Another
amazing cartoon from Chris Ware, in last week's New Yorker. You
can buy Chris' books here.
If you can't read the words, try zooming in on this
copy. "Something's gotten into
me lately and I'm not sure what it is.": I'd call it anxiety, and it
seem to have infected everyone; can you feel it too?
The
Girl Effect: Imagine
a girl in poverty. (Thanks
Nancy.)
Knowing
Where You Belong: I have a
soft spot for birds, and Pohangina Pete has been writing about watching
and studying birds in migration.
The ability of birds to know when to migrate, when to stay put, when to
hibernate, and when they do migrate, exactly where to go to find their
seasonal homes, is astonishing. Somehow, they know exactly where they
belong. If only we were so wise, and so knowledgeable.
What
Happens When the System Fails:
Rob Paterson: "When
the centralized distribution systems fail, all the nodes get cut off
and isolated. Food, energy, money and security all collapse back to the
local. If you cannot feed
yourself, heat your homes, exchange goods and look after your security
you are in deep trouble. In highly centralized states, the nodes are
helpless. They cannot deliver the basics for life. Imagine New York
with no oil and no food with intermittent electricity. Imagine this
happening for only a 2 week period. Then imagine being cut off semi
permanently. You think I exaggerate? This happened in 1989 -
95 in cities like Moscow and Kiev [and it happened recently in Cuba,
and Argentina, and in ancient Rome]". When the System fails, as appears
imminent, only the resilient, those in working self-sufficient
communities, survive. That is why in failed states like Afghanistan,
local warlords not national despots rule.
Walking
Dead Bail Out Walking Dead: Jim
Kunstler points out that the
sponsor of the biggest bailouts -- the
US Government -- is no more solvent than the crumbling financial and
other institutions it's bailing out with taxpayer money.
He
predicts that the fallout -- a collapse of the bankrupt US dollar and
commensurate hyperinflation and large-scale human misery -- will hit in
six to eighteen months. He restates his regular themes -- the need for
us to start producing real goods and services again, sustainably, at
the local level, and to nationalize the auto companies to create a
viable rail system -- but still no one is listening, except us of
course. Thanks to Jon Husband
for the link.
Crises,
Predictable and Repeatable: An
interesting review of data showing how
we are prone to make the same mistakes over and over, at least every 20
years or so, about how we could,
if we studied history, see a lot of these repeat mistakes coming, and
how we need regulations that instead of being designed to prevent exact
repeats of previous excesses, address more broadly our very human
propensity for stupidity and greed. Thanks to William Tozier
for the link.
"Transition
to Green" Prescription for Obama:
A coalition of
environmental and scientific groups has presented Barack Obama with a detailed
340-page prescription for shifting from environmental ruination to
environmental protection and sustainability
during his first 100
days in office.
Food
Imperialism: Rich
countries are on a furious spending spree buying up agricultural land
in struggling nations to meet
their future food (and biofuel) security needs. Need we ask whether the
poor in those nations will benefit from the sale? Thanks to Dale
Asberry for the link.
The
Revisionism of the Media: It's
a good thing we have a few real
researchers left in the world, to hold to account those whose memory of
history, and what they said about events when they happened, is
conveniently faulty. The NYT, which pretends to be the voice of
moderate progressive thought, is one of the most egregious offenders.
This week Glenn Greenwald recalls what
they said
about Chavez after the CIA-led coup attempt in Venezuela in 2002.
Mistakes are understandable, but the mainstream media's pretense of
always having got it right is infuriating. If we got more apologies,
more consistent and high-quality research, and fewer unexplained
flip-flops and outright lies, the media might again become a force for
understanding and learning, instead of a propaganda arm for government
and a waste of time to read, the least trusted of all public
institutions.
Iceland
as the Canary: The financial
collapse in North America, Western
Europe, Australia/NZ and Japan has hit Iceland especially hard. We
should be studying what happened there, and why, and how people are
coping, to learn what we will all face if this collapse worsens. In the
meantime, a newly-unemployed Icelandic
blogger is giving us a blow-by-blow of how life there has deteriorated,
in English. Read her interviews with Icelandic citizens as well. Thanks
to Dale
Asberry for
the link.
Be
Part of a Global Art Project:
Each
week, two artists ask readers to participate in a new project,
and the results are compiled into archives that are sometimes presented
or exhibited publicly. Anyone can play. Thanks to Chris Lott
for the link.
Government
Data Refutes Alberta Tar Sands 'Cleanability' Claims:
A new
federal government report, obtained by the CBC, concludes that virtually
none of the effluents from the bitumen sludge mining operations
currently ruining the Alberta landscape, polluting, contributing
massively to global warming and devastating the ecosystem in much of
the province, can be captured, 'cleaned' or stored.
Just
for Fun: Things That Are
Bad, the visualization above, from Yayhooray.
Thanks to Eric Lilius for the link. Eric also points us to the
hilarious (and surprisingly factual) Visual
Guide to the Financial Crisis.
And I hereby tag you all with the 5
Things Meme: tell us all five
unusual things about you. But I'm adding a catch: At least two of them
have to be things that help us understand you better, give us context
to know you, so that when we talk, in IM, in voice, f2f, or in the
comments thread here, we have some idea why you
are saying what you're saying. Here are five unusual things about me
that might help you understand me better:
- I
am utterly uncoordinated. Despite many attempts to learn, I cannot
swim, or draw, or dance. It took me four tries to get my driver's
licence. And despite years of lessons, and although I love to compose
music, I cannot play any instrument.
- I
do not
have low
self-esteem. I do not know why that is so unusual, but evidently it is.
- Although
(or perhaps because) I'm very happy, I cry when I listen to sad or
wistful music, and at the happy parts of movies, especially corny
romances, but I never cry at funerals (even when others are crying) or
when I hear sad news.
- I
cannot bear to throw out stuffed animals, and selling my car and seeing
someone else drive it away breaks my heart.
- I
am fascinated by simulations. I once wrote a computer program that
simulated every pitch of every game in a baseball season and displayed
the scores and standings. And I don't even like baseball.
...And
More Fun: Chris
Corrigan points us to the best
board games of 2008. I was
especially intrigued (simulation lover that I am) by the Pandemic
game, which is cooperative
rather than competitive. Now next year I want to see the Permaculture
game.
Thought for the Week: And
coming full circle from the Girl Effect link that started this post,
here's a(nother) poem by Marge Piercy:
What
Are Big Girls Made Of?
The construction of a
woman:
a woman is not made
of flesh
of bone and sinew
belly and breasts,
elbows and liver and toe.
She is manufactured
like a sports sedan.
She is retooled,
refitted and redesigned
every decade.
Cecile had been
seduction itself in college.
She wriggled through
bars like a satin eel,
her hips and ass
promising, her mouth pursed
in the dark red
lipstick of desire.
She visited in '68
still wearing skirts
tight to the knees,
dark red lipstick,
while I danced
through Manhattan in mini skirt,
lipstick pale as
apricot milk,
hair loose as a
horse's mane. Oh dear,
I thought in my
superiority of the moment,
whatever has happened
to poor Cecile?
She was out of
fashion, out of the game,
disqualified,
disdained, dis-
membered from the
club of desire.
Look at pictures in
French fashion
magazines of the 18th
century:
century of the
ultimate lady
fantasy wrought of
silk and corseting.
Paniers bring her
hips out three feet
each way, while the
waist is pinched
and the belly
flattened under wood.
The breasts are
stuffed up and out
offered like apples
in a bowl.
The tiny foot is
encased in a slipper
never meant for
walking.
On top is a grandiose
headache:
hair like a museum
piece, daily
ornamented with
ribbons, vases,
grottoes, mountains,
frigates in full
sail, balloons,
baboons, the fancy
of a hairdresser
turned loose.
The hats were rococo
wedding cakes
that would dim the
Las Vegas strip.
Here is a woman
forced into shape
rigid exoskeleton
torturing flesh:
a woman made of pain.
How superior we are
now: see the modern woman
thin as a blade of
scissors.
She runs on a
treadmill every morning,
fits herself into
machines of weights
and pulleys to heave
and grunt,
an image in her mind
she can never
approximate, a body
of rosy
glass that never
wrinkles,
never grows, never
fades. She
sits at the table
closing her eyes to food
hungry, always hungry:
a woman made of pain.
A cat or dog
approaches another,
they sniff noses.
They sniff asses.
They bristle or lick.
They fall
in love as often as
we do,
as passionately. But
they fall
in love or lust with
furry flesh,
not hoop skirts or
push up bras
rib removal or
liposuction.
It is not for male or
female dogs
that poodles are
clipped
to topiary hedges.
If only we could like
each other raw.
If only we could love
ourselves
like healthy babies
burbling in our arms.
If only we were not
programmed and reprogrammed
to need what is sold
us.
Why should we want to
live inside ads?
Why should we want to
scourge our softness
to straight lines
like a Mondrian painting?
Why should we punish
each other with scorn
as if to have a large
ass
were worse than being
greedy or mean?
When will women not
be compelled
to view their bodies
as science projects,
gardens to be weeded,
dogs to be trained?
When will a woman
cease
to be made of pain?
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