Culture & Behavior

Drink entire: against the madness of crowds

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I wonder if there might be some magic elixir, as the Bradbury short-story hinted at, that could take us away from the madness and anger swelling up around us these days in the public realm. A very narrow but loud and aggressive demographic has been ignited against health care reform and climate change policy and this sparking fuse is growing closer to the combustible source. There is unquestionably a close parallel between the people who have been motivated to erupt at town hall events and those who have been hurt the most by the economic downturn over the last year.

Confronting the Challenges of Community, Part One

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There exists today, a trinity of situations that confronts those of us who live in Western culture: global climate change, the peak and eventual end of non-renewable sources of fossil fuels (oil and gas), and economic meltdown.  These issues are old news for much of the world.  We in the wealthier nations are going to join the global community in attempting to find ways to survive and live amidst enormously trying circumstances.

the land speaks

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In “reading” these words, do you say anything? More likely, you read silently—or more accurately, subvocalize. Like microexpressions, reading, like emotion, still inheres to movement of the human body. It cannot take place solely in an incorporeal “mind,” our fantasies of such aside. We can fool ourselves into that notion only because we’ve reduced the motions involved to the most fleeting versions, giving the superficial impression that they barely happen at all.