Click the pick to see other products/clothes with this shit.

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On Sunday I was interviewed on the topic of rewilding by Adam and Robert on their radio show Free Range Thought, along with my friend John Sweeney from Growth Is Madness, who is doing a population growth series with them.

Click here to listen!

This Lolcat idea came from my friends Jana, Willem and Mr. Sweetey.

For the most part, I consider myself an optimist. I find it funny that a lot of people label me as a pessimist because I advocate for the collapse of civilization. When I say “civilization will collapse no matter what we do,” rather than see that as an opportunity for something new, they file it away under “doom and gloom.” I think these people have it all backwards.

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That you so much everyone for your words of solidarity in my current state of depression. The best feeling in this state of depression doesn’t come from bullshit advice, but solidarity in feeling the pain of those around me. Thanks for that. It feels good to not feel this pain alone. So, thank you thank you thank you! And thank you to Jason, David and Christine for throwing some much needed cash into my tip jar.

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Depression ain’t just for the economy. It sucks. I haven’t felt this depressed since age 20. At least, I haven’t felt noticeably this depressed since age 20. Age 21-24 I self-medicated using alcohol and cigarettes so I can’t clearly say what I felt during that time. But now, I don’t medicate at all, legal, illegal, prescribed or otherwise. I drink coffee for the occasional boost, like right now, in order to write this.

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You’re right. I’ve gotten really sick of writing, and this is just a ploy to pass the time until my writers block passes (probably four weeks from now when my job ends!). Write an essay under 500 words in length on your topic Vs. Rewilding. It can be sincere, ironic or absurd, just make it good!I will select my favorite three who will win an award or prize of some kind… Perhaps a lifetime membership to the Urban Scout Cool Kids Club. I’ll make little badges or certificates you can frame or something. You have one week! Please send them to urbanscout (at) gmail (dot) com with the subject “rewild challenge.” You have until Sunday May 4th.

Humans have a long history of teaching social taboos through jokes irony, sarcasm, and mockery showing us what we do not find as acceptable behavior. Such comic geniuses as Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David know this too well, their narcissistic characters always breaking social taboos and looking like assholes. In Farley Mowats “People of the Deer” I recall a moment where he drew a picture of a deer smoking a pipe, to which the intuits laughed hysterically! I think this kind of ridiculousness encapsulates the humor in irony and mockery. It has a kind of innocence to it; it looks silly for a deer to do human things, just as it looks silly for a human to mimic deer things. We laugh at the ridiculousness of the situation, whether we see a deer smoking a pipe or Larry David not bringing a gift to Ben Stiller’s birthday party.

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Good ‘ay mate, if you live in Australia check out the new issue of Chain Reaction, the national Friends of the Earth Australia magazine. I adapted my Agriculture Vs. Rewilding chapter for an article in it called “Rewilding Food Systems.” If you can’t find a copy of the magazine you can read it online here.

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I notice a lot of people from Austin, Texas check out my site, and I have a few myspace friends in Austin. I thought, perhaps, that some austinites would feel compelled to throw a weekend rewild camp? mikerock just formed an e-mail list in yahoo groups for those-rewilding-austin, so if you live there and want to connect with some like-minded folks, peep this list. If you want my help to organize a rewild camp in your area, first read my How To Run A Rewild Camp article and than tell me what you need.

No one knows what the future will bring, but this we know: Civilizations destroy the land. Our civilization won’t last much longer. A movement known as rewilding has started against civilization. This movement has a frontier and we live in it.

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I have so many design ideas and stupid slogans that I figure I should just get a bunch of them out there. I recently finished these three. Click the pic to go to my store:

I made this first one as a two part joke. One because a few hundred people have called me a douchebag and I need some love. Secondly because someone put my poster-boy picture from ReadyMade up at the Whole Foods in Austin with hearts all around it:

This next one I made after I realized that the anti-tractor sign may feel too confrontational for some types. I feel this one works as a softer more subversive alternative to that:

This last one I orignially made to bring people to the rewild forums, but I think it stands alone as a fun piece of art while making fun of classic propaganda:

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WARNING: This film will either make you want to vomit (as in my case) or perhaps laugh yourself silly. It shows exactly the kind of future Science tells us to look forward to… the kind without any ecological systems thinking whatsoever. Please feel free to vent your comments.
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In the spirit of Myspace, I wrote up a funny survey to give to you, readers. Please fill it out and post it in the comments below. Extra credit if you can answer using e-prime, but completely unnecessary.

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Do hunter-gatherers have religion? That question makes about as much sense as asking if hunter-gatherers had language, science or art. Of course they did. Although their religions looked vastly different than the religions (and science & art) that we see today in civilization.

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First, thanks Darrin, Katie, Scot and Christine for your tips! I really appreciate it.

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Every month I put up a new rewilding design on my cafepress store. Click the pic to go to my Ye Olde Anti-Civilization Shoppe:

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Car culture signifies one of the most wasteful, violent and pollutive parts of civilization; from co2 emissions, fragmenting of habitat through road-building and poisoning of plants and water with toxic metals and the murdering of countless animals and insects. Dying by the wheels of an automobile has no humanity, no respect. Many animals experience a mortal wound from car accidents and die slow deaths in the gutter. I hate cars. I hate traffic. I hate this legacy of the last 100 years of car culture. I hate oil companies. I hate civilization. And I really fucking hate assholes like Tom Green who make a mockery of this tragedy (Poop on the end of a microphone? Funny. Humping the rotting corpse of a dead moose, who died a pointless death in the name of civilization’s progression, and in front of millions of people just for its mere shock value? Well… Not so funny).

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This last week marks my first year as Urban Scout. I have taken some time to reflect on what worked and what didn’t. I have listed my accomplishments and my failures and used that debrief to outline ideas and goals for intensifying my rewilding in the following year. I never made my full plan public, for fear that I would totally fuck it up. Of course, I did, and now I will share it with you so that you can laugh with me (or at me!). To say that I bit off more than I could chew sounds like a complete under statement.

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I can’t help but feel like many people still have purist values when it comes down to understanding rewilding. I often hear people say “if you want to rewild, shouldn’t you go live out in the wilderness!?” Rewilding means un-doing domestication. Cities mark the most domesticated places in the world. Rewilding in the city has no contradictory values; it just means more work in some ways, less in others.

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The other day I called my best friend Lisa, sobbing. I had just read the latest about the sea lions. If you read my article Civilization Out Of Cascadia Now! you’ll know the story, but in short, “they” plan to kill 60 (endangered) sea lions immediately to “save the salmon.” I hate this insane culture more and more every day. Sometimes it feels painful just to wake in the morning, only to have to continue to participate in devouring the planet. Sometimes, I just need to pour out tears and punch the walls and scream at the top of my lungs… then I usually call my friends. Lisa wrote this poem about me after we had our 1 millionth conversation that day, about the fucked-up-ness of civilization and how we wish to see its swift decline. I thought I would share it here.

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My begging has finally ceased! I now have a job at One Green World, an awesome horticulture business out in Molalla.

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First off, Boris… Thank you so much for your generous tip! You really saved my ass this month. SO thank you thank you thank you. Please people, don’t feel shy to drop me some dough.
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MARCH MERCH

Every month I come out with new anti-civ/rewilding merchandise. Click on the new March graphic to check out my store:

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Guilt refers to the feeling we have when we make decisions that go against personal, cultural and mythological pressures. It feels like not doing what you “should” do. It works as one of the most powerful tools of social and cultural renewal. I do not think of guilt as a “bad” thing. I see it as a tool we need to understand. Rewilding goes against all of our life-long civilized programming. Anything we do to rewild could make us feel guilty. Of course, the culture of rewilding creates a new paradigm in which continuing to live in civilization would make us feel guilty since we know that civilization kills biodiversity. In a sense, rewilding involves crossing a threshold into two worlds. This creates a split cultural psyche, leaving us with weird schizophrenic behaviors; feeling both guilty for leaving civilization and guilty for not having left enough.

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How can we define wild? Now understanding that hunter-gatherers greatly manipulated the environment, than where do we draw the line between wild and domestic? If rewilding means the process of un-doing domestication than we must examine and look at the words; wild, natural, unnatural and domestication as we have come to know them and their context in civilization.

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Hey Folks, you may notice the site changing around for the next few days as I work on the new format and upgrades. Thanks for your patience.

-Scout

This week I have spent almost all of my time scouring the internet, thumbing through phone books and scouting around the town of Molalla. In my search for temporary work, I found a lot of precious gems.

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The time has come, as it does for all desperate bloggers, for me to gum up my site with stupid cafe-press products, amazon book lists and all that other crap.

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Many people have a difficult time understanding the differences between horticulture and agriculture. This may occur because some agricultural strategies cross over into horticultural strategies. Linguistically the term agriculture comes from the combination of the Latin words agri (field) and cultura (cultivation). Horticulture comes from the combination of the Latin words hortus (garden) and cultura. Cultivating a field vs. cultivating a garden. We can see the implications of agriculture’s mono-cropping primary succession plant obsession in its very origin. We can also see the implications of horticulture’s diversity of plants and smaller-scale style through its origins.

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“Federal officials have called for killing about 30 sea lions near Bonneville Dam each year to keep them from gobbling a rising share of Northwest salmon that the government spends millions of dollars to protect.”
- The Oregonian Friday, January 18, 2008

Dear salmon. I have a confession to make. When I worked as a production assistant for television commercials, a friend called me for a job… on a political campaign advertisement.

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This week I mostly did odd jobs, had meetings with grant foundations, volunteered. But the rewild camp at Porcupine Palace definitely high-lighted my week!

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People have called me many names:

Self-serving new-age nihilistic pseudo-hippie/yuppie quack-opportunist poseur-hipster-douchebag green-capitalist-bastard egotistical-celebrity-anarchist tool that gives everyone douchechills with a BS agenda, a trust fund from granny, and an obsession with publicity.

A poster of Meta-filter asked the question: Urban Scout, sincere crusader for sustainability or poseur-hipster-douchebag?

Much of what I do involves performance art, so you could label me a poseur. I dress in (what I think look like) hip clothes, so you could call me a hipster. I often make egotistical jokes about myself and others, I could see why someone would call me a douchebag. On top of that I sincerely teach rewilding skills to people and educate people on the ills of agriculture. My life revolves around teaching sustainability. So you could call me a sincere crusader for sustainability. Can’t I have all of these qualities simultaneously? This “one or the other” mentality reflects back to artistotles “is” of identity; you can only “be” A or B, not both.

This question (although intellectually incoherent) haunts me because of the sheer number of people who attack me using this aristolian logic. Most often people say that I “talk” more than I “walk” without thinking about the importance and need for talking about things. People need to understand this stuff. I sacrifice my own relationship with nature by sitting inside thinking and writing so that people will learn why civilization doesn’t work and what does work. I get off on thinking about this stuff and writing so I don’t think of myself as a martyr. It just really upsets me when people don’t see the value of talking about things. I keep talking because of the shit I see in the media projecting a fucked up world view.

George Bush Jr. said during his State of the Union Address:

America is leading the fight against global hunger. Today, more than half the world’s food aid comes from the United States. And tonight, I ask Congress to support an innovative proposal to provide food assistance by purchasing crops directly from farmers in the developing world, so we can build up local agriculture and help break the cycle of famine. (Audience Applause.) [emphasis added]

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Molly Strand interviews guests at Urban Scout’s 3rd Annual NUCLEAR WINTER FORMAL!

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This week I have spent a lot of time devoted to finding a job. Craigslist.org makes me laugh. I have submitted several different resumes to many different companies. At times like this, when I practically feel like I need to beg someone for a job, I realize that a degree proves the most important thing you need to beg for a job. I don’t need a degree as an entrepreneur, but I sure as hell need one if I plan to work as someone elses bitch. Since I have done a little begging lately, I kinda wish I had one… But than again I can always lie about it and not have those lousy student loans to pay off. Lying seems like a much cheaper solution.

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I owe almost everything I know about rewilding language to my friend, author and teacher Willem Larsen from the College of Mythic Cartography, from the day he introduced me to “ePrime” to more currently as his obsession with animist languages sends reverberations through the rewilding community with his invention of “ePrimitive” an even further in depth attempt at rewilding English. No one has done a more thorough investigation and experimentation into this than Willem Larsen. No one. We all owe him a great deal of gratitude. I feel honored to have helped Willem get his thoughts in this first ever accumulated work.

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Hey Folks,

I have finally done it. I have triumphed every local paper in Portland; the Willamette Week, the Portland Mercury, The Oregonian, and now finally at long last, the Portland Tribune. Read it here.

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I’ve had a really hard time with this project, especially in the winter time. When things get so cold and wet and dark, I have a really hard time getting outside. I used to feel guilty over this, but I don’t feel that way anymore. It feels more like longing for something I can’t have. I don’t really know or have routines down for spending time outdoors during the winter. I know natives here gathered wapato even in the cold winter months, but I don’t have the heart to try that yet. Instead I have focused more on the cultural aspects of rewilding. I have spent a lot of time writing and putting on events like the Derrick Jensen talk and the Nuclear Winter Formal.

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