Founded by Steve Solomon, the Soil and Health Library – http://www.soilandhealth.org/ – is a source of rare and out-of-print books about agriculture, natural health, personal sovereignty and spiritual freedom. The library is arranged in these four main categories and has been available for more than a decade. Steve Solomon started the site in 1997. Justin… Continue reading
Details on social media and peer governance of Yemen’s young protesters
Excerpt from a report by Tom Finn with interesting details: ” Rafat is the founder of the Civic Coalition of Revolutionary Youth, or CCRY, an organization born on Facebook that was set up in late March by a handful of student activists to help unite Yemen’s anti-government demonstrators. It has swelled to encompass one of… Continue reading
Barcelona Protest Camp #acampadabcn
Statement from the people who have been occupying Plaça Catalunya, Barcelona since yesterday following the marches for real democracy in 60 Spanish cities on Sunday ahead of municipal elections on May 22. A similar camp in Madrid was evicted by riot police this morning. Follow the hashtags #15M #acampadabcn #acampadasol #catalanrevolution #spanishrevolution for up to… Continue reading
Is clean atmosphere a ‘public trust’?
In an attempt to force recognition of the atmosphere being a natural resource to be protected by the state, several attorneys in the US have filed lawsuits in a number of jurisdictions, CNS News reports in an article titled Climate Activists Target States With Lawsuits; Atmosphere As a ‘Public Trust’. The goal is to have… Continue reading
Maintaining critical infrastructures on the other side of the oil peak
In this brilliant, very clear and very rich presentation, a real must-see, Vinay Gupta charges that most Peak Oil debates are western-centric. If this is the case, what is the alternative vision and way forward? Vinay Gupta – An Evening with Vinay Gupta from justmultimedia on Vimeo. Dealing in Security – understanding vital services and… Continue reading
Idealism is realism: why you have to overestimate Humanity to make it capable of the best
Great, must-see, inspiring talk by Victor Frankl:
Prelude, a peak oil novel
Kelpie Wilson writes about Prelude: “Prelude may be the first thriller novel explicitly about peak oil (numberless thrillers concern the nefarious machinations of international oil conglomerates — ultimately those are stories about peak oil too). It follows a short period in the life and career of Cassie Young, an oil industry analyst based in Washington,… Continue reading
Is bee die-off related to mobile phone radiation?
Mashable reports that Cellphones Could Be Killing Bees, quoting a study conducted by Daniel Favre at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. Favre found that mobile phone radiation radically altered the bees’ behavior and may be responsible for disorienting and eventually killing large numbers of the insects. Favre tested honeybees’ reactions to nearby cellphones in… Continue reading
How three concurring media systems aided the unfolding of the Arab Spring
Ethan Zuckerman moderated a very interesting panel discussion on the role of social media in the Middle East: Among the participants are Zeynep Tufekci, an assistant professor of sociology at UMaryland Baltimore County, Clay Shirky, and Sami ben Gharbia, the director of Global Voices Advocacy. “Sami opened the conversation by giving his view of how… Continue reading
Blaming Locke and his Failed Metaphysics of Private Property
This article focuses on the sacred cow of private property in liberal philosophy and politics and its catastrophic impact on the commons. Numerous liberal thinkers (mostly male) have attempted to base social systems, moral obligations and property rights in human nature using the laws of the natural universe. They share the blame for the devastation… Continue reading
Milan, May 17: Le dinamiche di produzione in rete, collaborative, aperte, decentralizzate, orizzontali
Via Alessandro Delfanti: All’interno del corso in Sociologia dei nuovi media, Michel Bauwens della Peer-to-peer foundation terrà una lecture sulla diffusione del P2P… dappertutto. Aula Alpha, Dipartimento di informatica e comunicazione, Università di Milano, via Comelico 39, Tuesday, May 17 · 11:30am – 1:30pm Le dinamiche di produzione in rete, collaborative, aperte, decentralizzate, orizzontali che… Continue reading
Bifo on How the Cognitivat Will Lead to an Unprecedented Socio-Cultural and Informational Revolution
To be free from these kinds of illusions would mean stopping to think that we can increase or change the existing society; on the contrary, we need to create the condition to get out from such a system; to create structures of production, distribution and education that are external to the logic of capitalism. *… Continue reading
George Siemens on Massive Open Online Courses
George Siemens, pioneer of connectivist learning, in an excellent interview conducted by Howard Rheingold: “George Siemens, at the Technology Enhanced Knowledge Research Institute at Athabasca Universityhas been running “Massive Open Online Courses” (MOOCs). I talk to him about what a MOOC is, how it works, and the educational philosophy behind it.” Watch the video:
Towards distributed and collaborative learning infrastructures
Our nation and our schools and universities should invest in distributed and collaborative learning experiences—curricula emphasizing the interconnectedness of life and geochemical processes in the biosphere, empathy courses that promote social behavior, cyberspace classes connecting students around the globe, service-learning programs in communities, sharing knowledge in peer groups, and interdisciplinary and multicultural studies—with the objective… Continue reading
The Desktop Regulatory State: Kevin Carson’s new book on Open Source Government
* Book: Open Source Government. Kevin Carson Introduction to the “very rough” draft version, already available online: “The subject of my previous book — The Homebrew Industrial Revolution: A Low Overhead Manifesto — was the way in which falling capital outlays required for both information and material production was eroding the rationale for large organizations,… Continue reading
Nick Dyer-Whiteford on the emancipatory potential of digital commons
Nick interviewed for a conference in Italy in May 2010 on how the “Web 2.0″‘s recuperates emancipatory energies for the benefit of media and platform owners: