Dave Pollard's environmental philosophy, creative works, business papers and essays.
In search of a better way to live and make a living, and a better understanding of how the world really works.

	October 13, 2007

Saturday Links for the Week -- October 13, 2007 From the 'picture's worth a thousand words department': This pretty well says it all. Charge It To My Kids: I rarely agree with Flat Earth Friedman, but he's right in his outrage over Bush's (and our) growing propensity to buy, use and spend more, and collect, demand and give back less, and how that betrays our responsibility to future generations. Closed Minds in Open Space: From Chris Corrigan, how the education system makes us behave badly in self-managed learning and collaboration activities like Open Space. Jon Husband points out that 'education' comes from the Latin words meaning to lead out (of ignorance, the darkness etc.) Podcast with Jon coming up early next week. Burma Regime's Brutality Coming to Light: Despite the crackdown on the media and Internet in Burma (Myanmar), word is getting out on the atrocities committed by the police and military against the pro-democracy protesters recently. Buy Radiohead, Sell Facebook: Umair Haque explains the importance of Radiohead's 'pay what you want' new CD release, and Om Malik discusses the sudden decline of Facebook. Umair thinks Facebook is doomed like MySpace, and I think he's right. Thought for the Week: from Wendell Berry via Dave Smith's Briarpatch Network: Seventeen Rules for a Sustainable Community: Always ask of any proposed change or innovation: What will this do to our community? How will this affect our common wealth? Always include local nature - the land, the water, the air, the native creatures - within the membership of the community. Always ask how local needs might be supplied from local sources, including the mutual help of neighbours. Always supply local needs first (and only then think of exporting products - first to nearby cities, then to others). Understand the ultimate unsoundness of the industrial doctrine of ‘labour saving’ if that implies poor work, unemployment, or any kind of pollution or contamination. Develop properly scaled value-adding industries for local products to ensure that the community does not become merely a colony of national or global economy. Develop small-scale industries and businesses to support the local farm and/or forest economy. Strive to supply as much of the community’s own energy as possible. Strive to increase earnings (in whatever form) within the community for as long as possible before they are paid out. Make sure that money paid into the local economy circulates within the community and decrease expenditures outside the community. Make the community able to invest in itself by maintaining its properties, keeping itself clean (without dirtying some other place), caring for its old people, and teaching its children. See that the old and young take care of one another. The young must learn from the old, not necessarily, and not always in school. There must be no institutionalised childcare and no homes for the aged. The community knows and remembers itself by the association of old and young. Account for costs now conventionally hidden or externalised. Whenever possible, these must be debited against monetary income. Look into the possible uses of local currency, community-funded loan programmes, systems of barter, and the like. Always be aware of the economic value of neighbourly acts. In our time, the costs of living are greatly increased by the loss of neighbourhood, which leaves people to face their calamities alone. A rural community should always be acquainted and interconnected with community-minded people in nearby towns and cities. A sustainable rural economy will depend on urban consumers loyal to local products. Therefore, we are talking about an economy that will always be more cooperative than competitive. 6:37:45 PM  trackback []  comment []

© Copyright 2007 Dave Pollard. Last update: 01/11/2007; 3:43:43 AM.