Dear all,
One of my highlights of this past month was living with an almost-two-year-old whose language growth is exploding--in both English and Spanish! Watching how totally relaxed and unworried he was about learning and communicating in two languages simultaneously was an amazing reminder of how we're hard-wired from the beginning to learn and enjoy learning, and how our smallest children are reminders to us of what is possible.
In the Resources section below, there is a link to a new blog post, and a new URL for my parenting website, Our Children Ourselves. Enjoy!
Love,
Pamela
Carrying our load
Living in this world, it’s easy to feel overburdened. There’s so much to be done. How do we find our way amid all the temptations to blame, take on too much, and avoid things that seem just too hard?
I’ve come to the conclusion that blame is a pretty useless concept. Putting attention on what should have been done in the past just doesn’t encourage powerful thinking about the present and the future. If unmet responsibilities continue to impact our lives, then there is a whole spectrum of options for moving forward: live with it, offer a direct challenge, take on a project of changing the conditions for the future, work on opening the space for apologies and/or reparation, gather help to make the change, do it ourselves.
That said, it’s hard to discern what is fine to carry on my shoulders, and what is unrealistic, or unfair, or too much, or just not my responsibility. Recently, after completing years of hard work in a leadership position in a group, everyone just assumed that I would pick up leadership in another place that had need—because they knew I was capable. It made me mad. After several months of stubborn resistance, I realized that I actually had a vision for how to accomplish that piece of work, very different from how it had been done in the past. Seeing that I could give a gift that had value to me, I offered to take leadership if the group would join in my vision—which they did. Having found a way to freely choose that responsibility, from a position of power, my whole attitude about the work involved was transformed.
There’s a lesson here about choice, about taking off of our shoulders the responsibilities that don’t belong there (put on us by others when we were young, or assumed because there seemed to be no other option), and taking on what we choose in the present, based on our best thinking, our abilities, our love, and our vision for the future.
Then there are situations where we find ourselves with too much on our shoulders in the present and no way to refuse to handle it—the result of forces totally outside our control. In these situations, the big lesson for me is about getting help (a key missing ingredient when I was young). I would guess that one of the biggest difficulties many of us have with taking on responsibility is in imagining the possibility of getting the help we need.
I’ve recently realized that my feelings from childhood of being totally alone with tasks that seem too hard can get me into trouble. At times I feel so overwhelmed by a challenging demand that I try to avoid it altogether—like not even opening a letter from some intimidating bureaucracy. I’m trying to remember now, as soon as I recognize that familiar sinking feeling, to reach out and break the isolation, then do what needs to be done.
Maybe we all need to check what we’re carrying, dump out some of that heavy weight that doesn’t belong to us (like trying to make our parents happy), and pick up some of the pieces that lie waiting to be done. If we can remember that we have the power to make adult choices and get help in the present, everything looks more possible. I do believe that we all can find our way to carrying our piece of the world’s responsibility gladly, and without chafing at the load.
Look-alike
Airport run for my sweetie:
Not yet out of the neighborhood
someone walking toward me
a block away
catches my eye.
Something is so familiar
in the way he moves.
There’s time to wonder
Had I mistaken the time?
Did he tire of waiting, find a ride in?
As I approach
I see a man of quite a different age
and color.
I pass on reassured
by the mistake I didn’t make, about the time—
and the one I did.
Imagine: A new economy is possible!
Artisanal Energy
In just a dozen years, industrial-powerhouse Germany has replaced around 31 percent of its nuclear and fossil fuel generated electricity with a dynamic, decentralized patchwork of more than two million small and medium-scale renewables producers — businesses, villages and towns, co-ops, individuals, green investment funds, and farmers — whose numbers grow by the month. Their output is distributed through a tightly-knit smart grid. The composition of supply changes from minute to minute depending on weather, demand, and other factors from one corner of the country to the other.
The evolution began in 1998, when the EU mandated the liberalization of Europe’s energy markets. Forced to unbundle production and distribution, the four dominant utilities relinquished control of the grid, and opened the market to a wave of new entrants. Then German legislation in 2000 guaranteed renewables a fixed, higher-than-market price for 20 years, and stipulated that grid operators buy green energy from producers as small as a Bavarian dairy farmer with a PV panel on his cow shed. With the phase-out of Germany’s nuclear reactors, it is (dirty) coal--and not (cleaner) natural gas--that has helped renewables cover supply.
Though a master plan never existed, this plan is working, Germany has one of the lowest rates of blackouts in the world, and is exporting more electricity than ever before. Thinking small might have cracked the renewable energy puzzle.
http://foreignpolicy.com/2014/10/31/germanys-revolution-in-small-batch-artisanal-energy/
Some things that have made me hopeful recently
The support by Catholic Relief Services in the Central African Republic of a two-year program of Healing and Rebuilding Our Communities, a dynamic grassroots peacebuilding effort that has brought together perpetrators and victims in Rwanda, Burundi, Congo and Kenya—with transformative results. aglifpt.org/rfk/?p=406
Governor Cuomo’s announcement on December 17, of a ban on fracking in New York State.
A new collaborative venture, Fresh Start Foods West Philadelphia, which will provide fresh and healthy prepared meals for local schools while offering culinary apprenticeship jobs that provide living wages with benefits to out-of-work young adults. http://phennd.org/update/fresh-start-foods-west-philadelphia/
The Netherlands has joined Tasmania, Mexico and Russia in saying no to Monsanto and banning herbicides like RoundUp. http://inhabitat.com/the-netherlands-says-no-to-monsanto-bans-roundup-herbicide/
More resources
Recent posts on other web/blog sites:
In http://www.classism.org/gifts-american-dream/, Pamela Haines locates her family's homey DIY celebrations on a class spectrum of different connections to upward mobility.
http://www.transitionus.org/blog/unlikely-suspects-–-deep-outreach-diverse-initiating-groups-–-pace-building-trust
http://www.classism.org/demolition-derby
Muscle Building for Peace and Justice; a Non-Violent Workout Routine for the 21st Century--an integration of much of my experience and thinking over the years: doingdemocracy.com/MB4PnJ02.htm (or just google the title)
faitheconomyecology.wordpress.com, a website that I've contributed to often (check the archives)
www.ourchildrenourselves.com, a home for all the parenting writing I've done over the past 20 years. NOTE THE NEW URL.
www.startguide.org. START: a way to study and work together with others to create a better world.
For earlier columns, go to www.pamelascolumn.blogspot.com. I'm currently posting at pamelalivinginthisworld.blogspot.com.
http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/education-uprising/where-dignity-is-part-of-the-school-day
Sunday, January 4, 2015
Thursday, December 11, 2014
#138 Big enough
Dear all,
From a pre-Thanksgiving dinner with our oldest son Paul and some of his friends, to holiday time with Chuck's extended family, to a long lovely afternoon and evening yesterday with old friends (another extended family), to today's anticipation of the arrival of our son Tim and his wife and toddler for a month's visit from Nicaragua, I am feeling richly blessed by human connection. And my walk this morning reminded me, as always, of my connection with the natural world around me.
How good it is to be embedded in community!
Love,
Pamela
Big enough
I was having one of my—not uncommon—moments of feeling just too little. The world was looking pretty bleak and its problems pretty big. Economic inequality, racism, climate change—how could I possibly hope to make any difference in the face of enormous forces like these?
A friend was listening to me, and as I shared my sense of helplessness and hopelessness, my wish to not even turn my head in the direction of these big painful wrongs that I could do nothing about, I was able to hear myself in a new way. I sounded like a very little girl. The voice inside me that was speaking was a voice from my childhood.
It makes perfect sense. I was too little then. The forces that governed my life were way beyond my control. I saw the things that weren’t working right—for me, for my family—and had no way of making them better. In my particular situation, I didn’t even see a way to complain. So I did my best, learned my own set of survival skills, put my head down, and found my way, for better or for worse, into adulthood.
Now this isn’t to say that my life has been bleak. Far from it. I’ve experienced love in a variety of wonderful forms, found many meaningful ways to spend my time, gotten pleasure from the talents of countless people on this earth, been nurtured by the richness of the natural world. As an adult, I’ve discovered that I’m not helpless, that I can make things happen in the circles around me. I’ve continued to look for ways to address these big evils, but through all those years I’ve still carried that image of myself as just not big enough.
I remember my pivotal “aha moment” about the relationship between climate change and despair: the feelings of despair that come up so quickly around climate change are not its creation. Those feelings were with us long before we had ever imagined the possibility of the end of life on earth as we know it. They are old feelings from our childhood—when things were that scary, and we felt that small. I find the concept so refreshing: the feelings of despair that come up in the face of climate change are not inevitable. They are ours to change. Climate change is just an irresistible magnet for those old fears—which are always looking for a convenient place to attach in the present.
This is not to say that we don’t have a problem, or that the challenges we face are insignificant. As the big international forces that have brought us to this point grow in their interconnections and global impact, the threats are very real and significant—to say the least! But what if we are big enough?
I’m helped by recognizing a similar trajectory behind climate change, economic inequality and racism. It starts with an assumption of separation and a goal of mastery—in relation to both other human beings and the environment. Those who have more justify their right to it, then they work to protect what they have. Those assumptions and goals lead to injustice and trauma on a massive scale—for both people and the earth. The systems that have been built on these foundations are enormous and complex, but underlying them are human dynamics that can be understood, faced and changed. Systems that have been built can be dismantled, and people who have done damage and been damaged can be healed.
What if this is just the right sized challenge for grown-ups like us? What if each of us gets to be our own full loving human self in relation to these big issues? What if we assumed that we were big enough? Big enough to look at what’s wrong; to understand; to say what we think; to apply what we know to our personal choices; to engage with our friends, colleagues and neighbors, and gather others around good programs; to be players on the public stage?
In the process, we’ll have to get good at teasing out the sticky old voices of despair from the reality of interesting and important challenges in the present. Those voices from our childhood may be the biggest thing that’s holding back our world. It was true back then: we were too little. What good news that we’re now big enough!
Bread and life
You would think that I of all people
earth-loving
thrifty
do-it yourselfer
would be a baker of bread.
And yet I’m not
that is, I wasn’t.
Mixing together
stuff from a store
has never drawn me.
Then I was transformed by a
sourdough starter
given by a friend.
Putting flour, salt and water
in the service of
this wild life form
I became a partner in creation,
the flavor of the bread
a wonder
beyond my control.
Imagine--A new economy is possible!
Postal banking
Physical and operational structures already exist that could help USPS offer basic financial services: prepaid debit cards, mobile transactions, new check cashing services, savings accounts, and even simple, small-dollar loans. A successful U.S. Postal Saving System existed from 1911-1967. Every money order you deliver confirms this heritage—postal banking is as American as apple pie—and similar schemes operate overseas today, including in Germany, Japan, Switzerland, and the UK.
According to a Pew survey, 38 percent of the US population—88 million people—either have no bank accounts (the “unbanked”) or are at least partially dependent upon high-cost services like payday lending (the “underbanked”). In 2012, underbanked households spent almost 10% of their annual income solely on interest and fees for alternative financial services like payday lending.
Thirty-one percent of the unbanked said they would open an account at their local post office branch. Eighty-one percent of the underbanked said they would use USPS to cash checks, 79 percent percent to pay bills, and 71 percent would choose postal loans over payday loans. The U.S. Conference of Mayors has endorsed the idea, and legislation is pending in Congress.
http://www.yesmagazine.org/new-economy/the-return-of-the-postal-bank
Some things that have made me hopeful recently
How the Coalition of Immokalee Workers has pressured Florida’s tomato growers, through enlisting the might of major restaurant chains and retailers, to increase wages for their 30,000 workers and follow strict standards that mandate rest breaks and forbid sexual harassment and verbal abuse.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/25/business/in-florida-tomato-fields-a-penny-buys-progress.html?_r=0
Learning that 85,000 trees have been planted by one women's agricultural cooperative in Nicaragua, and knowing that this is just one of many such efforts around the world.
The New Economy movement--a diverse set of communities (native climate justice activists, union leaders, coop leaders from the deep South, urban farmers, small businesses, sustainability activists) coming together in shared recognition that our economic structures are the root cause of many different crises.
http://neweconomy.net/new-economy-coalition
How one person's story of humanity in a conflict-ridden far-away place (Gaza, Iraqi Kurdistan) can allow those who hear to open their minds and hearts to that place.
More resources
Recent posts on other web/blog sites:
http://www.transitionus.org/blog/unlikely-suspects-–-deep-outreach-diverse-initiating-groups-–-pace-building-trust
http://www.classism.org/demolition-derby
Muscle Building for Peace and Justice; a Non-Violent Workout Routine for the 21st Century--an integration of much of my experience and thinking over the years: doingdemocracy.com/MB4PnJ02.htm (or just google the title)
faitheconomyecology.wordpress.com, a website that I've contributed to often (check the archives)
www.ourchildrenourselves.com, a home for all the parenting writing I've done over the past 20 years. NOTE THE NEW URL--should be live soon.
www.startguide.org. START: a way to study and work together with others to create a better world.
For earlier columns, go to www.pamelascolumn.blogspot.com. I'm currently posting at pamelalivinginthisworld.blogspot.com.
http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/education-uprising/where-dignity-is-part-of-the-school-day
From a pre-Thanksgiving dinner with our oldest son Paul and some of his friends, to holiday time with Chuck's extended family, to a long lovely afternoon and evening yesterday with old friends (another extended family), to today's anticipation of the arrival of our son Tim and his wife and toddler for a month's visit from Nicaragua, I am feeling richly blessed by human connection. And my walk this morning reminded me, as always, of my connection with the natural world around me.
How good it is to be embedded in community!
Love,
Pamela
Big enough
I was having one of my—not uncommon—moments of feeling just too little. The world was looking pretty bleak and its problems pretty big. Economic inequality, racism, climate change—how could I possibly hope to make any difference in the face of enormous forces like these?
A friend was listening to me, and as I shared my sense of helplessness and hopelessness, my wish to not even turn my head in the direction of these big painful wrongs that I could do nothing about, I was able to hear myself in a new way. I sounded like a very little girl. The voice inside me that was speaking was a voice from my childhood.
It makes perfect sense. I was too little then. The forces that governed my life were way beyond my control. I saw the things that weren’t working right—for me, for my family—and had no way of making them better. In my particular situation, I didn’t even see a way to complain. So I did my best, learned my own set of survival skills, put my head down, and found my way, for better or for worse, into adulthood.
Now this isn’t to say that my life has been bleak. Far from it. I’ve experienced love in a variety of wonderful forms, found many meaningful ways to spend my time, gotten pleasure from the talents of countless people on this earth, been nurtured by the richness of the natural world. As an adult, I’ve discovered that I’m not helpless, that I can make things happen in the circles around me. I’ve continued to look for ways to address these big evils, but through all those years I’ve still carried that image of myself as just not big enough.
I remember my pivotal “aha moment” about the relationship between climate change and despair: the feelings of despair that come up so quickly around climate change are not its creation. Those feelings were with us long before we had ever imagined the possibility of the end of life on earth as we know it. They are old feelings from our childhood—when things were that scary, and we felt that small. I find the concept so refreshing: the feelings of despair that come up in the face of climate change are not inevitable. They are ours to change. Climate change is just an irresistible magnet for those old fears—which are always looking for a convenient place to attach in the present.
This is not to say that we don’t have a problem, or that the challenges we face are insignificant. As the big international forces that have brought us to this point grow in their interconnections and global impact, the threats are very real and significant—to say the least! But what if we are big enough?
I’m helped by recognizing a similar trajectory behind climate change, economic inequality and racism. It starts with an assumption of separation and a goal of mastery—in relation to both other human beings and the environment. Those who have more justify their right to it, then they work to protect what they have. Those assumptions and goals lead to injustice and trauma on a massive scale—for both people and the earth. The systems that have been built on these foundations are enormous and complex, but underlying them are human dynamics that can be understood, faced and changed. Systems that have been built can be dismantled, and people who have done damage and been damaged can be healed.
What if this is just the right sized challenge for grown-ups like us? What if each of us gets to be our own full loving human self in relation to these big issues? What if we assumed that we were big enough? Big enough to look at what’s wrong; to understand; to say what we think; to apply what we know to our personal choices; to engage with our friends, colleagues and neighbors, and gather others around good programs; to be players on the public stage?
In the process, we’ll have to get good at teasing out the sticky old voices of despair from the reality of interesting and important challenges in the present. Those voices from our childhood may be the biggest thing that’s holding back our world. It was true back then: we were too little. What good news that we’re now big enough!
Bread and life
You would think that I of all people
earth-loving
thrifty
do-it yourselfer
would be a baker of bread.
And yet I’m not
that is, I wasn’t.
Mixing together
stuff from a store
has never drawn me.
Then I was transformed by a
sourdough starter
given by a friend.
Putting flour, salt and water
in the service of
this wild life form
I became a partner in creation,
the flavor of the bread
a wonder
beyond my control.
Imagine--A new economy is possible!
Postal banking
Physical and operational structures already exist that could help USPS offer basic financial services: prepaid debit cards, mobile transactions, new check cashing services, savings accounts, and even simple, small-dollar loans. A successful U.S. Postal Saving System existed from 1911-1967. Every money order you deliver confirms this heritage—postal banking is as American as apple pie—and similar schemes operate overseas today, including in Germany, Japan, Switzerland, and the UK.
According to a Pew survey, 38 percent of the US population—88 million people—either have no bank accounts (the “unbanked”) or are at least partially dependent upon high-cost services like payday lending (the “underbanked”). In 2012, underbanked households spent almost 10% of their annual income solely on interest and fees for alternative financial services like payday lending.
Thirty-one percent of the unbanked said they would open an account at their local post office branch. Eighty-one percent of the underbanked said they would use USPS to cash checks, 79 percent percent to pay bills, and 71 percent would choose postal loans over payday loans. The U.S. Conference of Mayors has endorsed the idea, and legislation is pending in Congress.
http://www.yesmagazine.org/new-economy/the-return-of-the-postal-bank
Some things that have made me hopeful recently
How the Coalition of Immokalee Workers has pressured Florida’s tomato growers, through enlisting the might of major restaurant chains and retailers, to increase wages for their 30,000 workers and follow strict standards that mandate rest breaks and forbid sexual harassment and verbal abuse.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/25/business/in-florida-tomato-fields-a-penny-buys-progress.html?_r=0
Learning that 85,000 trees have been planted by one women's agricultural cooperative in Nicaragua, and knowing that this is just one of many such efforts around the world.
The New Economy movement--a diverse set of communities (native climate justice activists, union leaders, coop leaders from the deep South, urban farmers, small businesses, sustainability activists) coming together in shared recognition that our economic structures are the root cause of many different crises.
http://neweconomy.net/new-economy-coalition
How one person's story of humanity in a conflict-ridden far-away place (Gaza, Iraqi Kurdistan) can allow those who hear to open their minds and hearts to that place.
More resources
Recent posts on other web/blog sites:
http://www.transitionus.org/blog/unlikely-suspects-–-deep-outreach-diverse-initiating-groups-–-pace-building-trust
http://www.classism.org/demolition-derby
Muscle Building for Peace and Justice; a Non-Violent Workout Routine for the 21st Century--an integration of much of my experience and thinking over the years: doingdemocracy.com/MB4PnJ02.htm (or just google the title)
faitheconomyecology.wordpress.com, a website that I've contributed to often (check the archives)
www.ourchildrenourselves.com, a home for all the parenting writing I've done over the past 20 years. NOTE THE NEW URL--should be live soon.
www.startguide.org. START: a way to study and work together with others to create a better world.
For earlier columns, go to www.pamelascolumn.blogspot.com. I'm currently posting at pamelalivinginthisworld.blogspot.com.
http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/education-uprising/where-dignity-is-part-of-the-school-day
Monday, November 3, 2014
#137 Goodness and Neglect
Dear all,
As my mind turns toward a season of thanksgiving, I find myself thankful for a number of things--
--our dear friend from Northern Uganda, who is here in Philadelphia for the fall,
--the fruits of my intention to act against mass incarceration, with doors opening up that I am able and glad to walk through,
--the chance to visit with local youth as we work together at Mill Creek Farm, providing affordable produce for the neighbors and free gleanings for the local soup kitchen,
--and always, the beauty of our natural world.
I will you rich things to be thankful for as well.
Love,
Pamela
Goodness and neglect
I neglected my backyard last summer. There were perfectly good reasons for it, and I’m not second-guessing the choices I made that had it low on my list. But the longer I neglected it the harder it became to choose to pay attention. I felt bad about that neglect, and facing the result of it was painful.
When a blessedly open day arrived in October, my feet finally took me out the back door and down the steps. What an unkempt jungle! The clouds of tiny white flies on the kale in my little kitchen garden were the worst. How could I have been so irresponsible in tending a living thing for which I was responsible? I found myself doing everything else except getting out the detergent spray for that tedious job. I realized that I was mad.
I was mad at the need for all that work—but mostly I was mad at the image of myself that was reflected back to me. So the flies, and at the kale that had attracted them, got the brunt of it.
Once I could notice that I was directing my anger at that innocent kale, my mind actually got a little space to think about this phenomenon. I doubt I’m the only one. Why do I get mad at what (or who) I care about and don’t treat well? I think it’s because I would choose to believe that I’m a good person, and what is reflected back to me calls that into question. To protect my goodness, I blame the one I’ve treated badly.
It’s logical, in a twisted kind of way. And it makes me wonder how much this dynamic underlies neglect and abuse in many other places. How many people who treat loved ones badly have fallen into a pattern of responding to their own less-than-thoughtful behavior by lashing out at those with whom they have fallen short? How many people in privileged social positions defend what they haven’t earned by finding fault with those who have less?
I’m happy to say that while there’s still more do to, my backyard looks 100% better. It reflects well on me, and my eyes can now rest there in pleasure. I’m no longer mad at the kale, which I did finally get to spraying that afternoon (though I notice that it could use a second treatment now).
Perhaps most important, I have a personal and visceral understanding of how easy it is to try to protect our goodness when we’re in the wrong by projecting that wrong onto others—and how easily that can lead to even more neglectful and hurtful behavior.
It's not right. But in my heart of hearts, I know that I’m not a bad person. Perhaps my next step is to go out and just apologize to the kale—then give it another spray.
Habitat
I thought we were planting
just for beauty--
big bright sunflowers
that call out their glory in August
when others have faded away
Yet here on a busy street
in a front yard smaller than
a double bed, I find
a goldfinch family has found a home,
a perfect place to tweet
and flit and dine on seeds.
The ones I planted in our big common bed
reached for the sun and bloomed
and then grew fat with seeds
Birds came here too, and bees,
and then, first day of fall,
a squirrel had hunkered down
busy with a big seed head
storing up for leaner times.
As one who planted just for beauty
I have learned
that sunflowers
have more to give.
Imagine--A new economy is possible!
Municipal Ownership
This fall, the small city of Somerset, Kentucky, drew national attention when it opened a municipally owned and operated fuel center in an effort to drive down gas prices for local residents. While Somerset’s publicly owned gas station is the first of its kind in a good many years, it draws upon a rich tradition in the United States of municipal enterprises that reduce costs for local residents, provide services for those underserved or exploited by private operators, and allow for community participation in economic decision-making.
Historically, municipal ownership and operation of strategically important industries and services was commonplace in America’s cities. Often these included subways, trolleys, buses, power plants, power lines, telephone networks, water and sanitation systems, railroads, ice plants, bus and train stations, freight shipping facilities, grocery stores, coal distribution companies, and lodging houses. One legacy of this approach is represented in the 2,000 municipally owned electric utilities, which, together with co-ops, supply more than 25 percent of the nation’s electricity.
http://www.yesmagazine.org/commonomics/kentucky-town-beats-high-gas-prices-by-opening-a-public-gas-station
Some things that have made me hopeful recently:
The new Polish Jewish museum in Warsaw that focuses on 1000 years of vibrant Jewish life and culture in Poland before World War II. http://news.yahoo.com/polish-israeli-presidents-open-jewish-museum-warsaw-023149586.html
Urban farms, the networks in which they are embedded, and the networks they grow around them.
The persistent, effective, on-the-ground peacemaking that is waged in East Africa by the African Great Lakes Initiative, in conflicts that seem intractable from the outside. http://aglifpt.org/publications.htm
The $18.5 million in personal debt that has been bought and forgiven since 2012 by Debt Jubilee for just $300,000 on the secondary debt market, where lenders sell unpaid bills to collectors for just pennies on the dollar. http://rollingjubilee.org/
More resources
Recent posts on other web/blog sites:
http://www.transitionus.org/blog/unlikely-suspects-–-deep-outreach-diverse-initiating-groups-–-pace-building-trust
http://www.classism.org/demolition-derby
Muscle Building for Peace and Justice; a Non-Violent Workout Routine for the 21st Century--an integration of much of my experience and thinking over the years: doingdemocracy.com/MB4PnJ02.htm (or just google the title)
faitheconomyecology.wordpress.com, a website that I've contributed to often (check the archives)
www.ourchildrenourselves.org, a home for all the parenting writing I've done over the past 20 years.
www.startguide.org. START: a way to study and work together with others to create a better world.
For earlier columns, go to www.pamelascolumn.blogspot.com. I'm currently posting at pamelalivinginthisworld.blogspot.com.
http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/education-uprising/where-dignity-is-part-of-the-school-day
As my mind turns toward a season of thanksgiving, I find myself thankful for a number of things--
--our dear friend from Northern Uganda, who is here in Philadelphia for the fall,
--the fruits of my intention to act against mass incarceration, with doors opening up that I am able and glad to walk through,
--the chance to visit with local youth as we work together at Mill Creek Farm, providing affordable produce for the neighbors and free gleanings for the local soup kitchen,
--and always, the beauty of our natural world.
I will you rich things to be thankful for as well.
Love,
Pamela
Goodness and neglect
I neglected my backyard last summer. There were perfectly good reasons for it, and I’m not second-guessing the choices I made that had it low on my list. But the longer I neglected it the harder it became to choose to pay attention. I felt bad about that neglect, and facing the result of it was painful.
When a blessedly open day arrived in October, my feet finally took me out the back door and down the steps. What an unkempt jungle! The clouds of tiny white flies on the kale in my little kitchen garden were the worst. How could I have been so irresponsible in tending a living thing for which I was responsible? I found myself doing everything else except getting out the detergent spray for that tedious job. I realized that I was mad.
I was mad at the need for all that work—but mostly I was mad at the image of myself that was reflected back to me. So the flies, and at the kale that had attracted them, got the brunt of it.
Once I could notice that I was directing my anger at that innocent kale, my mind actually got a little space to think about this phenomenon. I doubt I’m the only one. Why do I get mad at what (or who) I care about and don’t treat well? I think it’s because I would choose to believe that I’m a good person, and what is reflected back to me calls that into question. To protect my goodness, I blame the one I’ve treated badly.
It’s logical, in a twisted kind of way. And it makes me wonder how much this dynamic underlies neglect and abuse in many other places. How many people who treat loved ones badly have fallen into a pattern of responding to their own less-than-thoughtful behavior by lashing out at those with whom they have fallen short? How many people in privileged social positions defend what they haven’t earned by finding fault with those who have less?
I’m happy to say that while there’s still more do to, my backyard looks 100% better. It reflects well on me, and my eyes can now rest there in pleasure. I’m no longer mad at the kale, which I did finally get to spraying that afternoon (though I notice that it could use a second treatment now).
Perhaps most important, I have a personal and visceral understanding of how easy it is to try to protect our goodness when we’re in the wrong by projecting that wrong onto others—and how easily that can lead to even more neglectful and hurtful behavior.
It's not right. But in my heart of hearts, I know that I’m not a bad person. Perhaps my next step is to go out and just apologize to the kale—then give it another spray.
Habitat
I thought we were planting
just for beauty--
big bright sunflowers
that call out their glory in August
when others have faded away
Yet here on a busy street
in a front yard smaller than
a double bed, I find
a goldfinch family has found a home,
a perfect place to tweet
and flit and dine on seeds.
The ones I planted in our big common bed
reached for the sun and bloomed
and then grew fat with seeds
Birds came here too, and bees,
and then, first day of fall,
a squirrel had hunkered down
busy with a big seed head
storing up for leaner times.
As one who planted just for beauty
I have learned
that sunflowers
have more to give.
Imagine--A new economy is possible!
Municipal Ownership
This fall, the small city of Somerset, Kentucky, drew national attention when it opened a municipally owned and operated fuel center in an effort to drive down gas prices for local residents. While Somerset’s publicly owned gas station is the first of its kind in a good many years, it draws upon a rich tradition in the United States of municipal enterprises that reduce costs for local residents, provide services for those underserved or exploited by private operators, and allow for community participation in economic decision-making.
Historically, municipal ownership and operation of strategically important industries and services was commonplace in America’s cities. Often these included subways, trolleys, buses, power plants, power lines, telephone networks, water and sanitation systems, railroads, ice plants, bus and train stations, freight shipping facilities, grocery stores, coal distribution companies, and lodging houses. One legacy of this approach is represented in the 2,000 municipally owned electric utilities, which, together with co-ops, supply more than 25 percent of the nation’s electricity.
http://www.yesmagazine.org/commonomics/kentucky-town-beats-high-gas-prices-by-opening-a-public-gas-station
Some things that have made me hopeful recently:
The new Polish Jewish museum in Warsaw that focuses on 1000 years of vibrant Jewish life and culture in Poland before World War II. http://news.yahoo.com/polish-israeli-presidents-open-jewish-museum-warsaw-023149586.html
Urban farms, the networks in which they are embedded, and the networks they grow around them.
The persistent, effective, on-the-ground peacemaking that is waged in East Africa by the African Great Lakes Initiative, in conflicts that seem intractable from the outside. http://aglifpt.org/publications.htm
The $18.5 million in personal debt that has been bought and forgiven since 2012 by Debt Jubilee for just $300,000 on the secondary debt market, where lenders sell unpaid bills to collectors for just pennies on the dollar. http://rollingjubilee.org/
More resources
Recent posts on other web/blog sites:
http://www.transitionus.org/blog/unlikely-suspects-–-deep-outreach-diverse-initiating-groups-–-pace-building-trust
http://www.classism.org/demolition-derby
Muscle Building for Peace and Justice; a Non-Violent Workout Routine for the 21st Century--an integration of much of my experience and thinking over the years: doingdemocracy.com/MB4PnJ02.htm (or just google the title)
faitheconomyecology.wordpress.com, a website that I've contributed to often (check the archives)
www.ourchildrenourselves.org, a home for all the parenting writing I've done over the past 20 years.
www.startguide.org. START: a way to study and work together with others to create a better world.
For earlier columns, go to www.pamelascolumn.blogspot.com. I'm currently posting at pamelalivinginthisworld.blogspot.com.
http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/education-uprising/where-dignity-is-part-of-the-school-day
Wednesday, October 1, 2014
#136 Becoming Experts
Dear all,
My big news of the month was a week in Nicaragua in early September supporting my son Tim and his family, with the biggest highlight being around 20-month-old Emilio as his language spiked, mostly in Spanish! And by this week, I'm feeling like all the pieces of my post-summer life have been picked back up, and am hopeful that there might even be room for them all.
It was a privilege to be at the big climate march in New York City, and it is a delight to be present to our part of the world turning toward the beauty of fall.
Love,
Pamela
Becoming experts
This spring, before my toddler grandson moved to Nicaragua, I loved taking him out to our community garden, and spending time just being present to the world around us. We smelled the flowers, dug in the dirt, watched the birds flying around, and listened to their songs. He was paying close attention, and the more he looked and listened, the more he took in. As he started to pick up language, among his first twenty words were bird, flower and smell.
Another toddler I know got interested in cars at an early age. He noticed, asked questions, took in and sorted new information, asked more, and now, at age three, can name every make and style as he walks down the street. This phenomenon of people becoming experts at what they pay attention to is everywhere: people who listen to the news each day and know everything about every bad thing that is happening; people who refuse to listen to news, but watch sports instead, and are experts on every team and every player; people who follow the celebrities and know every detail about their movies and their private lives; people who pursue a hobby and become experts in their own little realm.
I think there’s an issue of power here. In a world awash in information, it’s nice to feel like you have mastery over some little bit of it. On the other hand, we can easily give up on whole areas where we despair of mastery. If we don’t know anything about it, don’t have a handle on it, we’re not likely to choose to pay attention to it.
There are areas where we’ve gotten the message that we don’t have aptitude, science for some, arts for others, and areas that we are actually discouraged from investigating. (“Pay no attention to the little man behind the screen,” says Oz the Great and Powerful…) I think of the economists who turn away questions and criticism of their models and policies with proprietary warnings that they must be trusted, that only the experts can be expected to understand.
Yet, despite any obstacle in our path, we can still decide to grow into our own unlikely experts. The bottom line is that we get to choose where we put our attention. We can attune our ears and eyes to what we want to become experts on, knowing that it’s possible to get ever better at what we pay attention to.
If time is a limiting factor, we may choose to withdraw attention from one activity in order to put it on another. Since I don’t want to be an expert on despair, I don’t watch the TV news. Since I do want to be an expert on what gives people hope, I have found ever more places to look, and take the time to look attentively.
What if we chose to pay attention to, and become experts on, that which makes us whole? In choosing to put attention on my place with our neighbors in this ecosystem that we share, I am coming to learn the birds. I am no expert. Far from it! How to pull discreet sounds out of background noise that I often don’t even notice, much less to connect those sounds with a shape and a name, seems like a daunting task. But I also know that the choice is mine. If it’s important enough to me to know my neighbors, I can decide to pay attention, and that blur in the background will begin to resolve into recognizable living beings.
I miss taking my toddler to the garden, but I’m glad to have played a role in inviting him to put his attention there. And the other morning I heard a new bird call, and for the first time in my life, could put a name to that bird.
Gullsonabeach
Eyes idly resting
at the shore
on a vast and changeless scene
A darker gull is crying
another joins it, crying too
and then a third appears in
regulation gray and white
The first two turn
their cries gain purpose.
Suddenly
the scene slips into focus
and I see.
These two are babies
waiting to be fed.
Mama’s throat works
her babes fight for her beak
over and over
till she walks off
to the water line
to peck and eat,
replenishing.
A sight to common to be seen
has resolved into
a family.
Imagine--A new economy is possible!
Thomas Paine, on Property
“There are two kinds of property,” Paine contended. “Firstly, natural property, or that which comes to us from the Creator of the universe—such as the earth, air, water. Secondly, artificial or acquired property—the invention of men.” The latter kind of property must necessarily be distributed unequally, but the first kind rightfully belonged to everyone equally, Paine thought. It was the “legitimate birthright” of every man and woman, “not charity but a right.”
Paine’s genius was to invent a way to distribute income from shared ownership of natural property. He proposed a “National Fund” to pay every man and woman fifteen pounds at age twenty-one and ten pounds a year after age fifty-five. (These sums are roughly equal to $17,500 and $11,667, respectively, today.) Revenue for the fund would come from “ground rent” paid by land-owners, the privatizers of natural wealth. Paine even showed mathematically how this could work. Presciently, Paine recognized that land, air, and water could be monetized, not just for the benefit of a few but for the good of all. Further, he saw that this could be done at a national level. This was a remarkable feat of analysis and imagining.
Excerpted from With Liberty and Dividends for All, by Peter Barnes
Some things that have made me hopeful recently:
The doubling of fossil fuel divestment commitments since January 2014, with181 institutions and local governments and 656 individuals representing over $50 billion dollars having pledged to divest to-date, including the $860 million Rockefeller Brothers Fund, which was built on the Standard Oil fortune.
http://gofossilfree.org/50-billion/
The SoKind registry, an alternative gift registry where instead of giving stuff, people can give more meaningful gifts - of time, of services, etc. www.sokindregistry.org/
A law signed by the Tennessee governor in May providing two years of tuition at a community college or college of applied technology for any high school graduate who agrees to work with a mentor, complete eight hours of community service, and maintain at least a C average.
http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/the-end-of-poverty/the-enchanted-land-where-community-college-is-free-tennessee
The stories of Israeli soldiers who have refused to serve in the West Bank and Gaza. (Breaking Ranks, Ronit Chacham)
More resources
Recent posts on other web/blog sites:
http://www.transitionus.org/blog/unlikely-suspects-–-deep-outreach-diverse-initiating-groups-–-pace-building-trust
http://www.classism.org/demolition-derby
Muscle Building for Peace and Justice; a Non-Violent Workout Routine for the 21st Century--an integration of much of my experience and thinking over the years: doingdemocracy.com/MB4PnJ02.htm (or just google the title)
faitheconomyecology.wordpress.com, a website that I've contributed to often (check the archives)
www.ourchildrenourselves.org, a home for all the parenting writing I've done over the past 20 years.
www.startguide.org. START: a way to study and work together with others to create a better world.
For earlier columns, go to www.pamelascolumn.blogspot.com. I'm currently posting at pamelalivinginthisworld.blogspot.com.
http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/education-uprising/where-dignity-is-part-of-the-school-day
My big news of the month was a week in Nicaragua in early September supporting my son Tim and his family, with the biggest highlight being around 20-month-old Emilio as his language spiked, mostly in Spanish! And by this week, I'm feeling like all the pieces of my post-summer life have been picked back up, and am hopeful that there might even be room for them all.
It was a privilege to be at the big climate march in New York City, and it is a delight to be present to our part of the world turning toward the beauty of fall.
Love,
Pamela
Becoming experts
This spring, before my toddler grandson moved to Nicaragua, I loved taking him out to our community garden, and spending time just being present to the world around us. We smelled the flowers, dug in the dirt, watched the birds flying around, and listened to their songs. He was paying close attention, and the more he looked and listened, the more he took in. As he started to pick up language, among his first twenty words were bird, flower and smell.
Another toddler I know got interested in cars at an early age. He noticed, asked questions, took in and sorted new information, asked more, and now, at age three, can name every make and style as he walks down the street. This phenomenon of people becoming experts at what they pay attention to is everywhere: people who listen to the news each day and know everything about every bad thing that is happening; people who refuse to listen to news, but watch sports instead, and are experts on every team and every player; people who follow the celebrities and know every detail about their movies and their private lives; people who pursue a hobby and become experts in their own little realm.
I think there’s an issue of power here. In a world awash in information, it’s nice to feel like you have mastery over some little bit of it. On the other hand, we can easily give up on whole areas where we despair of mastery. If we don’t know anything about it, don’t have a handle on it, we’re not likely to choose to pay attention to it.
There are areas where we’ve gotten the message that we don’t have aptitude, science for some, arts for others, and areas that we are actually discouraged from investigating. (“Pay no attention to the little man behind the screen,” says Oz the Great and Powerful…) I think of the economists who turn away questions and criticism of their models and policies with proprietary warnings that they must be trusted, that only the experts can be expected to understand.
Yet, despite any obstacle in our path, we can still decide to grow into our own unlikely experts. The bottom line is that we get to choose where we put our attention. We can attune our ears and eyes to what we want to become experts on, knowing that it’s possible to get ever better at what we pay attention to.
If time is a limiting factor, we may choose to withdraw attention from one activity in order to put it on another. Since I don’t want to be an expert on despair, I don’t watch the TV news. Since I do want to be an expert on what gives people hope, I have found ever more places to look, and take the time to look attentively.
What if we chose to pay attention to, and become experts on, that which makes us whole? In choosing to put attention on my place with our neighbors in this ecosystem that we share, I am coming to learn the birds. I am no expert. Far from it! How to pull discreet sounds out of background noise that I often don’t even notice, much less to connect those sounds with a shape and a name, seems like a daunting task. But I also know that the choice is mine. If it’s important enough to me to know my neighbors, I can decide to pay attention, and that blur in the background will begin to resolve into recognizable living beings.
I miss taking my toddler to the garden, but I’m glad to have played a role in inviting him to put his attention there. And the other morning I heard a new bird call, and for the first time in my life, could put a name to that bird.
Gullsonabeach
Eyes idly resting
at the shore
on a vast and changeless scene
A darker gull is crying
another joins it, crying too
and then a third appears in
regulation gray and white
The first two turn
their cries gain purpose.
Suddenly
the scene slips into focus
and I see.
These two are babies
waiting to be fed.
Mama’s throat works
her babes fight for her beak
over and over
till she walks off
to the water line
to peck and eat,
replenishing.
A sight to common to be seen
has resolved into
a family.
Imagine--A new economy is possible!
Thomas Paine, on Property
“There are two kinds of property,” Paine contended. “Firstly, natural property, or that which comes to us from the Creator of the universe—such as the earth, air, water. Secondly, artificial or acquired property—the invention of men.” The latter kind of property must necessarily be distributed unequally, but the first kind rightfully belonged to everyone equally, Paine thought. It was the “legitimate birthright” of every man and woman, “not charity but a right.”
Paine’s genius was to invent a way to distribute income from shared ownership of natural property. He proposed a “National Fund” to pay every man and woman fifteen pounds at age twenty-one and ten pounds a year after age fifty-five. (These sums are roughly equal to $17,500 and $11,667, respectively, today.) Revenue for the fund would come from “ground rent” paid by land-owners, the privatizers of natural wealth. Paine even showed mathematically how this could work. Presciently, Paine recognized that land, air, and water could be monetized, not just for the benefit of a few but for the good of all. Further, he saw that this could be done at a national level. This was a remarkable feat of analysis and imagining.
Excerpted from With Liberty and Dividends for All, by Peter Barnes
Some things that have made me hopeful recently:
The doubling of fossil fuel divestment commitments since January 2014, with181 institutions and local governments and 656 individuals representing over $50 billion dollars having pledged to divest to-date, including the $860 million Rockefeller Brothers Fund, which was built on the Standard Oil fortune.
http://gofossilfree.org/50-billion/
The SoKind registry, an alternative gift registry where instead of giving stuff, people can give more meaningful gifts - of time, of services, etc. www.sokindregistry.org/
A law signed by the Tennessee governor in May providing two years of tuition at a community college or college of applied technology for any high school graduate who agrees to work with a mentor, complete eight hours of community service, and maintain at least a C average.
http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/the-end-of-poverty/the-enchanted-land-where-community-college-is-free-tennessee
The stories of Israeli soldiers who have refused to serve in the West Bank and Gaza. (Breaking Ranks, Ronit Chacham)
More resources
Recent posts on other web/blog sites:
http://www.transitionus.org/blog/unlikely-suspects-–-deep-outreach-diverse-initiating-groups-–-pace-building-trust
http://www.classism.org/demolition-derby
Muscle Building for Peace and Justice; a Non-Violent Workout Routine for the 21st Century--an integration of much of my experience and thinking over the years: doingdemocracy.com/MB4PnJ02.htm (or just google the title)
faitheconomyecology.wordpress.com, a website that I've contributed to often (check the archives)
www.ourchildrenourselves.org, a home for all the parenting writing I've done over the past 20 years.
www.startguide.org. START: a way to study and work together with others to create a better world.
For earlier columns, go to www.pamelascolumn.blogspot.com. I'm currently posting at pamelalivinginthisworld.blogspot.com.
http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/education-uprising/where-dignity-is-part-of-the-school-day
Wednesday, August 27, 2014
#135 Mastering Creation
Dear all,
I'm still basking in the glow of my 65th birthday party last week. I loved sharing myself as fully as I knew how with people from all different parts of my life (including feeding them from my garden!), and it was wonderful to receive such a beautiful big bouquet of verbal gifts in return. I recommend it!
In addition to the usual in this month's offering, I've included links to a couple of sites that have published other writing of mine. It's been a bountiful summer.
Love,
Pamela
Mastering creation
Human struggle for dominion over creation has reached epic proportions. While we have demonstrated a staggering capacity for mastery, the damage to the world around us has been staggering as well—and it’s becoming increasingly clear that we won’t have the last word.
Time at a co-op cabin in the woods of northern Pennsylvania has provided lots of opportunities to consider who’s in charge on a more intimate level. Sometimes we witness forces that are totally beyond our control. During the multi-year gypsy moth infestation, we watched helplessly as those little caterpillars ate up our woods. Great maple trees died and then fell, opening up sunlit spaces for briars and new young saplings to move in. Other trees survived, but took years to regain any semblance of health. Less dramatically, a rocky area of poor soil that had once been grazing land for sheep was still open and sunny when we arrived, with dozens of wild blueberry bushes. Gradually, with nothing eating off the vegetation, it has converted to scrubby woodland, and the blueberries have died away.
At times we have been able to nudge nature a little in the direction of our wishes. One year, when briars seemed to be steadily encroaching on the open area around the cabin, I found a dozen or so tiny little hemlock volunteers and transplanted them to form a barrier. At eight or twelve inches tall, they could initially be only a symbolic statement of how far we would protect our domain of human civilization, but each year they grew taller, and now tall trees form a barrier that is real.
The most vexing area of contention over mastery has been the pond. We human beings want it to stay as clear, clean and deep as possible, while natural forces are moving it steadily in the opposite direction. Created by others before we got there, with a small stream feeding it at one end, and a modest outlet at the other, it has little flow. Silt collects, pond weed gets more and more of a hold, cattails flourish at the edges and expand steadily inward. Everything that dies ends up on the bottom, and every year there is more organic material to grow and die.
We have tried many things: Spread chemicals on the water to kill the pond weed—but nobody really wanted chemicals in the pond. Import specially bred fish to feed on the bottom. This sounded like a winner—but in a year or two there was no evidence that they had made an impact or were even still there. Just keep unclogging the outlet, harvesting the pond weed and piling it up in great heaps in the canoe; wading in at the edges and pulling out armload after armload of cattails. This has probably had the most impact, but it’s pretty clear that the forces of nature are stronger than us, and we haven’t figured out any way to get the muck off the bottom without a massive dredging project.
Do we have a right to the pond of our dreams? This question took on more poignancy for me after reading a loving description by a Native American botanist of the richness of a cattail marsh, while all I could see was an obstacle in my path.
Then I think of our community garden, where we bring in soil, plant seeds in bare ground, define some plants as weeds and pull them out, offer extra food, water and supports to others that wouldn’t manage on their own, wage eternal battles against bugs. We are totally bent on mastery; yet without some effort in this direction we wouldn’t eat.
How to reconcile this conflict? Maybe we can learn from the farmers who know and love their land. They know the different soils, patterns of water absorption and run-off, sun and shade, woodland, marsh and field habitats, sources of soil replenishment, what part each plays in the health of the rest. With such intimate knowledge, with a sense of connection and belonging, with deep respect and thanks for the gifts of the land, I think we can see ourselves as partners and beneficiaries rather than masters.
Our pond struggle, I imagine, will continue. But perhaps I can approach it with more love, and if I pull out a cattail, I can thank it for the role it plays in this universe.
More love
The evils of the world crowd round
War and climate change
a system breeding inequality
mass incarceration
misery across the globe.
I used to ward them all off
feel nothing as I tried
to do my share
avert my eyes
protect my heart.
I'm after more these days
more open now to heartbreak
willing to respond.
And yet, and yet
how much more then must I do
to hold on to integrity?
Must I respond to everything
with all my heart
submit to bleak and never-ending work?
Then from this murk
the answer rises, clear and true:
Love.
You must love more--
love more widely
love more deeply
love more openly.
Any new atrocity
new threat
new injustice
requires a response:
more love.
Imagine--A new economy is possible!
Work Sharing
The logic of work sharing is simple. Instead of the government providing workers who lose their job with an unemployment benefit, the government effectively pays firms to keep workers employed but working shorter hours. In Germany, for example, the standard framework is that if the work week is cut by 20 percent, then the government picks up 12 percent of the workers’ pay and it requires the company to pick up four percent. The result has been far less unemployment in countries with such incentives.
Three of the most promising ways that countries have found to reduce work hours are to: trade productivity gains for more free time instead of higher pay: pass laws giving the right to workers to request shorter workweeks without worrying about retribution from employers as has been done in Belgium and the Netherlands; and introduce shorter hours at both ends of the age scale, so that young, new workers would start with shorter workweeks and workers above a certain age could reduce their hours as well.
http://maryknollogc.org/encounters/encounters-2-what-it-takes-change#workweek
Some things that have made me hopeful recently:
The 10,000 people in Tel Aviv who participated in a rally earlier this month under the slogan, “Changing direction, toward peace, away from war”, and all the other peace building people and groups in Israel and Gaza.
http://www.yesmagazine.org/peace-justice/13-peacebuilders-in-gaza
An alternatives to violence program that was initiated in the US to offer resources to people in prisons, exported to Rwanda and Burundi to help address conflict there, revised by local leaders in Africa to focus more on trauma healing, then exported back to the US as trauma healing for African immigrant communities.
http://aglifpt.org/rfk/?p=287
The creation this spring of a partnership of indigenous farmers from Peru, Bhutan and China, to exchange indigenous potato varieties and farming methods as a way to help protect agricultural biodiversity in the face of climate change.
http://www.yesmagazine.org/planet/indigenous-seed-savers
A precedent-setting case by the New York Court of Appeals in late June, ruling that the towns of Dryden and Middlefield can use local zoning laws to ban heavy industry--including oil and gas production--within municipal borders, a boon to the more than 170 municipalities in New York that have already passed bans or moratoriums, and a hopeful sign to towns throughout the country fighting for their right to local self determination.
http://www.yesmagazine.org/planet/court-rules-that-new-york-towns-can-ban-fracking?utm_source=YTW&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=20140703
More resources
Recent posts on other web/blog sites:
http://www.transitionus.org/blog/unlikely-suspects-–-deep-outreach-diverse-initiating-groups-–-pace-building-trust
http://www.classism.org/demolition-derby
Muscle Building for Peace and Justice; a Non-Violent Workout Routine for the 21st Century--an integration of much of my experience and thinking over the years: doingdemocracy.com/MB4PnJ02.htm (or just google the title)
faitheconomyecology.wordpress.com, a website that I've contributed to often (check the archives)
www.ourchildrenourselves.org, a home for all the parenting writing I've done over the past 20 years.
www.startguide.org. START: a way to study and work together with others to create a better world.
For earlier columns, go to www.pamelascolumn.blogspot.com. I'm currently posting at pamelalivinginthisworld.blogspot.com.
http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/education-uprising/where-dignity-is-part-of-the-school-day
Thursday, July 17, 2014
#134 Naming evil
Dear all,
I've been enjoying the succession of berries in the garden--and am delighted to have learned how to make a simple fruit sorbet! Now the summer squash season is upon us. There's nothing better than sharing with loved ones and strangers out of a sense of abundance, and no better reminder of that than a summer garden. I send wishes for similar abundance to all of you.
Love,
Pamela
Naming evil
I don’t use the word “evil” lightly. I don’t use it to describe the forces that are driving climate change, the greatest destruction of our time. Yes, they are blind, short-sighted, greed-based, power-hungry, stupid, and ultimately tragic to a degree that is hard to fathom, but I see no evil intent, nobody working out a plan to make life unlivable for their grandchildren or great grandchildren.
Our country’s system of mass incarceration is different. It follows that if you build a system that is based on retribution rather than restoration and add in the age-old tendency to find people who can be categorized as “other”, they will be disproportionately affected; any such criminal justice system becomes a breeding ground for unintended consequences. But this is worse. As Michelle Alexander lays out so compellingly in The New Jim Crow, the War on Drugs had an intentional, if hidden, intent of targeting black men. She quotes H.R. Haldeman, President Richard Nixon’s former chief of staff: “The whole problem is really the blacks. The key is designing a system that recognizes this while not appearing to.”
Black men are arrested, tried, incarcerated and held at rates staggeringly higher than those of whites. The GPS anklet that parolees wear has an uncanny resemblance to a 21st century chain—with those who control it in complete power over the human being on whose leg it is fastened. Old forms of discrimination—in employment and housing, denial of basic public benefits and the right to vote, and exclusion from jury service—have become perfectly legal again, just more coded. Mass incarceration is sucking the soul out of many communities of color, its effects eating away at them, and its threat always present.
The most chilling aspect is that this whole system can be described as totally race neutral, as straightforward and beneficial protection from a dangerous criminal element. In the face of these distortions and slippery lies, this murk of concealment, manipulation and complicity, how can we see and speak clearly, grasp the issue firmly, and find the solid ground of integrity from which to act?
I think the first step is to call this system out for what it is: twisted, hidden, and malevolent. It is sucking the soul not only out of our communities of color, but out of all of us whose complicit and confused acquiescence supports this evil. It is sucking the soul out of our country.
Evil needs exposure to sunlight and good air. We need to talk about it for what it is, open out all its hidden folds and pockets of wrong, hold it out to the clear light of day. People who hurt and kill others don’t need to be relieved of consequences, and people who are just doing their jobs don’t need to be blamed, but the forces that have twisted power and fear together to create and maintain this horror need to be called out.
We need to grieve together. This system has caused untold loss and damage. While it impacts some more directly, we are all caught in its web. If we don’t look clearly and face the grief, we are vulnerable to vengeance or to the hardening of hearts that comes from separation. Without grieving, we cannot be healed.
I know there are many people attacking this system on many fronts, inside prisons, in impacted communities, and in support of both. I’m not clear which path is mine to take, but I believe that it will open up as I take my first steps. I know these need to include talking more openly with my friends and neighbors—both black and white—finding a way past the feelings of privilege, guilt and disconnection to the firm ground that an evil done to my brothers and sisters is an evil done to me. I know that more steps lie ahead for all of us, and I believe that, by naming this evil with each other, looking straight at it, and grieving the sorrow and loss, we can find our way forward together.
Left and right
I work my way down the patch
picking every single berry I can find
Then I turn and work my way back—
always finding more
that had been hidden from view.
Looking just from the left
or just from the right
leaves ripe fruit
to rot on the vine.
Imagine--A new economy is possible!
European cooperative banks
In a comparison with major commercial banks in Europe, co-operative banks outperform shareholder banks on a number of measures: generating more stable long-term profits, providing better customer service, and boosting local economies by lending more to small and medium-sized businesses. Plus, their more prudent approach to managing capital allowed them to weather the financial crisis better than the commercial banking sector, thus contributing to financial stability.
Ownership by members places an incentive on managers to maximise long-term customer value, and ensures that profit is treated as a means to an end rather than an end in itself. This focus presents a range of benefits, not just for customers but for the economy as a whole.
Over the past fifteen years, European cooperatives have increased their share
of European bank branches from just under twenty five per cent to over twenty
eight per cent. This is because, while commercial banks have been closing down
branches to increase cost efficiency, cooperatives, with their focus on customer
value, have been expanding.
http://www.neweconomics.org/publications/entry/co-operative-banks-international-evidence
Some things that have made me hopeful recently
The findings of a report comparing the views of people who live in red and blue Congressional districts or states across 388 questions: majorities or pluralities took opposing positions just 3.6 percent of the time, with no statistical differences in two out of three cases.
http://vop.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Red-Blue-Report.pdf
A recent decision of the World Council of Churches, representing half a billion Christian, to stop investing in fossil fuels.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jul/11/world-council-of-churches-pulls-fossil-fuel-investments
New York City’s budget for the 2015 fiscal year, which includes a $1.2 million new item for the development of worker-owned cooperative businesses, the largest investment in the sector ever made by a city government in the United States.
http://www.yesmagazine.org/commonomics/worker-owned-co-ops-get-one-million-dollars-in-new-york-budget
A tiny effort in Russia, Friends House Moscow, that supports local citizen initiatives to change conditions for orphans, people with disabilities, refugees, soldiers and conscientious objectors, among others.
More resources
Posts on other people's blogs: http://www.classism.org/children-mass-culture
NEW: Check out my friend Daniel Hunter's new book, a narrative of direct action campaigning: Strategy & Soul: A Campaigner's Tale of Fighting Billionaires, Corrupt Officials, and Philadelphia Casinos: www.strategyandsoul.org
Muscle Building for Peace and Justice; a Non-Violent Workout Routine for the 21st Century--an integration of much of my experience and thinking over the years: doingdemocracy.com/MB4PnJ02.htm (or just google the title)
faitheconomyecology.wordpress.com, a website that I've contributed to often (check the archives)
www.ourchildrenourselves.org, a home for all the parenting writing I've done over the past 20 years.
www.startguide.org. START: a way to study and work together with others to create a better world.
For earlier columns, go to www.pamelascolumn.blogspot.com. I'm currently posting at pamelalivinginthisworld.blogspot.com.
http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/education-uprising/where-dignity-is-part-of-the-school-day
I've been enjoying the succession of berries in the garden--and am delighted to have learned how to make a simple fruit sorbet! Now the summer squash season is upon us. There's nothing better than sharing with loved ones and strangers out of a sense of abundance, and no better reminder of that than a summer garden. I send wishes for similar abundance to all of you.
Love,
Pamela
Naming evil
I don’t use the word “evil” lightly. I don’t use it to describe the forces that are driving climate change, the greatest destruction of our time. Yes, they are blind, short-sighted, greed-based, power-hungry, stupid, and ultimately tragic to a degree that is hard to fathom, but I see no evil intent, nobody working out a plan to make life unlivable for their grandchildren or great grandchildren.
Our country’s system of mass incarceration is different. It follows that if you build a system that is based on retribution rather than restoration and add in the age-old tendency to find people who can be categorized as “other”, they will be disproportionately affected; any such criminal justice system becomes a breeding ground for unintended consequences. But this is worse. As Michelle Alexander lays out so compellingly in The New Jim Crow, the War on Drugs had an intentional, if hidden, intent of targeting black men. She quotes H.R. Haldeman, President Richard Nixon’s former chief of staff: “The whole problem is really the blacks. The key is designing a system that recognizes this while not appearing to.”
Black men are arrested, tried, incarcerated and held at rates staggeringly higher than those of whites. The GPS anklet that parolees wear has an uncanny resemblance to a 21st century chain—with those who control it in complete power over the human being on whose leg it is fastened. Old forms of discrimination—in employment and housing, denial of basic public benefits and the right to vote, and exclusion from jury service—have become perfectly legal again, just more coded. Mass incarceration is sucking the soul out of many communities of color, its effects eating away at them, and its threat always present.
The most chilling aspect is that this whole system can be described as totally race neutral, as straightforward and beneficial protection from a dangerous criminal element. In the face of these distortions and slippery lies, this murk of concealment, manipulation and complicity, how can we see and speak clearly, grasp the issue firmly, and find the solid ground of integrity from which to act?
I think the first step is to call this system out for what it is: twisted, hidden, and malevolent. It is sucking the soul not only out of our communities of color, but out of all of us whose complicit and confused acquiescence supports this evil. It is sucking the soul out of our country.
Evil needs exposure to sunlight and good air. We need to talk about it for what it is, open out all its hidden folds and pockets of wrong, hold it out to the clear light of day. People who hurt and kill others don’t need to be relieved of consequences, and people who are just doing their jobs don’t need to be blamed, but the forces that have twisted power and fear together to create and maintain this horror need to be called out.
We need to grieve together. This system has caused untold loss and damage. While it impacts some more directly, we are all caught in its web. If we don’t look clearly and face the grief, we are vulnerable to vengeance or to the hardening of hearts that comes from separation. Without grieving, we cannot be healed.
I know there are many people attacking this system on many fronts, inside prisons, in impacted communities, and in support of both. I’m not clear which path is mine to take, but I believe that it will open up as I take my first steps. I know these need to include talking more openly with my friends and neighbors—both black and white—finding a way past the feelings of privilege, guilt and disconnection to the firm ground that an evil done to my brothers and sisters is an evil done to me. I know that more steps lie ahead for all of us, and I believe that, by naming this evil with each other, looking straight at it, and grieving the sorrow and loss, we can find our way forward together.
Left and right
I work my way down the patch
picking every single berry I can find
Then I turn and work my way back—
always finding more
that had been hidden from view.
Looking just from the left
or just from the right
leaves ripe fruit
to rot on the vine.
Imagine--A new economy is possible!
European cooperative banks
In a comparison with major commercial banks in Europe, co-operative banks outperform shareholder banks on a number of measures: generating more stable long-term profits, providing better customer service, and boosting local economies by lending more to small and medium-sized businesses. Plus, their more prudent approach to managing capital allowed them to weather the financial crisis better than the commercial banking sector, thus contributing to financial stability.
Ownership by members places an incentive on managers to maximise long-term customer value, and ensures that profit is treated as a means to an end rather than an end in itself. This focus presents a range of benefits, not just for customers but for the economy as a whole.
Over the past fifteen years, European cooperatives have increased their share
of European bank branches from just under twenty five per cent to over twenty
eight per cent. This is because, while commercial banks have been closing down
branches to increase cost efficiency, cooperatives, with their focus on customer
value, have been expanding.
http://www.neweconomics.org/publications/entry/co-operative-banks-international-evidence
Some things that have made me hopeful recently
The findings of a report comparing the views of people who live in red and blue Congressional districts or states across 388 questions: majorities or pluralities took opposing positions just 3.6 percent of the time, with no statistical differences in two out of three cases.
http://vop.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Red-Blue-Report.pdf
A recent decision of the World Council of Churches, representing half a billion Christian, to stop investing in fossil fuels.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jul/11/world-council-of-churches-pulls-fossil-fuel-investments
New York City’s budget for the 2015 fiscal year, which includes a $1.2 million new item for the development of worker-owned cooperative businesses, the largest investment in the sector ever made by a city government in the United States.
http://www.yesmagazine.org/commonomics/worker-owned-co-ops-get-one-million-dollars-in-new-york-budget
A tiny effort in Russia, Friends House Moscow, that supports local citizen initiatives to change conditions for orphans, people with disabilities, refugees, soldiers and conscientious objectors, among others.
More resources
Posts on other people's blogs: http://www.classism.org/children-mass-culture
NEW: Check out my friend Daniel Hunter's new book, a narrative of direct action campaigning: Strategy & Soul: A Campaigner's Tale of Fighting Billionaires, Corrupt Officials, and Philadelphia Casinos: www.strategyandsoul.org
Muscle Building for Peace and Justice; a Non-Violent Workout Routine for the 21st Century--an integration of much of my experience and thinking over the years: doingdemocracy.com/MB4PnJ02.htm (or just google the title)
faitheconomyecology.wordpress.com, a website that I've contributed to often (check the archives)
www.ourchildrenourselves.org, a home for all the parenting writing I've done over the past 20 years.
www.startguide.org. START: a way to study and work together with others to create a better world.
For earlier columns, go to www.pamelascolumn.blogspot.com. I'm currently posting at pamelalivinginthisworld.blogspot.com.
http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/education-uprising/where-dignity-is-part-of-the-school-day
Thursday, June 12, 2014
#133 Respecting our ecosystem
It’s heartening how sometimes a larger truth to which one is deeply committed can knock the air out of an insistent but essentially irrelevant argument.
With six children in my family growing up, one-on-one attention from my mother was a precious but scarce commodity. When one of her children was sick, however, my mother always came through. One of the highlights of my childhood was the time in seventh grade when I had bronchial pneumonia. The first few days, when I was delirious, were harder on her than on me, and they were followed by weeks recuperating at home with just my mother and my precious little toddler brother.
I often wished in high school that I could have another break like that, but never got sick enough again. There was no tolerance in my family for malingering—and no sympathy for weakness or petty complaints. If what ailed you wasn’t demonstrably serious, you were expected to continue to pull your weight.
So I came of age still wistfully wishing that sometime I might get sick enough that somebody would put me first and make everything better, while at the same time being a harsh judge of complainers and weaklings. This has been particularly challenging when I’ve been a little under the weather. Quite apart from whatever was happening with my body, there was full-scale warfare in my head. I’m not feeling well. Oh for goodness sake, it’s not that bad; just get over it. But really, I’d rather be in bed. Buck up. Tons of people keep on working when they’re sick—what makes you think you’re so special? I think I need to lie down. Oh, stop whining! Maybe if I take care of it, it will go away. Oh, if you must, you little weakling.
Over the years, I’ve had many reminders that my body is trustworthy. I’m not one to lie in bed in general, and I tend to prefer work over rest. But somehow the war in my head has continued, and it’s been hard to listen to my body with all that din between my ears.
Then, somehow, a totally new concept fell into that space, stunning all other voices to silence. Your body is an ecosystem. It deserves respect.
Well, I’m passionate about ecosystems. I have a sense of wonder about their complexity, the amazing levels of interdependence, the variety of distinctively lovely forms they can take. And I’m keenly aware of the threats that so many ecosystems face, and how a loss in one can devastate others. I have some sense of both their vulnerability and their resilience, and my respect for their value is abiding and deep.
The idea of human bodies as ecosystems is newer to me. I have loved breathing in the reality that every water molecule in my body has existed for billions of years; that our existence depends on the soil, the source of our food; that we are all miracles of recycling.
It makes sense that poisons and pollution affect my own internal system just as they affect our external waterways and atmosphere. It’s a little harder to get my mind around the reality that the vast majority of cells in my body are non-human. I am host to an enormous diversity of other microorganisms—with all the intricate interdependence of any other ecosystem, and with all their resilience and vulnerability.
So, this ecosystem of mine, as all other ecosystems, is totally deserving of respect. If it is under stress, that is something that calls for thought, care and intelligence. I can benefit from its resilience—it doesn’t need to be constantly fussed over—but I certainly don’t want to take its good functioning for granted.
What does this mean? When I don’t feel well, when this ecosystem that I inhabit is stressed, neither moral judgments about weakness nor lingering hopes for comfort from my childhood are relevant. What is called for is a thoughtful assessment of the whole system, and as non-invasive a program to bring it back to balance as can be managed. There’s much that I still don’t know but, with respect for this ecosystem as central, my feet are on solid ground at last.
Gifts
In our big shared garden
digging baby black-eyed Susan plants
to give away
a Mexican neighbor offers me cilantro
and I go home with four sweet plants
to tuck in with my herbs.
Then, hauling pots of flowers
that have spread out of their beds
to share with rental neighbors
eager to fill bare ground with life,
As I walk, I greet a gardener
I do not know, who turns out to have
sunflowers to spare,
and digs them out most willingly—
Just what I’ve been looking for,
the final touch of glory
that our garden needs.
I’m filled up to the brim
with so much giving and receiving
in these few hours,
so much pleasure shared.
The earth, indeed, is full of gifts.
Dare to imagine: A new economy is possible!
Who will feed us?
The industrial food chain uses 70% of the world's agricultural resources to produce just 30% of our global food supply. Conversely, the peasant food web provides 70% of the global food supply while using only 30% of agricultural resource.
While industrial agriculture can produce a higher yield of a monocultural crop than can peasant monoculture, multi-cultures of diverse crops, fish and livestock (intercropping) can produce more food per hectare, which is also more nutritious, than any industrial monoculture, at a fraction of the cost and with employment and environmental benefits.
Looking toward the future, with "agribusiness as usual": urban share of global population, obesity, meat and dairy production, water demand, and greenhouse gas emissions all rise dramatically. With the "peasant web", including land and rights, rural population holds steady, nutrition and food availability increase, obesity drops, and greenhouse gas emissions, water demand and agricultural fossil fuel use all drop dramatically.
http://www.etcgroup.org/sites/www.etcgroup.org/files/ETC-WhoWillFeedUs-shortversion.pdf
Some things that have made me hopeful recently:
Paul Hawken's unforgettable presentation of the 2 million-plus groups around the world that are working toward a just and livable future. youtube.com/watch?v=NzMPUKAXM7U (I've mentioned this one before, but it's made me hopeful again!)
Food distribution companies, such as Common Market in Philadelphia, that work to connect local farmers with large institutions such as hospitals and schools--thus supporting small farmers while improving the quality of food these institutions serve. commonmarketphila.org/
The Obama administration's recent Environmental Protection Agency ruling, which is intended to cut carbon pollution from power plants by 30% (from 2005 levels) by 2030.
The Bike Superhighways of Denmark, a network of 26 routes to connect commuting suburbanites to the city, including air pumps, safer intersections, and traffic lights timed to average cycling speed, allowing 50% of all Copenhageners to cycle to work or school every day,often faster than by car. www.positivenewsus.org/the-bike-superhighways-of-denmark/
More resources
Posts on other people's blogs: http://www.classism.org/children-mass-culture
NEW: Check out my friend Daniel Hunter's new book, a narrative of direct action campaigning: Strategy & Soul: A Campaigner's Tale of Fighting Billionaires, Corrupt Officials, and Philadelphia Casinos: www.strategyandsoul.org
Muscle Building for Peace and Justice; a Non-Violent Workout Routine for the 21st Century--an integration of much of my experience and thinking over the years: doingdemocracy.com/MB4PnJ02.htm (or just google the title)
faitheconomyecology.wordpress.com, a website that I've contributed to often (check the archives)
www.ourchildrenourselves.org, a home for all the parenting writing I've done over the past 20 years.
www.startguide.org. START: a way to study and work together with others to create a better world.
For earlier columns, go to www.pamelascolumn.blogspot.com. I'm currently posting at pamelalivinginthisworld.blogspot.com.
http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/education-uprising/where-dignity-is-part-of-the-school-day
With six children in my family growing up, one-on-one attention from my mother was a precious but scarce commodity. When one of her children was sick, however, my mother always came through. One of the highlights of my childhood was the time in seventh grade when I had bronchial pneumonia. The first few days, when I was delirious, were harder on her than on me, and they were followed by weeks recuperating at home with just my mother and my precious little toddler brother.
I often wished in high school that I could have another break like that, but never got sick enough again. There was no tolerance in my family for malingering—and no sympathy for weakness or petty complaints. If what ailed you wasn’t demonstrably serious, you were expected to continue to pull your weight.
So I came of age still wistfully wishing that sometime I might get sick enough that somebody would put me first and make everything better, while at the same time being a harsh judge of complainers and weaklings. This has been particularly challenging when I’ve been a little under the weather. Quite apart from whatever was happening with my body, there was full-scale warfare in my head. I’m not feeling well. Oh for goodness sake, it’s not that bad; just get over it. But really, I’d rather be in bed. Buck up. Tons of people keep on working when they’re sick—what makes you think you’re so special? I think I need to lie down. Oh, stop whining! Maybe if I take care of it, it will go away. Oh, if you must, you little weakling.
Over the years, I’ve had many reminders that my body is trustworthy. I’m not one to lie in bed in general, and I tend to prefer work over rest. But somehow the war in my head has continued, and it’s been hard to listen to my body with all that din between my ears.
Then, somehow, a totally new concept fell into that space, stunning all other voices to silence. Your body is an ecosystem. It deserves respect.
Well, I’m passionate about ecosystems. I have a sense of wonder about their complexity, the amazing levels of interdependence, the variety of distinctively lovely forms they can take. And I’m keenly aware of the threats that so many ecosystems face, and how a loss in one can devastate others. I have some sense of both their vulnerability and their resilience, and my respect for their value is abiding and deep.
The idea of human bodies as ecosystems is newer to me. I have loved breathing in the reality that every water molecule in my body has existed for billions of years; that our existence depends on the soil, the source of our food; that we are all miracles of recycling.
It makes sense that poisons and pollution affect my own internal system just as they affect our external waterways and atmosphere. It’s a little harder to get my mind around the reality that the vast majority of cells in my body are non-human. I am host to an enormous diversity of other microorganisms—with all the intricate interdependence of any other ecosystem, and with all their resilience and vulnerability.
So, this ecosystem of mine, as all other ecosystems, is totally deserving of respect. If it is under stress, that is something that calls for thought, care and intelligence. I can benefit from its resilience—it doesn’t need to be constantly fussed over—but I certainly don’t want to take its good functioning for granted.
What does this mean? When I don’t feel well, when this ecosystem that I inhabit is stressed, neither moral judgments about weakness nor lingering hopes for comfort from my childhood are relevant. What is called for is a thoughtful assessment of the whole system, and as non-invasive a program to bring it back to balance as can be managed. There’s much that I still don’t know but, with respect for this ecosystem as central, my feet are on solid ground at last.
Gifts
In our big shared garden
digging baby black-eyed Susan plants
to give away
a Mexican neighbor offers me cilantro
and I go home with four sweet plants
to tuck in with my herbs.
Then, hauling pots of flowers
that have spread out of their beds
to share with rental neighbors
eager to fill bare ground with life,
As I walk, I greet a gardener
I do not know, who turns out to have
sunflowers to spare,
and digs them out most willingly—
Just what I’ve been looking for,
the final touch of glory
that our garden needs.
I’m filled up to the brim
with so much giving and receiving
in these few hours,
so much pleasure shared.
The earth, indeed, is full of gifts.
Dare to imagine: A new economy is possible!
Who will feed us?
The industrial food chain uses 70% of the world's agricultural resources to produce just 30% of our global food supply. Conversely, the peasant food web provides 70% of the global food supply while using only 30% of agricultural resource.
While industrial agriculture can produce a higher yield of a monocultural crop than can peasant monoculture, multi-cultures of diverse crops, fish and livestock (intercropping) can produce more food per hectare, which is also more nutritious, than any industrial monoculture, at a fraction of the cost and with employment and environmental benefits.
Looking toward the future, with "agribusiness as usual": urban share of global population, obesity, meat and dairy production, water demand, and greenhouse gas emissions all rise dramatically. With the "peasant web", including land and rights, rural population holds steady, nutrition and food availability increase, obesity drops, and greenhouse gas emissions, water demand and agricultural fossil fuel use all drop dramatically.
http://www.etcgroup.org/sites/www.etcgroup.org/files/ETC-WhoWillFeedUs-shortversion.pdf
Some things that have made me hopeful recently:
Paul Hawken's unforgettable presentation of the 2 million-plus groups around the world that are working toward a just and livable future. youtube.com/watch?v=NzMPUKAXM7U (I've mentioned this one before, but it's made me hopeful again!)
Food distribution companies, such as Common Market in Philadelphia, that work to connect local farmers with large institutions such as hospitals and schools--thus supporting small farmers while improving the quality of food these institutions serve. commonmarketphila.org/
The Obama administration's recent Environmental Protection Agency ruling, which is intended to cut carbon pollution from power plants by 30% (from 2005 levels) by 2030.
The Bike Superhighways of Denmark, a network of 26 routes to connect commuting suburbanites to the city, including air pumps, safer intersections, and traffic lights timed to average cycling speed, allowing 50% of all Copenhageners to cycle to work or school every day,often faster than by car. www.positivenewsus.org/the-bike-superhighways-of-denmark/
More resources
Posts on other people's blogs: http://www.classism.org/children-mass-culture
NEW: Check out my friend Daniel Hunter's new book, a narrative of direct action campaigning: Strategy & Soul: A Campaigner's Tale of Fighting Billionaires, Corrupt Officials, and Philadelphia Casinos: www.strategyandsoul.org
Muscle Building for Peace and Justice; a Non-Violent Workout Routine for the 21st Century--an integration of much of my experience and thinking over the years: doingdemocracy.com/MB4PnJ02.htm (or just google the title)
faitheconomyecology.wordpress.com, a website that I've contributed to often (check the archives)
www.ourchildrenourselves.org, a home for all the parenting writing I've done over the past 20 years.
www.startguide.org. START: a way to study and work together with others to create a better world.
For earlier columns, go to www.pamelascolumn.blogspot.com. I'm currently posting at pamelalivinginthisworld.blogspot.com.
http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/education-uprising/where-dignity-is-part-of-the-school-day
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