DIY / NEWS / INFO

What is Self-Defense? Self Defense is anything we think or do to increase our physical, mental, and emotional safety. Self Defense thinking and behavior is assertive, rather than passive or aggressive. Self Defense refers to rights and responsibilities we have in our relations with others. The Five Fingers of Self-Defense Think • Yell • Run • Fight • Tell Think Assertiveness – Present yourself assertively: in voice, body and eyes. Awareness – Violence can come from strange

Pesticide applications happen all around us, all over Oregon. Beyond Toxics offers support and resources for those affected by pesticide drift, but there remained an unmet need for greater transparency in historical pesticide usage across the state. That is why we have launched the FERNS Pesticide Webmap, a one-of-a-kind tool that compiles publicly available data into a single interactive resource. This map displays forestland pesticide application notifications filed with th

Adapted from "Backyard Biosecurity: 6 Tips for a Chicken Flock" by Erin Snyder 1. Maintain a Secluded Group If you haven't come across the term "closed flock," you might be curious about its definition. Maintaining a closed flock involves refraining from adding adult or juvenile chickens to the current group. Rather, the flock is either reduced before new chickens come in (this method is commonly employed when chickens are grown for eggs or meat) or expanded by brooding chick

On March 4, 2026, the Ithaca Common Council in Ithaca, New York, U.S., voted to non-renew its contract with Flock Safety. Flock, among other things, is a vendor of fixed-location automated license plate reader (ALPR) systems. You may have seen them pop up in your city or county in the past couple of years, as they have become a popular surveillance tool for many law enforcement agencies. And while Flock claims the primary purpose of its network of tens of thousands of AI-powe

When I act on behalf of my community, I feel wealthier. You may have experienced this too if you’ve ever volunteered locally. Most recently, I found that my neighbor (an amazing masseuse) is willing to do bodywork for me in exchange for my inoculating oak logs with shiitake mushrooms that will produce food for her family. To me, this exchange is worth more than money, directly connecting people who have unique gifts to share with one another. You can experience more joy, bui

"Mutual Aid in Action" by Shareable is licensed under Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0.

"Intro to Mutual Aid" by Shareable is licensed under Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0.

A Madison Mutual Aid Network Cooperative Sharefest. Photo credit: Stephanie Rearick Through time exchanges, members earn time credits by helping others, then redeem them when they need help themselves. In Kent, Ohio, older white women and immigrant families are forging unexpected connections through a time exchange network. Through time exchanges — sometimes called time banking — members earn time credits by helping others, then redeem them when they need assistance themselve

"Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied." —Robert Boyce Yes, you can have Wikipedia in the palm of your hand, literally (no internet required). An app called Kiwix allows you to download an offline copy of Wikipedia (with or without images) to be used/stored on your smartphone, desktop computer, laptop, or tablet. This will allow you to access the full Wikipedia catalogue if the grid ever goes down or if the internet is no longer available for whatever reaso

Laura Allen shared her favorite way to use greywater: from the laundry machine. You can reuse its greywater without changing your household plumbing, while also using its pump to place the water where you want it. Presenter: The KEPW program Talk Is Cheap recently interviewed an expert on greywater about the many benefits to fish and trees from reusing water from our homes. Here’s KEPW producer Curtis Blankinship: Curtis Blankinship (KEPW): All right, I’m here with Laura A

Your home and its contents are probably your most valuable assets, and although you might feel it may never happen to you, house break-ins are a reality. Yes, we can always call the police after an incident occurs, but you can also prevent your property becoming an easy target. Consider your home security measures in three layers: Perimeter Exterior Interior At each layer you can take some simple measures to make it harder and riskier for thieves to get in and out of your hom

Becoming a first-time gun owner can be intimidating. Becoming a first-time gun owner as a woman can be next-level intimidating. “If there's a man at the gun counter, will he be helpful or condescending?” “What’s the difference between 9mm and .380?” “Should I just stick with a revolver, or is a semi-automatic the better option?” Questions like these go through the mind of any woman who’s only just picking up a gun for the first time. By the time you finish this article, you’

by Rick Wilson As people across the United States face massive cuts to Medicaid, SNAP and other vital programs, many are asking: What happens when the systems we rely on fail us? And what happens when our communities are torn apart by toxic inequality, political fragmentation and declining social trust? The solution may lie in something that humans have been doing throughout our existence: taking care of each other, often without realizing it. Today that’s what some of us cal

by Sarah Henry Heads up, green thumbs struggling to offload excess edibles: Aid is out there. A growing movement, designed to help people eat well, save money, and get to know their neighbors, is planting seeds in communities around the country. Crop swaps – meet ups where people exchange their surplus backyard bounty – are thriving from the San Francisco Bay Area to Boston in city and suburban enclaves and online, too. Of course, there's nothing particularly new about this p

In Buffalo, New York, waiting for the bus just got a little easier. Like many other cities, Buffalo bus stops often lack any kind of seating. It’s a daily struggle for people who rely on public transit, as they’re forced to wait for long periods of time with nowhere to rest. Volunteers with the city’s Local Conversation, Strong Towns Buffalo , witnessed that struggle and decided to do something about it. Late last month, the group installed five bus benches around the city. B

The following comes from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance ( www.ilsr.org ), a national nonprofit organization working to strengthen local economies, and redirect waste into local recycling, composting, and reuse industries. It is reprinted here with permission. We’ve developed this Hierarchy to Reduce Waste & Grow Community in order to highlight the importance of locally based composting solutions as a first priority over large-scale regional solutions. Composting can

What is Speed Friending? Speed Friending is similar to Speed Dating. Having the name as “friending” better captures the slow building that happens in relationships. Each person is in charge of the nature of each relationship they have. This takes some of the pressure off and allows people to show up just as they are to the event. This event happens every-other month, usually on the third Friday of the month. What happens at Speed Friending? As people start arriving, folks wil

"The Secret to Making New Friends as an Adult" is licensed under CC by NC-ND 4.0.

by Vicky Osterweil According to a report by the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC), the United States throws away a staggering 40% of the food it produces every year. There are a number of reasons for this: restaurants and bakeries that throw away what’s left uneaten or isn’t sold; people who buy more groceries than they can use; and food distributors who throw out whole pallets when things go bad in transit. But one of the major culprits of food waste is supermarkets

“Free Food Fridge Albany wants to make fresh food and produce accessible to all, especially in marginalized neighborhoods and communities.” They believe, "everyone should have access to food without jumping through hoops or having to prove they are impoverished." "Free Food. In a Fridge. On the Street." is licensed under a Creative Commons 1.0 Universal License .

"This [booklet] provides a step-by-step guide for starting a grass-roots fresh food rescue program in your own community. Depending on the situation of food waste and hunger in your community, you might need to take a slightly different path than is outlined here. However, these steps are meant to be applicable to a wide range of environments and are drawn from our own experiences developing Boulder Food Rescue."

Republished from Dilate Magazine Like a lot of people, when I first heard of permaculture, I had no idea what it was, but I knew that it had something to do with growing your own food. However, once I discovered what amazing things can be done with permaculture, I was an immediate fan. Permaculture is a system, an integrated approach to farming/agriculture and land management design. The goal of permaculture design is to mimic patterns found in nearby natural ecosystems in or

BottleDrop (The Oregon Beverage Recycling Cooperative) is running a campaign to help Oregonians struggling with putting food on the table. They recently dipped into their emergency fund to donate $30k to 12 nonprofits in the state, and have announced a new donation-matching program. If you make donations through your BottleDrop account before November 30th, BottleDrop will match them, with a maximum matched donation amount of $35k. Here are some of the organizations supported

by Olga Lautman, Republished from Dilate Magazine Documents reviewed by 404 Media reveal that ICE is purchasing access to a powerful surveillance tool that harvests billions of pieces of location data daily from hundreds of millions of phones. This move reverses Biden-era curbs and marks a dramatic expansion of ICE’s ability to track people inside the U.S. without a warrant. The contract has been awarded to PenLink, a little-known surveillance company headquartered in Nebras

Excerpt from the book's preface: "My objective is for you to use this book as a guide to preparation for the next earthquake, a far more important goal than just taking the baccalaureate core course. The information in this book should provide the arguments you need to become an advocate for major strengthening of our society against the coming earthquake. The future of the Northwest will depend on a society that has prepared itself to survive the earthquake." " Living With E

“I have witnessed my garden become a tool for the education, the transformation of my neighborhood. To change a community, you need to change the composition of the soil. Gardening is the most therapeutic and defiant act you can do, especially in the inner city. I want us all to be ecolutionaries, renegades, gangstas, gangsta gardeners. Get gangsta with your shovel, and let that be your weapon of choice” — Ron Finley, Guerilla Gardening expert, “The Gangsta Gardener With gr

“We have never seen health as a right. It has been conceived as a privilege, available only to those who can afford it. This is the real reason the American health care system is in such a scandalous state.” — Shirley Chisholm Previously, I wrote about how to take care of your own health as prescriptions become harder to get and doctor appointments are booked out for the year. However, now (in the fall of 2025), the situation has worsened, and access to affordable health insu

Ah, Primary Care Practitioners (PCPs.) When was the last time you saw yours? Was anything solved? Are you on prescription drugs with side effects that are worse than the original problem? Just call in and make an appointment, although the next available may not be for 6 months or a year. Don’t be pissed at the doctor, though. This situation we are in is not the fault of medical practitioners themselves. An economic system in a downward spiral, worldwide pandemics, and a broke

by Daisy Simmons Wildfire smoke is becoming an increasingly serious public health threat across the western U.S. And it’s getting worse each year as a consequence of climate change. Here, as part of your climate adaptation toolbox, are some tips for coping with wildfire smoke, which may last days and even weeks after a wildfire event. 1. Know the health risks. Wildfire smoke is a complex mix of gases and fine particles produced from burning materials like trees, buildings and

Introduction to Permaculture by Andrew Millison is available for free download and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted. See the introduction excerpt below: "The permaculture perspective has more resonance now than at any other time since the term ‘permaculture’ was coined in 1978. The Paris Climate Agreement of 2016 has the world admitting it needs to turn civilization onto a different road. P

by Molly Carter Every year, nearly 200 million people are impacted by natural disasters, another 99,000 are killed, and over $162 billion a year is spent on the emergency situations they create – a staggering impact that is just the beginning of the far reach of natural disasters. Serious injury, displacement, loss of family, and even the effects PTSD are just a few of the traumatizing results that can be felt long after the disaster itself. Even though every state in the U

" Tool Libraries, Mutual Aid, and Community-Led Disaster Response" by Shareable is licensed under Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0.

"Legal, Financial, & Security Basics" by Shareable is licensed under Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0.

I had the chance to catch up with Cody Lundin, survival expert, star of the show Dual Survival , and all-around awesome guy. He answered a few questions from our readers, as well as gave us information on his new self-produced show, The Survival Show with Cody Lundin , now in its second season. Q & A 1. Infectious disease experts, the World Health Organization, and a large percentage of the scientific community stress that there will be another deadly pandemic, most likely wi

"Survival situations suck. Do all that you can to prevent them from happening in the first place." -Cody Lundin Cody Lundin, AKA AboDude has been a survival instructor extraordinaire for over 32 years and was hand-picked to star in Discovery Channel's hit survival show, Dual Survival for 4 seasons. Backpacker magazine published an article about Cody's survival skills and philosophies, making him the third person in history to grace the cover. In addition, countless TV and new

“I make myself rich by making my wants few.” — Henry David Thoreau Gathering rain to water your garden, growing a food forest in your backyard, raising chickens in your own coop—these are often things that people associate with the term "self-sufficiency"—but they're not the whole story. Sometimes, in order to be self-employed and living on our own terms, we can't afford a big piece of land or we don't have enough room to fit a large rain barrel. The good thing about self-su

For the small percentage of you that love your company, love your co-workers, but hate your actual job, here is another option worth trying. Okay, Imma' tell you a story, because that's what I do. I worked at this natural foods co-op, and I got along with a lot of the people there. They were (mostly) chill, had that hippie vibe, and were just down to earth people. I applied there to be a part-time admin assistant, and I was qualified—in fact, after about 15 years of admin as

Jobs and careers usually are talked about as singular things—"I need to get a job" , or "This is my career". But what if doing just one thing doesn't make as much sense as it used to? There are three main reasons why more is better when it comes to side hustles: You will have backups. Starting a business isn't ever a sure thing—sometimes we can put our all into something, and it just doesn't bring the results we want. It is nice to have a backup to bring in money while