a fact I am reminded of as Jason and I turn into the driveway for Yokum’s Vacationland campgrounds, which is guarded by two thick-lipped, coal-black lawn jockeys.

This was originally posted to Tim Boucher’s Pop Occulture blog, where there’s been much recent discussion of primitivism in general, and the Tribe of Anthropik specifically. That, and other discussions, have pointed to the need to retread some basic ground regularly. I hope we won’t become bogged down in such basic arguments, but for those new to the site or to primitivism in general, I hope this summary can be helpful.

School’s back in session, and every weekday at around two, the streets of Squirrel Hill are flooded with teenagers happily escaping their state-sponsored indoctrination at Taylor Allderdice High School. Autumn also brings my cousin Lilith’s birthday, so I bought her a picture book called Uno’s Garden that I read about on IshCon.