Monthly Archives: February 2005

Why Do Progressives Like Centralization?

The idea: There seems to be something in progressives’ DNA that inclines them to want to centralize, globalize, homogenize. It had its value once, but it’s rarely appropriate any more. And the better answer, helping communities revitalize themselves, with no … Continue reading

Posted in How the World Really Works | 13 Comments

The Power of Ideas

The Idea: Ideas have enormous power, since they form the frame of our understanding of the world, inform our beliefs and drive our behaviours. Great ideas are so profound and frame-shaking that they quickly topple many of the things we … Continue reading

Posted in Collapse Watch | 14 Comments

Politics and Environment: Readings for the Week

Drilling in ANWR to be Hidden in Budget Bill: The Wilderness Society urges Americans to call or write their representatives to stop this ‘business as usual’ subterfuge from the Big Oil / Neocon cabal. More Reasons for Vegetarianism: It’s three … Continue reading

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New, Deadly, Easily Spread — the Avian Flu

Just to make my point from yesterday’s post about the need for the media to make important things interesting, this week’s New Yorker features a lengthy explanation of the history, threat, and measures to contain the Avian Flu. At time … Continue reading

Posted in Our Culture / Ourselves | 14 Comments

The Job of the Media…

The job of the media is to make interesting what is important. That was Bill Maher’s challenge to CBS’s Lesley Stahl on his show last night. He’s exactly right. What the legacy media do mostly now, an indication of lazy, … Continue reading

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From Framing to Naming

A recent Common Dreams article by David Michael Green proposes that a key part of Lakoffian re-framing is re-naming conservatives, their programs and their ideological positions. But while Lakoff proposes re-framing as a non-confrontational way of showing conservatives the validity … Continue reading

Posted in How the World Really Works | 31 Comments

Intellectual Capital Report — Information and Anxiety Up, Knowledge and Decision-Making Ability Down

We’ve all heard about the explosion of ‘information’ (or at least data) produced and available in the world. At the same time, there are some real questions about the value of this information. In his new book Blink, Malcolm Gladwell … Continue reading

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All About Power – Part Two – Free Information, Freedom from the Grid, and Peer-to-Peer Bio-Innovation

In Part One of this series, I promised I would: …explore some non-violent ways we can incapacitate the power elite, using this 4-step process, Identify the vulnerabilities: Fragility, overconcentration, ignorance, arrogance, lack of diversity, centralization, lack of redundancy, popular disgust, … Continue reading

Posted in Collapse Watch | 10 Comments

Who Are You and What Do You Do?

Jon Strande at Business Evolutionist has written a short questionnaire for bloggers that’s making the rounds. I found it through Aleah’s blog Incite By Design. Kind of a Friday Five type self-revelation, but with questions more oriented to what you … Continue reading

Posted in Our Culture / Ourselves | 5 Comments

Top Environment and Progressive News and Links for the Week

Global Warming Data: Two new studies on global warming in the past week. First, a report prepared for the UK government through Oxford University by 200 leading climate scientists suggests that we are less than a decade from the ‘point … Continue reading

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