Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Whatever we do, whatever we produce – we need common pool resources. So, the very question we have to answer is: What do we want to do with them? Do we want to produce commodities and convert everything – our collective knowledge, our genes, solar energy, public arenas and spaces, water, beaches, social care, etc. – into commodities? Or do we want to sustain and reproduce them as commons? It’s our choice.
Will this rise in food prices continue in the months ahead? In all likelihood we will see further rises that will take the world into uncharted territory in the relationship between food prices and political stability.
What happens if you create 25 small groups to discuss food values and issues, and include a local farmer or food producer in each one? Innovative organizers Judy Alexander, Dick Bergeron and Peter Bates facilitated the “Menu for the Future” groups to support local farmers and educate eaters. Results? Eaters changed their food choices, and the market for local food products expanded. Winners all around!
Mink River is simply the best novel I have read in a decade. It is brilliantly and painstakingly crafted. It tells a wonderful and heart-warming story. It never manipulates. Its prose is pure poetry: Every word counts. Its characters are so contemporary and complex and familiar that they spring to life. And its message — about cultural transition driven by necessity, about the importance of community and of place and of resilience and of love — is essential and delivered with a power and richness that no non-fictional account could hope to match.
Food justice is about ensuring access to healthy, quality food for all people, no matter their economic position. Ahmadi and Reverend Jeffrey sat down with YES! to explain how a total reorientation of the food system can support community health and wealth—planting local businesses, creating jobs, and growing a public understanding about why our current paradigm fails us all, especially those in the most need.
The more that we can create alternative systems by channelling our consumption and investment and convince others these are great ways of living, and consistent with what we’re trying to achieve long term, I think that’s the way we’re going to succeed.
The food crisis is manifestly just that – a crisis. At the same time, there’s another side to this coin. Rising food prices are to some extent good for farmers. And there are plenty of people, me included, who have been arguing for years that we don’t pay enough of the true costs of our food. So who is right? How do you balance the merits and demerits of food prices?
-How to build a left-wing Tea Party: A guide for Americans
-Life in the Water
-Paradox: Linchpin of the Long Emergency
Hozho enfolds a concept that we westerners vehemently and vocally reject: inevitability. We are the people of the fabled “fat lady”—nothing is over till she sings, and even then we hold out hope that game officials will reverse the call on further review and deliver a last-minute miraculous victory for our side. The idea that things just “are the way they are”, no matter what we do, goes against our ingrained, up-by-our-boot-straps belief that we are the masters of our fate. If something ain’t right it’s just because we haven’t fixed it yet. We only need to think harder, work longer, swear louder—and, by God, beat some balance back into this thing.
Articles from last month that we thought were significant.
An increase of a dollar or so in the cost of a gallon of milk or a loaf of bread for Americans can mean starvation for people in Egypt and other poor countries.
All is not rosy in global cities where inequalities reach record levels and put such cities at risk. There may consequently be more cycles of disorder and violence if the financial and economic sectors continue to dominate the cities’ agendas.
