cartoon
by clay
bennett
Ten
Principles of Cooperatives: As
espoused by Mondragon (thanks to
Sheri Herndon
for the link):
- Open admission (no
discrimination)
- Democratic (one member
one vote)
- Sovereignty of
employees' work over capital (people first)
- Subordinate character
of capital (its function is job creation, not profit/wealth creation)
- Participatory
management (no hierarchy, self-management, equal decision-making
authority)
- Payment solidarity
(minimal differential of salaries)
- Intercooperation
(collaboration with other cooperatives)
- Social transformation
(support for local community and culture)
- Universal nature
(solidarity with other progressive organizations and people, based on
shared values)
- Education (for all
workers to enable them to participate fully in activities of the
cooperative)
End
the University As We Know It:
Mark Taylor presents a
scathing indictment of universities,
condemning them as part of the cause of the economic crisis we face
today, and proposing six radical reforms (most important: reorganize
into multidisciplinary teams focused on real problems, rather than by
'faculties'. Thanks to Bill Shutkin (from an address at BALLE
yesterday) for the link.
Ask
How That Makes the World Better:
Dave
S trashes 'outcome-based [performance] measurement'
and proposes it be replaced in most cases and organizations with
'impact-based measurement'.
Tearing
Down Mountains to Fuel Power Plants:
Magpie photographs the
horrific results of mountaintop removal by Big Coal
in Virginia and West Virginia. I learned today that the annual
subsidies to the Big Energy conglomerate in the US exceed $250B, which
is almost twice the size of the $150B subsidies to Big Agriculture, the
second biggest beneficiary of government corporate welfare (excluding
the recent bailouts). Your tax dollars at work.
Earnings
of S&P 500 Plummet to 100-year-low:
The price/earnings
ratio of the Standard and Poors 500 listed US public companies is now
over 120, six times historical average.
That means either earnings will have to rise six times to justify this
price, or the price will have to fall to one-sixth current levels. But
they tell us the recession is over. Thanks to Dale
for the link.
Pollution
Alters Your DNA: New
research suggests that many environmental and auto-immune diseases
are brought on by changes in our DNA caused by chronic exposure to
pollutants. Thanks to Tree
for the link.
Tim
O'Reilly on Following Your Passion:
Yet another article espousing the views in my book. O'Reilly says "Work
on something that matters to you more than money...
We need to build an economy in which the important things are paid for
in self-sustaining ways rather than as charities to be funded out of
the goodness of our hearts." Thanks to David
Gurteen for the link.
'World
at Gunpoint' Now Online: The
Orion
article by Derrick Jensen I wrote
about a couple of weeks ago is now available online.
(Not) Just for Fun:
You know, if it doesn't
start serving up pellets again soon, I'm totally gonna stop obsessively
pushing that button.
Thoughts
for the Week:
- My own musing, this
morning:
What
if we could mashup
information,
and even ideas?
When DJ
Earworm
produces a song mashup, what he's essentially doing is taking up to 25
pieces
of very different information (none of them his own), changing the
'tempo' and 'key signature' of each to match, laying down one of them
as the 'bass line', and then pasting appropriate pieces of the other 24
into a 'score' that has cohesion and flow to it, something better than
any of the individual pieces. Why can't we do the same thing with
diverse information and ideas of other kinds? If we listened to the
information and ideas of others with an ear to synthesizing them
instead of criticizing them, of reproducing them usefully for others
instead of internalizing them for our own use, what magic might we be
able to produce?
- From Robert Hastings
(thanks to Tree's
friend Wendy):
THE
STATION
Tucked away in our subconscious minds is a vision- an idyllic vision in
which we see ourselves on a long journey that spans an entire
continent. We're traveling by train and, from the windows. we
drink in the passing scenes of cars on nearby highways, of children
waving at crossings, of row upon row of cotton and corn and
wheat, of flatlands and valleys, of city skyline and village halls.
But uppermost in our conscious minds is our final destination-for at a
certain hour and on a given day, our train will pull into the station
with bells ringing, flags waving, and bands playing. And once
that day comes, our lives will fit together like a completed jigsaw
puzzle. So, restlessly, we pace the aisles, and
count the miles, peering ahead, cursing the minutes for loitering,
waiting, waiting, for the station,,
"Yes, when we reach the station that will be it," we cry.
"When we're eighteen! When we buy that new 450 SL
Mercedes! When we put the last kid through college!
When we win that promotion! When we pay off the
mortgage! When we retire! Yes, from that day on,
like the hero and heroines of a child's fairy tale, we will live
happily ever after.
Sooner or later, however, we must realize there is no station, no one
place to arrive at once and for all. The journey is the joy.
The station is an illusion- it constantly outdistances us.
Yesterday's a memory; tomorrow's a dream. Yesterday belongs
to history; tomorrow belongs to God. Yesterday's a fading
sunset; tomorrow a faint sunrise. So, shut the door on
yesterday and throw the key away, for only today is there light enough
to live and love. It isn't the burdens of today that drive
men mad. Rather, it's regret over yesterday and fear of
tomorrow. Regret and fear are the twin thieves who rob us of
that Golden Treasure we call today, this tiny strip of light between
the two nights.
"Relish the moment" is a good motto, especially when coupled with Psalm
118:24, "This is a day the Lord hath made, we will rejoice and be glad
in it."
So stop pacing the aisles and counting the miles. Instead,
swim more rivers, climb more mountains, kiss more babies, count more
stars. Laugh more and cry less. Go barefoot more
oftener. Eat more ice cream. Ride more merry go
rounds. Watch more sunsets. Life must be lived as
we go along. The station will come soon enough.
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