Really tired of this new round of Covid brain-fog. Everyone I know virtually has a cough or congestion, mentally or nasally. But here we are.
We didn’t really have a winter. No major snow storms. No weeks of cold. While I’m fine with that, it indicates larger changes in climate that are not so comfortable to think about.
I have many pending publications; few that are finished. I also have many pending applications for positions and conferences; also, few that are returned.
But there are some.
I will be presenting the draft text of a project I’ve worked on for years at the “Renaissance for Economics” conference in Rome, Italy. My project is a model constitution, a “Democratic Ecosocialist Constitution” to be more precise. While I’m not a lawyer, I have been interested in law, constitutional law in particular, for quite a while. This project is mainly to keep my own sanity – to be reminded that a better world is possible. And one of the best ways to finish a project is to force yourself into a deadline. So, me and Kimi K2.5 and Claude Sonnet 4.7 are pumping out lots of fun and innovative material when it comes to constitutional stuff. I’m also just reading a ton from The Constitution Project (out of Texas), which is really helpful. I hope to involve those folks at some point. In the meantime, I have a list of friends in law and legal scholars that I will have look it over. I hope to have it published in a monograph with commentary sometime next year.
The basic argument of the project is:
- Society needs structural change to be sustainable and improved.
- Structural change in the context of modern states primarily exists on the level of constitutional law.
- The only sustainable model of society in such a modern context – which also must address vast inequalities and other problems – is ecosocialism.
- Furthermore, constitutions are best written during peacetime, not war and resolution.
- Furthermore, constitutions constantly change and revolution is a part of society and history; so we should anticipate it and take advantage of it, not ignore it.
- So, ecosocialist constitutions and models should be written, like, now. And discussed globally.
My annotated bibliography for Oxford Bibliographies is done and awaiting final review. They are behind by months, so I’m getting impatient. (I may update this section when its released to include a link, or maybe not.)
Speaking of, a chapter I wrote 2.5 years ago is finally going to be published next month in a volume entitled Religious Faith and Meaning Making, edited by my two colleagues at LCC International University, Travis Meyers (now VP of Academic Affairs) and the excessively published analytic philosopher and my former boss Kirk Lougheed. The volume was supposed to be published by Brill, but it got transferred to Palgrave MacMillan. Long ass wait. Anyway, my essay is entitled “Metaphor, Meaning, and Religious Discourse: A Linguistic and Theological Archeology of the ‘Liquidation of the Human Spirit’.” It’s basically a capstone article that kind of wraps up my former theological career: I zoom way out to ask what religion is, what religious language means and why, and how meaninglessness is associated with the loss of metaphor in modernity. I gain some pointers from theosophists like Owen Barfield, and liberal theologians like Peter C. Hodgson, and liberation theologians as well. I’m usually repulsed by reading my own work over 2 years old (“never read your old work” as some say). But I was generally OK with it when I proof read it.
I’m working on some other project that is religious, and is actually both radically traditional and radically untraditional and wish I could say more. But it’s experimental and may never see the light of day.
I have a series of articles coming out over the next two years that I’m excited about. They are very nerdy and focus strictly on world history textbook pedagogy. Basically, I’m looking at a series of topics through the lens of six world history textbooks, and making observations and recommendations. There are several topics I’m including (mostly controversial ones; you know me :D) but I won’t mention them for the moment. I have one article totally finished. I plan to submit them mostly all at once to different journals, and have them all come out in 2027, and perhaps compile them into a volume.
My book on the history of anarcho-capitalism has been at a stand still because of these endeavors (and construction; more below). But it will jump start again because I have a due date to review the excellent work by Sven Beckert, Capitalism: A Global History for a journal, and I’ve decided that is perhaps the most important work for me to interact with, at least in the beginning framing chapters. His argument is capitalism evolved always with the state but sometimes also was the state. I don’t disagree with this, but a concept of anarchism in the 1500s -1600s companies needs to be in the mix.
I have made considerable progress on my book on politics (it focuses on six principles). It’s about 50% finished and will be about 220 pages. I will present it as print ready to Verso and Polity Press and similar houses, but I suspect they will want to change everything and at that point I’m ready to decline and self-publish. I have a specific vision for the work and want to include lots of graphs, tables, and textbook-friendly examples, and it’s so much easier if I just do it myself.
I built two sheds for our backyards, and a wall for a client in the past month, which was alot for my chronically-pained hands. But physical work is always a good excuse to get out and about. Our rental units, which are for traveling nurses and workers, are finally filled up after about $150,000 and 10 years worth of back-breaking remodeling – multiple kitchens and bathrooms gutted, windows, doors, etc. Hopefully the harvest of this labor will last us through the inflationary future.
Things are terribly busy at the Humane Society as well, as I have to create a 2-3 hour orientation for new board members, a policy manual (mostly from scratch), and stay on top of other obligations. But the progress has been significant; budget deficits are being closed, and construction has begun on “Kitty City.” I was also asked to join the board of another flailing nonprofit and will probably join in autumn. I am also doing some work for the Rudolph Rocker Institute based in Mainz Germany, where I serve on the board. I’m reading his Nationalism and Culture (endorsed by Albert Einstein) and finding it very fascinating – especially given the historical context of being written right before WWII, and from a German academic who got kicked out of Germany by the Nazis…not to mention imprisoned in a concentration camp for two years in London during WWI. Anyway, everyone should read the book now as we face the dark monsters of fascism once again.
Natural Grocers is opening next month here in Rapid and yes, having spent 3.5 years trying to work towards expansion as the Treasurer of the Breadroot, I am pained (along with others). We had a number of good expansion possibilities that slipped through our hands, and now the Co-op doesn’t even have an expansion committee. Hopefully they’ll figure things out; there’s so much potential there that is untapped and waiting to burst out with growth. But it will now be more difficult as real estate options disappear and new competition opens its doors.
Jessica opened a partial-storefront on main street with Sunny Lemons Cookies. They share the same space. It’s a great pair and so far working out to sell her curated vintage finds. High quality cookies and vintage all around; very unique for downtown Rapid City.
I have been playing way too much FarCry 1 with a group of dedicated gamers from the early 2000s. There are only about 20 of us that play. Servers rarely fill up to 16 players. But the gameplay and fun just can’t be found elsewhere. Jessica and I are finishing our new house project in Enshrouded, and also playing with a friend through Balder’s Gate 3 for the third time.
Constitutions. Construction. Gaming. It’s what I do to keep my sanity amidst a possible third world war, a world ran by billionaire child rapists and cannibals, and in an empire that is cannibalizing itself into oblivion through asset stripping, corruption, war, blackmail, suppression, misogyny, and everything else, while also paying some bills.
I play a gig this weekend for the South Dakota Jazz Orchestra. It’s a fundraiser for the Black Hills Children’s Home at the Hyatt Hotel Ballroom (brand new; I’ve never been there). Should be fun, though the only rehearsal from yesterday was a little lackluster. But I think we’ll pull through alright.