Kalliope
Means "beautiful voice" from Greek καλλος (kallos) "beauty" and οψ (ops) "voice". In Greek mythology she was a goddess of epic poetry and eloquence, one of the nine Muses.
Join us every Tuesday night for drinks at the Daily Kos community political poetry club
Your own poetry is always welcome in the comments
Bongos, berets & turtle neck sweaters optional
The keypad is mightier than the sword
I'm forging ahead,
with my work on The Book.
I've added more sources,
links and quotes.
If you feel I'm forgetting about poetry,
and just posting
dry information,
please stop and think
about the words in the title
of this diary.
If I'm not passionate
about the coming disaster,
in which millions of Americans will starve,
what will I ever be passionate
about?
And if I'm passionate,
the passion will come through,
even as I write here
of prices going up,
supply remaining flat,
of how many duck eggs per year you can get
from one duck,
and how many feral hogs are out there
waiting for you
and your compound bow,
to bring home the bacon,
to go with your eggs.
Is the passion coming through?
Is it poetry you're reading?
Or just dry shit?
Read on,
and see what you think.
I left the text
from last time I posted here at IK,
and I'm adding links and quotes.
Skip down to the discussion
of the shortage of oil.
Outline of the Book:
* Title:
Famine in America by 2050:
the Post-Peak Oil American Apocalypse
* Table of Contents:
1 America's Future: a Short Summary
2 Technology to the Rescue?
Too Little, Too Late
3 Death in America
4 The American Survivors' Way of Life
5 Epilogue: One Thousand Years
I'm excited about the book,
more now than ever.
I like my table of contents.
I feel as if,
given a little time,
the book will write itself now.
Chapter one:
Shortage of oil,
equals shortage of diesel,
equals shortage of crops,
equals shortage of food,
equals famine in America.
Here's a link
to a graph
that makes it clear:
The shortage of oil
is not in the future;
it already started,
in 2004:
diesel fuel price chart
Per gallon price of diesel fuel has been increasing since 2003
So,
if anyone asks,
when will this shortage
of diesel fuel start?
The answer is,
it already started,
in 2004.
From 1990,
to 2003,
according to this chart,
the price of diesel fuel
was usually about fifty cents per gallon,
and never over a dollar.
Since 2004,
the price has never gone down
below $1.50,
and is currently at least
$3 a gallon.
I talked with a farmer,
and heard it from her own mouth,
she said in 2003,
she had a contract
to get diesel fuel
for 52 cents a gallon,
and since then,
the price has increased
sixfold,
to about $3 a gallon.
The chart shows a higher price,
but I suppose some farmers
get a special price.
But even the special price,
is over $3 a gallon.
The gas stations
might be price gouging,
to some extent,
us regular consumers,
since we're easy to gouge.
However.
I have a feeling
that the farmers of America
get the best price anyone can get
without the oil companies,
and the middle men
actually losing money.
But the price has gone way up,
even for them.
Don't you suppose
that this is because
the supply is flat,
and the demand is steadily rising?
It's only a matter of time,
til the farmers can't get enough fuel
to grow enough crops
to feed America.
Ninety percent of Americans,
dead.
Chapter two,
tractors fueled by
natural gas,
gasoline,
jet fuel,
plus,
electric tractors,
plus,
rationing of all fuels,
plus,
contraception.
All that will happen,
too little,
too late.
Chapter three,
the details of death in America,
how some will go down fighting,
while others let go of life,
gracefully.
Chapter four,
the many kinds of livestock
the survivors will eat:
insects,
duck eggs
nutritional value of duck eggs
Essential Vitamins
Duck eggs boost your vitamin intake and provide considerable amounts of vitamins A and B-12. The vitamin A from your diet promotes new cell development to keep your tissues healthy and also maintains good eyesight. A duck egg contains 472 international units of vitamin A -- one-fifth of the recommended daily intake for women and 16 percent for men. The vitamin B-12 in duck eggs keeps your nerves healthy and promotes red blood cell function. Each duck egg boasts 3.8 micrograms of vitamin B-12, more than your entire daily recommended B-12 intake.
raising ducks
a duck will live around 15 years.
If you are raising ducks for eggs then you are after you can't go wrong with the Indian Runners which are probably the best egg-laying ducks around. They lay around 225-330 eggs a year but produce more heavily during spring and summer.
If you do keep ducks for meat, make sure that you like duck! Even 1 duck can hatch 25 - 30 ducklings in a season, as they hatch ducklings twice a year. If it is your aim to raise ducks for meat then you will be provided with tasty duck meat from spring until late fall.
fish,
goat cheese,
goats,
feral hogs
feral hogs in Kansas
Trapping and baiting keeps the hogs in an area that can be eventually flown by specially-trained helicopter crews. On good days such crews may shoot 100 or more hogs.
Johnson said about 750 Kansas landowners have voluntarily opened their properties to trapping and/or aerial gunning. Except for a few in southeast Kansas, landowner cooperation is now about 100 percent.
Read more here: http://www.kansas.com/...
This newspaper story
from my hometown newspaper
is about three years old.
There may be a lot more feral hogs
in Kansas,
now.
Yet Kansas has very few feral hogs,
compared to other states.
But the main point is this:
When there's no fuel to spare
for the helicopters,
and the guns are out of ammo,
there should be plenty
of feral hogs for everyone,
everyone who's survived
the end of supermarkets
well stocked.
Folks who want some bacon,
to go along with their duck eggs.
etc.,
plus sources of food for the livestock.
Chapter five,
a careful focus
on what will work
for a thousand years.
For a thousand years.
My wonderful bride, Tonia
and her brother, Terrell,
had me watching
World War Z
The zombies were way different
from those in previous zombie movies,
and defied any sensible laws of biology and physics,
so that was a rather annoying strain
on our ability
to truly surrender ourselves to the story.
I hate zombie shows anyway.
However.
The first scene with the traffic jam,
and the motorcycle cop zipping by,
and the other cop,
yelling at the man,
"Stay in your car!"
and the garbage truck plows through,
killing the cop,
smack.
That scene,
and other scenes in the movie,
reminded me
that if your life depends
on the general public
living around you
doing things just right,
in an apocalyptic situation,
they will not do things just right.
Watching that movie,
plus looking at the diesel fuel price charts,
that shook me up.
Also,
my wonderful bride
has had me watching
The Colony,
a TV reality show,
in which regular folks
agree to go through the motions
of doing what they might do
in a post-apocalypse situation.
They are set up
in situations
that the show's producers
apparently feel
resemble what could actually happen in the real world.
In the second season,
set in Louisiana,
they did have a feral hog
run right through their camp.
I was impressed
by how well folks did,
using things like
car batteries,
and solar panels,
for electricity
in their compound.
And a thing called wood gas,
by which gasoline engines
can run on wood.
They drove an old truck
right down a big drainage ditch,
using wood gas as fuel.
The movie got me upset;
the TV show gave me hope.
The more research I do,
and the more I think about it,
the more I'm convinced,
the transition will be hell,
and millions will starve,
but the survivors,
with so much scrap materials,
and using various technologies,
from the last hundred or so years,
the survivors will build a new world,
comfortable enough
to relax and enjoy life,
once again.
As long as they finally learn,
what Malthus and Ehrlich
tried to tell us:
Contraception is the only way
to rescue civilization
from future famines.
Technology
and fossil fuels
only delay the inevitable.
Thanks for reading.
population growth in real time
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