How much time do you spend cycling in the city?

...the city without a car.” A great question. The truth is that I spend less time cycling around Los Angeles than I did ten years ago. Partly, this is due to fewer family and work obligations. Kelly and I just don’t leave our neighborhood much anymore. But there’s another reason I’m using my bike less and that’s because, like Kyle, I don’t feel safe. The carnage on our roads, after lessoning for many years, is back up. Hit and run accidents alone sp...

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Digital Götterdämmerung

...spring shut. He’s also realistic that we might all need to carve out some time for low-quality web surfing but that this time needs to be contained rather than sprinkled throughout the day. During the one month fast Newport suggests developing a long term plan with what to do with our spare hours. In addition to my quixotic furniture building mission I’ve vowed to improve my drawing skills and finish reading a few long books on my literary bucket...

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That Time I Got Deplatformed

...denly, without warning and with no recourse. I didn’t blog about it at the time, but back in September of 2017 a Meetup group I ran, The Los Angeles Bread Bakers got booted off its payment system, a Paypal competitor called WePay (as of October 2017, owned by JPMorgan Chase). Mike of WePay’s Orwelian “Customer Delight” department sent me this astonishingly rude email: Mike (WePay Support) Sep 1, 2017 1:56 PM PDT Hi there, We apologize for the inco...

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When it’s time to remove a tree

...ard. But when a plant, especially a tree, is removed in a thoughtless or untimely way, though, it feels like a wound. The empty space looks haunted. The wrongness is deep, and it takes a long time to fade. There are places in my landscape (both in my own yard or my stomping grounds) which are haunted by the ghosts of plants lost. I have to turn my face aside as I walk by. So how do you know the difference? Well, here’s the subtle part. I’ve finall...

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We are all gardeners

...them. Second, remember that we are all influencers. As I said above, every time we vote, every time we buy something, each time we take a trip or choose a place to live, we are influencing the landscape and we are influencing people who have more power over the land than we do. (An aside: At this point I suspect permaculture folks are going to say what I’m talking about when I say gardening is permaculture, and I won’t disagree. But I’ll also say...

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