General Plan Update Data Dump

At least for now that's all . . .  Last night was the last of the reports from the cobbled together business / developer arm of the community, ERAC. The Element Advisory Committee was the majority council invention to fix what was perceived by some as the broken General Plan Update process.

For an expanded background of video clips see this General Plan summary list at Our Mayor Stocks blog. And another summary list from EYNU here for a real data dump.

In the spring last year the staff was directed to take over the GPU and orchestrate town halls, open houses, workshops with Q&A, tool boxes, surveys and the much derided mapping exercise to place dots connoting low income housing throughout the city.

The first report was last fall, Sept. 2012. The 500 of the community's maps and surveys were analyzed and presented to the council by Peder Norby, named facilitator of all the community gatherings, GPAC (General Plan Advisory Committee formed in 2010) and ERAC.  The following clips begin with that community overview, with an introduction by then Councilwoman Teresa Barth.  Also included is a video of New Encinitas resident Duff Pickering as it is representative of the many New Encinitas people who became involved the previous year when the GPU process was ripped apart. His observations regarding the summary language, maps and the statistics analysis are all of interest.





Then the last 3 weeks of reports from the Planning Commission, GPAC and ERAC are presented. Feb. 13th was the Planning Commission, Feb. 20th the GPAC group and yesterday, Feb. 27th, was the ERAC group in two parts here.









The next step will be for the city staff to compile a report for the council that includes all of these reports.  For the complete context to these last reports, including Peder Norby's facilitator introductions, public speakers, council questions and comments, go to the webcast log at the city website and find the applicable meeting date for the full meeting video.

Future Vision Missing

Community chatter about the General Plan Update and the Right to Vote Initiative are too often reminiscent of those predictions of the future we used to see years ago.

Without a clue of what was coming in technology, ecology, politics, economics, culture or social dynamics; the vision of the future was simply a tricked out version of the status quo. And it is funny.

Here is a 1967 short minute and a half of Walter Cronkite visiting a home office in the 21st century. The obsession with gadgets (albeit clunky and huge) and the failure to acknowledge women hasn't really changed much at its essence in almost 50 years.

Tonight at the Encinitas City Council meeting we will hear the realtors, developers and other business interests version of the future land use for housing in Encinitas via the ERAC report. The Planning Commission report and the GPAC report were given in the previous to weeks. Neither of these reports or the speakers gave much of a clue to what the future might hold for our community beyond more of the same. Maybe the agendas were kept really narrow for some reason.

Innovative thinking has yet to be encountered since the so-called start up or in community reaction that followed. Lots of passion and effort, but envisioning the future or innovation - not so much. Besides ignoring completely the known challenges of our new century's climate change, fossil fuel depletion/pollution, economic breakdown; there was no strategy to address how our community might address shortages in our currently strong supplies in water, food or energy as current systems change. 

Oh wait, Mayor Barth has suggested rethinking the density bonus to fit our community and its resources, asked that certification for existing market low income housing be explored, recommended dozens of articles on housing and land use trends, challenges, alternatives and patterns in her weekly "Thought You Might Like to Know" newsletter's Food for Thought. Imagine if the new city council members and some city residents follow through and support some of this direction? Maybe something that recognizes a changing world could be incorporated into the news coverage of Encinitas' housing, land use, transportation, environment and economy.  

Tonight is also going to be about basics in our City Budget.  This is welcome if we are to acknowledge that we are immersed in change and the economy is not just going through a little bump. Citizens have been begging for open government and a clear picture of the City Budget.  As we have been seeing since this new council began, we are getting what we requested and this is good. My first questions . . . Have we a range of revenue sources for our city? If not, will this be explored? 

video source

Small Spaces etc. - High End Sustainability

Another example of using really high end products, materials, finishes and design talent is shown in this home.

This is also the first reference we have made to the obstacles within the tiny house movement faced in municipal planning. This subject of the tiny home in zoning laws and building codes will be explored further in this series.

And another video showing more features of this mini-home . . .

Why I Call Myself a Commoner

Harriet Barlow (Photo by David Morris)

A day in the life

Each day I walk out of my Minneapolis house into an atmosphere protected from pollution by the Clean Air Act. As I step onto a sidewalk that was built with tax dollars for everyone, my spirits are lifted by the beauty of my neighbors’ boulevard gardens. Trees planted by people who would never sit under them shade my walk. I listen to public radio, a nonprofit service broadcast over airwaves belonging to us all, as I stroll around a lake
in the park, which was protected from shoreline development by civic-minded citizens in the nineteenth century.

The park, like everything else I have mentioned so far, is a commons for which each of us is responsible.

Frequently I visit the public library, where the intellectual, cultural, scientific, and informational storehouse of the world is opened to me for free—and to anyone who walks through the door. My work requires me to constantly keep up with new knowledge. My best tool is the Internet. The library and Internet, too, are commons.

Returning home I stop at the farmer’s market, a public institution created by local producers who want to share their fare. The same spirit prevails at our local food co-op, of which I am the owner (along with thousands of others), and at community-run theaters and civic events. These commons-based institutions provide us with essential services, the most important of which is fun. Living in the commons isn’t only about cultural and economic wealth; it’s also about joy.

Candido Grzybowski, the Brazilian sociologist who co-founded the World Social Forum, advises, “If we want to work for justice, we should work for the commons.” Protecting and restoring precious gifts from nature and from our foreparents for future generations is one the greatest privileges of a being a commoner.

—HARRIET BARLOW CO-FOUNDER OF ON THE COMMONS
AND FOUNDING DIRECTOR OF THE BLUE MOUNTAIN CENTER

Editor: Another chapter in Celebrating the Commons: People Stories and Ideas for the New Year from Commons Magazine being presented each Sunday at EYNU.

According to Mary: Anderson's Stationer's - Shop Local

Speaking of good people . . .

Artist Mary Fleener had this to say on her Facebook page,

"This week's cartoon for The Coast News: Every copy, every self published book of mine, and all the ink I've ever drawn with has come from this little shop since 1984."

"Amy Goodman sits down with AOL/PBS filmmakers to talk about her longtime career in journalism, building Democracy Now! over the past 17 years, and how independent media is essential to the functioning of a democratic society."

Yes, this woman is one of the very good people. Democracy Now! streaming every weekday. Where real journalism can be found.

Haters Don't Lie, They Multiply (Return of the Little Hater)

On being creative, and the little voices that get inside your head and stop you from shining.

From Jay Smooth's Ill Doctrine where there is a huge collection of videos on the toughest of our culture's subjects most toxic lessons handled with great heart and insight. Little hater is Jay's term for self doubt.

Dedicated to all who are trying to creatively relate to the problems in the world we all share. Sometimes it is really hard. (Unlike the Pope or Palin, let's not quit.)

Small Spaces etc. - Micro Minimal

This week the most minimal of small spaces to date. The first is called One-Sqm-House. This one square meter (10 square feet) dwelling is an architect's prototype. This clip is via Alex at Tiny House Talk, whose tag line is "small spaces more freedom."

When I first saw this I thought of past competitions for architects and designers to produce temporary, emergency and homeless shelter.

The examples below are from one of these competitions 5 years ago. I've since lost the proper links to the source. Whoops.

There is a kind of hierarchy within the homeless population.  There are those who have found temporary shelter within homes of family or friends, those who have an RV or car, those who have vouchers for temporary shelter and those simply fending for themselves on the street.  Despite the most common picture of a homeless person being like the Banksy illustration at the beginning of this post or the guy above, it is women with children who are in fact the most vulnerable of homeless population. 

The Babes of Wrath are two women, Diane Nilan and Pat LaMarche, who travel around the country and work with homeless children and families. You can follow their EPIC Journey (Everyday People In Crisis) here. They are interviewed here on the Young Turks.

Recently the homeless were counted in San Diego County, a local girl mounted a blanket distribution project for the homeless in memory of her uncle and housing strategies for lowest income has presumably been the subject of several years of General Planning Update citizen participation. 

Aternet is currently running a series on the poor. Part 1's recent article, 2 Years in Jail for Sitting on a Milk Crate? The Shocking Ways America Punishes Poor People Living on the Street (Hard Times, USA) haunted me. I know from experience how few places there are to sit while walking in Encinitas. We aren't alone. Laws all over the country are designed solely to target the homeless. There are better solutions. 

Part 2 is titled Hard Times, USA: Would You Consider Thinking Differently About Poverty and Poor and Homeless People? A huge number of Americans feel vulnerable every day of every week, their future unknown. What are you going to do about it? Both of these are really excellent articles and are recommended. The rest of this powerful series Hard Times USA is at Alternet this month.

There is one simple response (as the video illustrated) for what is the most important thing one could spend money on for the homeless? Houses. Simple but not easy to incorporate in our community dialog.

Redux: The Story of Stuff

Yesterday's post from the Commoners series on Annie Leonard prompted showing the famous Story of Stuff again. I don't think we can watch this too often.

And, the next in line, The Story of Broke.

The Trouble with Stuff

                            COMMONER                          

Filmmaker Annie Leonard finds people want to be liberated from overconsumption

Annie Leonard is one of the most articulate, effective champions of the commons today. Her webfilm The Story of Stuff has been seen more than 15 million times by viewers. She also adapted it into a book.

Drawing on her experience investigating and organizing on environmental health and justice issues in more than 40 countries, Leonard says she’s “made it her life’s calling to blow the whistle on important issues plaguing our world.” On the Commons recently asked Leonard a few questions about the commons.

How did you first learn about the commons?

I first learned about the commons as a kid using parks and libraries. I didn’t assign the label “commons” to them, but I understood early on that some things belong to all of us and these shared assets enhance our lives and rely on our care.

Like many other college students, my first introduction to the word “commons” was sadly in conjunction with the word “sheep” and “tragedy.” That lousy resource management class tainted the word for me for years, until I heard Ralph Nader address a group of college students. He asked them to yell out a list of everything they own. This being the pre-i-gadget 1980’s, the list included “Sony Walkman...boombox... books...bicycle...clothes...bank account.” When the lists started to peter out, Ralph asked about National Parks and public airwaves. A light went off in each of our heads, and a whole new list was shouted out: rivers, libraries, the Smithsonian, monuments. That’s when I realized that the commons isn’t an overgrazed pasture; it really is all that we share.

What do you see as the biggest obstacle to creating a commons-based society right now?

There are so many interrelated aspects of our current economic and social systems which undermine the commons. Some obstacles are structural, like government spending priorities that elevate military spending and oil company subsidies over maintenance of parks and libraries. Others are social, including the erosion in social fabric and community-based lifestyles. Actually, even those have structural drivers; for example, land use planning which eliminates sidewalks and requires long commutes to work contribute to breakdown of social commons by impeding social interactions. It’s all so interconnected!

A huge obstacle is the shift toward greater privatization and commodification of physical and social assets. Many things that used to be shared—from open spaces for recreation to support systems to help a neighbor in need—have been privatized and commodified; they’ve been moved out of the community into the market place. This triggers a downward spiral. Once things become privatized, or un-commoned, we no longer have access to them without paying a fee. We then have to work longer hours to pay for all these things which used to be freely available—everything from safe afterschool recreation for kids to clean water to swim in to someone to talk to when you’re feeling blue. And since we’re working longer hours and spending more time alone, we have less time to contribute to the commons to rebuild these assets: less volunteer hours, less beach-clean-up days, less time for civic engagement to advocate for policies that protect the commons, less time to invite a neighbor over for tea. And on it goes.

What is the greatest opportunity to strengthen and expand the commons right now?

In spite of real obstacles, we have a lot on our side as we advance a commons-based agenda. First, we have no choice. There’s a very real ecological imperative weighing down on us. Even if we wanted to continue this overconsumptive, hyper individualistic and vastly unequal way of living, we simply can’t. We have to learn to share more and waste less, to find joy and meaning in shared assets and experiences rather than in private accumulation, to work together for a better world, rather than to build bigger walls around those who can. And the good news is that these changes not only will enable us to continue to live on this planet, but they will result in a happier, healthier society overall.

There’s another shift emerging which offers some real opportunities for building support for the commons. People in the overconsuming parts of the world are getting fed up with the burden of trying to own everything individually. We used to own our stuff and increasingly our stuff owns us. We work extra hours to buy more stuff, we spend our weekends sorting our stuff. We’re constantly needing to upgrade, repair, untangle, recharge, even pay to store our stuff. It’s exhausting.

The shift I see emerging is from an acquisition focused relationship to stuff, to an access- focused relationship. In the acquisition framework, the more stuff we had, the better, as captured in the 1990s bumpersticker “He Who Dies with the Most Toys Wins.” Having spent a couple decades being slaves to our stuff, we are rethinking. Now it is “He Who dies with the Most Toys Wasted His Life Working to Buy Them and Lived in a Cluttered House When He Could have been Investing in Community with which to Share Toys.”

Increasingly people want access to stuff, not all the burden that comes with ownership. Instead of owning a car and dealing with all that comes with it, we get one just when we want through city car share programs. Instead of hiring a plumber, we swap music lessons with one through skillsharing networks. Why buy something to own alone, when we can share it with others? Why signup for an even more crushing mortgage for a house with a big back yard, when we can instead share public parks? From coast to coast, there’s a resurgence of sharing, so much that it even has a fancy new name: collaborative consumption. I’m really excited about this. A whole new generation of people is realizing that access to shared stuff is easier on one’s budget and on the planet, then individual ownership. Now, that’s liberating.

—JAY WALLJASPER

Editor: Another chapter in Celebrating the Commons: People Stories and Ideas for the New Year from Commons Magazine being presented each Sunday at EYNU.

According to Mary: Another Double Offering

Last week I think fell asleep at the switch. Sorry Mary.

Were You There 10 Years Ago Today?

The February 15, 2003 anti-war protest was a coordinated day of protests across the world, with millions of people expressing opposition to the then-imminent Iraq War. It was part of a series of protests and political events that had begun in 2002 and continued as the war took place.

Sources vary in their estimations of the number of participants involved. According to BBC News, between six and ten million people took part in protests in up to sixty countries over the weekend of the 15th and 16th; other estimates range from eight million to thirty million.

Some of the largest protests took place in Europe. The protest in Rome involved around three million people, and is listed in the 2004 Guinness Book of World Records as the largest anti-war rally in history. Madrid hosted the second largest rally with more than 1½ million people protesting the invasion of Iraq, whereas Mainland China was the only major region not to see any protests, but small demonstrations attended mainly by foreign students were seen later.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

To quote Noam Chomsky, 

Take the U.S. invasion of Iraq, for example. To everyone except a dedicated ideologue, it was pretty obvious that we invaded Iraq not because of our love of democracy but because it’s maybe the second- or third-largest source of oil in the world, and is right in the middle of the major energy-producing region. You’re not supposed to say this. It’s considered a conspiracy theory.

The greatest superpower, the world's people, remains the only hope for change.

Anouska Shankar to Encinitas and the World

Anouska Shankar tells of sexual abuse as a child in Encinitas on Democracy Now today. She also spells out why she is a part of one billion rising along with millions of others around the world.



Also a guest,
Eve Ensler, award-winning playwright and creator of “The Vagina Monologues” and of V-Day, a global movement to stop violence against women and girls. Today marks the movement’s 15th anniversary, and the culmination of the "One Billion Rising" campaign that was started months ago.

Women Dancing All Day Today

Update: Live coverage from the Guardian.

Last week the announcement for 1 Billion Rising proclaimed February 14 as a global demonstration. This one-day event will be held today, a call for one billion women around the world to walk away from their homes, businesses, and jobs, and join together to dance in a show of collective strength. The word "billion" refers to the one billion women who are survivors of abuse.

Trigger Warning:  Artists from around the world have interpreted rising up against violence in many different ways.  If you are triggered by viewing violence, be aware. 

Cape Town contribution:

Infographic on Rape (click to enlarge)

So God made a banker

To be read in the voice of Paul Harvey. (source: Market Watch)

And on the eighth day God looked down on his planned paradise and said, “I need someone who can flip this for a quick buck.”

So God made a banker.

God said, “I need someone who doesn’t grow anything or make anything but who will borrow money from the public at 0% interest and then lend it back to the public at 2% or 5% or 10% and pay himself a bonus for doing so.”

So God made a banker.

God said, “I need someone who will take money from the people who work and save, and use that money to create a dotcom bubble and a housing bubble and a stock bubble and an oil bubble and a commodities bubble and a bond bubble and another stock bubble, and then sell it to people in Poughkeepsie and Spokane and Bakersfield, and pay himself another bonus.”

So God made a banker.

God said, “I need someone to build homes in the swamps and deserts using shoddy materials and other people’s money, and then use these homes as collateral for a Ponzi scheme he can sell to pensioners in California and Michigan and Sweden. I need someone who will then foreclose on those homes, kick out the occupants, and switch off the air conditioning and the plumbing, and watch the houses turn back into dirt. And then pay himself another bonus.”

God said, “I need someone to lend money to people with bad credit at 30% interest in order to get his stock price up, and then, just before the loans turn bad, cash out his stock and walk away. And who, when asked later, will, with a tearful eye, say the government made him do it.”

God said, “And I need somebody who will tell everyone else to stand on their own two feet, but who will then run to the government for a bailout as soon as he gets into trouble — and who will then use that bailout money to help elect a Congress that will look the other way. And then pay himself another bonus.”

So God made a banker.

Brett Arends is a MarketWatch columnist. Follow him on Twitter @BrettArends.

Small Spaces etc. - Trying On Tiny

This week's Small Spaces is an introduction to one couples' blog called Trying On Tiny wherein they chronicle their experience of living in a tiny home. They introduce themselves in this way:

Audrey Addison: 

She moved to Portland, OR 7 years ago and has recently decided to ‘try on’ a tiny home and to embrace a simpler way to live in the world. She feels lucky to have the support of family and friends and feels even luckier to have a partner who shares her dream. She’s a lover of nature, learning, and bikes.

Tomas Quinones:

Recently turned freelance illustrator with a focus on children’s literature, Tomas became interested in tiny houses and simplifying his life after leaving an unfulfilling IT job in 2008. Since then he started ditching the unimportant stuff in his life and focusing more on experiences rather than collecting.

From the beginning this past fall, Audrey writes candidly about the stress, struggles and disappointment with the contractor and the mismatch of what they got compared with what they thought they would be getting for a tiny home. Tomas' illustrates this in his own way.

At the beginning of January the couple details the things they love. Tomas begins:

What do I love most about living in my Tiny House? Audrey may share many of these sentiments, but I thought I’d share my own opinion.

• Simple & Cozy
• Owning Less Stuff
• We Own It
• We Can Modify It
• It’s Brought Out My Inner Bob Vila
• Using Fewer Resources
• Peace & Quiet
• Frugal Living
• Clean-up is Quick
• It’s Everything I Need, Nothing More 

Things I love Part II

Great idea, Tomas! Here are the top things that I LOVE about living in our tiny home.

• In-line With My Beliefs, Values, and Ideals
• Tomas’s Inner Bob Villa
• Community Support
• Mindfulness
• Home Ownership
• Closeness to Nature
• Cozy, Quiet, and Quick to Clean
• Changeable
• Helpful to Others
• A Good Start

They both delve deeper into what they mean here with the kind of detail they've laid out their entire experience. It is an entertaining read.

Encinitas would be the perfect community to build an eco-living village that could include tiny homes on wheels, among other alternatives for small space living, as an eco-tourist experience. Special rates for Encinitas residents to try on this kind of lifestyle for size? Above all we have the perfect setting for a lifestyle that encourages living outside as the preferred pattern, a pattern that can't be enjoyed in the colder climates.

Out of Towners

Guests in Encinitas are key to our local economy as a tourist center in Southern California.  Making our community a desirable vacation spot has no doubt invited national business onto our main streets to appease the national appetite for familiar branding. This is not hard to understand. Brand-based decisions are the stuff of billions of dollars of advertising.

Hence we have a large portion of hotel, restaurant, big box retail profits leaving Encinitas to be deposited in multinational headquarter banks and enterprises each and every day.  This has been the norm for many years.  Obviously it would be far better for profits to stay here at home.  Here is another thing to consider.  One gigantic vulnerability for us is the potential closure of any or many national chain stores through decisions not based on our local business, relationships or support.

Labor for these businesses represent the largest segment of the Encinitas job pool and it is almost universally low paying.  Unions are virtually non-existent or toothless so these jobs don't come near a living wage or with vacation, sick leave or other basic benefits. Though figures are not available, it's obvious that a large portion, if not the majority, of the people working in these jobs live outside of Encinitas. It is simply too expensive for most to live here without a living wage.

Our City Government relies heavily on sales tax revenue and the above all fuels this revenue stream.  Again, this is not hard to understand. But, the true strength of this approach needs to be addressed against options that place more commerce and tax revenue in the control of local citizens.

Out of towners described above are just one kind of visitor in Encinitas.  We have another kind of visitor, the citizen visitor.  Due to jobs being located outside of Encinitas, most often in San Diego or UCSD or Los Angeles, three of the most common, we have people with Encinitas addresses spending the lions' share of their waking hours outside of Encinitas.

This bedroom community is filled with thousands of workers who drive to and from Encinitas each day, attend entertainments, study, shop, dine, party, and vacation outside of Encinitas.  It is a lifestyle in no way foreign or odd for people on the go. For another chunk of the population simply making a go of it can be frightening. This is standard for the vast majority in this country drowning in personal debt. They share in common with our vacationing tourists the absence of time, energy or interest in civic engagement.  Not only are schedules full, the sense of relevance is just not there.

As we look ahead to this next century and the forces we must contend with in our future, more resilience demands we capture what we are losing.  How can we keep profits within our community?  How should we invest to assure that this talent pool can find job satisfaction and security close to home? What sort of housing, transportation and health services are available to employed people? Are the working poor and the homeless kept out of sight and silent or dealt with as our neighbors? How can the fast paced lifestyle people transition into a richer, slower version of what they enjoy now? How long should change take?

Diversity and humanitarian solutions are not emotional issues alone, they represent an adaptive problem solving that only strengthens an already thriving community. Placating appetites of the well-off while encouraging fair use of valued resources is a challenge that all western culture faces.  It starts here with observations and questions.

Nine Core Principles of the Commons

How to ensure the survival of our commons and communities

To create a commons-based society people need more than exposure to new ideas; they need tangible ways of experiencing, practicing and living out these bright possibilities. We must create new customs, understandings, systems, and structures.

1. We all belong to our community and we each have an equal stake in what happens.
2. We must recognize and repair the damage that has been done and the inequities that have been created by our current market-based society.
3. The things that belong to all of us must be named, claimed, defended, protected, and improved. We have a mutual responsibility to take care of these commons and pass them on to the next generation in better shape than we found them.
4. We must honor our full humanity. We are not merely individuals and consumers—we are neighbors, community members, citizens, and experts on the places we live.
5. We are surrounded by abundance and opportunity that the market system does not recognize or value. We must see and claim this abundance for the benefit of all.
6. Everyone should have the chance to participate in defining, restoring, creating, managing, leading, governing, and owning anything that is important to the future of the community.
7. People affected by critical decisions must be included in the process of making them.
8. History, cultural distinctiveness and people’s personal stories are important factors in setting goals and making decisions, as well as simply understanding our community.
9. Sufficiency and resilience are keys to the future, representing the 180-degree opposite of the growth-driven market society we now experience.

—THE ON THE COMMONS TEAM

Editor: Another chapter in Celebrating the Commons: People Stories and Ideas for the New Year from Commons Magazine being presented each Sunday at EYNU.

Invisible Resources

Twenty years ago, Gloria Steinem wrote “Revaluing Economics.” In the article, she talks about the two invisible resources upon which everything else is built in society and in the economy. Those two resources being the planet’s natural resources, the environment, and the work that women have done in the home to take care of families and children. Our vision for the economy of the future would actually protect them rather than make those resources invisible.

The month ahead will be dominated by discussions of Encinitas economy down at City Hall, so this perspective Steinem names will be invisible until and unless we make it a part of the conversation.

But, the key words are in the final sentence - protect them. We have written a great deal on this blog about protecting the environment.  We need to speak more on behalf of one half of our population - women.

It is in this spirit the following video introduces One Billion Rising, coming next week around the world. (Trigger warning for violence)

ABOUT ONE BILLION RISING (Website)

ONE IN THREE WOMEN ON THE PLANET WILL BE RAPED OR BEATEN IN HER LIFETIME.*

ONE BILLION WOMEN VIOLATED IS AN ATROCITY

ONE BILLION WOMEN DANCING IS A REVOLUTION

On V-Day’s 15th Anniversary, 14 February 2013, we are inviting ONE BILLION women and those who love them to WALK OUT, DANCE, RISE UP, and DEMAND an end to this violence. ONE BILLION RISING will move the earth, activating women and men across every country. V-Day wants the world to see our collective strength, our numbers, our solidarity across borders.

What does ONE BILLION look like? On 14 February 2013, it will look like a REVOLUTION.

ONE BILLION RISING IS:

A global strike
An invitation to dance
A call to men and women to refuse to participate in the status quo until rape and rape culture ends
An act of solidarity, demonstrating to women the commonality of their struggles and their power in numbers
A refusal to accept violence against women and girls as a given
A new time and a new way of being

Resources:

Dance instruction 

San Diego Event

Small Spaces etc. - Economic Necessity

Not everyone who lives in a tiny home came by that lifestyle as first or best choice.  The Jordon family left a 2,500 sf home to life in a 320 sf shotgun tiny house because the man of the house lost his job. This couple and their teenage son live mortgage free next to their family business. In the following video we learn that the change in thinking (mental prep) took 5 years.

Unlike most of the previous examples, this family is very conventional in design choices. The furniture, possessions, equipment all seem to be minor variations from suburban sized norm.

Jordan says,

I don’t know if everybody could make this decision. I highly recommend it. I sleep every night really, really good. We never discuss money. It’s not a topic that comes up. Our life is much more peaceful now. I have learned to cultivate contentment. I’m not thinking about what I want to buy next or how I can increase my earnings. I’m content. I’m very happy and there’s a lot to be said for that.

Source: Grist

50 Year Coastal Proposition

Guest Post by Dennis Lees, February 3, 2012

I wanted to make sure you are aware of a 50-year coastal protection program the Army Corps of Engineers is proposing for Encinitas and Solana Beach. It has been described minimally in The Coast News here and here. I believe this is an issue that we as Encinitans should be involved in. The ACOE will hold a public briefing on this project in our council chambers this Wednesday, 2/6, at 1800 (6 PM). The public will be able to ask questions and speak to their concerns.

The ACOE has been studying these issues for about 10 years. It started out evaluating ten alternatives, including:
No Action; Managed Retreat; Beach Nourishment at Various Increments; Notch fills; Hybrid-Beach nourishment and notch fill; Visible Breakwaters; Submerged Breakwater/Artificial Reef; Groins; Seawalls; Revetment

Preliminary screening eliminated the following alternatives:

Managed Retreat; Emergent Breakwaters; Submerged Breakwater/Artificial Reef; Groins; Revetments

This leaves:

No Action, representing unmanaged retreat; Beach Nourishment at various times in the future (this is a short-term fix; we've just completed the 3rd beach nourishment program since about 2000); Notch fills; a hybrid approach involving beach nourishment and notch fill; and Seawalls.

It is not surprising that the ACOE has already eliminated Managed Retreat, which recent comprehensive cost-benefit studies in Monterey Bay have show is the best environmental and economic alternative in the long term. For more information on this, see pdf reports from USC.edu, Monterey Bay.NOAA.gov and Costal.ca.gov.

These investigators, led by Dr. David Revell, have been evaluating the costs and short- and long-term benefits of a variety of approaches to shoreline preservation and restoration (beach nourishment, revetments, sea walls, armor rock, artificial reefs, etc.) and has come to some very interesting conclusions. I believe they have concluded that all but Managed Retreat are basically pouring money down a rat hole. Mother Nature will win in the end, whatever we do, and we are just delaying the final outcome at great expense to the taxpayers.

Managed Retreat, however, definitely does not satisfy the influential property and business owners, who are pushing to have their property protected at taxpayer expense.

The footprint for the proposed Encinitas/Solana Beach project is 3-4 times larger than the recently completed beach nourishment program and about two-thirds of it would occur here in Encinitas. The remainder is off San Elijo Lagoon and Solana Beach.

I recently took a very brief look at the appendix covering impacts to nearshore resources in the ACOE EIS/EIR for its proposed Encinitas/Solana Beach beach protection program and found it woefully wanting. In addition to eliminating a discussion on managed retreat, the ACOE document doesn't address environmental or fisheries impacts in the borrow sites at all. In fact, the only mention of "borrow sites" was to mention that a cultural resources survey will be conducted prior to dredging. It is likely, based on research conducted in nearshore waters, that biological resources in these areas vary substantially. However, studies assessing potential impacts to these habitats have failed to address this variation or adequately evaluate the ecological value of any of the proposed borrow sites and use the differences in ecological value as a criterion for site selection. These evaluations should be used to ensure that any dredging that occurs avoids the areas of highest ecological value, as demonstrated by intensive surveys by qualified benthic ecologists with experience in this habitat. Basically, previous studies have evaluated the "weeds" in the system, i.e., the ephemeral organisms living in the upper few inches of the sand, rather than the "trees", i.e., the long-lived organisms that live down to 2 or more feet deep in the sand (and equal to dredging depth) and contribute the most to fisheries. A consequence of this flawed approach is that the potential effects of dredging and the projections for recovery times are grossly underestimated.

In the past, agencies have not understood these issues and have accepted this approach. However, we are seeing changes in agency philosophies regarding the approaches for evaluating borrow sites and beach restoration programs. The California Coastal Commission is now starting to request studies addressing the issues involving the "weeds" and the "trees", which is the approach taken in discussions of nearly every other ecosystem subjected to development activities. (For example, when we assess the effects of clear-cutting in a redwood forest, an activity analogous to the proposed dredging program, we make the decisions based on the long-lived redwoods and other trees in the forest, not on the ephemeral grasses and short-lived shrubs growing on the forest floor.) In addition, the National Marine Fisheries Service appears to be leaning this direction.

However, the bottom line here is that the ACOE has completely omitted any discussion of Managed Retreat and borrow-site impacts from a proposed 50-year project that would require dredging many times more sand for the beaches in Encinitas and Solana Beach than all the dredging done for beach "nourishment" to date. These omissions are unacceptable. These environmental issues need to be addressed to protect the environment and our fisheries. Moreover, we need to protect the taxpayers. Particularly in light of sea-level rise, this is a battle that we cannot and will not win. We should make a wise decision to cut our losses and put the money into efforts that make sense for ALL taxpayers, not just wealthy landowners and businesses.

A Crucial Part of the Human Story That Must Be Recaptured

Photo by Nancy Battaglia for 350.org, a global citizens movement to curb climate disruption founded by Bill McKibben.

Bill McKibben looks to the commons as the solution to global climate disruption

I’ve spent most of my life as a writer—and one of the sweetest parts of that job is knowing that whatever I produce ends up in a library, an institution dedicated to the idea that we can share things easily. There are innumerable other examples of sharing all around—and they are the parts of our lives that we usually care most about. They don’t show up on balance sheets because they’re not producing profit—but they are producing satisfaction.

These things we share are called commons, which simply means they belong to all of us. Commons can be gifts of nature—such as fresh water, wilderness and the airwaves—or the products of social ingenuity like the Internet, parks, artistic traditions, or the public health service.

But today much of our common wealth is under threat from those hungry to ruin it or take it over for selfish, private purposes.

The most crucial commons, perhaps, is the one now under greatest siege, and it poses a test of whether we can pull together to solve our deepest problems or succumb to disaster. Our atmosphere has been de facto privatized for a long time now—we’ve allowed coal, oil and gas interests to own the sky, filling it with the carbon that is the inevitable byproduct of their business. For a couple of centuries this seemed mostly harmless—Co2 didn’t seem to be causing much trouble. But two decades ago we started to understand the effects of global warming, and now each month the big scientific journals bring us new proof of just how vast the damage is: the Arctic is melting, Australia is on fire, the pH of the ocean is dropping fast.

If we are to somehow ward off the coming catastrophes, we have to reclaim this atmospheric commons. We have to figure out how to cooperatively own and protect the single most important feature of the planet we inhabit—the thin envelope of atmosphere that makes our lives possible. Wrestling this key prize away from Exxon Mobil and other corporations is the great political issue of our time, and some of the solutions proposed have been ingenious—most notably the idea put forth by commons theorist Peter Barnes and others that we should own the sky jointly, and share in the profits realized by leasing its storage space to the fossil fuel industry. For that to work, of course, we would have to reduce that storage space quickly and dramatically. Barnes’ Cap-and-Dividend plan offers one way to make that economically and politically feasible.

But for this and other necessary projects to succeed, we need first to break the intellectual spell under which we live. The last few decades have been dominated by the premise that if we privatize all economic resources it will produce endless riches. Which was kind of true, except that the riches went to only a few people. And in the process they melted the Arctic, as well as dramatically increasing inequality around the world. The commons is a crucial part of the human story that must be recovered if we are to deal with the problems now crowding in on us. This story is equal parts enlightening and encouraging, and it is entirely necessary for us to hear it.

—BILL MCKIBBEN
FROM THE INTRODUCTION TO ALL THAT WE SHARE: A FIELD GUIDE TO THE COMMONS

Editor: Another chapter in Celebrating the Commons: People Stories and Ideas for the New Year from Commons Magazine being presented each Sunday at EYNU.

Quote(s) of the Day

We’re members of each other—all of us—everything. The difference is not whether you are or not, but whether you know you are or not. Because we’re all under each other’s influence. We’re all are affected by one another’s others lives and decisions. And there is no escape from this membership.

To be honest, I couldn't decide which quote spoke louder to me, so I include both from Wendell Berry and a link to a podcast because this is a fascinating man.

It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work, and when we longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey.  The mind that is not baffled is not employed.  The impeded stream is one that sings.

Photo: Guy Mendes

According to Mary - A Pair

Last week . . .