Joe Rants About Impending Armageddon and Trash Media

Did anyone happen to notice that dramatically increased food prices around the world are inciting riots?

I don't blame you if you haven't noticed. The American news media seems much more concerned with fractal patterns of Barack Obama's nose hairs and the endangered Indiana bat that has apparently found some much needed habitat in Hilary Clinton's vagina.

Now, I certainly believe that this primary race is important and worthy of substantial coverage. I do not believe that the voting patterns of left-handed gay black jews who make less than 50k per year is newsworthy enough to supplant some of the first twinges of Peak-Oil Armageddon.

Apparently, here's what's going on.

First, lots of people are poor. I'm not talking poor like me, or even poor like those folks who smelled like kerosene you went to elementary school with. I'm talking a couple bowls of rice and some beans poor. I'm talking skinny but not on purpose poor. But, as long as you don't live in a war zone, most really poor folks get by alright.

Ok, now second, there are lots of people who are less poor than they used to be. Those people generally live in China, India, and a few other countries in Southeast Asia. Not a lot of countries, but they're countries with lots of people. They found out that they could make a lot of money by making stuff and selling it to people in the United States, who generally have lots of money, or more precisely, lots of credit cards.

So, those people started buying more food. That increased "demand." There was no corresponding increase in food "supply." That made food prices "increase."

Ok, number three. A long time ago things died, and eventually, they turned into oil. Oil is the go juice that has been fueling what we might call "the middle class." That's because oil was very good at burning, which made it good at making things go, and it did all this very inexpensively. But, we aren't making any new oil, cause we can't kill things and make them rot for thousands and thousands of years. As people use more oil, there is more "demand" and since there isn't any new oil, there is less "supply," so the "price" of "oil" will "increase."

It turns out that oil is a pretty important part of making food. It's used for fertilizers and it's used in the big trucks and planes and boats that take it around the world. If oil prices go up, food prices go up.

Ok, number four. Turns out that burning oil makes the planet get hot. AND, everyone is scared what will happen when the cheap go-juice that has created the Western-style middle class is no longer cheap. Some people think the world will be like Mad Max and there's gonna be tons and tons of shit hitting some huge ass industrial fans, by which I mean, everyone's gonna start killing the fuck out of each other.

So, in light of the hot planet and Mad Max, people want to find something other than oil to make shit go. It turns out that we can make shit go from plants! That's cool!
So, lots of governments, including that of the United States, said, "ok, we'll pay you to make go-juice out of plants!"

Farmers said, "fuck yeah! Instead of selling corn to feed lots, I'll sell it to this biofuel company and make more money!"

Well, that means there is less food being grown. We already discussed rising global "demand," so, there is more "demand," and less "supply," so the prices "go up."

It also means that more rainforests are being cut down to make up for the gap in arable land being used for food production, and that is, like, the very worst thing to do in terms of the hot planet issue.

But Barack Obama said poor people are mad about being poor! What an elitist fuck he is! What with being raised by a single mom and being black and everything! Fucking panty waist snob!

On the biofuels issue...it's not that they're bad per se. They just need to be made from stuff we can't eat and on land that we can't use for growing food. The best options are to use algae (either in the ocean or in big tanks) or trash. Waste biofuel is good, cause it's trash, which is not helpful to the world, cause it's trash.

Stuff that's going on

Sorry for my absence. I've been in the throws of moving. It's a much easier process without furniture involved.

I moved down the road a bit to Questa, which to my Indiana fan base would be the Northern New Mexico equivalent of Morgantown. I'm in a "casita" (little house for the anglo-glots out there). It's like a little guest house right next to the big house, occupied by the landlord. It's not nearly as big or private as my previous residence, but it IS closer to the grocery store and it DOES have horses, 2 oxen, and a white buffalo!

Plus, it has log furniture. For instance, this computer desk is quite literally a log. I guess, technically, all desks used to be logs. But, this one still looks like log. If my broke ass ever manages to acquire a camera, i'll show it to you.

So, it's not a bad spot, all things considered. The next leading candidate was an even smaller house with a tiny toilet that had no leg room, so I would have had to shit side-saddle. This is much better.

Yesterday, I planted some fruit trees up on the mountain. It was really just coincidence that it was earth day. Daniel is in full-blown farmer mode right now, and he's tilling and planting and fencing about every day. I also dug post holes a couple of days ago. We're starting a new garden spot up on the ranch and we have to fence it off. Digging holes is hard.

Today, I'm going to meet with a lawyer who's gonna take a look at our 501c(3) application for the nonprofit we started. It doesn't seem that hard, and I'm certain that we meet the exempt purposes requirement, but I just want to make sure I'm not missing something. If we do it right, we should have out IRS determination letter in a few months (which means we could apply for grants without messing with an umbrella organization). If we screw it up, it could take a lot longer.

This was a really exciting blog post! Go take a cold shower and collect yourselves!

Chronicles of Joenia Jumping the Shark?

Man, I feel like the Chronicles is hitting a lull. It's been going for 2+ years, not even counting it's precursor as a Friendster Blog. I don't know if I have that much more to say, really.

I think I need a gimmick. Like, a catch phrase. Or, maybe I should get pregnant, or have some precocious mop-headed kid move in with me to give me shit all the time and say funny things. Maybe a little alien will show up to grant me wishes. If one or all of these things occured, I'd probably have a lot of new material!

As it is now, I could probably say a few more things about philosophy, religion, and theology, since I did study those things for several years and haven't quite laid out all my thoughts on them. I guess I could talk about some of my policy preferences.

I could do some reviews of cds and movies.

I could offer quirky observations about human behavior, much like Peggy Hill's "Musings" on King of the Hill. "Coffee never tastes as good as it smells. You ever noticed that?"

Oh, and I still have lots of drawings I could scan in. Remember my genital-head couple?


I could also do more work to find amusing pictures and videos around the internet and post them on the blog.

I guess the last ditch is to write about my life. As a single guy living alone in the middle of nowhere, there's not all that much to write about. "Today the light was pretty for a minute. And the cat looked at me funny and ran away. And I ate some eggs."

How about you, audience? Any requests of topics I should explore in the Chronicles? (sidenote: I"m thinking of changing the name of the blog to Billygoats Gruff, both because it's cooler, and because it fits the url).

OK, here's something amusing. It's the theme song from a movie called "Monsturd." It's pretty much what you think it is.

Thanks to my friend Amanda for turning me on to Monsturd and the song.

Joe's Top 10 Albums to Enjoy Music To

What's that you say? You want to know what my top 10 favorite albums of all time are? Well, ok, if you insist.

Neil Young--Unplugged

Bob Dylan--The Times They Are A-changin

John Prine--Diamonds in the Rough

Woody Guthrie--Worried Man Blues

The Jimi Hendrix Experience--The Ultimate Experience

Johnny Cash---American Recordings

Michael Hurley--First Songs

Nathan Holscher--Even the Hills (Despite the fact, not because, I played on it)

The Old 97s---Satellite Rides

Live from Beanblossom--(live recording of the 1973 Bill Monroe Bluegrass Festival)

What's your list?

I'm a murderer

I just accepted the PhD offer from IU. As I mentioned to a few people, I feel like...well....

You know those stories of people who have little mutant people growing out of their shoulders...like, little bits of teeth and hair that were once a siamese twin but didn't develop right? Well, I feel like I just ripped one of those out of my side with my bare hands.

I also feel like Mel Gibson, starring in Lethal Weapon as Martin Riggs, when it became necessary for him to pop his shoulder out of socket in order to save the day.

Similarly, I feel like Ian McShane's character,Al Swearingen, on Deadwood when he was very near death from kidney stones, and the doctor had to shove a metal rod up his penis to help him pass the stones.

In other words, I think eventually I'll feel better, but right now, it hurts like a son of a bitch! What I just did was that I gathered up all the potential MEs from all the potential paths I could have taken from this point in my life, and I wrapped them up in twine, and I quickly dipatched them with a razor sharp knife I'll call Dr. Joe. I just murdered hundreds of versions of myself.

I guess that's what it means to grow up.

Revolution #2

Dear Turds,

This letter is to inform you that your time of dominion is coming to a close. Sentient beings of many sorts have been at your beck and call for lo these many millenia. You lived a life of leisure cascading through our intestines, like we were your own personal waterslides. You curled up safe and warm in our colons until such time as you deemed it proper to escape. And in what can only be described as acts of pure power-drunk malice, you left bits of yourself on us, sometimes mud-sticky, sometimes snot slick.

Yes, turds, you have certainly had a fine ol' time of it, treating us your carriers as slave cocoons whose only purpose was to birth you. And we snapped to like good little soldiers, even while our assholes burned from over wiping.

Take a moment to remember the glory of the past, turds. See your crowns glisten in the sun, embossed with jewels and slick from our gut-goo.

Do you see it? Good. Now, picture something else.

Picture humans, and birds, and all manner of fecal-producing beings, teeth gritted, arms crossed, and, yes....pants full!

Imagine your dominion crushed and mushed and totally demolished! Imagine NO MORE SLAVERY!

From now on, WE WILL TELL YOU when we are ready to defecate. We Will Tell You how loose or solid to be! We will TEll YOU whether to, and how much, to get on our underwear! We WILL TELL YOU when and if we want dingleberries caught in our ass hair!

Yes! Yes! The Great Bowel Revolution has begun! Turds, enjoy your dwindling hours of control, for soon YOU will be the slaves, and WE will be the masters!

Hurrah!

A fact about joe

I've been in love with five women in my life. One, maybe two, of them loved me back.

But that's not bad on either front.

Some shoutouts

Hey everyone,

Friend of the Blog (FOB) Vijai Belliappa has his own blog! Vijai, you've been holding out on us!

Also, my friend Josie is getting her first Young Adult novel published, titled Band Geek Love. Check out her website and order a copy. www.josiebloss.com

Finally, my friend Ben is chronicling his odyssey of movie watching and book reading in 2008 by blogging about movies, t.v., and books. Also, his life sneaks in there once in a while. Check it out www.bigredcrunch.blogspot.com.

They're an illusion to me now

Sometimes, all of a sudden, your world is different. The rhythms of your old life are gone. New rules and new faces, new rhythms and new patterns, are there.

It's happened before. You just stop, and look around, and you don't recognize anything. Like that old bluegrass standard, "I knew not their names, and I knew not their faces. It seemed they were all rank strangers to me."

(As I was writing that last paragraph, Don Henley's The End of the Innocence came on my itunes).

Maybe it's time for me to grow up. Time, maybe, to quit pining for loves that were lost or that were never really there. To let the past melt away into the water color of memory. Maybe it's time for that. Maybe not.

Decisions, Decisions

Yesterday I got my financial aid offer for the PhD in Public Policy at IU (a joint program between the School of Public and Environmental Affairs and the Poli Sci department).

I ALSO found out that I'm a Presidential Management Fellowship finalist, which basically means that I have easy access to a federal government job, with fast-track promotions, if I want it.

I have two weeks to decide.

let's do...Pros and Cons!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

PhD in Public Policy at IU

Pros:

1. Opens up the chance to be a college professor.
a. flexible hours
b. unjustifiable but palpable sense of superiority
c. being my own boss
d. using my brain for work

2. Might be interesting

3. Is in Bloomington, which is a place I like for it preponderance of people I know.

4. Opens up the chance of working for a private research firm if the professor thing doesn't work out.

5. Does not preclude getting a PMF, or otherwise working in government, if the professor thing doesn't work out.

Cons:

1. I will be very, very, very poor for the next three or four years.

2. I will be probably be stressed and overworked for the next three or four yea (less time for other hobbies and recreation).

3. I might wash out, in which case it was a waste.

4. Might not be interesting

5. Being a college professor might suck:
a. hanging around college kids and socially inept academics all the time
b. Have to publish or perish
c. Might not make much money
d. Can't choose where I live
e. Might not find a tenure track (or any) academic job
f. won't have as much real world impact as non-academic jobs

Ok, now on to the PMF:

Pros:

1. Will make pretty decent money (solidly middle class), perhaps leading to slightly more solidly middle class)

2. Might be interesting work.

3. Might have palpable real-world impact

4. Will have clear hours, leaving time for other hobbies.

5. Will work with wider range of people than in academia.

5. I know some folks in D.C.

6. Good job security and promotion potential

Cons:

1. Might be boring
2. Hours aren't very flexible, and no summers off
3. Might not feel like I'm saving the world
4. Will have a boss
5. Might not like D.C.
6. Might experience soul-crushing suburban bureaucratic despair
7. probably can't live in Indiana

There it is: advice anyone?