I owe John Michael Greer a beer, or maybe two. Now that he’s moved to this half of the continent, I may yet have a chance to offer him one. Over the years of writing, Greer and I have argued and allied, worked together and apart, had our books published in the same season (twice now) and never yet met in person. Having a background in lit crit, I tend to think of my relationship with Greer as having a slight taint of Harold Bloom style anxiety of influence to it, causing me to spend more time … [Read more...]
Walkable Neighborhoods Are Worth More
A new study shows that people will pay more for walkable neighborhoods. You may have already heard of Walk Score -- an endlessly entertaining Internet tool that lets people discover how pedestrian-friendly their neighborhood is. Walk Score ranks neighborhood "walkability" based on the mix of stores and services that are within walking distance of any home in North America. If you haven't already, you should check it out -- but only if you've got nothing pressing to do, since it's pretty … [Read more...]
King Corn (2007)
King Corn (2007)King Corn is a feature documentary about two friends, one acre of corn, and the subsidized crop that drives our fast-food nation. In King Corn, Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis, best friends from college on the east coast, move to the heartland to learn where their food comes from. With the help of friendly neighbors, genetically modified seeds, and powerful herbicides, they plant and grow a bumper crop of America's most-productive, most-subsidized grain on one acre of Iowa soil. But … [Read more...]
Definancialisation, Deglobalisation, Relocalisation [via feedly]
This talk was presented at The New Emergency Conference in Dublin, on June 11, 2009.1. Good morning. The title of this talk is a bit of a mouthful, but what I want to say can be summed up in simpler words: we all have to prepare for life without much money, where imported goods are scarce, and where people have to provide for their own needs, and those of their immediate neighbours. I will take as my point of departure the unfolding collapse of the global economy, and discuss what might come … [Read more...]
Latin America’s Quiet Monetary Reform
INFORMATION EXTRACTED FROM ARTICLES PUBLISHED IN URUGUAY, APRIL 2009 The Executive Power prepares details for a new system of payment which will be adopted to stimulate micro and small businesses. In two months, the government will release a new way of payment, a transaction network, which will allow micro and small business to interact among themselves, through a new alternative currency, and at the same time to face their obligations with the State. This was announced recently by the Minister … [Read more...]
Dee Hock’s MiniMaxims
I like Mamading's quotes website Quotessence. I've already pointed him at Dancing with Systems and Permaculture Principles, encouraging him to include the wisdom they contain. Now I want to share Dee Hock's MiniMaxims from his great book, Birth of the Chaordic Age. [amtap book:isbn=1576750744] "Particularity and serparability are infirmities of the mind, not characteristics of the universe" "Desire to command and control is a death wish. Absolute control is in the coffin" "Only fools … [Read more...]
In Debt We Trust
In America's earliest days, there were barn-raising parties in which neighbors helped each other build up their farms. Today, in some churches, there are debt liquidation revivals in which parishioners chip in to free each other from growing credit card debts that are driving American families to bankruptcy and desperation. IN DEBT WE TRUST is the latest film from Danny Schechter, "The News Dissector," director of the internationally distributed and award-winning WMD (Weapons of Mass Deception), … [Read more...]
Zeitgeist – The Movie: Federal Reserve
This is part 3 of the original Zeitgeist Movie (see some of my thoughts on that here), all about money, banking and the Federal Reserve in the US. … [Read more...]
Zeitgeist: Addendum
After the first Zeitgeist Movie was released it was saddening how many people took at as the whole and complete truth without asking any further questions (particularly when the homepage of the films producer used to read "It is my hope that people will not take what is said in the film as the truth"). The first part of the original movie made too much of the obvious fact that most monotheistic religions share lots of similar threads, building on what came before. Sure, many religious … [Read more...]
The Money Masters
This very long (215 minutes) money documentary has lots of interesting history in it about the battle over the control of money and banking in the US. If I remember rightly the presenter proposes going back to the gold standard, but whilst that might be better than what we've got now, it doesn't really make much sense either (as nicely explained in Money as Debt) "The powers of financial capitalism had a far-reaching plan, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in … [Read more...]