Walter Byrd

'and to make it your ambition to live quietly and peacefully, and to mind your own affairs and work with your hands, just as we directed you, so that you will behave properly toward outsiders, and be dependent on no one and in need of nothing.' – 1 Thessalonians 4:11-12

“Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.” ― Edward Abbey, The Journey Home: Some Words in Defense of the American West

My wife had just bought a brand new Vista desktop. She's blind in one eye and has slightly distorted vision in the other. Her desktop settings are critical for her comfort, preventing eye strain and headaches.

I do not have the best vision either. One thing I especially like about the MATE desktop, I can make it look just like I want it to look. I can make the icons, the sidebars, and the fonts, as big as I like. I can make the background and the fonts in the terminal whatever color and size I want. I have found this to be difficult to impossible with Windows or MacOS.

“Anyone who believes that exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist” – Economist Kenneth Boulding

The 2001 movie "Spirited Away" has two themes that turn out to be interrelated: identity and consumption.
The protagonist is a ten year old girl. Her parents are very proud of their possessions. Her father brags about his all-wheel drive car and his credit cards. When her parents comes across a banquet, they consume the food until they literally become pigs.
This forces the girl to take a job. Just after she is hired, the boss takes her name, her identity. She befriends a boy who is enslaved because his identity was also stolen. A major character is a spirit named "No Face."
There is much more to it.
It turns out that identity and consumption are interrelated in that: in Japan, as in the west, people used to be very spiritual. Their spirituality, along with language and ethnicity, were big parts of their identity. But today, people's identity is more determined by what they own and consume: the cars they drive, the clothes they wear, the food they eat, and so on.

To me, among other things, this documentary gets the fundamental idea of land ownership.

One person buys it from another, who bought it from somebody else, and so on. Go back far enough, and practically all worthwhile land was taken by conquest in some way.

In the 15th century, the Pope gave Spain the right to claim any land - that was not already inhabited by a civilization - for Spain. What gave him that right?

Scott Adams, creator of the Dilbert cartoon, once said that land belongs to whoever can acquire it, and keep it. I pay taxes to the government which protects my right to inhabit my tiny bit of land. Might makes right. I am part of that armed tyrannical force who decides who gets what. If the government fell, my right to my land would be gone along with it. I would like to think humans were beyond that, but I guess we are not.

I watch to following:

All Creatures Great and Small

American Experience

Colorado Experience

Ken Burns Specials

Human Footprint

Masterpiece (sometimes)

Nature

Nova

New season starts soon.

He is probably a vegetarian

It's been a while since I watched the videos, but as I remember, he is full vegan (no meat, no milk, no eggs).

I was surprised to learn, he always set aside a good sized section - I think 1/3rd - to rest. He does not plant anything in that section. He has such a small amount of land, and he doesn't even plant it all.

Yes, sloppy word usage on my part - the Mountain Pine Beetle is a native of Canada. We provided it with a buffet, and it took advantage of that fact.

You are using the correct term. Such critters are called "invasive species." I just don't think the term is fair.