On this day in 1844, Henry David Thoreau burned down a forest.
posted by backseatpilot on Apr 30, 2013 - 15 comments

The Exterminator’s Want-Ad, a short story by Bruce Sterling, is a twisted first-person missive by a former K-Street lobbyist making his way in a post-collapse socialist regime of sharing. It's part of the Shareable Futures series of short stories and speculative essays at Shareable.net. [Via]
posted by homunculus on Jun 24, 2010 - 41 comments

"We want to be in clean country with like-minded people with access to clean food. . . . The question is, Do I have Internet access in the woods?" The New York Times has the story of an Austin family that has decided to give away almost all of their worldly possessions in exchange for a simpler more sustainable life. Could you do it? [more inside]
posted by Toekneesan on May 19, 2008 - 83 comments

Thoreau was into it. Scientists are using it to understand climate change. When Project Budburst starts again on Febraury 15th, you can participate, too. [more inside]
posted by Tehanu on Jan 27, 2008 - 15 comments

The Art of Sharpening the Pencil (You've GOT to check out the bizarre pencil sharpener at the bottom of the page. "You'll poke your eye out!"). [more inside]
posted by spock on Oct 23, 2007 - 33 comments

We know you can read Pepys diaries a page a day online. (Previous Mefi post here.) But there are more. Kafka's Diaries. W.N.P Barbellion's diaries (The Journal of a Disappointed Man, highly recommended.) The Diary of a Nobody (the page a day seems to be down, but the whole Punch series is here.) The Notebooks of Da Vinci. Henry David Thoreau, day by day. Fibroid Sludge, the cartoon diary of Irven Spence. A previous MeFi post on Martha Ballard's historical diary. And of course, that diary of one day, Ulysses, a page a day.
posted by OmieWise on Aug 26, 2005 - 11 comments

"Why should we live with such hurry and waste of life? We are determined to be starved before we are hungry." Thoreau was arguably the start of the Simplicity Movement, a loose, world-wide network dedicated to removing the extraneous from our lives. Difficult to concisely quantify because of its deep vision and many methodologies, the common thread is the reclaiming of our lives from technology, the mainstream, and the economic cycle.
posted by kaibutsu on May 13, 2003 - 28 comments

Civil Disobedience-Henry David Thoreau Nothing in here about blocking traffic but a very important historical document for our time. "The government itself, which is only the mode which the people have chosen to execute their will, is equally liable to be abused and perverted before the people can act through it. Witness the present Mexican war, the work of comparatively a few individuals using the standing government as their tool; for in the outset, the people would not have consented to this measure.".................. ............ "A democracy, is a progress toward a true respect for the individual. Even the Chinese philosopher was wise enough to regard the individual as the basis of the empire. Is a democracy, such as we know it, the last improvement possible in government? Is it not possible to take a step further towards recognizing and organizing the rights of man? There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly. "
posted by thedailygrowl on Mar 21, 2003 - 10 comments