Audio slide show: Former Marine does it his way

Vietnam vet and Rastafarian Joseph Diliberti, who is battling the taxman over his brush-clearance bill, describes his art and philosophy and gives a tour of his earthen home in rural San Diego County. See full story

Photography and audio by Allen J. Schaben

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Comments (4)

zebraman777 at 12:34 PM March 15, 2011 Ok, this is where the governor, or some Goverment big wig, needs to walk down the pole, and fix this, by removing the tax lien, this is past the point, now it is just dumb, does the city really think we are going to just let them take this mans home, over dumb stuff like this, this is where people from this area need to go to this man, and help him, and if the powers that be keep this up, I would hope the people of your city, and state will at minimum, vote all the people with any power in there office out. to let this go on anymore is a violation of this and every humans rights, this man lives there in a very simple way, without much impact on his imvironment, Now we need to call this what it is, EGO!!!If this happens to this man think about the rest of us, when the goverment can take this and cut down your tree and charge you $1,000's for it, and if you don;t pay they can remove your land from you and sell it, think about all the miss use that will come of this in this country, we already have things like this happening, how long are we the people going to let this go on???

JessicaButler-Peng at 5:06 PM February 05, 2011

Few things frustrate me more than seeing gross injustice at the hands of those we have empowered to serve us, and not being able to do a damn thing about it.

This poor man serves as a role model to us all. And the County of San Diego is willfully, knowingly, blithely and callously violating his civil and constitutional rights, for two positively abominable reasons:

1. Money. (They don't want to lose out on $65K.)
2. Culpability. (They don't want to admit that they were wrong. Even though they've already essentially done just that. Repeatedly.)

SHAME ON YOU, COUNTY OF SAN DIEGO. SHAME ON YOU.

jplindblad at 11:19 PM June 10, 2010

The slide show and the commentary reminded me of my two summers sessions I attended and participated in Paolo's workshops in 1973 and 1974. I likewise shoveled clay to make the apse forms with Paolo's colorful designs imprinted in the final result, a concrete aspe.The arcosanti community strived to be self-sufficient in food production and crafts.

Today, 36 years on, with our species in severe overshoot and political, economic and social collapse, the concept of arcology is integral to the green-values platform I'm running on - to bring to the 39th Assembly seat, representing the District constituents in Sacramento.

Jack Lindblad http://LindbladForAssembly.blogspot.com/