I'm on a paid vacation right now. For those of you who don't already know, this means my employer, Summersault, is actually paying me to not show up to the office for a while. Ha - suckers! Apparently it's pretty normal for employers around the world to offer some sort of paid "break" from the expectations that normally come with the job - showing up, getting stuff done, etc. - in the name of rejuvenating oneself, catching up, getting rest, exploring the world, spending more time with family, and so on. But I thought I might take a few ironic moments to suggest that this practice of paying people to go on vacation is a rather silly one, at least in the context of the larger effort to create the lives we want for ourselves.
Continue reading "Vacation and Vocation"
Category: culture
There's some real vitriol out there in "letter to the editor" land, especially here in Richmond. In the Palladium-Item, we like to play the game "How Many People Can You Insult in 300 Words or Less?" sometimes also known as "The Wheel of Not So Subtle Discrimination and Hate-mongering!" Today's contestant is Paul M. Yevcak who says that "hypocrisy proves middle name for liberal Democrats."
My response, posted in the forums (despite my better judgement):
It would be possible to debate some of Mr. Yevcak's points related to the role of the courts, the history and nuances of U.S. immigration policy, and the legal technicalities of the recent presidential intervention in the Libby case. But I'm not sure what purpose that would serve, since Mr. Yevcak seems intent not on having meaningful debate or dialogue, but just on disparaging and insulting a wide swath of people, essentially on the grounds that they don't agree with him about how the world should work. And of course, when that is someone's goal, you can't really have a meaningful conversation with them.
Continue reading "The haters are writing in, what are you doing?"
These numbers came into my inbox today:
- Number of US citizens (non-military) killed by terrorists in 2005: 56
- Amount spent by US government on War on Terror in 2005: $136 billion
- Number of people worldwide who died of hunger in 2005: 8,000,000
- Amount spent by US government on aid to world's poor in 2005: $4.9 billion
(Sources: US Dept. of State; The End of Poverty; Congressional Research
Service)
When I was in College, where I learned that world-views which can be expressed on hip bumper stickers are the ones you really want to internalize and live by, I saw one that said "If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention." I really liked it at the time, because it highlighted the curious and nearly universal practice of going about our daily lives while really awful, horrible, disgusting things are happening all around us.
Continue reading "On being outraged and paying attention"
I have a lot of memories of visiting zoos as a younger person. There was the time my Boy Scout troop had an overnight stay at the Cincinnati Zoo, where we had behind-the-scenes tours of the habitats and infrastructure that made up the place; I was amazed at the intricate facades created for zoo visitors. Another summer at the same zoo and I'm about to start drinking my red cream soda during a field trip lunch break, when a bird poops directly into it from a tree overhead. I remember feeling frustration and resentment that this creature had invaded my personal space so - now I laugh at the irony of that resentment, felt so strongly against one who was just answering the call of this artificial shrine to come observe animal life, poop and all. And most recently, standing with my nose and right hand pressed up against the glass at the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago, apologizing to the once-grand and beautiful Gorillas on display there for the noisy people, the cheesy layout of the captivity, the life stolen from them. "I'm so sorry," I mouthed. "Please forgive us."
I've had plenty of conversations about why most zoos maybe aren't such a good thing, about what they symbolize, what they mean about who we are as a people and a culture. But until I read Thought to Exist in the Wild: Awakening from the Nightmare of Zoos by Derrick Jensen and with photography by Karen Tweedy-Holmes, I hadn't really explored that symbolism and sense of concern in any depth. And to that end, the book is a thought-provoking and eye-opening treatment of the subject.
Continue reading "Derrick Jensen's Thought to Exist in the Wild"
Last fall while I was at a conference on our planet's energy crisis and how local communities can be more self-sustaining, I had a conversation with a gentleman from the TimeBanks USA organization. Time Banking is a revolutionary (I think) concept in community building that helps us value the unique skills and experiences that each person has to bring, and helps bridge the gaps in our society created by economic and social disparity. Put simply, it's a system of "give support, get support" that doesn't depend on conventional notions of wealth. I made a note at the end of that conversation that some day I would help bring a Time Bank to Richmond.
As a part of my participation in this year's Institute for Creative Leadership workshop, a group of Wayne County citizens are now creating the Wayne County Time Bank, and I'm so excited about it. If you're interested in learning more about this new tool for social change, I hope you'll come to our next information session on May 16th at 5:30 PM, at the Uptown Innovation Center. And whether or not you can attend, check out WayneCountyTimeBank.org to sign up for our mailing list; we'll let you know when the project is ready for public participation!
I saw an article today about New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg's plan to introduce an $8 congestion fee for drivers who enter Manhattan below 86th Street. As someone who lives in a town where they'll just about pay you $8 to enter the downtown area, I'm not too worried about this trend reaching me anytime soon. But the plan itself is in reaction to a premise that drives so much of our economic development conversations these days:
"Advocates [of the fee] say it's crucial for a city that's expected to add another million people in the next 20 years."
The reactions include frustration at the economic implications, outrage at the imposition on personal liberties, concerns about the logistical implementation details, and an overall sense of "well, somebody better do something or we're going to grind to a halt."
But no one seems to question the idea that adding a million people to the city is what must and will happen, and everything else must work to accommodate that.
Continue reading "Unchecked population growth costs $8 in NYC"
I remember going to renew my car registration at the Indiana BMV several years ago, and in a moment of vanity, asking about getting one of those personalized license plates. I was thinking maybe "SUMSALT" or "WEBPRO" or "TALLGY" or the like. But when they said it would be at least an extra $40 because of the costs of producing the special plates, I decided this was an area of my life where I was perfectly fine being just another number in the system. I guess I understood that it cost the state extra dollars to produce those plates, I just didn't want to pay for it.
I was surprised and disturbed today to learn that there's one kind of custom/special license plate you can get in Indiana at no extra charge.
Continue reading "I'm Funding Indiana "In God We Trust" License Plates"
In today's Palladium-Item, Brian Bergen with the Richmond-Wayne County Chamber of Commerce agribusiness committee has a piece about Ethanol as a solution to the nation's energy problems.
I'm so glad that the Chamber is focusing on the relationship between agribusiness and the energy crisis that we face as a nation and as a planet. I'm also glad that the solutions we're talking about are keeping in mind a systems approach - how the inputs and outputs from a particular industrial or energy-generating process can be used as efficiently as possible.
But I hope that whatever solutions we pursue take into account that there is a tremendous amount of energy that goes into making our agricultural system work, and so any energy solutions derived from it must take that cost into account. The USDA recently noted that ethanol generates little more energy than it takes to produce. Some scientists have shown that ethanol production consumes 6 units of energy for every 1 it produces.
Continue reading "Ethanol as a local, national energy solution?"
A lot of people notice that in many settings, I'm a pretty quiet person. I don't mind telling them that I generally have an withdrawn personality, and that I tend to do better in conversations that are one-on-one or with small groups of people who I know, as opposed to large groups or gatherings of strangers. I notice that I can be very outgoing in situations where I have a clearly defined role to play - such as a talk I'm giving on a topic I feel knowledgeable about, or a party I'm hosting. But on the whole, I'm quiet.
It's important to me to distinguish this way of being from the classical definition of what it means to be an introvert, "a person who is more interested in his or her own self than in in other people." I know plenty of people who fit this definition well - they become so occupied with their inner existence and interests that they forget (or never learn) how to respond well to external stimuli, how to be sensitive to the physical and verbal signals given off by those around them, how to communicate well with others. While I understand and respect the ways that someone could manifest that personality, and while I see that they can find other ways to be brilliant communicators or express themselves magnificently, it's very important to me to be sensitive to and interested in the beings and happenings in the world around me, as much as I am in my own self.
So if I'm not a classic introvert, what am I? I think I'm just someone who prefers to be quiet in settings where quiet is not always the norm. I do this in part as a way of bearing witness to the many kinds of ways in which there is not enough quiet in our lives.
Continue reading "Why I Am Quiet"
It's interesting to me that the phrase "for national security reasons," offered by the U.S. government and governments around the world to justify various uncomfortable activities (withholding information from or spying on its citizens, demanding cooperation from corporations in legal gray areas, etc.) is so commonly used and so consistently effective. It's effectiveness is based on an apparently safe assumption that the American people largely subscribe to at least one of two world-views: 1) The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, and 2) the government knows what's best for us as individual citizens better than we do ourselves.
How do these world-views work in the government's favor?