Saturday Links for the Week: July 26, 2008 (a day late)

The Life You Save May Be Your Own: Jen Lemen, powerfully affected by her recent visit to Rwanda, is going through a huge, and moving, personal change, and she’s putting it all out there on her blog. Only nine sentences, so just go read this.

Loving Where You Are: PS Pirro puts those of us claiming to seek the place “where we belong” in our place: “Loving where you are means relinquishing all those comforting contingency plans that spare you the work of local affection ñ those plans that allow you to leave half your life packed in boxes in the garage or the attic, half your heart tucked away, and half your imagination wandering the map in search of a better place.  Loving where you are means calling your imagination home and putting it to work right where you are: learning the names of the people and trees and plants and birds and creeks and flowers, and letting them speak to your heart ñ your whole heart — and show you what needs to be done, right here, right now.” Wow.

Audacity Yes, Change Hardly: A political expert writes to Joe Bageant about why the powers that be are quite happy at the prospect of an Obama victory:

Do Not Go Gently: Cassandra explores the subject we all, in the final analysis, fear most, when it gets close to home. Our turn is coming.

Discovering Patti Griffin: Karen Crone introduces us to a remarkable new singer-songwriter, Patti Griffin, who reconnects us to our childhood.

Harrison Owen on Where Open Space is Going: Geoff and Viv recorded Harrison Owen’s latest speech about how the world is self-organizing and uncontrollable at OSonOS.

Preparing for a Post-Carbon Future: Rob Hopkins suggests some significant but worthwhile lifestyle changes:

1. Organize a screening of The End of Suburbia (or similar Peak Oil education video)
2. Insulate your house (and why not introduce renewable energy sources while you’re at it)
3. Get out of debt
4. Start a garden
5. Become more aware of your surroundings
6. Take a permaculture design course
7. Buy less
8. Take a look at your work situation
9. Form community
10. Celebrate your successes

Hire an Organic Gardener: A brilliant example of Natural Enterprise is planting and maintaining an organic garden for homeowners in their own yard.

The Suicide Kit: There are many people in the world wanting to end their lives because of great and chronic physical or mental suffering. Some of them, apparently, have been buying veterinary euthanasia drugs (notably pentobarbital) from Mexico — the peacefulness and effectiveness of which I’ve observed personally. Of course, it is illegal to buy these drugs; no dignity in death for humankind. Exit International, the organization educating people how to end their own lives peacefully, has published a book The Peaceful Pill Handbook, that is sold out internationally, but will soon be available in e-book form. It is banned from sale in Australia. Watch for this issue to heat up in coming months.

Mapping Your Networks: Valdis Krebs has mapped his twitter network, in the graphic above. Mine would be more complex, I think, and would have to capture my f2f, IM/VoIP, blog and Second Life networks. My Gravitational Community (including all of these networks) listed at right has 70 people in 8 networks (a network map would show all the connections between them, which are considerable). My Blogroll has several hundred people in some 30 networks, with even more connections. It would be interesting to see the whole map. I suspect it would show that most of my networks are well connected internally with each other (cliquish?) and that, while men on the whole have more connections, women have more diverse connections. It’s been interesting to see my twitter readers ‘talking’ to each other across my networks, making new and unexpected connections.
Koehler Calls Out Obama: Bob Koehler describes the New Yorker cover cartoon he’d really like to see:

The Atrocity of Cluster Bombs and Bush’s Refusal to Stop Using Them: Another great editorial from Bob Koehler shows that cluster bombs have one purpose — to intimidate, maim and kill civilians. Yet Bush won’t sign the treaty calling for an end to their use.

Was There a Red Flag Signaling Bear Stearns’ Troubles?: An interesting employee satisfaction survey suggests something was very wrong with Bear Stearns a year before its collapse from reckless lending practices. Anyone looking at Lehman Brothers?

Wordle of Siona Van Dijk’s personal profile (top) and mine (lower)

Just For Fun: Jin the border collie is one amazingly talented dog. Thanks to Cheryl for the link. Also, for those who liked the Norbert Rosing photos of huskies playing with polar bears, here’s a video of this behaviour. And, in the graphic above, Siona’s profile, and beneath it my ‘about the author‘ page, are portrayed as worldles. Hey, I thought I was the one advocating Love Conversation Community as the key to addressing all problems! Mine really shows who I used to be, when I was so much older.

Three Thoughts for the Week: From Umberto Eco as quoted in the New Yorker in 1995: