Cartoonist
Tom Toles shows us this year's scariest Hallowe'en costume. Thanks to
my daughter Tiffany for the link.
The Power of Place: My friend Amy Lenzo is working on a four-woman
project called The Power of Place with the Collective Wisdom Initiative
to discover 'transformational' meeting places, where collaborative work
just works better.
Bowen Island, which is the first such place that comes to mind for me,
is already on their map. Their plan is to identify the principles and
practices that make such space work (a kind of pattern language
exercise) and then see if they can be extended to create such places
virtually. Brilliant project! If you have thoughts on this, post your comments to CWI. Specifically they want to know:
-
Where are these meeting places
that have demonstrated their transformational influence?
- What are the characteristics and qualities they demonstrate?
-
How do they contribute to experiences of transformation and
generativity?
-
What is the potential of transformational meeting places— if
made visible worldwide — collectively committed to service in
the world?
Being Poor: Three years ago John Scalzi wrote an extraordinary (and suddenly timely) article about the agony of poverty, and what it means, every day, to your sense of hope and self-esteem. Thanks to my Alaskan friend Chris Lott for the link.
The Most Radical Thing You Can Do: The most radical thing you can do, says Rebecca Solnit in Orion, quoting Gary Snyder, is stay home.
Live there, create work there, connect there, build new bottom-up
authentic community there. Stop driving and flying and running away and
make things work right where you are. It's your right, and your
responsibility.
Silence Like Scouring Sand: Also from Orion, Kathleen Dean Moore writes a lovely article on the attempt to make some places free from all human noise. Just listen:
How
shall I describe the beauty of this place? It’s an open glade, like the
nave of a cathedral, carpeted in deep green moss and deer ferns. There
are huckleberry bushes, their bare green branches standing in the rosy
litter of their own fallen leaves. The bunchberry leaves have turned
red, but the wood sorrel is intensely green. From the forest floor, the
columns of the trees rise impossibly high, closing at last in a vaulted
green ceiling. Everything glitters with scattering rain. Even the air
twinkles, as if it were champagne.
And what do I hear? A tiny
lisp—a bushtit maybe. Tick, tap, pock of waterdrops, different sounds
for every surface they strike. I hear a drop of water pop when it hits
a maple leaf forty feet way. There is the faraway rustle of the river.
Time passes, unmeasured. Then the quiet is filled with the clatter of a
bald eagle, a sound like stones shaken in a tin pot. Sitting on his
heels in the damp moss, Gordon grins, but doesn’t speak.
Next to
him, almost hidden under the log, is a small metal canister. This is
the Jar of Quiet Thoughts. Gordon put it here, an invitation to people
who visit One Square Inch to record their responses to the silence. I
open the jar and pull out crumpled scraps of paper. Many wrote of love.
One couple came here to be married, a person came to pray, another
found deep connection here, in the call of a thrush. Others wrote of
wonder, to hear the voices of the deep quiet. I realize that One Square
Inch has become a sacred place—silence has made it so. Quiet is a kind
of reverence.
A small wind shakes a huckleberry bush. A crow
calls from the crown of an alder. A hemlock needle falls on my
shoulder, and I turn, astonished to have heard it land.
Deeper in Debt: My friend Rob Paterson has posted the scary chart above showing the gap between household financial assets and financial liabilities in the US. That's minus $4 trillion, folks, and this was before the recent housing and stock market collapses.
...But They Still Don't Get It: Bush economist Greg Mankiw admits that the IMF and other deniers of the possibility of another Great Depression on the horizon
are oblivious to the 1929 patterns forming, and the lessons of history.
I've asserted, for the record, that I think such a depression is still
a couple of decades off, though we're going to have some grim times
ahead before then. What astounds me are the dreamers who still expect
the economy to bottom out, turn around, and resume perpetual growth
imminently.
Shrinking Our Way to Survival: New research shows that, to
achieve CO2 reductions needed to avert climate catastrophe, we need to
shrink the global economy by between 1 and 3 1/2 percent every year
through 2050. The recent contraction in affluent nations, if we embraced it instead of panicking over it, could move us along that path, provided
(and this is a huge 'provided') the rich and powerful (who received
almost all the incremental wealth in the last 40 years), do most of the
shrinking over the next 40, and restore some level of equity to our
society and economy.
Canada Dumps Toxic Asbestos in Struggling Nations: Canada remains the only affluent nation that still hasn't banned the use and export of asbestos, which has horrific health consequences for both producers and users, and the right-wing Canadian minority government is working hand in glove with the asbestos industry this week to keep it that way. Shameful. Thanks to Graham Clark for the link.
The Law, American Style: So
let me get this straight: The "tough on crime" Bush administration
supports "three strikes" laws allowing repeat offenders to be
imprisoned for life, and supports capital punishment for a host of
crimes, but if they, in their absolute discretion, decide that
something in the law (like a prohibition on torture or extraordinary
rendition) is not to their liking they just need to write a "signing
statement" exempting themselves from it. So the President, charged with
upholding the law, is above the law, and the constitution doesn't apply
to him. "The Bush administration has informed Congress that it is bypassing a
law intended to forbid political interference with reports to lawmakers
by the Department of Homeland Security." Can someone explain to me why for that reason alone this whole regime is not in jail?
Credit Default Swaps: 55 Trillion Dollar Time Bomb:
Even the head of the SEC says the completely unregulated CDS market has
played a big role in the collapse of financial markets, and could yet undo the trillion dollar patch we've placed on the wound,
unless it's properly regulated, and fast. And even Alan Greenspan is
now basically admitting that "self-regulated" markets are unregulated, rogue markets, a colossal failure of policy and political will, and a catastrophic mistake.
Just for Fun: Two wonderful and inspiring and lovingly crafted songs on YouTube. From the UK's Imogen Heap, the wonderful anti-procrastination song Headlock. And (thanks Patti for the link) from Tracy Chapman, the romantic and moving song The Promise.
Thought for the Week: From the writer's preface to the controversial play Doubt by John Patrick Shanley (thanks to Tree for the link):
What
is Doubt? Each of us is like a planet. There's the crust, which seems
eternal. We are confident about who we are. If you ask, we can readily
describe our current state. I know my answers to so many questions, as
do you. What was your father like? Do you believe in God? Who's your
best friend? What do you want? Your answers are your current
topography, seemingly permanent, but deceptively so. Because under that
face of easy response, there is another You. And this wordless Being
moves just as the instant moves; it presses upward without explanation,
fluid and wordless, until the resisting consciousness has no choice but
to give way.
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