You are currently viewing all posts in the general category.

Shadow Company

Shadow Company is the documentary on modern day mercenaries. Superior and more broad in its scope than Frontline’s Private Warriors or Iraq for Sale, it essentially comes across as a film adaptation of Licensed to Kill, relying heavily on interviews with Robert Young Pelton, featuring video shot by RYP, and interviews with Cobus Claassens (the pirate hunting merc of Three Worlds Gone Mad). It felt very balanced, allowing interviewees – academics, reporters, and contractors – to cast the industry in both positive and negative light. The underlying message seemed to be a call for regulation.

Video excerpts are available on YouTube and, along with interviews with the filmmakers, on Kevin Sites’ Hotzone.

How Festive

The porn shop next-door hung a large wreath with xmas lights on top of their building. I think that counts for my decorations, too.

survival, herb, medical, bushcraft, books, review

Natural First Aid

Brigitte Mars’ Natural First Aid is a nice little book for dealing with home, and some wilderness, ailments. The book begins with a short introduction to basic first aid – CPR, splints, and the like – and follows that with “An A-Z Guide to Ailments and Injuries,” including everything from nosebleeds to jellyfish stings. Each ailment includes possible herbal and homeopathic techniques for prevention and remedy. The books also includes a chapter on “Surviving Nature’s Challenges,” which discusses basics of topics such as surviving bear attacks, making fire, and giving birth.

The book, sadly out of print, is very basic, and is no replacement for real first aid training, but certainly warrants a spot on your bookshelf for herbal reference.

Connection

According to Shaie’s Honey article on WebLife.org,

...if a person has allergies to the natural environment they are in (grass, trees, ect...) if they take a spoon of honey everyday (honey from same region) it will gradually reduce their allergic reactions.

So turn off your processed air, eat local, and re-realize your connection to the environment.

Live in it. Accept. It’s part of you, and you it.

Acclimatize

Sleeping cold is a better way of life. It forces your body to burn more calories throughout the night. It tunes you to the natural environment around you. It lessens the shock of cold nights spent under the stars.

This Fall and Winter, I’ve challenged myself not to use heating. The past week has been tough – my glasses frost over in the morning, the inside of my window blankets itself with ice. Today, I can still see my breath, but for the first time since returning from New York, the apartment is above freezing.

Many thanks to the sheep of New Zealand.

review, books

Faust

Faust has been sitting on my bookshelf for close to two years now, waiting for me to read it. I had kept neglecting the book, but promising to read it eventually, since finishing The Magic Mountain. Finally, I decided to throw it in my pack for New York.

Kaufmann’s translation includes the German on one page and the English on the opposite, allowing one to view the original work in conjunction to what you’re reading. A novel and appreciated addition, even though the only German I know was learned from killing Nazi zombies in Return to Castle Wolfenstein.

Goethe is full of wit and humor – twisted, sexual humor that would make Tipper Gore gorge out her eyes – that comes across well in Kaufmann’s translation. I found it quite enjoyable. It inspires you to push through the somewhat more confusing scenes that lack the entertainment of Mephisto. (Like those angles up in heaven. Why would anyone want to go hang out with those boring, drab, self righteous egotists when you could be with Mephisto and his wenches during Walpurgis Night?) I think a great many more people would enjoy the book, if they would only give it a shot.

Snow and Cold

The temperature was about 60°F when I left NYC yesterday. I’m told it normally hovers around freezing this time of year.

My flight landed to find snow on the ground, and the temperature in the mid-30°s – a good 10°-20° colder than usual. It rarely snows here.

What’s with that?

My train home was delayed about an hour. The power switches weren’t working, so the crew was forced to manually switch. The old fashion way. We pulled in at about 10:30PM.

It was 31°F, with a foot of snow. My walk home was doubled in length.

Now it’s 15°F outside and a bit warmer inside. The sidewalks and roads have been cleared, exposing thick ice underneath.

Leaving On a Jet Plane

Tomorrow, I fly to New York. I don’t know if I’ll be online during the trip, but if I am, you can contact me at: vagabond at pig dash monkey dot com