Thursday, July 8, 2010

Everybody's flying and no one leaves the ground

I just finished Strange Days Indeed: The Golden Days of Paranoia, by Francis Wheen, about the seventies.

It's not so noteworthy, but it was a good reminder of the malaise of the seventies. Perhaps more than any decade of this century, this was a decade of disempowerment & frustration. McGovern didn't win; and Nixon did instead and then lost; there were 150 hijackings from 1970-'72; numerous gas lines and in Britain, brownouts. Stocks lost their value, so did wages, so did savings. Elites were hemmed in by new rules of democracy, but unions started losing ground around 1974. The punks celebrated despair, and in Germany there was a Tunix movement (Tu Nichts-- "do nothing").

New York City almost went bankrupt, and did face severe increase in either crime of the perception of it; serial killers abounded, each with a nickname (Zodiac, Son of Sam, freeway Killer); city councillors killed city councillors. In the confusion of role models, cults abounded: Moonies, Scientologists, Rajneesh, Elizabeth Clare Prophet. So did shallow encounter groups.
Drugs grew in use, and moved from an earlier psychedelic focus on a higher truth, to an escape from reality and a contest to see who could get higher on heroin, cocaine, pot.

And as the book's title reminds us: crazy mysticism & conspiracy theories false AND true, abounded: Cointelpro, the assassination of JFK, flying saucers, Chariots of the Gods

I begin to better understand the appeal of Ronald Reagan in promising to end many of these things; and actually pulling it off, in the short term & middle term. Until 18 months ago.

The title of the book & my blog entriy is from a song by John Lennon-- Nobody Told Me.
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Friday, April 9, 2010

Transition Movements springing up like wildflowers!

I just learned about two of these-- Transition Decade & MAHB's outreach push-- in the last ten hours.

I'm going to post an incomplete draft 0.6 and then revise it later today. Disclosure at end.
-- Jim

Transition Decade

The Transition Decade creates a campaign platform and a shared timeline
for action for the next ten years. (Australia, 10 group coalition, launched 2/14/2010, acknowledges debt to Lester Brown's 1990 suggestion of a "Transition Decade" in 1990.)
http://www.t10.net.au/node/13 Official homepage
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Transition_Decade

Transition (Town) Movement
Started in Fall 2005 in Kinsale, Ireland by Louise Rooney and Rob Hopkins, this movement attempts to build community-based efforts to reduce our carbon footprint, reduce our oil dependence and build community. 284 official initiatives as of April 8th, 2010. Third annual conference coming up in June 2010 in Britain. Now based in Totnes, UK.
http://transitionculture.org/essential-info/why-transition-culture <-- early history
http://www.transitiontowns.org <-- movement home page
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transition_Towns

Great Transition Initiative
Started in 1995, The Great Transition Initiative is a growing
international network of scholars and activists that
analyzes alternative scenarios and charts a path to a hopeful future. Based in Cambridge, MA out of Harvard University. Has many monographs and thinkpieces.
http://www.gtinitiative.org Official home page
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Transition

Four Years. Go
Dedicated to the notion that the planet is at a tipping point, this campaign stresses that the next four years will determine the course of the next thousand years. This effort comes out of the Pachamama Alliance. It was born out of a speech by Lynne Twiss. Strongest on outreach, light on theory, the four years in question run from February 14, 2010 (Valentine's Day) to 2/14/14.
http://www.fouryearsgo.org
http://twitter.com/fouryearsgo
http://www.youtube.com/fouryearsgo
http://www.facebook.com/fouryearsgo

Millennium Assessment of Human Behavior (MAHB)
Pronounced “mob”, this initiative was catalyzed by Paul Ehrlich, a MacArthur award winning senior biologist most famous for writing the bestseller The Population Bomb in 1968. While it has been around for a fw months, it went public more loudly on April 6th, 2010 with the publication of an article in an online science magazine.

http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.1000330
http://mahbsustainability.wordpress.com/about

Defusing the Nuclear Threat (Stanford University)

Professor Martin Hellman, who helped build the anti-nuclear group Beyond War, is trying to start a Stanford University effort that will go global. I don't know if he's talked to Paul Ehrlich (I imagine they must know each other, bring professor emeriti on the same campus).

http://nuclearrisk.org

***********************************************
(Disclosure: I'm on-board with a number of these: I helped start Transition Town Asheville in December 2006 w/ two others; am recently part of the Great Transition Institute network; am recently part of the Four Years. Go connectors group, helped found the US Citizen's Network for the 1992 Earth Summit, and got started with all this by reading the Population Bomb in 1970 after the first Earth Day.)
Click Here to Read More..

Saturday, March 27, 2010

Organic Grower's School 1994-2012

Signs of hope escape our eyes easily; we like to see the doom.
Here's some good news: Attendance at the OGS doubles every five years.
Can we shrink our carbon footprint as quickly as this grows (15%)?
Easily, no. Impossible? Probably not.
(tabled updated every year or so since 2008)




Year
#
Attendance
% growth
1994
1st
100

1995
2nd
213
213%
1996
3rd
141
66%
1997
4th
160
113%
1998
5th
230
144%
1999
6th
430
187%
2000
7th
392
91%
2001
8th
500
128%
2002
9th
533
107%
2003
10th
609
114%
2004
11th
683
112%
2005
12th
800
117%
2006
13th
900
113%
2007
14th
1000
111%
2008
15th
1200
120%
2009
16th
1300
108%
2010
17th
1500
115%
2011
18th
1679
112%
2012
19th
1906
114%


Average annual growth= 14.8












Average doubling time = 4.9 years













Figures courtesy of











Meredith Leigh McKissick










Director, Organic Growers School










Crooked Creek Farms; Sweet Earth Flower Farm









www.sweetearthflowers.com
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Thursday, March 25, 2010

2010 USA Permaculture Convergences

2010 USA Permaculture Convergences
If you hear of another, please send word to SmithMillCreek
* at * gmail
Thanks!
*******************

NORTHEAST
http://northeasternpermaculture.wikispaces.com/Summer+Gathering
Fri- Sun, July 2-4, 2010
Unity, Maine USA $60- $120 ish
• Suggest a Convergence session here: http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?hl=en&formkey=dGFPSUlxdnV5MjRLT19GZEJIMEJMSGc6MA
twitter.com/NEConvergence

SOUTHEAST
http://www.southeasternpermaculture.org
The gathering is Fri- Sun, August 6-8, 2010 at the Arthur Morgan School in Celo, NC
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/SoutheasternPermaculture

COLORADO
http://coloradopermaculture.blogspot.com/2010/02/colorado-permaculture-convergence.html
The Colorado Permaculture Convergence is scheduled for Sunday, August 22nd, 2010 at the 63rd Street Farm near Boulder, Colorado. Contact the High Altitude Permaculture Institute if you are interested in helping organize this event.

NORTHWEST
http://www.washingtonstatepermaculture.org
2010's Washington State Permaculture Conference, tentatively scheduled to be held at The Evergreen State College in mid-September, 2010.

SAN FRANCISCO, CA BAY AREA
None planned I can find; last one Summer 2008
http://www.livingmandala.com/Living_Mandala/Bay_Area_Permaculture_Convergence.html

*************************************
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
None found for 2010
http://socalifornia.permacultureconvergence.org
1st Annual Southern California Permaculture Convergence
August 29-31, 2008

MIDWEST
The First Midwest Permaculture Convergence in Bloomington IN
September 23-25, 2010
Weblink to come....

UPSTATE NEW YORK PERMACULTURE GATHERING
First was March 2010
Next TBD
http://upstateNYpermaculture.Net


Click Here to Read More..

Thursday, March 18, 2010

Some Haiti Resources

I just got this via email. I myself would do well to compile some other responses I got from others.
-- Jim
*******************************
I am cut and pasting all the answers b/c quite frankly there were so many that I hesitate to choose.

I will narrow down some favorites later when I come back from work.
Alice Backer, Esq.
http://www.kiskeacity.com
http://twitter.com/kiskeacity
*********************************

Books:
1. Red and Black in Haiti (Matthew Smith)
2. The Uses of Haiti
3. Haiti and the United States
4. Haiti: State Against Nation

Novels:
1. Love, Anger, Madness
2. Brother I am Dying
3. Masters of the Dew

Films:
1. The Agronomist
3. Heading South
4. Man by the Shore
5. Ghosts of Cite Soleil
6. Moloch Tropical
7. Egalite for All
8. Royal Bonbon

Click Here to Read More..