A Yuppie Heads 'Back to the Land'

[bijou]

Orwellian_Ghost (1000+ posts)       Sat Apr-05-08 10:29 AM
Original message
A Yuppie Heads 'Back to the Land'  
 Advertisements [?]A Yuppie Heads 'Back to the Land'
By Anneli Rufus, AlterNet. Posted April 5, 2008.

Author Doug Fine traded his metropolitan lifestyle for an eco-lifestyle on a New Mexico farm. If only the rest of us could afford to do the same.


When Doug Fine decided to move cross-country from his native New York to an arid rural outpost 20-plus miles from the nearest town, he brought along "four big goals" for the coming year, which were:

Use a lot less oil.
Power my life by renewable energy.
Eat as locally as possible.
Don't starve, electrocute myself, get eaten by the local mountain lions, get shot by my U.N.-fearing neighbors or otherwise die in a way that would cause embarrassment.

That's one behemoth of an ambitious plan for a man who admits right up front: "I like my Netflix, wireless email and booming subwoofers" and who can't imagine living without toast, ice cream or toilet paper. How, then, on earth to achieve it?

...

And while it's exciting in a fairytale way, this notion of legally owning your surroundings as far as the eye can see and transforming them into a solarized organic Xanadu, it lends the undertaking a certain "well ... but" dimension. Well, we all aspire to sustainability, but how many of us could actually afford to buy 41 acres? Well, property in rural New Mexico is less expensive than in much of the United States, but how many of us could afford taking a year or more off work just to see whether we could hack it? Well, getting off the grid is great, but who among us has the bodily stamina to manage, while living solo, animal husbandry and organic gardening and the aerobic, acrophobic, bloodletting workouts (think: windmills, wrenches, tanks, pipes, panels and pumps) required to transition a ranch from electrical to solar power?

Fine bought solar panels "to power my new, fabulously expensive solar-powered well pump. The pump came from Denmark, where they don't employ slave labor and where they don't retail at Wal-Mart. Poor people in Chad don't own this pump. The boutique device was ... buried a hundred forty feet below the ground" -- at further expense, presumably. These expenses just pile up. In order to get "serious about kicking unleaded once and for all" -- quite an aspiration when the nearest town, and thus the nearest supply outpost, lies across "spine-rattling New Mexico dirt roads" and requires fording an actual river -- Fine had to ditch the Subaru and buy a four-wheel-drive diesel Monster Truck. Purchased secondhand, the Ford F-250 -- it dwarfs Hummers on the freeway -- was still "quite a bit over Blue Book." Replacing its standard fuel system with a biodiesel fuel system that allowed it to run on food grease salvaged from restaurants cost another crate of ducats: The website for Albuquerque Alternative Energies, where Fine had his conversion done, lists the charge as $4,000 plus installation.

Add the price of building materials, fencing, animals, feed ... and the whole project, to borrow Fine's own adjective, starts to sound a bit boutique.
...

http://www.alternet.org/environment/81278/
 

 I don't know what the current fascination at DU for living off the land, when hardly any of them would survive for more than a week. Anyway this guy decides on an eco lifestyle presumably to help save the planet from Global Warming.
 

El Pinko (1000+ posts)      Sun Apr-06-08 07:51 AM
Response to Reply #1
11. I don't so much have a problem with his location...
 Nothing wrong with the story, on the surface...


But what has he done with his wealth to help see to it that the majority of people can share more equally in America's wealth.

It's all about doing stuff for ME, ME, ME.



The way we're going, we may eventually have 20% of the US living in solar-powered palaces, driving hydrogen cars, while the rest of us live in rows of polluted crapboxes. (or cardboard boxes)


But I guess these people feel "progressive" because they live "green".

 

bobbolink  (1000+ posts)       Sun Apr-06-08 04:51 PM
Response to Reply #11
15. Absolutely! You are soooo on target. He could have started a fine community, and included homeless  
 people who can teach others some things about reality, and humility.

BUt NOOOOOOO, he gotta do the RUgged Individualism thing...

Heston with a pump..

 

Just run that 'ME, ME, ME' thing past me again.  

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3110134#3110161

[franksolich]

I don't know what the current fascination at DU for living off the land, when hardly any of them would survive for more than a week. Anyway this guy decides on an eco lifestyle presumably to help save the planet from Global Warming.

I dunno.

But quite obviously this guy, rather than living off the land, wishes to have the modern technological toys with him too, which isn't quite the same thing as "living off the land."

[Chris_]

He sounds like an asshole.  I'm sure his neighbors will love him.

[Kimberly]

bobbolink  (1000+ posts)       Sun Apr-06-08 04:51 PM
Response to Reply #11
15. Absolutely! You are soooo on target. He could have started a fine community, and included homeless 
 people who can teach others some things about reality, and humility.

BUt NOOOOOOO, he gotta do the RUgged Individualism thing...

Heston with a pump..

Everything and I mean everything bobbolink posts revolves around getting something from someone else. The quintessential leech. 

[bijou]

bobbolink  (1000+ posts)       Sun Apr-06-08 04:51 PM
Response to Reply #11
15. Absolutely! You are soooo on target. He could have started a fine community, and included homeless 
 people who can teach others some things about reality, and humility.

BUt NOOOOOOO, he gotta do the RUgged Individualism thing...

Heston with a pump..

Everything and I mean everything bobbolink posts revolves around getting something from someone else. The quintessential leech. 

For someone who is homeless she certainly spends a lot of time on the net, clearly getting a job would interfere with her 'online activism'.

[ScubaGuy]

bobbolink  (1000+ posts)       Sun Apr-06-08 04:51 PM
Response to Reply #11
15. Absolutely! You are soooo on target. He could have started a fine community, and included homeless 
 people who can teach others some things about reality, and humility.

BUt NOOOOOOO, he gotta do the RUgged Individualism thing...

Heston with a pump..

Everything and I mean everything bobbolink posts revolves around getting something from someone else. The quintessential leech. 

For someone who is homeless she certainly spends a lot of time on the net, clearly getting a job would interfere with her 'online activism'.

I'd love to know what the real story is behind her or if she's what she claims to be.

Mid 60's, claims her child was 'abducted', homeless by choice and now on disability.

[bijou]

bobbolink  (1000+ posts)       Sun Apr-06-08 04:51 PM
Response to Reply #11
15. Absolutely! You are soooo on target. He could have started a fine community, and included homeless 
 people who can teach others some things about reality, and humility.

BUt NOOOOOOO, he gotta do the RUgged Individualism thing...

Heston with a pump..

Everything and I mean everything bobbolink posts revolves around getting something from someone else. The quintessential leech. 

For someone who is homeless she certainly spends a lot of time on the net, clearly getting a job would interfere with her 'online activism'.

I'd love to know what the real story is behind her or if she's what she claims to be.

Mid 60's, claims her child was 'abducted', homeless by choice and now on disability.

She has made a career out of victimhood hasn't she, I'd like to know the real story too.

[ScubaGuy]

bobbolink  (1000+ posts)       Sun Apr-06-08 04:51 PM
Response to Reply #11
15. Absolutely! You are soooo on target. He could have started a fine community, and included homeless 
 people who can teach others some things about reality, and humility.

BUt NOOOOOOO, he gotta do the RUgged Individualism thing...

Heston with a pump..

Everything and I mean everything bobbolink posts revolves around getting something from someone else. The quintessential leech. 

For someone who is homeless she certainly spends a lot of time on the net, clearly getting a job would interfere with her 'online activism'.

I'd love to know what the real story is behind her or if she's what she claims to be.

Mid 60's, claims her child was 'abducted', homeless by choice and now on disability.

She has made a career out of victimhood hasn't she, I'd like to know the real story too.

Any thread about the homeless and she's there usually slamming the DUmmies that they're not doing enough about HER situation.  If the proposed solution does not provide her with a house it's not good enough for her.  She's not looking for a shelter, room, apartment or condo.  She demands a single family dwelling. 

Someone once questioned her about pooling resources with other low income people and share an apartment.  She jumped all over his ass about why she needed a room mate and couldn't have a house to herself like other people have. 

[Carl]

El Pinko (1000+ posts)      Sun Apr-06-08 07:51 AM
Response to Reply #1
11. I don't so much have a problem with his location...
 Nothing wrong with the story, on the surface...


But what has he done with his wealth to help see to it that the majority of people can share more equally in America's wealth.

It's all about doing stuff for ME, ME, ME.



The way we're going, we may eventually have 20% of the US living in solar-powered palaces, driving hydrogen cars, while the rest of us live in rows of polluted crapboxes. (or cardboard boxes)


But I guess these people feel "progressive" because they live "green".

Here is the answer el stupido.

No matter how much you wish it was not so robbing people of the fruits of their life and labors (wealth in any form or description) will inevitably stifle the will and desire to produce.

Like all true DUmmies you refuse to see reality as it is,choosing rather to whine on about how life has screwed you.

You have screwed yourself..wishing on an impossible dream of having all your needs provided so that you can then live a wealthy lifestyle without ever lifting a finger to earn or deserve it.

[Uhhuh35]

DUmmie_bobbolink  (1000+ posts)       
15. Absolutely! You are soooo on target. He could have started a fine community, and included homeless 
 people who can teach others some things about reality, and humility.

What the flock are homeless people gonna' teach me? How to do drugs and be a loser? I already know they stink and piss in garbage cans.

[Taxman]

I don't know what the current fascination at DU for living off the land, when hardly any of them would survive for more than a week. Anyway this guy decides on an eco lifestyle presumably to help save the planet from Global Warming.

I dunno.

But quite obviously this guy, rather than living off the land, wishes to have the modern technological toys with him too, which isn't quite the same thing as "living off the land."

Survival off the land can be a difficult task.  It would be humorous to see the reactions of a group of basement dwelling DU'ers if they were placed in a true survival situation.  If you think they complain now...wait till they have to grpw their own food and build their own shelters.  The work word would enter the equation and the little romantic notion of living off the land would evaporate like the smoke from their joints. 

[DumbAss Tanker]

He sounds like an asshole.  I'm sure his neighbors will love him.

Excellent summation.

 

[TheSarge]

El Pinko (1000+ posts)      Sun Apr-06-08 07:51 AM
Response to Reply #1
11. I don't so much have a problem with his location...
 Nothing wrong with the story, on the surface...


But what has he done with his wealth to help see to it that the majority of people can share more equally in America's wealth.

Since when was he obligated to adhere to the Communist Manifesto you ignorant waste of space?

This is America jackass....not the USSR...if he wants to blow all of his money on this...it's his right as an American Citizen...no where does it say in the Constitution that someone who has made something with their life has to support someone like you who's too lazy to even shower.

[ScubaGuy]

DUmmie_bobbolink  (1000+ posts)       
15. Absolutely! You are soooo on target. He could have started a fine community, and included homeless 
 people who can teach others some things about reality, and humility.

What the flock are homeless people gonna' teach me? How to do drugs and be a loser? I already know they stink and piss in garbage cans.

[NHSparky]

He sounds like an asshole.  I'm sure his neighbors will love him.

If he's living anywhere Taos or Santa Fe, they probably will, cause there are only about 4 natives left there.

I remember when I was growing up there and everyone hated Texans.  All of a sudden once the northeast/west coast uberlibs started moving in and jacking up the price of real estate WAY beyond the means of locals, that changed pretty quick.

Oh, and he better hope to hell he's got water rights under that land.  Pretty shitty to spend all that money drilling down 1000'-plus only to find you're not legally entitled to draw a single drop.

[miskie]

Survival off the land can be a difficult task.  It would be humorous to see the reactions of a group of basement dwelling DU'ers if they were placed in a true survival situation.  If you think they complain now...wait till they have to grpw their own food and build their own shelters.  The work word would enter the equation and the little romantic notion of living off the land would evaporate like the smoke from their joints. 

Thats some great reality TV right there.... It would be DU without moderators.. just DUmmies. "Survivor: Skinner's Island." without games and competitions to win helpful things or immunity.