Inspiration Boost

Check out Craigslist Joe on Netflix Streaming, iTunes or DVD (to name several) to recharge your sense of community, faith in humanity and sense of hope. It is also a real adventure.

Joe writes in his first blog post on Craigslistjoe.com:

This is my very first blog post. My brother Michael suggested I start one, which was suggested by two of his friends Dan and Alex. 

My name is Joseph Garner. I’m the director and “Joe” of “Craigslist Joe“. 

The response to our documentary has been overwhelming. The film premiered on August 2, 2012, and has screened in over 20 cities in the U.S., Canada, and soon in many more countries around the world. The film is also on iTunes, Amazon, Vudu, Hulu, Netflix, and more. 

We live in a very interesting time right now where we have access to film, music, art, science, history, and pretty much anything else we could want to look up, with the simple click of a button. We have more ways to communicate and connect with each other than ever before. 

I have been blown away by the incredible support our film has received via email, facebook messages, tweets, instagram photos, and more. Your stories are so inspiring. I will do my very best to respond to all of your messages, so keep ‘em coming. 

Here’s a few links you may find useful…
www.craigslistjoe.com
www.facebook.com/craigslistjoe
twitter: @craigslistjoe
instagram: @craigslistjoe 

much love.
joe.

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.)

I Have A Dream - I Have A Drone

captured on the internet . . .

If M.L. King Jr.'s assassination knocked the wind out of the human movements of his lifetime, let's think about going directly "back" to him for the most effective way forward. Below comes from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s last book of essays, “The Trumpet of Conscience,” 1968: This from “Nonviolence and Social Change”:

"…Of course, by now it is obvious that new laws are not enough. The emergency we now face is economic, and it is a desperate and worsening situation. For the 35 million poor people in America—not even to mention, just yet, the poor in other nations—there is a kind of strangulation in the air. In our society it is murder, psychologically, to deprive a man of a job or an income. You are in substance saying to that man that he has no right to exist. You are in a real way depriving him of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, denying in his case the very creed of his society. Now, millions of people are being strangled that way. The problem is international in scope. And it is getting worse, as the gap between the poor and the ‘affluent society’ increases.

The question that now divides the people who want radically to change that situation is: can a program of nonviolence—even if it envisions massive civil disobedience—realistically expect to deal with such an enormous, entrenched evil?

…I intend to show that nonviolence will be effective, but not until it has achieved the massive dimensions, the disciplined planning, and the intense commitment of a sustained, direct-action movement of civil disobedience on the national scale….

…The only real revolutionary, people say, is a man who has nothing to lose. There are millions of poor people in this country who have very little, or even nothing, to lose. If they can be helped to take action together, they will do so with a freedom and a power that will be a new and unsettling force in our complacent national life.

Beginning in the New Year, we will be recruiting three thousand of the poorest citizens from ten different urban and rural areas to initiate and lead a sustained, massive, direct-action movement in Washington, D.C. Those who choose to join this initial three thousand, this nonviolent army, this ‘freedom church’ of the poor, will work with us for three months to develop nonviolent action skills. Then we will move on Washington, determined to stay there until the legislative and executive branches of the government take serious and adequate action on jobs and income.

A delegation of poor people can walk into a high official’s office with a carefully, collectively prepared list of demands. (If you’re poor, if you’re unemployed anyway, you can choose to stay in Washington as long as the struggle needs you.) And if that official says, ‘But Congress would have to approve this,’ or, ‘But the President would have to be consulted on that,’ you can say, ‘All right, we’ll wait.’ And you can settle down in his office for as long a stay as necessary.

If you are, let’s say, from rural Mississippi, and have never had medical attention, and your children are undernourished and unhealthy, you can take those little children into the Washington hospitals and stay with them there until the medical workers cope with their needs, and in showing it your children, you will have shown this country a sight that will make it stop in its busy tracks and think hard about what it has done.

The many people who will come and join this three thousand, from all groups in the country’s life, will play a supportive role, deciding to be poor for a time along with the dispossessed who are asking for their right to jobs or income—jobs, income, the demolition of slums, and the rebuilding by the people who live there of new communities in their place; in fact, a new economic deal for the poor.

…I have said that the problem, the crisis we face, is international in scope. In fact, it is inseparable from an international emergency that involves the poor, the dispossessed, and the exploited of the whole world.

Can a nonviolent, direct-action movement find application on the international level, to confront economic and political problems? I believe it can. It is clear to me that the next stage of the movement is to become international.

National movements within the developed countries—forces that focus on London, or Paris, or Washington, or Ottawa—must help to make it politically feasible for their governments to undertake the kind of massive aid that the developing countries need if they are to break the chains of poverty. We in the West must bear in mind that the poor countries are poor primarily because we have exploited them through political or economic colonialism. Americans in particular must help their nation repent of her modern economic imperialism.

But movements in our countries alone will not be enough….So many of Latin America’s problems have roots in the United States of America that we need to form a solid, united movement, nonviolently conceived and carried through, so that pressure can be brought to bear on the capital and government power structures concerned, from both sides of the problem at once. I think that may be the only hope for a nonviolent solution in Latin America today; and one of the most powerful expressions of nonviolence may come out of that international coalition of socially aware forces, operating outside governmental frameworks.

…In practice, such a decision would represent such a major reordering of priorities that we should not expect that any movement could bring it about in one year or two. Indeed, although it is obvious that nonviolent movements for social change must internationalize, because of the interlocking nature of the problems they all face, and because otherwise those problems will breed war, we have hardly begun to build the skills and the strategy, or even the commitment, to planetize our movement for social justice.

…In this world, nonviolence is no longer an option for intellectual analysis: it is an imperative for action."

Source: Commenter DrJack37 within Common Dreams post

Editor: 43 years later, the numbers of poor, displaced and exploited have skyrocketed - otherwise little has changed.

Words Matter

Re-humanization: A Glossary of Terms

by William Manson via Dissident Voice

DE-HUMANIZED?:

• Avaricious (adj.)—“grasping, acquisitive, covetous, mercenary”
• Bourgeois (adj.)– “selfishly materialistic… greedy, acquisitive, banal, conformist, philistine, capitalist (middle-class)”
• Corruption (n.)—“moral deterioration, decay… venality”
• Ignoble (adj.)—“dishonorable, mean, base”
• Inhuman (adj.)—“brutal, unfeeling… vicious”
• Joyless (adj.)—“depressed, gloomy… dreary”
• Neurotic (adj.)—“suffering from anxiety, obsessions, compulsive acts”
• Philistine (n.)—“vulgarian, yahoo”; (adj.)—“materialistic, unread”
• Robot (n.)—“person who works mechanically but insensitively”
• Soulless (adj.)—“lacking sensitivity or noble qualities”
• Vice (n.)—“defect of character… transgression, shortcoming”

RE-HUMANIZED?:

• Aesthetic (adj.)—“sensitive to beauty”
• Exuberant (adj.)—“buoyant, spirited, zestful”
• Free (adj.)—“independent, self-governing… unconstrained”
• Humane (adj.)—“benevolent, compassionate”
• Integrity (n.)—“honor, rectitude… wholeness”
• Magnanimous (adj.)—“nobly generous: not petty in feelings or conduct”
• Meditative (adj.)—“thoughtful, reflective”
• Natural (adj.)—“uncultivated, wild… inherent, innate… spontaneous”
• Romantic (adj.)—“imaginative, visionary, idealistic”
• Sagacious (adj.)—“showing insight, good judgment or wisdom”
• Sincere (adj.)—“free from pretense or deceit… unfeigned, open”
• “Soul” (human; n.)—“essential… moral, emotional, or intellectual nature”

SOURCE: The Oxford Desk Dictionary

Out with the Old, In with the New

Forgive the utter banality of using the old man time, new baby with a top hat iconography to end this year.  The thing is I couldn't get over how dead-on this silly, overused graphic fits the end of 2012.

This was the year we witness the old white men in power spending billions to spread lies, hate and fear for months on end to ensure that the status quo would not be threatened.  It was a catastrophic failure and proof that something new is afoot in the US of A.

These old white guys failed miserably and the staggering missteps and blunders continue. Millions of us want to see them go away, be silent, be shamed and most of all be held accountable for the misery they engender.

The promise of new ways to be within a dying empire will be the way we will be devoting ourselves when that old regime rages no more.  

We ALL Can Do It!

An affirmation for a new year - Making the invisible visible

(and a birthday gift for someone close)

via soirart, via gradient lair

Turn Off That Damn Light!

Well, I laughed.  This also prompted the more serious issue of what our loss of night skies is doing to us and to the living world around us.

During this Solstice holiday, the following LA Times article excerpted below was recommended by friends.

The need for humans to have healthy sleep patterns has been well documented. Anyone of us who has had to work the midnight shift knows the havoc this can play on one's emotions and physical body.

"Our bodies need darkness to produce the hormone melatonin, which keeps certain cancers from developing, and our bodies need darkness for sleep."

"The rest of the world depends on darkness as well, including nocturnal and crepuscular species of birds, insects, mammals, fish and reptiles. Some examples are well known — the 400 species of birds that migrate at night in North America, the sea turtles that come ashore to lay their eggs — and some are not, such as the bats that save American farmers billions in pest control and the moths that pollinate 80% of the world's flora. Ecological light pollution is like the bulldozer of the night, wrecking habitat and disrupting ecosystems several billion years in the making. Simply put, without darkness, Earth's ecology would collapse."

The primary point here is that the author, Paul Bogard makes is that we can change this.

"It doesn't have to be this way. Light pollution is readily within our ability to solve, using new lighting technologies and shielding existing lights. Already, many cities and towns across North America and Europe are changing to LED streetlights, which offer dramatic possibilities for controlling wasted light. Other communities are finding success with simply turning off portions of their public lighting after midnight. Even Paris, the famed "city of light," which already turns off its monument lighting after 1 a.m., will this summer start to require its shops, offices and public buildings to turn off lights after 2 a.m. Though primarily designed to save energy, such reductions in light will also go far in addressing light pollution. But we will never truly address the problem of light pollution until we become aware of the irreplaceable value and beauty of the darkness we are losing."

In addition to this informative piece is a companion, Dark Skies (pdf) with some really good illustrations to support the Bogard argument.

This is yet another topic that has often been belittled and mocked as some hippy goofiness or NIMBY fixation, as with the Hall property plans for a Regional Sports Park's extensive exterior lighting. For this reason it seems we should help educate our friends, neighbors and city planners to the realities of night skies to our healthy and prosperity.

Hat Tip to C.J. and Jean Bernard Minster

Update via Encinitas Undercover 12/28/12
Read the letter to the UT Editor from a Cardiff student regarding 90 foot high lights.

Idle No More

Did you know about the protest sweeping Canada?  The First Nation people are actively protesting the laws coming out of the conservative government.

"Bil C-45 includes changes to the Canadian Indian Act regarding how reserve lands are managed, making them easier to develop and be taken away from the First Nation people.

The bill also removes thousands of lakes and streams from the list of federally protected bodies of water. “This is unacceptable. They have made a unilateral decision remove the protection of waterways... Shell Canada has proposed to mine out 21km of the Muskeg River, a river of cultural and biological significance. This ultimately gives the tar sands industry a green light to destroy vital waterways still used by our people," stated Eriel Deranger, Communication Coordinator for the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation.

Atiwapiskat First Nation Chief Theresa Spence has been on a hunger strike since December 11th, resolved to starve herself to death unless Prime Minister Stephen Harper meets to discuss treaty rights, and Canada’s relationship with its Indigenous peoples. She is currently living in a teepee on Victoria Island, in Ottawa, just a kilometer away from the Parliament buildings. So far, Harper has rejected calls to meet with Spence."

Protest begins around 4:21 after introduction by film maker in Toronto who is actively involved in this fast moving resistance.

Idle No More's mission statement reads, in part:

On December 10th, Indigenous people and allies stood in solidarity across Canada to assert Indigenous sovereignty and begin the work towards sustainable, renewable development. All people will be affected by the continued damage to the land and water and we welcome Indigenous and non-Indigenous allies to join in creating healthy sustainable communities. We encourage youth to become engaged in this movement as you are the leaders of our future. There have always been individuals and groups who have been working towards these goals – Idle No More seeks to create solidarity and further support these goals. We recognize that there may be backlash, and encourage people to stay strong and united in spirit.

Via Common Dreams

Listen Up

Climate 101

Sometimes just keeping it as simple and direct as possible - for our children, our contrary friends/family/neighbors and for ourselves. For that we have the Science Guy, Bill Nye.

Ravi Shankar Died

Godfather of World Music, he is called in the headline. This world renowned artist chose lovely Encinitas as home. Just listening to the video below of Shankar and his also famous daughter, Anoushka, can transport a baby boomer back to the late 60's and early seventies.

 

Shankar and Harrison playing sitar in Rishikesh, India in 1968:

And The Guardian reports:

Shankar not only transcended culture, race and geography but also had no difficulty with the generation gap and the phenomenon of class. The children of the flower-power generation turned a deaf ear to their elders but listened most intently to the stranger on the shore.

Showered with citations and awards, the Indian republic made him a Bharat Ratna (Jewel of India) and Britain made him an honorary knight. In the US he received several doctorates and was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

In later years he divided his time between Encinitas, California, and Chanakyapuri, New Delhi, where the Ravi Shankar Institute of Music and the Performing Arts, fully functional by 2003, was the culmination of his lifelong dream. Housed in an elegant pink granite building, it attracts students from all over the world.

He is survived by his second wife, Sukanya, and their daughter Anoushka who, diligently tutored by her father, is a well-known sitar player. He also leaves a daughter, Norah Jones, the Emmy award-winning singer, from an earlier relationship with the concert producer Sue Jones. Shubhendra, his son from his first marriage, predeceased him.

Landfill Harmonic Orchestra

The film shows how trash and recycled materials can be transformed into beautiful sounding musical instruments, but more importantly, it brings witness to the transformation of precious human beings.

Landfill Harmonic is an upcoming feature-length documentary about a remarkable musical orchestra in Paraguay, where young musicians play instruments made from trash.

Exxon Hates Your Children

How many of you scream at the Exxon Mobile commercials claiming "to care about the children" when we know it is their public relations arm messing with people's heart and mind disconnects to distract and confuse?  Big lies from the big guys - daily, all day.

The following ad has been created to refute the big lie.  *LOLsob*



From Grist:

There are two groups behind this genius ad: Oil Change International — an advocacy organization that’s fighting for clean energy and against fossil fuels — and The Other 98%, which calls itself “a grassroots network of concerned people fed up with the status quo in Washington.” There’s actually a policy agenda behind the ad — eliminating subsidies for fossil fuels. Here’s the argument the two groups are making:

Imagine if your government gave a company a sweet deal to build your local playground. Then, that company dumped toxic waste underneath where your kids play everyday, just because it was the most profitable thing for them to do.

What would you do? Obviously you’d protect your children and demand that the company fully pay to clean up their mess … you’d demand that your government immediately stop sending your tax dollars — subsidies — to that company.

That company is Exxon, the playground is our planet, and the sweet deal they get is by way of massive government handouts.

The groups are raising money for an ad buy next week; “the locations and scope will depend on the online fundraising campaign,” Oil Change International’s director told The Hill. But it looks like one of the audiences they’re looking to reach is Fox News viewers … and I would pay good money just to see how they try and defend Exxon against this argument. “Exxon loves your children! They make it possible for them to drive cars!” “They’re just trying to make money … oh wait …”

Well, this commercial -- brought to you courtesy of Oil Change International and The Other 98% -- answers them. And guess what: ExxonMobil really hates it. Why? Because it tells the stark, horrible truth about how Big Oil and ExxonMobil harms children in real ways, far more than having a bad score on a standardized test. It has them so aggravated that they're pushing to have the ads removed.

Via The Hill: 

“The campaign is offensive to the thousands of ExxonMobil employees and contractors who work hard every day to deliver an essential product in a safe and environmentally responsible way,” the company said in a statement Wednesday.

Via Crooks & Liars:

Well, shoot. I'm sorry, ExxonMobil, but it simply tells the truth about what you're really doing.

The company and oil industry more broadly are battling proposals to end tax deductions, arguing the efforts unfairly single out the industry for punishment and would stymie energy development.

Oil industry critics say that the tax code should not reward fossil fuel development at a time when scientists are increasingly sounding the alarmabout runaway global warming.

In this day of real-time news, it's really impossible for Big Oil to disguise their malfeasance and greed with slick education reform PR campaigns. That's what they really hate.

1 in 4 Women Raped in Her Lifetime

"I need feminism to make me feel like a person. I need feminism to help me understand why I feel this sense of rage and helplessness living in this culture and to put a name to that which provokes those feelings - misogyny. I need feminism in order to see myself, and to get others to see me, as a complex, multidimensional human being with my own unique likes, dislikes, personality traits, etc. rather than something that I am told I should be. I need feminism in order to expect more from everyone around me. I need feminism in order to remind myself and others that the "war of the sexes/men are from mars women are from venus" ideas are bullshit, and that the fight for equality and equal opportunities isn't a zero sum game. I need feminism to recognize that men can be more, can be better, than what the patriarchy says they are. I need feminism to know that it's not just me, to know that others are seeing and feeling and realizing what I do. I need feminism to know better than to swallow shit and think that it's ice cream. I need feminism to know that there are infinitely many ways to be a person, and that NONE of them need be defined solely or primarily by my gender."

Comment made on a thread where people are asked to share why they need feminism.

"On Men Being Part of the Solution: To a woman whose every post on sexual assault and domestic abuse has prompted untold numbers of women (and some men) to share their stories of having been raped or otherwise violently abused, that the subject could never come up among men is simply astounding. And yet I am assured by the men in my life, it does not. Of the issues with which they concern themselves, sending them into tumbling debates about what should be done and how best to solve the problem—the environment, poverty, encroachments on civil liberties, etc. etc. etc.—the fact that one out of four women will be raped in her lifetime, and many more yet victims of domestic abuse, rarely, if ever, makes the list. How can it be that so many men and women live such different lives? I dream of the day when we don't."

THAT  I want that, Santa.

Shop Local Saturday (Or Any Day)

Flying Pig Pub & Kitchen near Oceanside (h/t Teresa Barth)

The title is from the corporate (AmEx) sponsored Shop Small Saturday campaign.

Heed the local message or the big business version, if you choose to shop - go local. We want these small local businesses to stick around a long time.  

Dogs & Cats Living Together . . . Mass Hysteria.

Thanksgiving for millions of us prompts the un-fun aspect at the heart of dysfunctional family gatherings.

This being a political blog, it is no great stretch to simply point out the hysteria within the national and local county Republican party with the recent election results, the proverbial War on Christmas O'Reilly rants and the utter madness of demanding consumerism means success amidst deep indebtedness of U.S. families.

Or another whole movement of people who can't grasp gratitude or thanksgiving while appalled at the horrendous realities that the US of A is supporting in domestic and foreign policies. Realities show the staggering gulf between the rich and the rest of us or the horror that is Israel's U.S. supported attacks on Gaza and other foreign wars (declared and undeclared).

My deep and abiding thanks is to the voters of this community for toppling the power structure and voting in Lisa Shaffer, Tony Kranz, Dave Roberts . . .  And for ousting Stocks and Bilbray.

For this writer it prompts the dark humor of the Bill Murray character's quote about chaos from 1984 Ghostbusters dialog:

Dr. Peter Venkman: This city is headed for a disaster of biblical proportions.
Mayor: What do you mean, "biblical"?
Dr Ray Stantz: What he means is Old Testament, Mr. Mayor, real wrath of God type stuff.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Exactly.
Dr Ray Stantz: Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling!
Dr. Egon Spengler: Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes...
Winston Zeddemore: The dead rising from the grave!
Dr. Peter Venkman: Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria!
Mayor: All right, all right! I get the point!

There is evidence every year that there are those out of their minds with "buying hysteria".

The clip suggests spending time with family. Another approach, practiced here, is to simply make Thursday (and Friday) about what matters to you and your loved ones. Sometimes that means skipping it altogether, because choice matters in a deliberate life. It may just be that imposing thanks and fellowship can be hurtful to the most vulnerable.

Thanks Due for Playing Outside

For those old enough to remember and those who had the privilege of nature as a playground, childhood for many of us was a wonderous adventure during play time.

I'm now grateful that on Saturdays and in the summer I was able to play outside, anywhere in my neighborhood, all day long until I had to eat lunch or go to the bathroom or I heard Mom's dinner bell screwed onto the front of the house.

It was also a generous gift, I now realize, to be allowed to go to summer camp for a week beginning when I was 6 years old.  This annual bonanza of independence and primitive living (housed in a cabin, a tipi or a leanto) was the highlight of the year for 12 consecutive years.

Learning to swim, to canoe on the river, archery contests, lashing a handrail fence up a steep hill, apprentice counselor training, primitive 3-day camping trips and the bonding with camp friends are all cherished memories.  And nobody in my family, not parents or siblings or even my Gram could ever know what I knew or feel what I felt because it was my very special unique passion.

Of all of life's joys, this experience rises above all others as a touchstone of something.   precious and personal.  This prompts another memory of my very favorite Christmas at 10 years old when I got the sleeping bag I asked for and a world globe.

All this was heightened today with the Guardian article by George Monibiot via Truthdig.

"The remarkable collapse of children’s engagement with nature – which is even faster than the collapse of the natural world – is recorded in Richard Louv’s book Last Child in the Woods, and in a report published recently by the National Trust. Since the 1970s the area in which children may roam without supervision has decreased by almost 90%. In one generation the proportion of children regularly playing in wild places in the UK has fallen from more than half to fewer than one in 10. In the US, in just six years (1997-2003) children with particular outdoor hobbies fell by half. Eleven- to 15-year-olds in Britain now spend, on average, half their waking day in front of a screen. 

… And here we meet the other great loss. Most of those I know who fight for nature are people who spent their childhoods immersed in it. Without a feel for the texture and function of the natural world, without an intensity of engagement almost impossible in the absence of early experience, people will not devote their lives to its protection. The fact that at least half the published articles on ash dieback have been illustrated with photos of beeches, sycamores or oaks seems to me to be highly suggestive."

Encinitas has the great good fortune of a climate and natural resources of ocean, wetlands, open spaces, parks and hiking trails.  Unstructured and unsupervised play has been enjoyed by generations.  There is a great tradition of surfing, skateboarding and other sports that celebrate individual exploration outside of and addition to organized sports.

For some years now there has been a real effort on the part of activist parents, various principals and teaching staff and now the Encinitas Union School District's Green Team to incorporate nature, gardens, composting, waste education into children's learning experience.  With the help of Healthy Partners, this effort is growing. Thank you Mim and Carol and all volunteers and the school district's efforts.

Don't forget to vote today and every day until Dec. 6, for Solana Center with Happy Day partners to win the Eco Ambassadors Award of $25,000 Solana Center. Vote here.

This is a close race now between 2 groups.  Solana Center is in second place so every vote counts.

Homeless Among Us

Update: Earlier I reported the CRC as the Del Mar event sponsor. From the Coast News,

"The Alliance for Regional Services (ARS), a collaboration of North County agencies and philanthropic organizations that combine resources to provide better services for the homeless at a cheaper cost, hosted the event for the second year in a row."

Councilwoman Barth and soon to be Councilwoman Shaffer are both involved in Community Resource Center (CRC) activities. Barth has put out a call to find volunteers for the Holiday basket effort and Shaffer just finished donating her campaign volunteers donations to CRC.  Today I read about the recent event at the Del Mar Fairground to provide services to the homeless.

The CRC is a part of countywide efforts to go beyond charity. From an article last May in NCT:  

"The group's main focus has been its winter homeless shelter program, but two weeks ago, alliance members held a workshop to expand its vision and mission.”

"How do we identify emerging needs and gaps in services, and create solutions for those?" Stump said the group also wants the alliance to be seen as an advocacy group for North County, becoming more strategic than reactive. “

At Our Mayor post, Hand Back the Keys to the Car, I wrote about public sentiment being likened to a thoughtless teenager, a brat when I read the article's comments.  It is time to bring humanity back into our common cultural language.  If we pay attention to the most vulnerable of our communities, we'll be able to identify and strengthen our resilience to the ongoing stresses for all: debt, disease, unemployment, mental health, family discord and political importance.

Bureau of Labor statistics (though somewhat improved) aren't that wonderful in this long-running recession looks particularly bad for marginalized voters of color, women and teenagers. Most everyone, whether well off or struggling, knows someone whether a relative, co-worker or friend who is in some dire straights.

As a community it would behoove us to bring this reality into our discussions of local economic transitions.  More minimum wage employment in national chain businesses are the death of communities.  How do we wean ourselves off this desperate dependency? It's not a simple answer because the old models are broken.

The following video via Treehugger is a brain tease and a design highlight in looking at commerce and storefront design much differently.

When Curro Claret was commissioned by Camper to redo one of their Barcelona shoe stores, he decided to let a group of people in risk of social exclusion have a go at it. The result of this open design project is a very positive one. Together with Arrels Fundació, Curro Claret and the group of ex-homeless people designed and built a new shop interior almost exclusively from recycled materials.

.

Good idea, great response & fantastic results

It started with Lisa Shaffer's good idea to deal with the pollution that is the yard sign post-election by asking all supporters to drop off signs at two location. She found organizational support from Councilwoman Barth and other key volunteers and the community of Shaffer and Kranz voters brought 400 signs. These Shaffer signs, towering over little miss Levan, will be repurposed. The paper signs were recycled and the metal stands will be sold back to the local printer.

The added bonus was this great haul of food donated at the sign drop-off site at Lisa's request, shown here in her car, before she headed to the Community Resource Center.

These photos were on Shaffer's Facebook page and are shown here for those not on Facebook and to simply enjoy this progressive approach to make simple acts say large things. I look forward to the model of hundreds of small, simple ways we can all help each other choose easy ways to live deliberately. Gratitude hardly covers it for our new Councilwoman and that dynamic cadre of volunteers.

You Are Not A Loan.

 Rolling Jubilee Website:

A bailout of the people by the people

Rolling Jubilee is a Strike Debt project that buys debt for pennies on the dollar, but instead of collecting it, abolishes it. Together we can liberate debtors at random through a campaign of mutual support, good will, and collective refusal. Debt resistance is just the beginning. Join us as we imagine and create a new world based on the common good, not Wall Street profits.

Learn more or contribute.

77.5% Of US Households Are In Debt

62% Of All Bankruptcies Are Caused By A Medical Illness

Student Tuition Debt Is Over $1,000,000,000,000

1 In Every 7 US Citizens Are Pursued By Debt Collectors

The Ratio of Household Debt to Income Is 154%

40% of Indebted Households Used Credit Cards To Pay For Basic Living Expenses

A couple of the many videos available on the Rolling Jubilee website.