Women's History Month - See the Sites

For a wealth of fascinating women's history sites - visit here.

Thanks to blogger who goes by the name Aphra Behn.

Common Knowledge FAIL

Wealth Inequity beyond our sense of reality

h/t Doug Porter

Small Space etc. - Intimate planting

Nature on a global scale is one thing, like the Amazon rain forest or our national parks. Thinking locally isn't too hard. Our community finally has an Urban Forest Manual and we have wonderfully vigilant neighborhoods protecting our historic trees. Our schools are planting trees all the time. This writer is putting in a backyard orchard, but the kind of fantasy images that excite are far more intimate, more tactile.

What follows are some provocative prototypes by designers from around the world. This isn't a DIY post or a linked piece for depth. It is merely to spark thought. Could you live this intimately with plant life? We know it has been proven that our indoor air is healthier with plants, test show stress reduction and the beauty is undeniable. Enjoy . . .

You might prefer fish to eels in this aguaponic coffee table setup.  This furniture photo is reminiscent of the 1982 science fiction Blade Runner movie.

Lifesavers

A dozen years ago the idea of green roofs was a novel one and the first pictures I collected were of humble dwellings and simple homes. These are still favored images and closer to what I'll be installing this year (or next).  Today it is becoming more and more acceptable in the architectural community and with planners to consider on a large urban scale. See last May's Tell-A-Vision for concept to heal the blight that is the big box, Wal-to-Wal, El Camino Real corridor aka car storage and large truck magnet.

Plants make life possible.  This is the introduction to this video clip. One of San Diego's own, Jim Mumford, gives a TED Talk to inspire us all to think of green roofs, green walls and other living elements as a part of our built environment. The time has come. This week is California Arbor Week, March 7-14. Let's hug us some trees and fondle some foliage, folks.

What is Commoning, Anyway?

Photo courtesy Anson B. Nixon Park.

It’s a way of activating the power of social cooperation to get things done— and bring us together

The term “commoning” has been popularized by historian Peter Linebaugh, whose book The Magna Carta Manifesto shows that the founding document of Anglo-American democracy repeatedly affirms people’s right to use the commons to fulfill their basic needs. A majority of English people, known as “commoners,” derived at least part of their livelihoods from the commons before the brutal onset of enclosures by wealthy landowners. Hence the word “commoning” describes people living in close connection to the commons.”

The word commoning, then, brings to life the essential social element of the commons. The act of commoning draws on a network or relationships made under the expectation that we will each take care of one another and with a shared understanding that some things belong to all of us—which is the essence of the commons itself. The practice of commoning demonstrates a shift in thinking from the prevailing ethic of “you’re on your own” to “we’re in this together.”

People who have come together to co-create and co-produce the world they want to see are at the heart of this trend. They need not wait for someone else to undertake the work required to solve our problems. More people are beginning to look around their neighborhoods and say, “Well, no one is using that vacant lot, we could plant a community garden there,” or “I think we can solve this neighborhood problem if a bunch of people pitch in to help.”

Commoning represents a new way for everyday citizens to make decisions and take action to shape the future of their communities without being locked into the profit-driven mechanics of the market or being solely dependent on government agencies for funding. However, most folks who make these kinds of decisions probably don’t call their actions “commoning”; instead they may simply think of their actions as “common sense.”

Commoning has always been done. It’s a way of life that involves taking your life into your own hands, rather than depending solely on outside forces to sell you what you need or to provide a precripted path forward. It’s a way to resist the dominant paradigm of modern life, which insists that what’s bought and sold in the market economy is the only way to provide fundamental meaning and sustenance in our lives.

—JULIE RISTAU

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: Booze N' Bars

This cartoon marks one year Mary Fleener has provided cartoons for Coast News. We are so grateful.

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.