Author: Dane Lowell
Submitted by: redadmin

Chapt. 160 – 1934 words
Columns :: A legend in my own time! Junkyard dogs

MOSCOW, August 24, 2005 -- Comments:   Ratings:

A legend in my own time
Russia is the place to be
“Hands off Zhorik”
Kasyanov blasts Putin
Putin’s changing end game
Junkyard dogs a threat?



MOSCOW, August 24, 2005 -- A legend! And in my own time! That’s what Tarp Honniker calls me in the final version of our interview (Chapt. 148) which he has now submitted to several energy and related websites.

Under the proclamation, “The Legendary Dane Lowell interviews Tarp Honniker,” Tarp writes: “Recently, I was honored to meet another giant of the Peak Oil truth movement right here in Moscow.”

Who could that be? It turned out to be none other than li’l ol’ moi, the co-author of a “classic” book on peak oil “way back in 1974, during the early days of our now rapidly escalating energy crisis.”

”A quick Google search will pull up thousands of references to Dane Lowell’s book, still being quoted and referenced by organizations like: www.urbanecology.org.au and www.co2andclimate.org.”

Don’t bother to rush out and buy a copy for my sake. My co-author, Wilson C., who had the contract with Doubleday, pushed my name off the cover of the book, and I have never received a cent in royalties.

Wilson went on to become Calif. Gov. Jerry Brown’s energy assistant. I went on to become a starving newsletter editor. So Andrei Tioufline wasn’t the first to fuck over his “best friend.” And if Wilson hadn’t already been killed in an automobile accident, I’d be afraid the twins might kill him too.

Anyway, Tarp assures his readers that my views

basically parallel the current leaders like Kunstler, Campbell, Heinberg and others. Basically, we all realize that we are face-to-face with a multi-headed dragon that humankind has never dealt with before.

Since the publication of Dane’s book 30+ years ago, he has watched with concern as generations of presidents and peoples in the US and the world have chosen lifestyles and policies totally ignoring the message within his book [that’s true!] which is prominently displayed on the front cover with that ominous (sub)title: “…The Alternative to Extinction”. The message can’t get any more succinct and it can’t be any more right.

Paradoxically, it can’t get any more ignored. To our peril, we have lost our chance to avoid a face-to-face confrontation with the multi-headed dragon called Peak Oil. But we did not lose our chance to survive.

Survival was precisely the topic of interest discussed between Dave and me. The following discussion takes the form of an interview. Dave suggested interviewing me on the subject of avoiding the coming collapse and we focused upon Russia as a post collapse survivor nation.


You can imagine what an ego booster it is to be called a legend, even if you’re not. Anyway, since – thanks to Wilson – it’s the only recognition I’ll ever get for what I put into the book, I’ll graciously accept whatever laurels they want to toss.

Tom Robertson has started addressing me as “legendary Dane,” and Ilya at School #69 wrote: “Are you really famous?”

So I’m getting some amusing mileage out of it. Sorry, I can’t give the web site, though, because it would blow my cover, and of all the things I like to have blown, my cover is not one of them.


One unexpected benefit of the posting has been the savvy responses of many of the posting’s readers. Basically, both they and Tarp have convinced me that Russia, not the good ole’ U.S. of B. is where I want to try to ride out the storm.

An American ex-pat living in Ukraine praised the posting as “right on the money!....I 100% agree Russia-Bellarus-Ukraine will be prime for the future for many reasons and will be the nations most sought after by refugees.



…. These nations have very good soil and all are already local and farmable...not removed from the land....Everything is really in place here in Ukraine for a post peak survival..i.e. passenger rail, electric rail, buses, mimimal cars, organic farming, and everyone has gardens and produces their own foods at least for a percentage of consumption. And then add the oil and gas from Russia.

…My wife is Ukrainian and we just had our child registered as a Ukrainian, NOT American...by the time she is of age the last place she will want to go will probably be the USA.


While Ukraine-Russia-Belarus might have the right "raw material," countered one reader, “they lack some key ingredients: good management practices and a political system not centered on "All for One and None for Rest".

Another wrote:



In my opinion Russia is probably set to be the best off in a post peak world. The reason for that is not so much their oil and gas reserves but rather their people. They are generally well educated and used to a hard lifestyle.....hardship is like water off a ducks back. And they are always willing to help out their neighbours...perhaps one of the few good things that may have come from the communist upbringing. Post peak will be a breeze for these folks.


My new “hands off” policy has now come into effect for Zhorik. He and I are back to being best buddies again, and Sunday afternoon we had a “bench” session where we sat on the bench in the courtyard, drank canned cocktails, and laid bare our souls.

He again said he’d like to have Anton’s room. I told him that would happen, but not right now. I’ve pretty much made the decision that it’s time for Anton – after three years of not being my lover and living rent-free – to move on. I told Zhorik what would make it easiest would be for me to find a new boyfriend so that I would have to kick him, Zhorik, out of my bed and into Anton’s room to make room for my new lover.

Some variation of that theme will come about.

Zhorik also told me that he wants his old Svetlograd friend Igor, who will be going to university in Peter this year, to transfer to Moscow and live with him in Anton’s room. After their fight here this spring (Chapt. 108), they’ve resumed best buddy status, and Zhorik would like for them to live together.

It would be fun to have him here, even though -- while he may be cuter than Zhorik -- he’s no more bent.

During our moments of courtyard-bench intimacy, Zhorik said he’d woken up several times recently to find my hand on his piska. “I don’t like that. I’m not gay. And I love you, but as a grandfather, but it makes me very uncomfortable.”

Bite the bullet time!

“Honey, you know how much I love you. And I really, really want to have sex with you. But if you really don’t want to, and if it makes you so uncomfortable, I will promise to try to keep my hands off your cock. But in return you have to promise to let me hug you and kiss you.”

“But only when we’re by ourselves,” he cautioned.

So the couple of nights since then have been oh-so-sweet. I’ve awakened several times in the middle of the night with him in my arms. And the closest I’ve let myself get to his cock is the upper part of his inner thigh.

I’ve got to find a new boyfriend.


Putin is putting his re-election plan in order, according to a Moscow Times columnist. Pressure’s ratcheting up on him: His popularity continues to drop, and former Prime Minister Michail Kasyanov is making more noises as an opposition candidate in 2008, despite the Kremlin’s effort to bring criminal charges against him.

Writing in an introduction to the British Foreign Policy Center’s “Blueprint for Russia,” Kasyanov pulled no punches in calling Putin’s national policies false, cynical, and irresponsible.

“Almost all the essential characteristics of a modern democratic state have disappeared in Russia within a short period of time,” he wrote. “The government and parliament can no longer function without daily instructions, and the judiciary is increasingly servile.”

Kasyanov calls the Kremlin’s accusations of a special deal to get a free government dacha a smear campaign to try to discredit him as a candidate.

In a separate incident, the same issue of the MT also reports that Gary Kasparov, the chess champ who retired earlier this year to coordinate the defeat of Putin in the next election, was detained at Passport Control for 25 minutes while all the other passengers passed through without a hitch.

During the delay, Kasparov told the Times, border guards consulted one another, made telephone calls, and handed his passport around like a “hot potato.”

It was all merely “a failure in the technical control system,” insisted the press service of the FSB (KGB successor). “Confiscating his passport or creating other obstacles to his entry into the Russian Federation was not our intent.”

However, one member of his entourage reported hearing a border guard ask, “How can I stop a Russian citizen from entering Russia?”

Kasparov is certain he’s been tagged by the FSB because of his anti-Putin political activities.


It’s more evidence that “the Kremlin is terrified “by the slow but steady decline in Putin’s popularity,” writes Moscow Times columnist Pavel Felgenhauer, “and by the thought that a serious opposition force could consolidate by 2008.”

“The authorities appear to be nervous that a national election as planned in 2008 could even spark a democratic revolution like the ones in Ukraine or Georgia.”

Well, then, let’s have an election now, “when no one but the Kremlin is ready!” This, says Felgenhauer, seems to be the bizarre concoction that is cooking on the Kremlin’s back burners at the moment. Of course, it would require a change in the constitution, but with Putin’s already-acquired dictatorial powers and universally-installed toadies, that would pose no barrier whatsoever.

“The Kremlin may be too terrified to wait much longer,” Felgenhauer predicts. “The ideology of the coming Putin re-election has been already chosen by Kremlin spin-doctors: nationalism and militaristic anti-Westernism. The pretext to change the constitution may come very soon.”


The Russian government is a junkyard, observes a recent Red Queen press release. But “if you can navigate through the junkyard dogs, the fulfilling and rewarding life you find here is a Shangri-La.”

So now the junkyard dogs are leaping across my playground again. Does “militaristic anti-Western” mean decadent Westerners can’t teach English in Russia any more? Am I going to be deported?

What about my future with the twins? What about riding out the storm in Russia? What about all the money I’m going to save next year?

No wonder my blood pressure was up to 170 this morning!