Damaris Zehner
Damaris Zehner is an associate professor of English at Ivy Tech Community College of Indiana. She is the author of The Between Time, a collection of essays, and a contributor to blogs such as Resilience.org and Internetmonk.com. She has lived and worked on four continents, equipping educators, translators, and gardeners with training and supplies. Her blog, Integrity of LIfe (www.damariszehner.com), focuses on sane living in the present and in the coming post-industrial world.
Convenience, Community, and Late-Stage Capitalism
Yesterday I went to the post office to mail a package to my daughter overseas. She’s been in the military for years, so I’m familiar with the process. Hauling the big box on my hip, I greeted the post mistress and asked her for a customs form. “Oh, you have to do that online now,”…
Our Robot Overlords
A consequence of the current pandemic is an increase in computer use. Almost everyone’s feeling it: students are doing classes by Zoom, employees are online for team meetings, musicians are performing to their phones, consumers are ordering food, clothes, and a hundred other things to be delivered, television shows recorded in front of live audiences…
The Real Economy
An essential element of a functioning community is that all roles are filled, that people individually and together do what is necessary for the success of the community. In this era of climate change and contracting energy resources, one important and potentially divisive issue is household roles. Many American households these days are just fueling…
Variety, Survival, and the Revenge of the Luddites
Since human creativity will have to move in new directions as the Industrial Revolution runs down, you may be wondering what kinds of technology are suited to a sane life. You may picture what is called nowadays a low-tech lifestyle. Despite its popularity among cutting-edge thinkers and designers, a low-tech lifestyle is hardly avant garde. …