http://www.grittv.org/ “On this special Mayday episode, we look at worker movements in places least covered by the corporate media, from Nairobi to a factory in Chicago, to the Vatican. Journalist Nathan Schneider was a part of Occupy Wall Street from the earliest planning stages. His journalism since has taken him from Nairobi to Spain to… Continue reading
Searched for "Vatican"
Pursuing the Common Good: 1) the aims of this Vatican Conference
Report of the conference at the Vatican: Pursuing the Common Good: How Solidarity and Subsidiarity Can Work Together. The above conference, which aims to update the social doctrine of the Catholic Church in light of current social developments, will take place May 2 to 6, 2008, and I will be presenting a case study on… Continue reading
The Case Against Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg and Philanthropy As We Know It
Originally published on americanmagazine.org There was a time when I felt warmly toward the Frick Collection. I was a teenager when I first visited the mansion-turned-art-museum on New York’s Upper East Side. Around every corner was a painting that I had seen before in school or books—Hans Holbein the Younger’s 16th-century portraits of Thomas More… Continue reading
Quebec’s Vacant Church Buildings Resurrected as Community Spaces
Ruby Irene Pratka: The novelist Mark Twain is said to have referred to Montreal as a city of spires, writing that “you couldn’t throw a brick without breaking a church window” in Canada’s largest French-speaking city. “In Quebec cities, the church is the landmark,” historian Paul Mackey says. “In Europe you have castles — here,… Continue reading
The cyber-age demands a politics of the spirit
A recent article written by Indra Adnan: “As people explore new forms of agency online, where is the politics that can serve their growing sense of possibility? For a little while now I’ve been waking up in the morning feeling ready for something. When people ask me “how are you?” the answer, is “Good. Excited”—though… Continue reading
Platform cooperativism as a critique of open-source
I am a pretty assiduous digital commoner, for what it’s worth. I almost exclusively use free/libre/open-source software (hereafter FLOSS), evangelistically so. I try to practice open journalism. I’ve run and developed business models for organizations devoted to producing Creative Commons content. I believe that property is theft, ultimately, and I hold the ancient doctrine of… Continue reading
Against PDF
In his 1973 bestseller Small Is Beautiful, the British economist E.F. Schumacher outlined a concept that would come to be known as “appropriate technology.” This meant, in essence, adopting technologies that actually suit the needs they’re meant to address and the contexts in which they’re meant to operate. He was worried chiefly about technological overkill… Continue reading
Notes on the Horizontality of Peer to Peer Relationships in the Context of the Verticality of a Hierarchy of Values
* Essay: Par Cum Pari. Notes on the Horizontality of Peer to Peer Relationships in the Context of the Verticality of a Hierarchy of Values. Michel Bauwens. In: Pursuing the Common Good: How Solidarity and Subsidiarity Can Work Together. Fourteenth Plenary Session, 1-6 May 2008. Acta 14, eds Margaret S. Archer and Pierpaolo Donati. Vatican… Continue reading
Where’s the missing part, Naomi Klein? Ask Pope Francis and Mohammed Mesbahi
The latest book by Naomi Klein is essentially a call to share the world’s resources, but its thesis on social transformation is missing a crucial factor: a profound awareness of the reality of hunger and life-threatening deprivation. While Pope Francis’ recent encyclical calls on us to prioritise this global emergency in our efforts to combat… Continue reading
Catholics, Free Software and Free Knowledge, again
(this is a copy of the post I originally published on my own blog, with a CC BY-ND license. The original version, with updates, other comments etc.. is here) Almost ten years ago, I wrote about Free Software’s surprising sympathy with Catholic doctrine, noting that, albeit certain statements sound “as if they could have been written by… Continue reading
Open sourcing encyclical documents to avoid leaks
This (would give) a new meaning to the word “encyclical”; it would be not just a circular letter from the Holy Father, but the result of a shared effort by the church as a whole. The church would more truly be speaking “from the people.” … Leaks can be a feature, not a bug. Excerpted… Continue reading
Douglas Rushkoff on debt, outsourcing and suburban isolation
Continuing our serialization of Penny Nelson’s interview with Douglas Rushkoff for HiLobrow magazine, this week the conversation turns to the emotional components of debt, the inherent structures of corporations and why men must be kept busy with the front lawn. We recommend that you read the first part if you haven’t already, to get some context. Please,… Continue reading
Douglas Rushkoff on Corporations, Money and the Middle Ages
Penny Nelson interviewed Douglas Rushkoff for HiLobrow magazine at a particularly sweet spot in time: a month and a half after the beginning of the occupation of Wall Street. Much like OWS and its global precursors and offshoots in 2011, we feel that the issues raised are just as, if not more, relevant today. We’ll… Continue reading
Benedictan Rules as a Hacker Protocol
“UnMonasterians could do worse than devote some serious time in studying the benedictine ways as a protocol for societal impact in social innovation. This consists of the Rule (software), the physical arrangement of the monasteries and abbeys (for example, single cells for monks to sleep in are a part of the protocol governing monastic life… Continue reading
The Esperanto economy is booming
Excerpted from Las Indias: “Internet itself seems to have fueled Esperanto as idealistic Zamenhof’s pacifism couldn’t imagine. Today the big global associations of the Esperanto world are in crisis, as almost all decentralized structures are. They surely are too XXth century for this time of distributed communications and P2P communities. But the social fabric of… Continue reading
The future of (participatory) religion? Part 2: interspiritual wisdom vs spirituality without religion
We present the second set of two hypotheses presented by Jorge Ferrer in this interesting conversation: * Article/Interview: : Rethinking the Future of World Religion: A Conversation with Jorge N. Ferrer. Integral Review. July 2012, Vol. 8, No. 1, pp. 22+ . In this interview/conversation with Bahman A.K. Shirazi four possible scenarios for the future… Continue reading