Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Poverty itself, the absence of money to spare, is not the enemy, Paul Goodman told us. We should be more precise and define the problem as economic insecurity, the threat of utter destitution, the constant specter of misery and ruin.
– Tunisia: People Power Succeeds Without Western Backing
– The First WikiLeaks Revolution?
– How Tunisian Facebookers Will Change Newsrooms
– Timing, success and meaning of the Tunisian uprising
– Tunisia’s military putting boot on ‘Jasmine Revolution’
– Jordanians march against inflation
When my partners and I embarked on this project, nearly three years ago, I could barely distinguish between a screwdriver and a zucchini. Now I’ve hammered, drilled, sawed, plumbed, tiled, and constructed. And grown, in ways I could not have imagined. Kurt Vonnegut’s mythical writer, Kilgore Trout, comes to mind: “How the hell did I do that?”
When a movement for change is reduced to dreaming of a global dictatorship as the only remaining vehicle for its hopes, something has gone very wrong. For at least some elements of the climate change movement, that point has apparently arrived, and the peak oil movement could benefit from a close look at the mistakes that have driven the failure of climate change activism. With the aid of a large can of tuna and an electric can opener, the Archdruid explains.
For all those who dismissed bike sharing as a woolly-headed European idea that would never work on the mean streets of U.S. cities, the success of the first season of MinneapolisNice Ride bike program will come as a surprise.
In one of the last entries for 2010 on Transition Culture Rob Hopkins posts his interview with Christopher Alexander, a discussion of the links between A Pattern Language and the new Transition ingredients. At some point the architect and writer’s wife, Maggie enters the conversation: “If Transition was successful, what the community would feel – it would feel like home. Simple. Everyone can feel that feeling. You know it when you see it; it just feels like home…
– The Man Who Spilled the Secrets
– Wiki Rehab
– Nader: Tweeting Away the Time
– The American Conservative: Mainstreaming Bicycles
– New York’s transportation chief is a latter-day Robin Hood
– The ‘War on Cars’: A brief history of a rhetorical device
– Seven Rules for Sustainable Communities
– Portlandia – The Dream of the 90s is alive in Portland (video)
– Peak Travel may have arrived
– La Revolucion Blanca (video)
– Be Happy It’s An Order (music in Turkey – video)
– Magic and Findhorn (My Dinner with Andre)
– Postcard from the Future
A recent study found that a quarter of people have no one to turn to in times of crisis, and another quarter have only one person. The growing effort to build a collaborative culture can help change that — particularly the new technology available for neighborhoods, technology that allows people to share with each other.
– Want a safe place to raise kids? Look to the cities
– Turning Failed Commercial Properties Into Parks
– Road rage in India growing along with economy
– Paris To Test Banning Gas-Guzzlers (Yes, SUVs!) In City Core
Many individuals involved with Transition, including Rob Hopkins, have become fascinated with the work of Christopher Alexander and his development of pattern language. [He noticed] that any built environment is like a language in that the patterns communicate problems we confront in our environments but also contain within them the solutions. … Often overlooked is what Alexander calls the “luminous ground” on which the pattern language theory is built.
