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English language is reputed to be the pervasive language in the world.
- The English language is reputed to be the pervasive language in the world.
I wouldn't call English a pervasive language. A perverse language, maybe. :wink:
Perhaps you mean to say that English is the dominant language of the world. However, I don't think that is quite right. Mandarin Chinese and Spanish have more speakers than English does. English is certainly a worldwide language, spoken from Singapore to Kenya to the UK to the USA. It certainly is an important language. Perhaps you could say that English is one of the world's most dominant languages, spoken all around the globe. (It's an official language in seven African countries.) | <urn:uuid:b58dcb17-ce9f-4541-b1b2-076d06764d15> | {
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AP Chapter 9. Molecular Geometry and Bonding Theories. Molecular Shapes. The 3-dimensional shapes and sizes of molecules are determined by their bond angles and bond lengths.
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Molecular Geometry and Bonding Theories
The 5 basic shapes for ABn molecules
Additional molecules can be made by removing corner atoms from the 5 basic shapes. This one starts with a tetrahedral.
In general, each non-bonding pair, single bond or multiple bond produces an electron domain around the central atom.
Balloons tied together at their ends naturally adopt their lowest-energy arrangement.
The bond angles decrease as the number of nonbonding electron pairs increase.
Electron domains for multiple bonds exert greater repulsive forces on adjacent electron domains than single bonds.
π forces on adjacent electron domains than single bonds.bonds in Benzene rings and resonance structures | <urn:uuid:2ce55abd-132d-4d7a-93df-5eb0d218ebc6> | {
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Forest Fire Service officials said they are concerned downed trees blocking roads and trails could create access issues to woods where fires typically start. While firefighters can remove some of the debris, there is too much of it and it’s too heavy to clear all of it.
Delays in accessing a fire leaves it room to grow and possibly ignite the trees on the ground, making it a much tougher fire to fight compared with smoldering leaves and branches.
Fire managers say the biggest problem will be in the northern half of the state where many the trees fell.
“Not all of those roads and trails have been cleaned and they may never be cleaned,” Assistant State Fire Warden Stephen Maurer said. “They’re in our way.”
The state forest service is equipped with planes to fight the fires from the air but they do not have plans to bring on more to ease the problem on the ground.
“We’re putting on as many as we can afford,” Maurer said of the planes.
Maurer said frequent rain and snow this season has helped stave off drought conditions, unlike last year when groundwater levels were low. He said other than dealing with the downed trees a normal wildfire season is expected.
New Jersey’s Forest Fire Service recorded 122 fires across the state in 2012. This year, it has reported 48 fires as of March 3.
Friday was the last day the state forest service was conducting prescribed burns, a method used to take out heavy fuels to reduce the risk of wildfires by clearing vegetation.
Maurer said there have been 14 days since January where weather was favorable enough to conduct the burns. He said the forest service has set 160 burns since January with most measuring between 100 to 300 acres.
Maurer said nearly every wildfire in New Jersey is started by people. He stressed to those hiking and camping in the woods this spring and summer to put out cigarettes, campfires and camping stoves to help prevent fires. | <urn:uuid:564a15f8-154e-4516-b063-bc746c255422> | {
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Updated: 04/25/2014 3:23 PM
Created: 04/25/2014 6:22 AM KSTP.com
By: Leslie Dyste
All week we've been talking about severe weather, and Friday's topic is extreme heat.
It might seem less dramatic than tornadoes or thunderstorms, but heat can be just as dangerous.
Ken says heat is the biggest weather-related killer in the country. He says back in 1980 a total of 1,250 people died of heat-related illness and in 1995, 700 people died of it.
Ken says an excessive heat watch means that we think extreme heat is going to happen, while an excessive heat warning means it's going to happen. | <urn:uuid:82983d18-2cbd-4638-932e-37bbd39a5cd8> | {
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An illustration of Auburn Prison from Harper's Weekly, December 18, 1858.
Johnny Tremont’s trip to solitary confinement started with having too many postage stamps. Until then, he’d been a model prisoner. When Tremont (whose name in this article has been changed at his request) entered the New York prison system at age 20, he was a well-spoken kid from an upstate college town who excelled at pretty much anything he put his mind to. In high school, he’d put his mind to dealing cocaine. Once he was sent to Five Points Correctional Facility, a maximum-security prison in the Finger Lakes region, he put his mind to keeping his nose clean and getting what he could out of his fifteen-year sentence. He enrolled in every program available, quickly earned his GED and then started tutoring other prisoners working toward theirs.
To relieve the monotony, Tremont sometimes bet on sports with other inmates, using the common prison currency of postage stamps. “I was on my way to pay the guy who won a pool between a few friends,” he recalls, when he was caught with 200 stamps, well over the allowable number. This earned him a month in “keeplock”—round-the-clock confinement to his own cell. His cellmate was also on keeplock, and when Tremont could no longer stand the crowding and idleness, he talked a guard into letting him out to go to his prison job. Caught playing basketball instead, he was sent to twenty-eight days in “the Box.”
“The Box” is how New York prisoners refer to solitary confinement. Less colloquially, it’s the SHU (pronounced “shoe”), for Special Housing Unit, the state’s euphemism for its isolation cells. Officially, New York places prisoners in “disciplinary” or “administrative” segregation, but regardless of the label, the conditions are the same as in prisons across the country: twenty-three hours a day in a cell the size of the average suburban bathroom.
A common misconception is that solitary confinement is a punishment of last resort, reserved for inmates who present a threat of violence or escape. The reality—especially in New York, which has the highest rate of “disciplinary segregation” in the country—is that it’s very much a punishment of first resort, doled out for minor rule violations as well as major offenses. In New York, the most common reason for a stint in solitary is creating a “disturbance” or “demonstration.” This can mean anything from mouthing off to guards to fomenting a riot, and it often involves inmates with psychoses or other psychiatric problems. Second is “dirty urine”—testing positive for drugs of any kind. In a prison system where 85 percent of inmates are in need of substance-abuse treatment, drug use alone can get you up to ninety days in solitary, and a year if it happens multiple times. Other infractions include refusing to obey orders, “interfering with employees,” being “out of place” and possession of contraband—not only a shiv but a joint, a cellphone or too many postage stamps.
With some 80,000 prisoners in solitary, the United States leads the world in isolating its citizens as well as incarcerating them. Though growing local and national movements are fighting solitary confinement as costly, dangerous and fundamentally inhumane—and though states from Maine to Mississippi have taken steps to reduce its use—in this bluest of states, the prison system is in effect rigged to keep its plentiful isolation cells filled, and thousands of inmates spend weeks, months, years, even decades in solitary. On any given day, there are about 4,500 men, women and children in some form of isolated confinement in New York State prisons. (In New York City’s jails, run under a separate system, there are close to 1,000 more.)
Twenty-eight days is a relatively short sentence in a state where prisoners can spend decades in the Box. But either way, conditions are so extreme, says Tremont, “there’s more of a difference between being in solitary confinement and being in general population than there is between being in prison and being in the free world.” In general population, he says, “you do your programming, go to meals, talk to people, and you can still manage to feel like a human being.” In the Box, “you’re like an animal in a cage.”
“We call it ‘no-touch torture,’” says Bonnie Kerness, who heads the American Friends Service Committee’s Prison Watch Project. “No one who has ever experienced more than the briefest time in solitary would call it anything else, because it was designed to destroy the mind and break the spirit.” While a lot of New Yorkers “are concerned with the torture that’s gone on in Iraq and Afghanistan or at Guantánamo,” she adds, “they’re living with black sites in their own backyards.”
* * *
Whether solitary confinement as practiced in New York can be considered torture is an age-old question. When Alexis de Tocqueville and Gustave de Beaumont toured the United States in 1831 to research the American penitentiary system, a primary stop was New York’s Auburn Prison, which had recently conducted an “experiment”: locking eighty prisoners in round-the-clock isolation for a year. Some had gone insane, while others attempted suicide; five had died, apparently from a combination of ill health and pure despair. Of the twenty-six prisoners who were subsequently released, fourteen quickly reoffended, offering “proofs,” according to Tocqueville and Beaumont, “that this system, fatal to the health of the criminals, was likewise inefficient in producing their reform.”
New York abandoned the practice of “absolute solitude,” as Tocqueville and Beaumont called it, only to resume it a century and a half later, with none of the spirit of inquiry that informed the Auburn “experiment.” Today the little research that exists supports their conclusions: that solitary confinement can lead to madness and suicide, and that it tends to increase both prison violence and recidivism. States that have dramatically reduced their use of isolation have seen improvements in the safety of inmates and staff. Why, then, does “liberal” New York have one of the nation’s highest rates of solitary confinement? And why have these levels persisted, even through years when the state’s prison population—and crime rate—have dropped?
In fact, it was New York’s liberal Republican governor, Nelson Rockefeller, who passed the harshest drug laws in the country, and it was his Democratic successor, Mario Cuomo, who began building prisons to hold the resultant twofold surge in the state’s inmate population. Under President Bill Clinton, the federal government offered states generous funding for prison construction if they agreed to reduce or end parole for violent crimes. New York complied, using much of the bounty to construct “supermax” prisons and isolated confinement units. Ten of New York’s eleven facilities dedicated exclusively to holding prisoners in lockdown were constructed between 1997 and 2000, according to the Correctional Association of New York, an independent nonprofit with the legislative authority to monitor New York’s state prisons. And they were built despite the fact that, by 1996, violence levels in the prison system had already begun to drop.
In the past decade, New York’s prison population has decreased by nearly 10,000, to approximately 56,000. In the same period, the number of prisoners in isolated confinement has fallen from about 5,000 to 4,500. But this means the proportion of prisoners in lockdown has actually increased slightly, to just over 8 percent. New York maintains two supermax prisons where all inmates are in lockdown (although it eschews the term “supermax”). Most others have some kind of segregation unit. What these various manifestations of the Box have in common is that they combine near total cell confinement with extreme social isolation and enforced idleness, since prisoners in lockdown are not allowed to work or attend programming. They are also categorically barred from visits by the media (including us) and invisible even to many prison authorities.
Mary Beth Pfeiffer, who has reported on the SHUs for the Poughkeepsie Journal (she, too, is now barred from visiting them), has described the Box as “a small barren chamber…with a concrete floor, a steel door and no clock to mark the time. The essential quality of the box is isolation—a gloved hand passes food through a slot in the door; a caseworker’s muffled voice filters through the holes in a small Plexiglas window. Inmates are allowed few personal possessions. Lights are never fully extinguished. It is four walls for 23 hours a day—a psychologically punishing experience by design.”
Jack Beck, director of the Correctional Association’s Prison Visiting Project, has “walked the SHUs” and talked with inmates, usually through their feeding slots. He describes a grim world of small, sometimes windowless cells where the sensory deprivation is so extreme that most prisoners spend their time sleeping, pacing or staring into space. In some units, Beck says, fully half of the inmates suffer from mental illness, so “there would be feces on the walls, there would be people howling into the night,” even “people harming themselves” through self-mutilation. “This, I believe, is torture, in any definition.”
* * *
In New York, a trip to solitary begins with a “ticket,” a disciplinary write-up from a guard. Every year, the state doles out more than 10,000 tickets that result in Box time. The average sentence is between four and five months, but sentences of several years are not unusual. Inmates can challenge the tickets, but John Boston, who heads the Prisoners’ Rights Project at the Legal Aid Society of New York, calls the hearings a “pro forma exercise” offering nothing more than the “pretense of due process.” Prison officials serve as police, prosecutors, witnesses, judges and juries. One of the few places inmates can turn to for help fighting a SHU sentence in court is Prisoners’ Legal Services of New York. But in the past twenty years, the group has had its funding cut to the bone. As a result, says James Bogin, managing attorney at the Albany office, its members can represent only a small number of the prisoners who write to them. There are others, he says, “who could be subject to real torture, and I can’t take their case.”
Prisoners who contest their treatment risk retaliation in the form of more Box time, and those accused of violating rules inside the Box are further punished with more time or “deprivation orders.” These can include shackles, loss of recreation time and showers, or seven days or more on “the loaf”—described by one advocacy group as “a dense, binding, unpalatable one-pound loaf of bread and a side portion of raw cabbage.” A Correctional Association survey of SHU inmates found that nearly one-third of them had been put on the loaf—one for fifty-six days.
Because they are basically invisible, prisoners placed in the SHU are also more likely to receive off-the-books punishment from the guards, up to and including physical brutality. Michael Mushlin, a law professor at Pace University, calls the Box “fertile ground for abuse, because there are no witnesses to what happens there—not even other prisoners.”
The New York State Corrections Department has denied that unwarranted use of force routinely takes place in the SHU. And one former guard, who worked for more than a decade at several upstate prisons, told us that “any officer who has worked in the SHU doesn’t look for altercations, because they happen all the time” and are initiated by the prisoners. He points out that corrections officers sustain abuse and injuries themselves, often at the hand of inmates with untreated mental illness. Like most who have guarded the SHU, he recalls being frequently cursed, spat upon, even spattered with urine and feces. He also suffered broken bones while trying to subdue a prisoner there.
At the same time, nearly every one of the dozen inmates we spoke or corresponded with reported experiencing some form of abuse while in segregation. Several said that racism was frequently a factor, especially in upstate prisons where almost all of the corrections officers are white. Eighty-two percent of New York’s prison population is black or Latino.
Malik Sheppard, a soft-spoken African-American man, spent nine years in continuous solitary confinement out of a total prison term of fifteen years. Sheppard started running with the Bloods in Queens when he was barely in his teens and, at 17, was arrested for armed robbery. Like all other 16- and 17-year-olds accused of felonies in New York, he was tried in an adult court and sent to an adult prison.
According to Sheppard, he got Box time for violent run-ins with other prisoners. At the Southport Correctional Facility, a supermax some 250 miles from the city, he says he was sent to a “Box within the Box”—a special unit meant for the worst offenders—where guards tormented him because of his gang affiliation, and also because he sometimes “cursed them out.” For three years, “I was on and off the loaf…. They turned my water off for days at a time…. In the winter, they would open my window and I wouldn’t be able to close it.” The only exercise he had was in an eight-by-twelve cage, where “my shackles stay on my feet, my handcuffs stay on, waist chain stays on—so I shuffle in circles.”
By far the worst, Sheppard says, was the thirteen-day period he spent in a completely bare “strip cell” wearing only a paper gown. “Every hour on the hour, my cell would get hosed down while I was in there,” he recalls. He does not hesitate to compare it to Guantánamo: “I was tortured in prison.”
* * *
Concern has grown in recent years over the number of prisoners with psychological problems who end up in the SHU. A 2003 report by the Correctional Association found that while inmates diagnosed with mental illness made up 11 percent of New York’s overall prison population, they constituted nearly a quarter of the inmates in lockdown. Many of the SHU prisoners interviewed were described as “actively psychotic, manic, paranoid or seemingly overmedicated.” In New York, throwing urine or feces at a prison employee—behavior that is not uncommon among mentally ill prisoners in solitary—has been made a felony. Other symptoms of mental illness have been criminalized as well. As a result, a prisoner like Adam Hall—an Attica inmate whose initial sentence was one to three years—could spend up to a decade behind bars because of his mental illness.
Hall grew up outside Utica; when he was 5 years old, he set his apartment on fire and then drew pictures of his family reuniting in heaven. Hall’s mother says that he spent much of his childhood in psychiatric facilities and juvenile homes and was sexually abused in two of them. After a series of run-ins with the law, at 22 he was convicted of assault after stealing a friend’s car and resisting arrest.
According to prison records, Hall attempted suicide and was placed in a Residential Mental Health Unit, where prisoners are locked down for much of the day but receive psychiatric treatment. There, he reportedly tried to set fire to his cell. Instead of dealing with this incident as a symptom of Hall’s obvious mental illness, prison officials sent his case to a grand jury, which indicted him for second-degree arson. Hall pled out and was sentenced to an additional six to nine years. Meanwhile, he owes the prison about $5,000 for damage to his cell, so his commissary account has been frozen and he cannot buy postage stamps. When he does manage to write or call home, he talks about cutting himself “to relieve the pain.” One day soon, he writes, “I’m going to really cut myself and not tell no one so I can bleed out.”
The Poughkeepsie Journal’s Mary Beth Pfeiffer studied prison suicides in New York and found that, in a three-year period between 2007 and 2010, inmates in the Box killed themselves at a rate five times higher per capita than those in the general population. Some of the prisoners who took their own lives were serving long terms in solitary, while others had been in the Box for as little as one week.
“I’ve cut my share of them down,” says the former corrections officer who spent years guarding the SHU. In one instance, “we cut a guy down and resuscitated him, and then he assaulted us because he was upset that we’d saved his life.” Another prisoner, he says, repeatedly attempted suicide by jumping off his bunk head first onto the concrete floor. “I still have my own nightmares about the SHU,” he adds.
Dr. Stuart Grassian, a psychiatrist and former faculty member at Harvard Medical School who has studied the impact of prison isolation for decades, believes that solitary confinement induces a specific psychiatric disorder characterized by “hypersensitivity to external stimuli, hallucinations, panic attacks, cognitive deficits, obsessive thinking, paranoia and impulse-control problems.” Inmates with underlying mental illness have even worse reactions, so they “get into these vicious cycles where they continue to commit this disruptive behavior, and they continue to go deeper and deeper into the belly of the prison system and get sicker and sicker.”
* * *
On June 19 a Senate Judiciary Subcommittee chaired by Illinois Democrat Dick Durbin held the first-ever Congressional hearing on solitary confinement. Focused on the “human rights, fiscal and public safety consequences” of the practice, the hearing signaled a new level of official concern over its widespread use. Among those who testified was Anthony Graves, exonerated from Texas death row after eighteen years, ten of which he spent in isolation. He discussed suicides and self-harm by other prisoners and described how he remains haunted by his own years in solitary. “Today I have a hard time being around a group of people for long periods of time without feeling too crowded,” he testified. “No one can begin to imagine the effect isolation has on a human being.”
The hearing also featured Christopher Epps, commissioner of the Mississippi Department of Corrections, whose reduction of solitary confinement in his state (largely under pressure from the ACLU) won national acclaim. The few states that have reduced their SHU populations—some by as much as 75 percent—have seen drops in both prison violence and, ultimately, prison costs.
In New York, reform has been modest and hard-won. In 2002, advocates started an effort to ban mentally ill inmates from being placed in the SHUs. Family members and former inmates joined a coalition of activists to form Mental Health Alternatives to Solitary Confinement, which organized a “Boot the SHU” campaign. “We held marches and press conferences,” says Leah Gitter, the godmother of a former SHU prisoner named Robert Pena. “We did street theater in Albany—we had a funeral march, referring to suicides in the SHU.” They also baked “the loaf” and handed it out to state senators.
In 2008 the “SHU exclusion bill” was finally signed into law. Sarah Kerr, who is tracking its application for the Legal Aid Society, calls it “a sea change” that will “alleviate the suffering” of hundreds of prisoners with mental illness. “But it isn’t perfect,” she says. While all prisoners are now screened for “serious mental illness,” critics charge that the state Office of Mental Health, which handles the diagnoses, tends to be overly conservative. And the law still allows for mentally ill prisoners to be held in the SHU under “exceptional circumstances.”
A nascent coalition of advocates organized by the New York Civil Liberties Union is pressing for more change, and a parallel reform effort is under way for city jails. The notion of reform is less controversial than it was even a few years ago; at a forum in January held by the New York State Bar Association, Corrections Department Commissioner Brian Fischer insisted that some segregation was necessary, but “I’ll be the first to admit—we overuse it.” Even modest reductions, he said, would require that they “change the culture” of corrections, including the stance of the correctional officers union. And, he added, “we can’t make changes without funding, without the legislature and the public.”
If New York was serious about reducing the population of inmates in isolation, those with mental illness could be moved from the SHUs into secure psychiatric facilities, which could conceivably take the place of costly supermax prisons. Prisoners who test positive for drugs could be sent to drug-treatment programs (which currently have long waiting lists). Other offenses could be dealt with through positive incentives or by terms in segregation that are brief, limited and free of extreme isolation. All of this would take political will to implement, and something more: a shift in public sentiment toward the view that prisoners are human beings, and thus entitled to immunity from torture by the state.
In 2010 the American Bar Association created a set of Standards on Treatment of Prisoners, including those in segregation. But enforcing such standards would require prison practices—as well as the politics that shape them—to be driven by a genuine interest in safety, rather than a thirst for the harshest punishments possible.
Michael Mushlin recalls a former corrections official who had placed inmates in solitary confinement once asking him frankly, “Do you think I’m a torturer?” But Mushlin believes the responsibility lies with a broader constituency. “We are the torturers,” he says. “If we gave prisons the resources they needed and said, ‘Stop this,’ it would stop.”
* * *
In the meantime, men like Billy Blake will continue to be used to justify solitary confinement. In 1987, while in county court on a drug charge, Blake, then 23, grabbed a gun from a sheriff’s deputy and, in a failed escape attempt, murdered one deputy and wounded another. As a cop-killer and an escape risk, Blake is considered a permanent threat to prison safety. For this reason, he is one of the few New York prisoners in “administrative” rather than “disciplinary” segregation—meaning he’s in solitary more or less indefinitely, despite periodic pro forma reviews of his status. He has been in isolation in a series of prisons for close to twenty-five years. He is now 48; since his sentence is seventy-seven years to life, he has no prospect of getting out of prison, and next to none of ever leaving solitary.
We visited Blake in December at the Elmira Correctional Facility, a dreary building on a hill near the edge of town. After being signed in and searched, we stopped at the vending machines to buy what he had requested in a letter: Dr. Pepper and a pizza roll. (The machine was out, so we got a grayish-looking cheese steak instead.) We then waited in a special SHU visiting room, watched over by a guard.
Blake entered—wiry, sandy-haired and smiling—and talked virtually nonstop for three hours. It was the first time he’d had a visit in more than two years. We discussed his childhood (he says his father was abusive), his poetry (some of which he recites by heart), his love of playing the stock market (he sometimes gives tips to the guards), and his fascination with military history (his dream is to someday walk the battlefields at Omaha Beach and Thermopylae). He described abuse in the SHU, some of it confirmed by a lawsuit he won in 2000. And he told us how bad he feels about having deprived two children of their father when “the one thing I never wanted to do was hurt kids.”
We do not know whether the man we met is too dangerous to be in the general population. We do know that the treatment he is receiving from the state can only be described as torture.
Blake’s subsequent letters, which run twenty-five pages or more, describe his “magic ingredient” for surviving the Box. “I’m a dreamer,” he says, “who refuses to accept that my dreams won’t all come true, somehow…eventually.” Dreaming is what helps him get through the long, colorless nights in the SHU. “Sometimes I watch the roaches and I envy them,” he writes.
“In my mind I have fantasized that I was a cockroach and I maneuver all through the halls of the prison, walk under the locked gates and stay close to the walls to avoid being stepped on by a C.O. who’s walking through the prison. Then I get outside through some crack or under some door, walk through the grass that looks like tall trees to me…then I’m up and over the wall and out. Once I make it I pop myself back to being human and I walk off into the night, free again and not even caring if I die that same night, just as long as I can see some trees and feel a breeze and know for an hour or two that I was free again, that I lived to see the outside of prison before my time in this world was over.” | <urn:uuid:ebffda2c-81c6-4104-91b9-8d122e8d32c4> | {
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11/22/2013 - Raising children comes with $241,000 price tag
Starting a family in today's America doesn't come cheaply, and a recent report is giving prospective parents an idea of just how much they can expect to spend over the first 18 years of their son or daughter's lifetime.
Performed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and reported by CNN Money, the study showed that the cost of raising a child for parents who earn a middle-income is estimated to be about $241,100, not including tuition for college. That's up approximately 3% from 2011, the last time a similar analysis was performed.
The study also pointed out that depending on the region of the country in which families live, they may spend more or less than this average. For instance, in the Northeast, a household situated in the city that earns just over $100,000 per year could spend about $446,100 for their child through the age of 18. But for a family that makes $61,600 and lives in rural confines, the total would be about $143,100.
Child-rearing can be an expensive proposition. That's why Selective has a variety of auto insurance and homeowners' plans available that have special discounts that can help parents save. For instance, if a policyholder's son or daughter does well in school or takes a driver's training course, premiums may be trimmed. | <urn:uuid:a7bdc45a-2018-4bdb-ae4b-cfb6379b46bf> | {
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Symbol of true love and one of the Seven Wonders of the World, the Taj Mahal is amongst country’s most visited tourist attractions. Displaying a beautiful mix of Islamic, Persian and Indian architecture, this historic marvel was built in over 22 years, with the help of about 20000 workers.
Despite its popularity, there are several facts people still do not know about the Taj Mahal. Listed below are some of the points that’d surely enhance your knowledge about this marble mausoleum:
1. You won’t believe but the replicas of the Taj Mahal do exist. Though not as breathtaking as the original Taj, Bibi Ka Maqbara in Aurangabad and Taj Mahal Bangladesh are quite a work of art!
2. Mumtaz Mahal was Shah Jahan’s third wife, and was earlier known by the name Arjumand Bano Begum.
3. Mumtaz Mahal lost her life giving birth to Shah Jahan’s 14th child.
4. To build the Taj Mahal, about 1000 elephants were employed that transferred the construction material from one place to another.
5. Taj Mahal is adorned with an assortment of 28 types of precious and semi-precious stones.
6. Depending upon what time of the day it is and whether or not it is a moonlit night, Taj Mahal appears to be of different colours.
7. While roaming in Taj Mahal complex, you can see different verses of Quran written everywhere.
8. Mumtaz Mahal’s actual tomb contains about 99 different names of Allah featured as calligraphic inscriptions.
9. The materials for the construction of Taj Mahal were brought from different regions and countries, namely Punjab, Rajasthan, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, China, Tibet and Arabia.
10. Legend has it that Shah Jahan wanted to construct another Taj Mahal using black marble but he could not do so, owing to increasing wars with his sons. | <urn:uuid:43ae57f5-2868-4e43-b25e-412822d3ddcf> | {
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The boundaries of Europe’s constituent countries have changed a lot in my lifetime. Some countries don’t exist anymore whilst others have come into existence. But it takes a map visualisation to make you realise just how much the map of Europe has changed.
Actually, it takes two map visualisations. The first, courtesy of the BBC, dates from 2005 and covers the years between 1900 and 1994. Starting wit Imperial Europe and fast forwarding though two world wars, plus the Cold War and taking in the collapse of the Communist Bloc and the expansion of the European Union.
The other map takes a much wider view, ranging from 1000 AD to the present day. It’s oddly fascinating to watch the Holy Roman and Byzantine Empires go from dominance to vanishing entirely.
But the purist in me finds as much to dislike as to like in both of these maps. The BBC one is just two small and cries out for the ability to pan and zoom the map. For some unexplained reason, the map is … tiny and, though I hesitate to use the word in this content, the cartographer has obviously been experimenting with differing shades of colour to try and clearly delineate the countries but didn’t experiment hard enough.
The LiveLeak map is also small and while the video containing the map can be enlarged to full screen, there’s a loss of crispness to the map. For a map with such a wide timespan, it would have helped massively to have some kind of timeline accompanying the animation, so you can see just where in history you are.
Two maps. Both interesting. Both, for me, ultimately flawed. This sort of map just cries out to be reworked. If only I could find a suitable boundary data set spanning over a thousand years. | <urn:uuid:cb787944-e323-49f3-a76e-c0b817093608> | {
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The significance of activities such as Incident Response planning and Digital Forensics may for many seem only relevant for organisations that work in the most security conscious sectors. However, I believe that a rounded appreciation of good cybersecurity practices is valuable, if not critical, for all organisations. It is important that, in any size or type of organisation, if a security incident should occur, those charged with responding and investigating are prepared to follow a structured, effective and informed process.
Spending a small amount of time thinking through how well an IT environment’s configuration and security controls may support a forensics exercise, in the event that an organisation suffers a breach, can have a significant impact on the cost and disruption experienced when one actually does occur. Being prepared could be the deciding factor for the subsequent longevity of an organisation or individuals within it.
Both physical and digital forensics have the same fundamental goal - to prove exactly what happened during a given event period, and to attribute actions to a specific individual, allowing effective and appropriate response. They both rely on the acquisition and analysis of data in a timely fashion, and in a manner that allows the provenance of the data to be confirmed.
There are many proposed methodologies for digital forensics, but generally, they can be condensed into the same five steps:
Gather human intelligence
Clarify the time and date boundaries
A modern network generates thousands of events every minute, which means that, before undertaking any investigative action, it is important to narrow down where to look.
Find out who is involved
The crux of any investigation, this requires detailed questioning of those who reported the event. Questions such as: 'When did you first spot it; how long was it a problem/did it go on for; is it still happening; who is involved?'
Ascertain which machines are affected
You can identify from the users which machines have been affected. However, this may not represent the only area that needs investigation – remain open minded.
Identify what actions have been taken since the discovery
In any digital forensic investigation, once you interact with the environment it automatically changes and the evidence is altered. It is important to understand what actions people have taken (or tried to take) and work from that point.
Be prepared to eliminate ‘false positives’. Disproving facts with evidence is equally as useful as proving a theory during an investigation.
Plan your approach
Prioritise your targets
In a digital environment events happen very quickly. Identify and prioritise the areas where you can get valuable evidence; working from the most volatile environment, to the most stable.
Keep it legal
Ensure that legal guidelines are followed. If you don’t follow procedure, evidence may be inadmissible in a court of law, should the need arise.
Allocate resources and skillsets
Ascertain whether you have the right people to conduct the investigation. You will need experts for your hardware and software configurations to ensure that valuable evidence is not inadvertently compromised. External agents could provide an unbiased alternative.
Balance value against cost
There is a cost associated with any work, and so a sanity check is vital. Balancing the proportional effort, cost and risk to the business is essential.
Document and sign your evidence
Everything that is captured must be documented exactly, dated and signed because as evidence is touched, it is immediately changed. This ensures that a clear audit path is kept.
Capturing the data
Any work carried out on data should be on copies only, always preserving the integrity of the original data. Keeping a strong chain of custody ensures that the master copy is kept intact and remains the ultimate reference point.
Use cryptographically verifiable data
When data is captured and recorded it will always have a ‘hash’ - its unique identification number. Any copies taken will also have the same hash reference.
Analyse the evidence
Make a timeline of events
Data from multiple sources may have different time stamps, by compiling the data together you can build a complete picture. Matching the evidence over the time period also helps to identify corroborating evidence.
Analyse the data
From the timeline of events it is important to work systematically, hypothesising and running tests to prove/disprove any theories. Additional corroborating evidence may be required.
Report on your findings
At the end of the investigation your report needs to be understandable and contain only defensible data. The report will need to explain findings that make sense to non-technical people. The report must be factual, presenting data, dates and events that have happened, and it must be impartial.
As well as the summary report it is also important that all relevant data is compiled in an additional appendix. For serious cases, investigative experts will need to review the data to corroborate the facts that you have presented.
By following these five steps your digital forensic investigation and subsequent report is more likely to meet the stringent requirements of courts and industrial tribunals, and provide valuable information to the business and people affected.
Chris Cassell at Becrypt
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Photo: Anna Barr © California Academy of Sciences
To celebrate ‘Tis the Season for Science at the California Academy of Sciences, seasonal animal behavior and adaptation information is on display throughout the museum. In the Naturalist Center, we are showcasing the amazing migration of the monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus). The population found east of the Rocky Mountains migrate up to three thousand miles south to overwintering sites in central Mexico. Monarch butterflies that live west of the Rocky Mountains spend the winter in the coastal forests of California. Although some butterflies live long enough to complete the annual migration cycle, most of the monarchs heading south are navigating to the winter roosts without having been there before! How they are able to navigate remains a mystery and scientists continue to research this amazing behavior.
You can visit the Naturalist Center to learn more about the monarch butterfly life cycle, migration patterns and current conservation efforts. Throughout the winter at the Naturalist Center, specimens will be on display and monarch butterfly-themed games and resources will be available. You can also take part in the following activities:
- Make a monarch butterfly using printed origami paper and add it to one of our winter roosting areas!
- Learn about “monarch waystation” gardens and how you can help monarch butterflies thrive throughout the year by ensuring host plants like milkweed species are abundant.
- On Thursdays at 11:30 a.m. join us for Specimen Spotlight to learn more about the butterfly life cycle, behavior and migration patterns. Get a close-up view of butterfly wings! | <urn:uuid:ab7d48ef-d311-43fd-9fdc-41b19235b6de> | {
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Deep Learning/Machine Learning (General): Companies that build computer algorithms that operate based on their learnings from existing data. Examples include predictive data models and software platforms that analyze behavioral data.
Deep Learning/Machine Learning (Applications): Companies that utilize computer algorithms that operate based on existing data in vertically specific use cases. Examples include using machine learning technology to detect banking fraud or to identify the top retail leads.
Natural Language Processing (General): Companies that build algorithms that process human language input and convert it into understandable representations. Examples include automated narrative generation and mining text into data.
Natural Language Processing (Speech Recognition): Companies that process sound clips of human speech, identify the exact words, and derive meaning from them. Examples include software that detects voice commands and translates them into actionable data.
Computer Vision/Image Recognition (General): Companies that build technology that process and analyze images to derive information and recognize objects from them. Examples include visual search platforms and image tagging APIs for developers.
Computer Vision/Image Recognition (Applications): Companies that utilize technology that process images in vertically specific use cases. Examples include software that recognizes faces or enables one to search for a retail item by taking a picture.
Gesture Control: Companies that enable one to interact and communicate with computers through their gestures. | <urn:uuid:40ed6dad-75c1-46e5-84e2-e72d41f39de2> | {
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The allure of cacao and the lure of its profits have been felt throughout its history, from Mesoamerica to modern day. It is the drink of royalty, the food of the common people, and the foundation of economies and personal fortunes. Cocoa and chocolate are a part of everyday life for many people across countries, and the marketing and advertising world has not only made a note of this, they have made it part of their portfolio. From healthy chocolate to over the counter medication, from incredibly expensive artisan chocolate to inexpensive treats, and from body spray to diamonds, chocolate is everywhere when you simply pay attention. How has it become so prevalent? The marketing of chocolate over the years is one of the main reasons chocolate is as omnipresent as it is today. In the United States specifically, chocolate’s historical and problematic advertising practices, including sexism, classism, racism, and the over sexualization of women are so integrated into the country’s consumer consciousness that these patterns are now being remixed, recycled and regurgitated by companies looking to profit from the universal appeal of chocolate with an added dash of nostalgia. By involving chocolate in some form, manufacturers and advertisers are trying to add a level of comfort, luxury and value that is inferred by the general public, even when it is wrapped in a not so attractive package.
By connecting chocolate advertising to other long standing advertising devices, such as body image, weight issues and general health, new products and companies build marketing strategies around patterns familiar to the general public. ‘Healthy’ chocolate overlaps body image, weight control and the desire for chocolate. The addition of marketing buzz words like ‘superfoods’ and ‘phytonutrients’ increase the common person’s buy in that this product is good for you, even though the fine print usually says that none of the health claims are verified by the Food and Drug Administration. Companies selling ‘healthy’ chocolate such as Aloha Chocolate (https://aloha.com/shop/superfood-chocolate), and Xoçai (http://xocai.xocaistore.com) have appeared in the marketplace to fill the created niche. Both products’ marketing says that their chocolate is high in antioxidants, low in sugar, and nutritious. The flip side of ‘healthy’ chocolate coin is chocolate for health, products that use chocolate as a vehicle for supplements or over the counter medicines. Mars, Inc. has created the CocoaVia® cocoa extract supplements through the Mars Symbioscience (http://www.marssymbioscience.com/about-us) company segment that creates consumer products based on ideas generate throughout Mars, Inc. CocoaVia® was created from an idea that came from research done by the Mars Center for Cocoa Health Science (http://www.marscocoascience.com/). The website (http://www.cocoavia.com) fills a lot of space on each page about how cocoa flavenols are good for you and how a new patented cocoa extract process preserves and provides the most flavenols for the supplement. All of the ‘healthy’ chocolate and chocolate for health brands mentioned reflect the inherent classism present in chocolate advertising, because the products would be too expensive for the lower class, and even some middle class consumers would have to choose between spending extra funds on them instead of other essential and non-essential items.
Another chocolate for health product is Dr. Cocoa®, a line of over the counter children’s cough and cold medications launched in 2014. The company uses the ingredient real cocoa as a method to get children to take medication, taking a page from the book of a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down. The FDA approved medications have been combined with 10% real cocoa and other ingredients for a “rich, soothing, chocolate taste” (http://drcocoa.com/about/).
The cute packaging with the cartoon owl is reminiscent of animated cocoa and chocolate candy advertisements. The product does not make any statements that the real cocoa adds health benefits, just flavor.
Inedible products are also tapping into chocolate’s fountain of appeal. One of the most expensive products in this category has candy coated an unpalatable gemstone color with a layer of much more appealing chocolate. Brown diamonds, which are “the most widespread colored diamonds. They were used only a few years ago almost exclusively for industrial purposes, now they are invading the [gem] market” (MinBlog) have entered the marketplace on a wave of glossy chocolate. Brown diamonds are classified by their color, which ranges from the lightest shade of brown, champagne, to the darkest shade, coffee.
The most well-known purveyor of brown diamonds, the Le Vian® Corporation, “branded Chocolate Diamonds® in 2000 and achieved registration by 2008 and now enjoys worldwide trademark registration and rights” (Stewart). Le Vian® has bound together in the minds of consumers the two products and made them much more marketable to the public, even though the gems themselves have not increased significantly in value. As seen in the below commercial “the Kiss”, Le Vian® has put forward that the gift of a Chocolate Diamond® is the way to a woman’s…heart.
The commercial recycles some of the most sexist tropes of chocolate advertising. The way the woman’s libido is fired by the chocolate (diamonds), and the way that, after she kisses her man, her lips are coated to overflowing in dark, luscious chocolate, are both repetitive themes in chocolate advertising. The implication that a woman and her favors can be bought with some form of chocolate is something that we have all seen before. Jewelry stores that carry the line, however, have been moving away from the ‘he bought her’ framework and have created marketing specifically around women buying their own jewelry. These new commercials, however, continue the ‘women can’t resist chocolate’ and ‘buy yourself a nonfattening treat’ tropes. Again, the pricing of the jewelry is out of range for many people, and the commercials feature predominantly white customers, with the only people of color presented as the sales people.
The inescapable advertising of chocolate in the U.S. has set up a rocky foundation for other commodities to build on. As the consumer public provides feedback to chocolate companies that their advertising is problematic, whether its from issues of race, gender, class, etc., the tropes just move on to the next product campaign. Are the same companies or individuals responsible for the repurposing of old ideas? What are the policies involved, if any, in the reinforcement of negative media images of women and people of color? Or is any publicity is good publicity the modus operandi? Future research into the marketing companies who help create the campaigns needs to be done.
Carla Martin. AAAS E-119. Chocolate, Culture, and the Politics of Food. Lecture 9. “Issues in Advertisement”. April 1, 2015.
Coe, Sophie D., and Michael D. Coe. The True History of Chocolate. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1996. Print.
N/A “Color in Diamonds.” MinBlog, the blog of the Mineral Sciences staff of the National History Museum of Los Angeles County. 21 Jan 2013. Web. 15 May 2015 http://nhminsci.blogspot.com/2013/01/color-in-diamonds.html
Stewart, Dodai. “The Truth About Chocolate Diamonds.” Jezebel. 13 Feb 2013. Web. 15 May 2015. http://jezebel.com/the-truth-about-chocolate-diamonds-5887100
Le Vian®. “Kiss” TV Commercial. YouTube. 01 Oct 2013. Web. 15 May 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_fT1ZCln2Q
Cover photo. Dr.Cocoa Facebook page. 26 Feb 2014. Web. 16 May 2015 https://scontent-lga.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xtp1/v/t1.0-9/1924806_830680147003397_2927372854384106797_n.jpg?oh=00f7b21b29b97857d1504e322e96c59c&oe=55C1FCA2
Picture 2 “Color in Diamonds.” MinBlog, the blog of the Mineral Sciences staff of the National History Museum of Los Angeles County. 21 Jan 2013. Web. 15 May 2015 http://nhminsci.blogspot.com/2013/01/color-in-diamonds.html | <urn:uuid:10a00ee6-a44a-416e-8e13-8ba3d90eb2ce> | {
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EPA rolls back Obama-era plan limiting coal-fired power plant emissions
The Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday said states can set their own carbon emissions standards for coal-fired power plants -- a rule that the agency itself says could result in 1,400 more premature deaths by 2030 than the Obama-era plan it will replace.
The move fulfills part of President Donald Trump's promise to help the coal industry, but will likely face court challenges from environmental groups and several states who see the rollback as detrimental to clean air and efforts to fight the climate crisis.
Former President Barack Obama's plan, if implemented, would have prevented 3,600 premature deaths a year, 1,700 heart attacks and 90,000 asthma attacks, according to analysis conducted by the EPA under his tenure.
The Obama Clean Power Plan was set to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, which contribute to the climate crisis, by up to 32% compared to 2005 levels by the same year.
In an initial announcement about the proposal last summer, the Trump EPA labeled Obama's plan as "overly prescriptive and burdensome." Instead, the administration says the plan rule "instead empowers states, promotes energy independence, and facilitates economic growth and job creation," the release states.
EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler said at the time the Obama Clean Power Plan "exceeded the agency's legal authority" and he argued that the old regulations led to rising energy prices, which have "hurt low- and middle-income Americans the most."
Obama's Clean Power Plan was challenged by several lawsuits from industry groups and conservative-led states. In 2016, the Supreme Court blocked the regulation, but some plants had already started to work on reducing pollution.
The new plan, which EPA is calling the Affordable Clean Energy rule, is designed to boost the struggling coal industry but also likely increase carbon emissions nationwide. EPA argues that any comparison to the Obama rule is incongruous because it was never implemented.
But it's unclear how much the industry can benefit, as it faces competition from cheap natural gas and renewable sources. US coal consumption has plunged 39% to the lowest level in 40 years, according to the US Energy Information Administration.
At a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing last week about the direction of the EPA, former EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy -- who finalized the Clean Power Plan under Obama -- said she believes the proposed Affordable Clean Energy rule, as well as other proposed rules the agency has made since Trump took office, undermines "the science and the law in how they're trying to roll back those rules."
"I do not dispute any administration coming in with different policies, but the challenge I think we're facing is they are really changing the rules of the road and not using sound science," McCarthy said. "They are not looking at cost benefits. They are trying to inflate the cost and lower the benefits in order to justify rules that simply don't make sense under the law."
The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2019 Cable News Network, Inc., a Time Warner Company. All rights reserved. | <urn:uuid:71c2d6ad-f8b0-4f15-80ef-bf7606c8f69a> | {
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Antidepressants May Be Helpful for Some Heart Patients: Study
TUESDAY, May 21 -- Use of the antidepressant Lexapro appears to help prevent a potentially serious stress-related heart condition, a new study finds.
The condition is known as known as "mental stress-induced myocardial ischemia." Although people with this condition may not develop noticeable symptoms, their heart muscle is not receiving adequate blood supply, according to researchers from Duke University School of Medicine in Durham, N.C.
However, the researchers found that people taking the antidepressant Lexapro (escitalopram) were more than two and a half times less likely to be affected by the condition, which can be spurred by emotional stress.
The study was funded by the U.S. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and is published in the May 22 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
"Mental stress-induced myocardial ischemia is a serious condition, as patients with the condition tend to have worse heart problems compared to patients without it," study author Dr. Wei Jiang, an associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and internal medicine at Duke, said in a university news release. "This study showed for the first time that it is treatable with an emotion-modulating medication."
The study involved 310 people diagnosed with heart disease whose condition was stable and under control. To identify those with the stress-linked heart condition, the researchers first had participants undergo exercise stress tests on a treadmill. They also had to complete three mental stress tests: First they had to solve a difficult math problem, then trace a star while looking at their hand movements in a mirror, and then tell a story that made them feel sad or angry.
As the participants performed these tasks, they underwent echocardiograms and electrocardiograms, and had readings taken of blood pressure and heart rate.
According to Jiang's team, 127 of the patients developed stress-related heart issues. These patients were assigned to take either Lexapro, a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) that's commonly used to treat depression and anxiety, or a placebo pill.
After six weeks, the participants retook the stress tests and had their heart function re-assessed. Of the original 127, 112 completed the study. The researchers found those who took the antidepressant drug were nearly three times less likely to develop stress-linked cardiovascular trouble during the mental stress tests compared to those taking placebo.
Patients taking Lexapro also tended to have healthy changes in heart function and they reported feeling calmer and more controlled than the placebo group.
"Our findings support the hypothesis that short-term use of SSRIs improves levels of biomarkers associated with adverse cardiovascular outcomes," explained Jiang. Other SSRIs include Celexa, Paxil, Prozac and Zoloft.
The researchers concluded that SSRIs or other antidepressant treatments could help manage heart disease. They noted that more research is needed to determine the proper dosing of Lexapro for the treatment of stress-linked heart issues and to better understand how antidepressant drugs could also affect patients' risk for serious health conditions, including heart attack or angina, stroke, heart failure, or death.
Two experts said the study findings weren't surprising, given emotional stress' known role in cardiovascular woes.
"We have known that heart disease symptoms can occur from more than just physical stress like exercise, but also emotional stress as well," said Dr. Lawrence Phillips, an assistant professor of medicine in the division of cardiology at NYU Langone Medical Center, New York City. "This study demonstrates that medication therapy to reduce emotional stress can decrease the risk of heart damage."
In fact, "when speaking to patients about a symptom of chest pain, physicians will typically ask them if the chest pain is brought on by exercise or by emotional stress," Phillips added. "Many of the interventions we work on address the physical stress portion. This study reminds us of the importance of treating the emotional stress and treating the patient as a whole."
Dr. Suzanne Steinbaum is a preventive cardiologist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. She agreed that emotional stressors are a piece of the puzzle in treating heart patients.
"With this data, it is important to evaluate patients for anxiety, depression and mental stress as part of the heart health paradigm, as not treating these psychological markers may worsen their disease," she said.
The U.S. National Institute of Mental Health provides more information on the link between depression and heart disease.
Posted: May 2013 | <urn:uuid:3df15fc2-b77b-4d41-a400-21a90b37f3be> | {
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Courtesy uscgd8 Chemicals known as dispersants are now being used against the ever increasing amount of oil leaking out of a deep water well head. Dispersants help break the larger masses of oil into smaller droplets which will mix into the water. These dispersants are being sprayed onto the surface slicks and are also being injected directly into the oil flowing out almost a mile under the surface.
Officials said that in two tests, that method appeared to be keeping crude oil from rising to the surface. They said that the procedure could be used more frequently once evaluations of its impact on the deepwater ecology were completed. New York Times
Dispersant chemicals contain solvents to assist it in dissolving into and throughout the oil mass and a surfactant which acts like soap. Surfactant molecules have one end that sticks to water and one end that sticks to oil. This, along with wave action, breaks masses of oil into droplets small enough that they stay suspended under water, rather than floating back to the surface.
Such cleanup products can only be used by public authorities responding to an emergency if they are individually listed on the National Contingency Plan Product Schedule.
Many of the first dispersants used in the 70s and 80s did show high toxicity to marine organisms. However, today there is a wealth of laboratory data indicating that modern dispersants and oil/dispersant mixtures exhibit relatively low toxicity to marine organisms.
On occasions the benefit gained by using dispersants to protect coastal amenities, sea birds and intertidal marine life may far outweigh disadvantages such as the potential for temporary tainting of fish stocks. ITOPF
Here is a link to one product on their list (Oil Gone Easy Marine S200
According to National Geographic News, "Dispersants only alter the destination of the toxic compounds in the oil." Moving the oil off the surface protects the birds and animals along the shoreline but will increase the oil exposure for fish, shrimp, corals, and oysters. I hate to mention what hurricanes will do to this situation.
Courtesy Camera Slayer Awesome Fourth of July fireworks can be viewed from our Science Museum of Minnesota each year during the Taste of Minnesota celebration. Fireworks are often shot over water to minimize fire danger. Ever wonder what kind of chemicals rain down into the Mississippi River during a fireworks display?
Part of learning chemistry is to understand what is called the flame test. Unknown chemical compounds, when heated in a flame, will generate different colors. Lithium yields red, copper gives blue or blue-green, sodium gives yellow, aluminum and titanium produce the whites.
Chemists are attempting to make fireworks less harmful to the environment.
Perchlorates, which are used to help the fireworks’ fuel burn, were named in an EPA health advisory earlier this year (which recommended a maximum of 15 micrograms per liter of drinking water), as they have been linked to disruption of the thyroid gland.Scientific American
A 2007 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) study found that perchlorates spiked by up to 1000 times normal after the fireworks display and took 20 to 80 days to return to normal depending on surface temperatures.
Click this link where Live Science explains some of the strange ingredients in fireworks like:
"chemists add bismuth trioxide to the flash powder to get that crackling sound, dubbed "dragon eggs." Ear-splitting whistles take four ingredients, including a food preservative and Vaseline.
Tubes, hollow spheres, and paper wrappings work as barriers to compartmentalize the effects. More complicated shells are divided into even more sections to control the timing of secondary explosions. | <urn:uuid:201eeedc-9659-447c-a506-3dbae9d17965> | {
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Around the world, governmental efforts to combat intolerance and racial hatred are on the rise. For several years now, countries of the European Union have been working out ways of complying with regional laws that require antiracist measures.
In Sweden this January, Prime Minister Göran Persson hosted 53 national delegations at the Stockholm International Forum: Combating Intolerance. These and other efforts culminate in Durban, South Africa, next August, when the countries of the United Nations gather for a long-awaited "world conference" on hate.
Still, hatred spreads. In the United States, Europe and beyond, dangerous currents of ethnic nationalism are continuing to swell. With Americans and others facing a likely economic downturn, the future may hold even worse.
Relatively tiny Sweden — known for decades for its good-natured tolerance and open-mindedness — is a good example. A number of racist murders have shaken the country in recent years, and young right-wing radicals have shocked its citizenry with large neo-Nazi rallies.
More than 12% of Swedish youths at least occasionally listen to racist "hatecore" music. Even as these facts were discussed at the Stockholm gathering, the Swedish prime minister announced that he had sickening news — a 15-year-old black boy had just been murdered in nearby Norway, allegedly by six neo-Nazis.
"We see an alarming rise in right-wing extremism throughout Europe," Prime Minister Persson told the assembled delegates. "All of us have to heed the warning."
Nationalism in America
That is certainly true of the United States, too.
As reported in this issue of the Intelligence Report, the number of hate groups operating in the United States climbed by approximately 10% to more than 600 last year, and the number of hate sites on the Internet jumped 20% to 366.
These increases were fueled by the recruiting power of racist music; the rapidly rising popularity of racist forms of neo-Paganism, especially Odinism; and the growth of white, black and anti-immigrant ethnic nationalism around the country.
Several versions of this ethnic nationalism are detailed in this issue and in other, recent editions of the Intelligence Report. One of the most pervasive is that brand of racist white nationalism exhibited by a number of "pro-South" hate groups like the neo-Confederate League of the South.
Such views now also appear to be leaking into mainstream groups like the historically apolitical Sons of Confederate Veterans, which recently added a notorious white supremacist to its ruling council.
High levels of non-white immigration and the predicted loss of a white majority in America sometime after 2050 also have fueled nativist sentiment. This issue's cover story explains how groups on the radical right have increasingly taken up the issue of immigration, and suggests that vigilante violence will increase if the economy sours.
'Our Children's Future'
How will the world deal with these phenomena?
As has happened elsewhere in recent years, the issue of legislation aimed at "hate propaganda" split the Stockholm conference. The American delegation — of which I was a part as a representative of the Southern Poverty Law Center — was united in its opposition to laws criminalizing hate speech on the Internet and denial of the Holocaust.
Most other countries around the world clearly favored such measures, seeing the Americans as naïvely attached to the First Amendment.
That the problem of spreading right-wing extremism is real, however, was not seriously disputed.
"I think we should look at this very seriously," Swedish extremism expert Mattias Gardell told the Intelligence Report. "Even though some of this stuff looks very bizarre — why pay attention to people who believe in old gods like Thor and Odin or UFO cults or Hitler being alive inside the hollow earth or this whole New Age concept? — it still has a lot of potential.
"A return to fascism would not come in the same way today. But I think we need to watch this scene carefully, even if it is not a direct threat to American or European democracy today."
Quoting Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, Prime Minister Persson voiced similar worries. "Will our past," he wondered, "become our children's future?" | <urn:uuid:9193cee0-9411-4c6c-ac3f-d48e39bf4d8f> | {
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Education is important, no matter when you live in the world. But not every country shares the same views and lessons. In the western world, we often assume that our education system is the best. However, according to research and data, that may be far from the truth.
According to investigations and findings, East Asian countries continue to outperform other nations around the world. As South Korea tops the rank, Japan follows as second, with Singapore following close by. All these systems have been shown to provide clear learning outcomes with a high culture of engagement and accountability.
In this article, we’ve narrowed down the top 6 countries with the best education systems in the world.
1. South Korea
As South Korean and Japan were hard competition to rank 1st place, South Korea has a literacy rate of 97.9%. Did you know that children often attend school seven days a week? During the Japanese occupation, South Koreans were not allowed to attend secondary school.
After the Japanese left, almost 80% of the population were illiterate. Once South Korea was able to create their educational system, their exams became strict as students were known to study for longer hours than any other country in the world.
The pressure provided more opportunities for the future as South Korea spends on education. However, families are often known to add an additional 15% to private tutoring as well as courses during the weekend.
Japan is considered as one of the top performing countries in literature, science, and mathematics. Children go through six years at the elementary level, three years of junior high school and another three years of high school before college.
The education system of Japan has focused on the preparation of students for their involvement in future work and society. Japan’s culture drives more people to perform well and achieve to their best abilities.
The curriculum in Japan is famous for being dense as students learn about worldly cultures in details. The science and mathematics program are also demanding as the curriculum focuses on skill-based techniques on how to do something and why it works.
With only fifty years of independent existence, Singapore has created three distinct forms of education to become one of the top educational systems in the world. With the desire to improve literacy, Singapore tracked students in ability groups and focuses on teaching one learning level at a time.
Teachers also focused on learning the conceptual material. Sports and arts were also introduced into the school system where teacher development increased in funds by 2008.
Singapore also scores high in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), which aims to compare and measure the overall performance of students from around the world. The school system is also known to put students under pressure at a young age – which is often frowned upon in other countries.
4. Hong Kong
As nearly the same form of education management as the UK, Hong Kong has grown into a major player in school quality. The city started to focus more on providing education to its people than cheap labor. Secondary and high education also become universal around the town as the shift to high-level thinking skills started back in the 90s.
In 2000, Finland topped the PISA results. However, the Ministry of Education was forced to create an entire unit to helping international students in their demands to understanding the Finnish educational system better.
The teacher education and autonomy because the cornerstones of Finland as schools were allowed choose their textbooks, books, and curriculum materials. As required, teachers must have a master’s degree. Due to the extent of their training and preparation, students are allowed the freedom to create their classroom environment.
In Canada, there is not a lot of difference in the performance of racial, socioeconomic, and ethnic statuses of students. Those who are also in densely populated provinces also had strong results.
The education system in Canada is considered decentralized as each territory has full power and control their curriculum. However, the regions use other models as benchmarks when creating new material. French and English are the primary levels regarding interacting in the classroom. The literacy rate in Canada is no less than 99%.
Do you live in any of the top countries with the best education systems? Comment below and share your opinions with us! | <urn:uuid:858ee9d3-8b0a-48ab-ad5b-b8b0379019f2> | {
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Bovine Serum Albumin antibody detects BSA. Serum albumin is the main protein of plasma. It has a good binding capacity for water, Ca2+, Na+, K+, fatty acids, hormones, bilirubin and drugs. Its main function is the regulation of the colloidal osmotic pressure of blood. ALB is the major zinc transporter in plasma; it typically binds about 80% of all plasma zinc. BSA antibody is ideal for investigators involved in Cell Signaling, Neuroscience and Signal Transduction research.
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Close to the Wignacourt lies St Paul’s Grotto, one of Christianity’s most sacred locations.
As legend has it, when St Paul was travelling from Crete to Rome to be put on trial in front of Julius Ceasar, his ship wrecked just off the Maltese coast, and the series of events that followed his famous shipwreck have been hailed as probably the most crucial and altering to the island’s destiny.
Although St Paul was offered luxurious lodgings by the governor of Malta after he had healed the latter’s father, St Paul refused and chose to make this grotto his lodgings. From here he preached the word of God and gave Malta its Catholic religion. So strong was St Paul’s influence that governor Publius would later become Malta’s first bishop and a saint himself.
For this reason, the Grotto has become a sacred location to which many pilgrims and influential people venture. Amongst the most important, it visitors have included Pope John Paul II, Pope Benedict, Fabio Chigi (who would later become Pope Alexander VII) and Admiral Lord Nelson.
There was one visitor in particular, however, who turned the grotto into an international place of pilgrimage. In 1600, hermit Juan Beneguas Da Cardova moved to Malta from Spain and acquired the land just above the grotto. He used it as the base from where he promoted his devotion for St Paul, resulting in the establishment of the cult of St Paul. A mere 10 years later, the Rabat Parish Church officially handed over the Grotto to him, but by 1617 he passed it over into the care of Order of the Knights of St John who had had their eye on it, both for its religious significance as well as for its political implications.
The Grandmaster at the time, Alof De Wignacourt, saw it of vital importance to build a college on the land above for the Chapter of Canons of the Collegiate of the Grotto of St Paul, also known as the Chaplains of the Order. These Chaplains’ mission was to promote devotion towards St Paul and to take care of the Grotto day and night. This was pivotal to showcase the importance of the site and the power the Order commanded.
Apart from its intricate history and religious significance, the Grotto boasts a statue donated by Grand Master Pinto in 1748 and a silver vessel donated by the Order in 1960 to commemorate 1900 years since St Paul’s shipwreck.
For more information on the Wignacourt Museum and the St Paul’s Grotto, you can contact us on +356 2749 4905 or at [email protected] | <urn:uuid:e770d5e9-f6b6-4d05-991a-f0511081efc5> | {
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We teach kids about seat-belt safety, and to stop, drop, and roll in case of fire.
We teach them about the dangers of drug and alcohol use and about safer-sex practices.
Yet we often do not address one of the leading causes of death among teens: suicide.
Suicide Fact vs. Fiction
There are many questions surrounding youth suicide. Some commonly asked questions help to separate fact from fiction.
Risk Factors and Warning Signs
Listen and look for risk factors and warning signs for suicidal behavior.
If the Worst Happens, What Can Be Done?
Even though youth suicide is a rare event, it does happen. How should a school and community respond?
Lifelines: A Suicide Prevention Program
Lifelines Intervention: Helping Students at Risk for Suicide
Lifelines Postvention: Responding to Suicide and Other Traumatic Death
Drug Abuse Prevention Intervention Research Grant:
The purpose of this grant is to encourage applications from institutions/organizations that propose to advance the science of drug abuse prevention. Learn more
Bullying in U.S. Schools: 2012 Status Report
Download your free copy of this informative report here! | <urn:uuid:1f992321-e319-4871-95b9-57181e1ee464> | {
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A Gaian Paradigm: Speculation on the Future
William N. Ellis
SECTION I: THE ORIGIN
Chapter 1 About Gaia
Chapter 2 Governance
Chapter 3 Lifelong Learning
Chapter 4 Gaian Religion
Chapter 5 Gaian Creed
Chapter 6 Other Paths to a Gaian Paradigm
SECTION II: GAIAN CULTURES
Chapter 7 Gaian Ecology
Chapter 8 Gaian Energy
Chapter 9 Corporate Economics
Chapter 10 Alternatives to Economics
Chapter 11 Gaian Food System
Chapter 12 Gaian Habitat
Chapter 13 Gaian Health
SECTION III: GETTING THERE
Chapter 14 Social Revolutions
Chapter 15 People
Chapter 16 Community Global Governance
Chapter 17 Lifelong Learning
Chapter 18 Gaian Learning
Chapter 19 Alternatives to Education
Chapter 20 Learning Alternatives
Chapter 21 Esoteric Paths to the Gaian Future
SECTION I:ABOUT GAIA
The core of this book is about Gaia (Earth and all of its life-forms, including all humans). Gaia is a unity and evolves as a unit. Each component of Gaia, including each human, is tightly linked and is interdependent with every other component. This unity of Gaia replaces the autonomy and independence of each unit of Gaia that is the basis of our current cultures. There are some basic themes in this book that may not be obvious on the surface, so I’ll outline them here.
The first and most basic theme is that all humans are shaped more by nurture (their culture) than by nature (their genes); see the review of Mary Clark’s book in chapter 14. Each of us absorbs as true and immutable values and concepts—whatever comes from our families, friends, schools, and society. That is called a paradigm or a worldview. We seldom challenge the paradigm but live within its totems and taboos without thinking.
A second basic tenet of this book is that life is good. It is an optimistic understanding that there is no evil. No person sets out to harm others or damage the world without cause. We have no enemies but only people we don’t understand. Our purpose in life, like the purpose of the system in which we belong, should be to try to understand the motives of even those who seem most evil in their understanding or paradigm. Their goal, like our own, is to improve themselves by improving the other members of groups to which they belong. We need to search and create a common ground in which all humans can live in mutual support and harmony.
The third theme is democracy. The concept of Gaia gives a whole new foundation for the future. The Earth and a life on Earth, including every human being, are closely linked and interdependent. Relevant to this concept of Gaia are the new technologies that connect us in real time in all parts of the world. These make possible a new direct democracy in which all people have the ability to have a voice in every decision that has an effect on their lives.
It is not important for the reader to accept these themes. It is far less important that the reader accept any of the proposed solutions, ideas, or speculations that are in this book. I do hope that this book will stretch your mind to recognize that there are different ways to view the world, to have the courage to express your own views, and to take action to bring them to fruition.
This first section will introduce the basic concepts of social change based on the hard sciences. Section II will go into more details and speculations on positive Gaian cultures. And Section III will emphasize some of the social innovations now in place that empower people at the grass roots and promote local community self-reliance—Gaia.
CHAPTER 1: THE FOUNDATION
For some two thousand years or more, civilization has been ruled by a social paradigm on which all aspects of the Euro American cultures are based—the dominator paradigm. In the past two decades, a new social paradigm has been emerging that could have the most deep fundamental impact on human civilization since hominids first came down from the trees. The old paradigm placed humans in a purposeful universe created by some supernatural power for the domination and use of man (and I do mean “man”). The new paradigm we’ll call a Gaian paradigm suggests a spontaneously self-organizing universe in which humanity is but one of the created interdependent webs of being.
THE DOMINATOR PARADIGM
The dominator paradigm has had a long evolution. It grew from the Jewish creation myth that holds that Earth was created for the use of and domination of man. It was strengthened by Greek philosophy with its postulate that “Man is the measure of all things.” The early Christian church held that a “great chain of being” puts man at the top of a hierarchy with only a few celestial beings above. Below man, on descending rungs, were women, children, other races, animals, plants, and Earth. Each is there to serve and be dominated by those on the rungs above. This dominator paradigm was stamped in the minds of Europe by the thousand-year Inquisition that burned some one million people, mostly women, at the stake for believing in Earth or nature as our creator. It was spread east by the Crusades that destroyed “infidel” humans, cities, and nations. It was spread globally by the Age of Colonization and Discovery. It was perpetuated and made worldwide by the sword (technology), the cross (Christianity), and the flag (nationalism). Newton’s clockwork concept of the cosmos and Darwin’s theory of evolution were interpreted to “prove” the validity of the dominator paradigm. It was fixed in our moral secular system with the acceptance of Adam Smith’s economic theory that claims that human self-interest, competition, and materialism should, and do, dictate all human actions. This abomination as the essence of humanity now rules the world. It was the fundamental cause of the 2008–09 economic breakdown.
A GAIAN PARADIGM
The new Gaian paradigm not only has many roots but can be, and is becoming, the underpinning of a new global network of cultures replacing the now dominant and domineering man-centered industrial cultures. The new cultures will, like all cultures, be a holistic unified coherence of interdependent components—religion, economics, social, art, and others. The emergence of a Gaian paradigm is resulting in a deep fundamental transition of our worldview, our social institutions, and our lifestyles. The need for this transition is being made obvious by the growing number of dangers inherent in industrialism. And the transition is happening, and being made real, with the introduction of many positive and creative social innovations. President Obama’s cry for change hit on a very responsive audience, but it is not only in politics that change is needed.
This millennium is being looked upon as a time of radical, deep, and fundamental economic and social transitions. Minds are opening to new ideas. People at the grass roots are looking for new ideas and taking new actions. It is in this spirit of a hopeful, deep, fundamental social transformation that this book was written. These are the concepts we’ll explore in the next few chapters.
FOUNDATIONS FOR A GAIAN PARADIGM
Many basic scientific observations led to this new scientific/social paradigm. The advancement of the Gaia theory, the establishment of chaos and complexity theories, and new concepts of evolution are among them.
Science has come to understand that biological evolution did not progress as Darwin suggested by a series of minute changes that led over time to the emergence of new species. Rather, evolution usually happens in quantum leaps. Major biological changes and new species are created in relatively short periods of time after long periods of stability. This observation was designated by Stephen Jay Gould as “punctuated equilibrium.”
In another thread, James Lovelock, a scientist working for NASA, and Lynn Margulis, a microbiologist, published, in 1974 a paper, Atmospheric Homeostasis By and For the Biosphere: The Gaia Hypothesis.’ It observed that the biosphere of Earth was radically different from all other planets. Lovelock noted that the atmosphere and other properties of planet Earth stays amazingly constant and within ranges that supported life. Lynn Margulis at the same time, was studying the evolution of microorganisms over the billions of years before animals appeared on the face of the Earth. She observed that life-forms are interdependent. Life was able to exist on Earth because of a symbiosis among all life-forms. Everything was interdependent with everything else. Life creates its own biome. Lovelock and Margulis proposed that the whole Earth is a single self-organized, self-supporting ecological system. At the suggestion of a neighbor of Lovelace, William Golding, author of Lord of the Flies, they termed this living Earth system Gaia, after the Greek Earth goddess.
A theoretical understanding of how Gaia, or in fact any system, might spontaneously self-organize, came from other fields of science including mathematics, physics, and, particularly, computer science. Chaos and complexity theories made possible by computer modeling have moved science beyond the limits imposed by linear mathematics, algebra, and calculus. The study of the transition from order into chaos or chaos into order and the formation of complex systems from simpler ones have opened a whole new area for science. Two particular breakthroughs in the field are relevant to the Gaia concepts.
Self-organizing criticality is an idea proposed by Brookhaven National Laboratory physicist Per Bak in How Nature Works (1996). His first computer model representing self-organizing criticality was of a pile of sand. If grains of sand are poured on a spot, they slowly build into a stable inverted cone. As pouring continues, the cone becomes unstable until sand slides and avalanches restore a new larger stable cone. Bak showed that biological evolution occurred in such bursts. Simple entities formed more complex systems, which remain stable until internal pressures build up and cause a rapid reorganization. There seems to be a law of nature, self-organizing criticality, by which new forms come into being.
Autocatalysis, developed by Stuart Kauffman at the Santa Fe Institute, a multidiscipline think tank of scholars in New Mexico, is another concept that provides a theoretical base for the evolution of Gaia. Autocatalysis holds that systems of biological entities may promote their own rapid transition into different forms. Kauffman uses the simple example of the slippery-footed fly and sticky-tongued frog. The mutation of slippery-footedness gave no environmental advantage to the fly until the mutation of the sticky-tongued frog. Only then did Darwin’s survival of the fittest come into play. Networks of potential mutations may develop and remain dormant until triggered by an environmental change or other phenomenon that brings on the avalanche of transition. Autocatalysis, linked with survival of the fittest, explains how complex organs like the eye, or new species, emerge.
Self-organizing criticality and autocatalysis are among the scientific concepts that show how biological entities self-organize in quantumlike leaps from simple cells to linked complex networks of cells, organs, plants, and animals. More than that, physicists like Lee Smolin, the theoretical physicist who wrote The Life of the Cosmos in 1997, and Murray Gell-Mann who won the Nobel Prize for physics in 1969 in The Quark and the Jaguar extended self-organizing back to the beginning of time at the big bang, suggesting that the same principle may apply to the self-organizing of quarks into fundamental particles; particles into atoms; atoms into molecules; and molecules into galaxies, solar systems, planets, and life.
At the same time, at the Santa Fe Institute, economists like Nobel laureate Kenneth Arrow, Brian Arthur, and John Holland have extended the new paradigm in the other direction to include economics, social organization, and human consciousness.
This new scientific/social paradigm suggests that people need no superior divine mandate within a universe created for them. They are not independent of, above, or beyond the natural world in which they are embedded. They do have the unique ability to understand, through science, the laws that govern them; to envision future worlds; and to cocreate those future worlds within the laws of science.
THE NETWORKED UNIVERSE
“Everything is connected to everything else” is one way of stating a Gaian paradigm. It is a fact of science, and it is a social mindset. But it is more than those: it is a fact of technology. Networking was identified in 1982 by John Naisbitt in his best seller book Megatrends as one of the twelve major new trends of the century. As he saw it, it was a social and political trend. It was made possible by the railroad, the automobile, the telegraph, the telephone, and the computer. Each of these technologies made the Earth smaller and put people in more rapid and reliable touch with one another. The real quantum jump in networking is only now before us. Computers and the Internet are providing a challenge that has hardly been explored. Cyberspace is a global phenomenon providing humanity the opportunity to work globally in real time. This takes networking well beyond the concept about which Naisbitt wrote only a few years ago or the concept of transnational networking which was the root of the formation of TRANET, the organization with which I’ve been working since 1976.
The Gaia hypothesis, the theories of chaos and complexity, the Gaian concepts, and the computer technologies that now face us grew independently of one another. But they form a unit. They, in themselves, give an example of the self-organizing principle that shapes all of cosmic evolution. Together they make up a Gaian paradigm. They challenge us to prepare ourselves for an avalanche of social, political, and economic changes in the years ahead. This millennium is evolving radically differently from the man-centered paradigm that has dominated the past two thousand years.
CHAPTER 2: GOVERNANCE
The new scientific theories explain many phenomena of cosmic evolution. They also suggest a new worldview or mindset by which humans can examine current phenomena with respect to their long-range future. Futurists are no longer dependent on examining history and technological trends. In fact, punctuated evolution and self-organizing criticality suggest that new social, as well as physical and biological, phenomena spontaneously self-organize, like an avalanche, unpredictably. We may not be able to foretell the emergence of new phenomena with accuracy, but we can examine groups of related social phenomena that are close to chaos. And we can foresee possible future happenings of social importance. This is not unlike the mountaineer’s warnings of avalanches, the meteorologist’s prediction of weather, or the geologist’s foresight of earthquakes. The mathematical accuracy of physics, the model science of the past, applies only to a very limited range of phenomena. Even those, as quantum theory says, are only very highly probable. Nature is nonlinear and unpredictable.
Punctuated evolution applies as well to social and cultural evolution as it does to biological evolution. As long as a society is adapted competently to the values and needs of the people it serves, it will tend to preserve those values and practices that have sustained it. It will resist change. But again, when things deteriorate (economic downturns, street violence, family disintegration, warfare, religious uncertainty, famine, ecological collapse, or whatever), deeply rooted cultural premises are quickly abandoned. A period of uncertainty and chaos sets in. If new knowledge reveals a profoundly different view of the world, a new cultural and social structure replaces the old. Society today is in its most profound period of chaos and change ever.
In the coming years, it is most probable that every social institution that has been developing for the past two thousand or more years will be deeply, fundamentally, and radically reexamined in the light of the new scientific/social paradigm. The new mindset gives humanity a new powerful tool to recognize and prepare for the uncertain future. There could be a flood of self-organizing social phenomena replacing the old. In the following pages of this section, we look at three: the burgeoning civil society and the possibility that it could emerge into a new mode of global governance; the growth of homeschooling that could be the forerunner of a radically different, community-based, lifelong learning system; and the convergence of science and religion that portends a unified search for knowledge.
In 1982, for a European journal on communications, I wrote an article on transnational networks and world order. John Briggs and F. David Peat in Turbulent Mirror, one of the early books popularizing “the new science of chaos,” quoted it as an example of the application of the new science to social and political structure. It was pretty primitive thinking but may perhaps suggest the direction that more thought should be applied as we move further under a new Gaian paradigm. The quote suggested that
A future world government can be pictured as a multidimensional network of networks which provide each individual with many optional paths through which s/he can provide for his or her own well-being and can participate in controlling world affairs. . . . [It will be] composed of links between nodes. [It] will have no center. Each member of the network [will be] autonomous. Unlike a hierarchy, no part or member will be controlled by any other. Various members may draw together for special projects or on different issue, but there [will be] no bureaucracy demanding action or conformity.
This was not meant to be the prediction of a classical anarchistic state, but rather a conceivable fruition of a participatory democracy made possible by new knowledge, new technologies, and new worldviews.
That the current social/economic/political system is on the edge of chaos is made too obvious by daily newspaper headlines to require much confirmation here. The economic crash; unnecessary wars; depletion of the ozone layer; teen suicides; world hunger; global warming; Washington gridlock; racial strife in Rwanda, Yugoslavia, Ceylon, and the Middle East; the widening rich-poor gap; the inability to solve or even confront global pollution problems; child labor; street crime and sweatshops; wanton waste of natural resources; collapse of industries; breakdown of the families, are merely symptoms. The basic characteristics of civil society are lost in the current market/government orientation that fosters competition, free trade, self-centeredness, profit over people, globalization, and widespread alienation. Deep systemic problems give a clear picture of a civilization on the edge of chaos. An alternative system is spontaneously self-organizing.
In the past two decades there has been a rapid rise of citizen-organized grassroots organizations (Gross), a subset of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. It has been initiated by the failure and near chaos brought on by the industrial countries’ intrusion into cultures they did not understand. This subversion of other cultures to the Western way started with Columbus who enslaved all non-European cultures he met. The subjugation of people around the world during the periods of “discovery” and colonizing that followed is well-known. It is enough, here, to say that indigenous cultures have been overwhelmed or subjugated by the dominant and domineering industrial cultures.
Springing from the land, uninvited and often resisted by outside developers, and even their own governments. Village people are now recreating their own coalitions and communities with new and indigenous technologies and taking over where governments and industries have failed. Often stimulated by a special unique local need, these local Gross grow to become more broadly socially and politically active, linking up with other Gross to form networks for participatory democracy and mutual aid. Outside aid to Gross is provided by grassroots support organizations (GSOs), formed most often by middle-class professionals and technicians who recognize the inequities engendered by the current economic-political system. Gross reach out to give in-kind assistance and to legitimize the actions of the peasants and disenfranchised in their bids for empowerment and local self-reliance. Techniques, technologies, information, and service from the industrial countries are supplied through links created by international nongovernmental organizations (Ingots).
NGOs are also becoming a greater force and are better recognized in the industrial countries. The problems facing humankind cannot be solved by governments or markets alone. Nor can governments or corporations create a people-centered democracy. But we—the people—are solving our problems worldwide by the third leg of governance—civil society—that is, by citizen participation on a local community scale. New citizen-initiated social innovations are sweeping North America, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and, to a lesser extent, Japan. These social innovations are being borrowed and exchanged among nearly every country around the world.
From England came the cooperative movement started in Rochelle, England, in 1844 by some disenfranchised weavers. It spread to the United States with producer co-ops during World War I and with a plethora of consumer co-ops during the 1960s. The Mondragón network of co-ops in the Basque area of Spain added the concept of creating secondary co-ops to serve the primary co-ops. Banks, insurance companies, management services, and other businesses owned by the primary co-op serve the member co-ops. The Siekatsu Club of some ten thousand Japanese housewives organized by hans, local co-ops, create their own businesses when the market does not meet their social, ecological, or economic demands.
From Bangladesh came the Grameen Banks that introduced a new credit technique by lending money through groups of borrowers who guaranteed one another’s loans. From Canada came local exchange and trading systems (LETS), a local citizen-owned computerized exchange system. Local scripts, such as Ithaca Hours, help local businesses and individuals create local jobs and exchange goods and services regardless of the inflow of federal dollars. Time Dollars systems promote babysitting pools, senior citizen services, and other forms of local service based on hours worked not dollars spent.
From Denmark came CoHousing—in which families build their own homes but with common ground and common space including child-care facilities and community dining rooms bringing a new sense of community solidarity. This, of course, adds to the array of communes, community land trusts, intentional communities, and ecovillages in which citizens provide the planning and development so lacking in government and corporate housing developments.
Switzerland produced community-supported agriculture (CSA), bringing farmers and citizens together to produce local food with local resources. The consumers sometimes own the land, share the produce, and participate in the work, paying a professional gardener to manage the growing. Other innovations in the food and agriculture area include farmers’ markets, homesteading, and the rapidly growing development of home gardening.
Gandhi’s India produced the concept of community land trusts (CLT), a concept of communal ownership of land and nonviolence. it has spread worldwide and transformed social protest and citizen action as well as preserving vast areas of land for future generations.
Many other social innovations such as citizen patrols, homeschooling, community learning centers, community loan funds, peace brigades, homesteading, and community bulletin boards are building community solidarity, empowering citizens at the grass roots, and promoting local community self-reliance without relying on governments or “the market.”
It is all here. A living body of networking organizations is emerging to fill the niche produced by dysfunctional postcolonial governments and too large corporations with a single bottom line of profits and corporate greed. A plethora of unique interdependent social cells have developed assuming specialized functions that serve the whole. They have almost magically become the social/political body that promises better life for the people in developing countries and the whole Earth. The natural laws of self-organizing criticality and autocatalysis are working on the social level.
Through the revelations of science, an understanding of the cosmic process is slowly emerging. Perhaps with this new understanding, humanity can participate in the cocreation of a sustainable and lasting civilization based on citizen participation in local community organizations—a Gaian global governance.
THE FIRST PHASE OF DEMOCRACY
Like any step in cosmic evolution, this network of social innovations comprising a Gaian revolution is a unique happening. But like any step in cosmic evolution, it is subject to the natural evolutionary laws. It was 250 years ago that the first phase of democratic governance was introduced on the planet. The times then, like the times now, were chaotic. The ruling powers, and the ruling system, had outlived its usefulness. Masses of people recognized that they were missing out on many of the benefits that their toil had created. The divine right of kings and the element of Christianity’s “great chain of being” had been left behind. It was the best of times and the worst of times. In 1775, the American and in (1789) the French revolutions happened.
The first phase of democracy was a foolish idea to the leaders of the day. Monarchs held their power by divine right. Neither the churches nor the governments were friendly to the idea that the people could rule themselves or even participate in government. The ideas of voting, representation, legislation, human rights, politics, constitutions, or social contracts were little more than hazy academic notions played with by abstruse philosophers. The Magna Carta had given large landowners a degree of power over their lands and their serfs, but these powers were subject to the king’s will. It took the Voltaires, the Franklins, the Pains, and the Jeffersons to bring the ideas of every man’s rights to the public. And it took the Boston Tea Party, the Bread Riots, and the revolutionary wars, to bring down the old regimes and make possible the self-organization of the new.
Self-organization is the right word. The avalanche of change hit an unprepared society. No one had predicted the rise of national democracy. There were no plans, no designs, or no instruction books for the first phase of democracy. There were few constitutions, no concept of checks and balances, no rules for voting, no loyal opposition, no political parties, no civil society, no GROs.
The American colonies had assumed a degree of self-control under the British crown. Direct democracy was practiced in the forerunners of the New England town meeting and in some colonies. Voting rights were usually denied to women, blacks, Catholics, and Jews. Suffrage was extended to only landholders of some substance, often as much as 50£ (a goodly sum in those days). Probably no more than one-third of the adult free men could vote. Office-holding was even more restricted. Often in order to hold elected office, a man had to own at least five hundred acres and ten slaves, or thousands of pounds sterling in other property. Like with today’s GROs, ideas and actions were separate and disparate. No associations were ready to exercise political control of society. The task was daunting. But it did happen. In spite of the later failure in France and earlier failures in Athens and Rome, the first phase of democracy was born to last in America.
I have used “the first phase of democracy” to describe the political innovation of 1776 because, as we know today, it was not fully successful. It was only partially successful for many reasons—primarily because it arrived on the world stage without preparation. The technologies of the times made participatory democracy impossible beyond the town meeting. Communication was measured in days or weeks, not as today in nanoseconds. Because of that, we—the people—could only be “represented” in the halls of power. Franklin and Jefferson, following the Native American model of the Iroquois Nation in which in 1677, Iroquois, Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, and Cayugas joined together to cooperate and to end conflicts between them. In 1715, the Tuscaroras were accepted into the Iroquois Nation. Jefferson and Franklin advocated that a new nation be formed in North America modeled on the Iroquois Nation. All decisions of the united colonies would be made by consensus at the local level. Representatives of the colonies in a Colonial Assembly would be limited to arguing cases as developed in their communities. But Madison and others, following the concept of British parliamentarian Edmond Burke, argued that representatives should be empowered to make decisions in the name of the people. Burkian representation was accepted by most colonies and by the Constitutional Assembly. This has made the government dominant, limiting the voice of the people.
In spite of extending suffrage, the voice of the people has been steadily eroded as government has grown in size and power. People’s control of corporations was taken away in 1844 by the Supreme Court’s decision that corporations had the same rights as flesh-and-blood citizens. Earlier, communities or states could revoke corporate charters if a corporation was deemed to not be in the public interest. The rise of corporate power over the people increased with the opening of free trade with no restrictions on the outflow of capital or jobs and no global standards for safety, health, or protection of the environment. The high cost of getting elected and the free flow of money into politics from the wealthy elite, banks, and businesses, has made even the first phase of democracy far less a people’s government than was envisioned by America’s Founding Fathers.
A SECOND PHASE OF DEMOCRACY
The rise of civil society, modern technology, new scientific understanding of how evolution works, and the concept of Gaia as the unity of humans and nature has made possible the emergence of a second phase of democracy. We—the people—now have a voice in our civil society. We have the technology to communicate around the globe, and we have a new understanding of social evolution.
The complexity theory shows that ordered complexity is the natural state of the universe. Biological evolution is the most obvious example of the tendency toward the ordering of simple entities into more complex systems. Every step of cosmic evolution since the big bang has been a step toward increasing ordered complexity. Creation occurs on the borderline between rigid order and random chaos—at the edge of chaos. If an entity is too rigidly ordered, it cannot change to meet the contingencies of a change in its environment. Flexibility is one of the cardinal biological principles of evolution. Without flexibility, a life-form is not sustainable; it cannot change to meet new conditions. Without flexibility, progress is impossible.
Nevertheless, governments, like corporations, have been organized on the concept that good management means rigid order directed from the top. In the first phase of democracy, the people elected their governmental representatives, but all power resided in the government. Humans have been locked into the worldview in which rigid order was highly respected. Rigid order was the goal of organization. Humans are taught to be afraid of chaos and to avoid complexity. Yet the new science/social paradigm shows us that the edge of chaos is where progress happens with the self-organizing of complexity. If society is to meet the challenges that face it, it needs to live closer to the edge of chaos. It must welcome a degree of disorder.
Since its modern inception, democracy has suffered from its self-guilt of being inefficient. Critics and supporters alike have held that democracy is too chaotic. They have searched for ways to move democracy toward more controlled management without surrendering the human rights they saw as the great strength of this form of government.
A Gaian paradigm sees democracy in a very different light. The seeming weaknesses of democracy are its strengths. The theories of Gaia, chaos, and complexity suggest that spontaneous self-organizing on the edge of chaos is natural law. It requires the messy flexibility inherent in democracy and absent in more efficient forms of government. People are only beginning to realize that no form of government, except democracy, provides the freedom and potential of complex ordering to meet the changing demands of modern times.
The rise of civil society [and] the growth of social innovation, community involvement in meeting their own needs are all parts of the progressive agenda provided by nature. We may not see clearly today the final organization that will emerge if we continue to build the decentralized autonomous communities linked together in worldwide mutual aid. But that is the way of cosmic evolution as it is seen from the new worldview. It purports the emergence of a second phase of democracy, one in which people in community at the grass roots have a direct input into all decisions that affect their lives: a new form of global governance.
CHAPTER 3: LIFELONG LEARNING
The potential for a new global governance rooted in civil society is only one example of the emergence of spontaneously self-organized complex networks within the unity of Gaia. Another interesting example of self-organization on the edge of chaos is the emergence of cooperative community lifelonglearning centers (CCL-LLCs) as the drive for a Gaian culture.
Early American schools were strict disciplinary centers in which students sat stiffly at their desks in abject obedience while stern teachers taught them the three R’s by rote memory. Its purpose, at least during this century, had been to prepare workers for an industrial culture. It worked well. Laborers in American mills and factories surpassed all others in bringing wealth to our nation.
An increasing number of educational critics, like 1991 New York teacher of the year John Taylor Gatto in Dumbing Us Down, have decried the schooling system. They contend that it is the form of schooling that is teaching the wrong lessons. The monopoly state schools restrict the individual’s natural curiosity and desire to learn. They teach authoritarianism, self-repression, and strict obedience to the clock. The teacher, under controls set by the state and now the national government, determines what is to be learned. The clock and the calendar determine when and how long a child can learn it. Much of this criticism of schooling has been reflected in a report to the president in 1983, “A Nation at Risk.”
This report set of a flurry of mostly misdirected local and state efforts to fix the schools. They culminated in President Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. This effort to fix schools from the top down has been soundly criticized. A major concern is that it reduces student, family, and local control. It forces teachers to teach to the tests eliminating personal learning.
Well before the current attacks on schooling and educating, John Dewey (1859–1952) and other philosophers assailed this concept of education with their creeds of “learning by doing” and “child-centered education.” Although the philosophy of education changed, the form didn’t. Twenty or more children are still gathered in one schoolroom, each one trying to do his or her own thing. The result is that neither teaching nor learning is possible. Many schoolrooms become centers of confusion. Education is now at the edge of chaos, ripe for a radical transformation and the recognition of a Gaian paradigm and the natural learning inherent in human nature.
The organization of the new learning system will be somewhat different from the self-organization of local Gross into a global civil society. For the example we examined above, organization came from moving from chaos, a disordered conglomeration of disjointed new organizational cells through the borderland of the edge of chaos into order. Global civil society, like democracy before it, is self-organizing itself where nothing, or little, existed before. For the learning system, reorganization is happening, in part at least, from the failure and disintegration of a too rigidly ordered system.
One element of the reorganization of learning started four decades ago when some families started taking corrective actions one family at a time. It was called homeschooling. These actions grew in concert with society and education, Paul Goodman’s Compulsory Mis-Education and the Community of Scholars (1962) urging that schools make more use of community facilities and issues, Ivan Illich’s seminal book Deschooling Society in (1970), and with John Holt’s Instead of Education (1976) and Growing Without Schooling (1977) on how children learn.
In the beginning, only a couple of decades ago, home schools were only a few autonomous family units, each one setting its own curriculum and providing its own supplies and services. As homeschooling grew in the 1970s and 1980s, practitioners began forming associations primarily to exchange information and to confront state laws that limited their rights. There are now some seven hundred homeschooling associations in the United States. About fifty of these have a nationwide constituency.
Most of the services provided to homeschoolers, like Growing Without Schooling or Home Education Press, are primarily publications emphasizing exchanges among homeschoolers. Others, like the Clonal School Home-Based Education Center provide a by-mail service curricula, tests, and diplomas for homeschoolers. Still others are newsletters written and exchanged by homeschoolers themselves. A few, like HSLDA (Home School Legal Defense Association), help Christian homeschoolers with legal and legislative matters. Some, like AHA (American Homeschool Association), network and provide services to homeschoolers of all types. Others, such as Aerogramme, are publications condemning the authoritarian, monopolistic state school systems and supporting the broad range of alternative educational systems with meetings and conferences.
Closely associated with the homeschooling movement are broad varieties of alternative schools that are moving in the direction of child-centered education. Educational consultant Jerry Mintz, the founder of AREO (Alternative Education Resource Organization), publishes the newsletter Aerogramme and many books such as The Handbook of Alternative Education (1994), National Directory of Alternative Schools (1987), and The Handbook of Alternative Education that lists two thousand five hundred Montessori schools, one hundred Weldor schools, and sixty Quaker schools as well as the seven hundred home school programs.
In addition to these is a growing number of folk schools patterned after the folk schools of Denmark, schools without walls, open universities, and learning centers that do not fall within the province of being substitutes for the K-12 governmental schools. It is this later group of learning facilities with which this paper is interested.
In the last two or three years, local homeschooling networks have created a new form of learning institution. They don’t yet even have a universal name. I call them CCL-LLCs. These community centers are cooperatively owned and controlled by the member families they serve. They provide counseling, mentoring, supplies, facilities, workshops, and classes. They serve everyone in the community regardless of age or past learning. They use all aspects of the community as learning facilities. Libraries, YMCAs, churches, museums, local businesses, farms, government offices, streets, and parks are all part of the learning system.
As education critic Gene Lehman put it in one of his Luno broadsheets, lifelong learning relies heavily on daily life activities, deep and varied interactions among people, contact with nature, and a popular culture that is abundant, diverse, profound, and cheaply accessible to all. Most importantly, a holistic approach to lifelong learning relies on developing some kind of face-to-face community of friends and neighbors who cooperate in order to share the essential burdens and delights of life. This sounds like a definition of a Gaian paradigm learning cooperatively through the unity of self and nature.
In 1998 community learning centers became of governmental interest when the Elementary and Secondary Education Act dedicated $40 million to expand after-school programs. But this program was limited to school districts and administered by United States Department of Education. Its goal was primarily to get the kids off the streets rather than to stimulate lifelong or community learning. It was thus directed more at saving a decaying schooling system than experimenting with a new futuristic way of learning.
CCL-LLCs may be one of the most seminal innovations of the past decade or so. They may be the seed for a deep fundamental change in the education/learning system of the future. CCL-LLCs are, to a large extent, an outgrowth of the rapidly growing, unstopping movement that gives students full, 100 percent responsibility and control of what to learn. It is conceivable that CCL-LLCs could completely replace the state-controlled schools.
CIVIL SOCIETY AND LEARNING
The transition to a CCL-LLC system is much more than a change in educational practices. It is a transformation of the whole mindset of the value of knowledge and the value of the person. “Teaching,” “educating,” and “schooling” imply that society, or government, is acting on, controlling, indoctrinating, and forming some amorphous lesser beings. It is a hierarchical system of control from the top down. It is inherent in the first phase of democracy, which accepted the dominator paradigm with its many tenets of rule from above, the divine right of kings and its transition to the divine right of government. It is in harmony with the fading worldview that the cosmos, and the Earth, are parts of the chain of being in which man is a semigod controlling the Earth from above and that the Earth’s natural resources are but resources for the use of man.
Every single word in “cooperative,” “community,” “lifelong,” “learning,” and “center” carries a different important connotation. Learning is not something a superior being does to a lesser one. Learning is an act of self-volition with a community and within nature. It is a self-actuated process of creating skills, discovering knowledge, and satisfying one’s own natural curiosity. It is built on, and teaches, the inherent right and responsibility of every individual to set her or his own standards in cooperation with others. It honors the diversity of evolution. It is in harmony with the new Gaian worldview that everything is interdependent with everything else. It respects the new understanding that each person “belongs” equally to Gaia.
“Belonging” in this sense is much more than merely “being a member of.” Belonging is the scientific fact that we are all interdependent systems within systems, or holness within hileness if you wish to use the system’s jargon. Each of us is a whole made up of smaller wholes and embedded in larger wholes. Gaia and the cosmos are among the larger wholes of which each human is a smaller whole. Belonging implies not only being a whole within wholes but that we are subject to natural laws. Belonging to Gaia means belonging to the Earth and to one another. Belonging is an ethical proto-value inherent in the new Gaia paradigm. It says that each individual is an integral part of and responsible for the health and well-being of the family, the community, Gaia, and each of the larger systems of high he or she is a part. Inherent in this scientific concept of belonging is much of the perennial wisdom of the sages, that emphasizes our responsibility to and for one another.
This transition from educating to learning is being recognized by a wide variety of scholars. Management guru Peter Drucker in his Post-Capitalist Society writes of a society based on knowledge. A society in which all society is an open lifelong learning system in which every person can enter any level at any time. From the other end of the spectrum, peace scholar Elise Boulding reports that a common feature of the many “Imagine a World Without Weapons” workshops she has held with people of all walks of life and all ages was the vision of a localist society: “Communities in which self-reliance and learning appears integrated into other community activities. . . . Everyone is a learner, and education is lifelong.” This theme of the learning community is fully integrated into the growth of civil society and all other aspects of the emerging Gaian cultures. The dependence on lifelong learning for the transition from the dominator paradigm to a Gaian paradigm will be the topic of section III.
TRANETGrameenGrameen Chapter 4: GAIAN RELIGION
The third aspect of the Gaian paradigm is more amorphous and far more sensitive than the two I’ve suggested so far. It is the melding of science and religion.
While Lovelock recognizes the implication of the Gaia theory to religion, his coauthor Margulis is disturbed by the use of the word “Gaia” in some of the New Age spirituality and pseudoscience cults. Both are right. I couldn’t agree more that Gaia has often been used, as have other scientific theories including relativity, quantum mechanics, and Tesler electronics, to “prove” spiritual or other pseudoscience concepts.
Perhaps in no time since Martin Luther nailed his Ninety-Five Theses to the door of the Castle Church at Wittenburg (1517) or Calvin published his Institutes (1536) have religions been in such spiritual chaos. No one set out the serious concern of this age of religious chaos better than Fritz Schumacher did in Guide for the Perplexed, a sequel to his Small Is Beautiful. Other scholars of the times, like Gregory Bateson, Buckminster Fuller, and Margaret Mead, had a clear but unproclaimed spiritual character to their works. Schumacher’s was the first, most profound, and most open declaration of the age of spiritual turmoil.
The religious chaos of the 1960s and 1970s was most clearly and dramatically proclaimed by the beads, incense, granny dresses, long hair, wire-rimmed glasses, and music of the hippies. It was also declared by movements such as TM, est, Hare Krishna, the search for Eastern religions, and the return of Paganism, Shamanism, and Wiccan. It was expressed in the Broadway musicals Hair and Jesus Christ Superstar and in the attempt to escape from social ills with psychedelic drugs. The concept of New Age started out to be more like Schumacher’s Small Is Beautiful, a critique and correction of the excesses of the Industrial Age. It ended up being identified, particularly by its critics and the press, as being an offbeat and occult religious movement more likely to end up with the Johnstown and the more recent UFO-induced suicides or other strange behaviors than in any serious revival of a deeper sense of spirituality.
Schumacher in A Guide for the Perplexed took the high road and recognized that the meandering search for meaning of the hippie generation was a deeper and more profound expression of the age than was being recognized by mainstream society. In Small Is Beautiful Schumacher had been concerned with what we do. In Guide to the Perplexed he was concerned with why we do it. He recognized two kinds of science. One was knowledge for manipulation, the other knowledge for understanding. The former led to techniques and technologies for the satisfaction of the lower visible level of human wants. The latter led to the higher values, meaning, and purpose of life. As he said, “It may conceivably be possible to live without churches but it is not possible to live without religion, that is, without systematic work to keep in contact with, and develop toward, higher levels than those of ordinary life. . . . Everywhere in the modern world there are experiments In new lifestyles . . . and it is sometimes tolerated even in polite society to mention God.”
THE EVOLUTION OF THE CHRISTIAN GOD
Belief in powers beyond the human level has been with us since humans first became conscious of themselves and the world into which they were born. Stories of creation and speculation on higher powers have filled the human mind since the powers of nature were first realized. Creation stories were the rocks on which early cultures were built in every part of the world.
Throughout history, humanity’s understanding of that great power that created and controls the universe has grown through many transitions, with the increasing understanding of the physical cosmos and of its biological life. The evolution of our understanding of the Christian god is the one most familiar to us.
The first god of the Bible was a fierce and vengeful god to be feared. He was one of many gods (or baals), each of whom ruled over a limited people in a limited territory. The god of Abraham could command human sacrifice. Jacob wrestled all night face to face with his god. By the time of Isaiah, the Jewish god had grown to be the creator of the world, the greatest among all gods. Jeremiah taught that his god was not in the temples but in the hearts of humans and that his god had created the world for human use. The god of Moses was on a mountain in the Sinai Desert from which he handed down the ethical rules for his chosen people, the Jews. With the teachings of Jesus, God took off his demeanor of wrath and punishment to become an all-loving god promising eternal life for his people who were free of sin. With Saint Paul of Tarsus, there was one all-powerful Christian god for all people. To Saint Augustine, the universe was a chain of being with man near the top. Above man sat God, with numerous angels and other demigods. For Saint Thomas Aquinas, his one god was a omnipresent spiritual form more than a humanlike being. God’s existence was as discernible through reason as through revelation.
The view of a singular god as creator of the universe that was to be ruled by man was amplified by the Greek philosophers who first conceived of the idea that the universe was an ordered unity and that man had the capability to understand it. To Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, the ordered and purposeful universe was obviously for human use. All plants and animals were in a natural hierarchy with man at the top. The Roman empire, medieval church, and European monarchs, continued and expanded the idea that humans (more correctly “man”) was the caretaker of all creation.
SCIENCE AND RELIGION
This view of man’s dominion over the Earth prevailed until the time of Bacon and Descartes, who had little respect for the nonhuman world. They divided human life into two realms, the physical and the spiritual. They did not challenge the concept that the purpose of the universe was the use of humans. However, they did contend that humans were created with the power to understand and dominate that universe. With the founding of economic theory on the principles of self-interest and survival of the fittest, the material side of life became dominant. In the past two hundred years, mastery of the external world has become the single most powerful driving force of humanity. A belief in God has remained as separate from the material world as the two thousand plus years as the evolution of God has reached to the edge of chaos.
This dichotomy between science and religion was established when the medieval Christian clerics refused to look through Galileo’s telescope. For them, the scriptures had revealed that there could be no moons around Jupiter. It was not fear of knowledge that held their hands. It was fear of social dissolution. The moral certainty of the medieval church was based on man being at the center of the spiritual universe. This, in turn, implies that man’s home, Earth, must be center of the physical universe that was created for him. It was justifiably feared that if the Earth were shown to not be at the center of the universe, the whole fabric of spiritual, social, and moral adherence would disintegrate.
The Galileo compromise, later modified somewhat by Descartes’ dualism, was that scientific knowledge should be developed to aid man in his understanding and domination of the Earth—that is, in creating technology. Religion should dominate the realm of the deeper meaning of life and the moral codes that create harmony among the people of the Earth. Science would not be recognized as a process for enlightening humans as to their place in the universe.
This spiritual/physical bifurcation was operable as long as the development of technologies was beneficial to humanity; before the challenge of the excessive use of natural resources; the pollution of air, water and soil; the threat of global warming; the discovery of the thinning of the protective ozone layer; increased health risks due to toxic chemicals; the loss of jobs brought on by labor-saving automation and foreign trade; the threat of biotechnology to privatize all life; the separation of citizens from one another because of automobiles and highways; and, in general, technology became our master rather than our slave. These unanticipated consequences of technology have spurred the creation of technology and environmental assessment programs by the government. They also initiated a deep reassessment of the value and use of science as well as technology.
GOD AND GAIA
Part of the reassessment of science has been in concert with the reassessment of religion in a holistic reevaluation of the place of knowledge in society. A new search for meaning and spirituality emerged from the peace, human rights, feminist, and ecological movements of the 1960s. The search for meaning was intensified by the bold adventures into New Age cults and fancies, the deep searches through Eastern religions, and the unfettered acceptance of questionable pseudosciences. However, it was brought to fruition with some deep scholarly theological redefinitions of religious and scientific tenets.
Pope John Paul II, in a 1992 statement, “Some Considerations Concerning the Catholic Response to Legislative Proposals on the Non-Discrimination of Homosexual Persons,” and other papers, acknowledged that homosexuality is a phenomenon of nature, apologized for the church’s condemnation of Galileo, accepted of evolution as a valid scientific theory, and admitted the church’s error in failing to oppose to the Holocaust. This change in attitude made the Catholic Church seem to recognize its own fallibility and see science as a joint venture in the search for knowledge of the cosmos and humanity’s place in it.
Fr. Thomas Berry has been one of the leaders of this movement. He holds that our modern society’s creation myth is the scientific story of cosmic evolution. No creation myth could produce more awe, wonder, and mystery than the scientific revelation of how the universe, the planets, and life emerged from the big bang. Other theologians like Bernard Lonergan SJ and Laurent Leduc have gone a step further. They suggest that religion, like science, is a search for the truth, not the last immutable word. Theologians like those in the Institute for Theological Encounter with Science and Technology (ITEST), see theology as accepting the scientific view of nature but acting as a sort of watchdog for recognizing that there is a bigger picture that we cannot completely understand nor appreciate from a natural viewpoint.
A NEW AGE OF SCIENCE
From the scientific end, there is also a growing humility. Science accepts justifiable condemnation for the detrimental effect on society and the environment of technologies derived from science. In addition, the certainty that surrounded Newtonian mechanics and Darwinian evolution was taken to extremes by many disciplines and by some scientists. As Alfred Whitehead warned, the success of physics in explaining and predicting one set of phenomena led many so-called scholars to apply the methods of physics beyond their sphere of relevance in what he called “misplaced concreteness,” that is, building mathematical structures on uncertain premises. Both the limits of and the uncertainty of science are now emphasized, giving more room for a rational religious speculation.
At the same time, with the advent of quantum and relativity theories, and even more in the new sciences of Gaia, chaos, and complexity, it is being recognized that science is relevant, to use Schumacher’s words, as “knowledge for understanding.” Today, science is not just a base for new technologies; it also reveals what little reasonably certain factual knowledge we know about the cosmos and cosmic evolution. This limited knowledge is relevant to humanity’s place in the universe. It implies rules to live by if humanity is to continue to exist. A new age of science is dawning.
Gregory Bateson points out in Steps to an Ecology of Mind, a living organism can continue to exist only if it meets three biological principles: (1) health, the ability to exist within its environment; (2) competence, the ability to draw sustenance from its environment; and (3) adaptive flexibility, the ability to change as its environment changes. These principles are as applicable to social systems as they are to biological systems. They instruct us as to how we must live if humanity is to sustain itself. Dr. Thomas I. Ellis, associate professor of English at Tidewater Community College in Virginia and founder of GAIA (Global Awareness Interdisciplinary Alliance) International states the ethical implication of the Gaian theory in an e-mail in a new categorical imperative: “Make all decisions based on whatever promotes the health, competence, and adaptive flexibility of oneself and of all the larger system of which one is a part.”
Science joins with religion in uncovering the code of conduct necessary for human existence. This melding of science and religion follows Spinoza’s belief that God is nature and Einstein’s concept that a religion is a feeling of cosmic awe, wonder, and mystery which comes with the deep concentrated study of what is—science. It surpasses human understanding. It is feeling the ultimate reality. God, in this sense, cannot be reduced to human characteristics. God, so defined, is pure spirit invisible to humans. God is beyond the materialism and foibles of human frailties. For humans to quibble over his attributes is to diminish his grandeur. You just can’t use the word god and describe it. It is a state of being rather than a conscious attribute. It transcends definition.
The new sciences of chaos, complexity, and Gaia provide a new worldview that humanity is an integral and equal part of a self-organizing cosmos. Each part of or the cosmos as a whole is equally sacred and to be revered. The Gaian paradigm—that all there is are webs of being—suggests a new concept of God as cosmos and science as revelation.
Humanity may well be on the verge of a new age of science and a new age of religion: a unified search for fundamental knowledge that may save it from the apocalypse with which it is threatened.
These three brief examinations of governance, learning, and religion are only to exemplify and reify a Gaian paradigm. They only hint of the holistic and comprehensive cultural transition in the offing. They were not meant to be accurate predictions of the future. A central theme of chaos and complexity theories is that spontaneous self-organization cannot be guided by human intervention. The best we can do is to examine possible options and prepare for any of them to happen. The emerging Gaian paradigm radically changes the way we will look at all aspects of our culture in this millennium. The future of economics, health, transportation, habitat, education, and all other social institutions could as well be taken as examples. Or we might examine the lifestyles we will live when this Gaian paradigm becomes universal. In the decades ahead, Earth citizens may well look back at the society in which we now live as not far removed from our cave-dwelling ancestors. Technophobes can point out a myriad of technological possibilities now on the shelf, awaiting development and exploitation. Highly respected scientists, like Freeman Dyson in Imagined Worlds, speak of radio telepathy, designed biomechanical intelligent beings, bioengineered biomes in space, and other wonders we now read of in science fiction.
This millennium will first have to solve the social, economic, health, food, ecological, and other problems that beset today’s world. Without solutions, the current world problematique dooms humanity to a degraded existence reminiscent of H. G. Wells’s The War of the Worlds.
In Gaia, complexity, and chaos theories, we see the opening of an opportunity to choose between a number of possible scenarios. In section II, “Gaian Cultures,” we will explore a few cultural norms and cultural subsets in a bit more detail.
Chapter 5: GAIAN CREED
To Be or Not To Be: Morality, Mortality, and Immortality
The Gaian paradigm has implications on our belief systems that go beyond a view of the cosmos, even beyond our lifestyles and cultural norms. They include implications on our ideas of morality, mortality, immortality, as well as our system of human values. Some people have taken these implications into the sphere of religion. Some see the formation of a new Gaia religion. To others, an understanding of Gaia supports the values that have governed humanity for eons past. Without taking positions on such speculations, we should at least open the dialogue on the degree to which these scientific notions might influence our pragmatic view of our lives.
For most of the 13.7 billion years that the cosmos has been in existence, there was no one to ponder the question of to be or not to be. While quarks evolved into atoms, atoms into molecules, and molecules into cells, consciousness of being did not exist. Each new step of evolution brought new entities and new properties. Only in the evolutionary phase when brain cells had evolved and created the human mind did being—the property of thought, memory, and consciousness—emerge. Only in this brief miniscule submoment of cosmic evolution has the sense of being existed. Only in this small window of time have humans been the source of conscious being and recognized, as Descartes put it, that “cogito ergo sum” (I think therefore I am).
It is safe to say that for most of the past billions of cosmic years, I (as an individual) did not exist. It is also reasonable to believe that in billions of future cosmic years after my physical death, I (as an individual) will not exist. Only in a brief, transient flash do individual people exist. Certainly, I did not exist before a zygote was formed by the union of cells from my two parents. And certainly, the development, by chemical and biological means of an embryo from that zygote, did not have the property of independent action and conscious thought. It is also clear that when I drew my first breath on being born, I was not the evolved being that I was to become. The question “To be or not to be?” was not in my mind. My process of becoming a human being was still ahead of me.
It is clearly impossible to identify any single movement when we become a human being, all of the experiences in one’s life that contribute to one’s development into a unique being. Today I am not the human I was at birth. Everyone is learning every moment from birth to death, from waking to sleeping. Each moment is a step in becoming. Our bodies, brains, and minds slowly evolve from the nothingness of our prebirths through to tour final passage back into dust. If there is no heaven or nirvana into which to pass, it is reasonable to think we, as human bodies and minds, come to an end.
So far, I have written about only two aspects of being—the body and the mind. There is a third aspect. It is more the essence of who we are than the other two. It is more ethereal and more everlasting. I’m not sure what I should call it. But, for lack of a better word, I’ll call it “soul.” By soul, I don’t mean anything mysterious, mystical, magical, divine, supernatural, or otherworldly. The soul is the essence, the unique core of our being, of who we are. It’s who we are more than either our minds or our bodies.
This soul, the true center of one’s being, is not easy to circumscribe. It, like the mind and body, evolves. Its evolution occurs over all time. Not that the past will be embodied in one’s physical and mental being, but from the beginning of time to the end of time, what we become involves the whole cosmos. We have a birth date and a death date. But who we become is already, in part, predetermined by the world around us. The essence of our being—our soul—is absorbed over time from the preexisting world of ideas and actions, nature and technologies, awe and wonder, and the beauty and mystery that exist in, and is, the cosmos. It is similar to the noosphere of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, the collective unconscious of Carl Jung, the ideosphere of others. It is the totality of the physical, biological, technological, and cultural worlds and more. It is the knowledge, the beliefs, the feelings, as well as the written words and the passed on memories of everyone who has ever lived. It is inherited from our ancestors and from the evolving physical, biological, mental, technological, and social spheres. It is a cosmic memory. It is the universal cosmic soul.
This cosmic soul has been evolving since the big bang. Each step in cosmic evolution has created a new part of the cosmic soul. It includes Mount Fuji, the Johnston flood, the ice ages, the Crusades, the invention of the computer, and all other happenings. Each individual at birth is enmeshed in the cosmic soul of the time.
A simple example of this idea of soul is that of a flock of birds. The soul of the flock evolves as a unit. It includes migration patterns, eating resources, nesting places, and other characteristics. The flock follows certain patterns for centuries. Each individual bird lives for only a short time. But the memory, essence, or soul of the flock is passed to new birds as they hatch, join the flock, participate, and learn by doing. The soul of the flock as a whole evolves as it continually finds new opportunities and faces new challenges. Each bird gains its individual soul and passes its know-how on to other new birds that join. The soul of the flock is passed from individual souls to individual souls, as the flock evolves to meet contingencies of the time.
Humans likewise are born into the cosmic soul. They are embedded in the essence of all that exist. Who they are to become depends on what they absorb into themselves from all that is. Each soul is immortal. It is part of the cosmic soul. Everything anyone makes, writes, says, or does becomes part of the cosmic soul and is everlasting. Shakespeare, Edison, Einstein, Buddha, Jesus, Marx, Smith, and others are still with us. So is Joe Blow, Anna Finklestein, and other common people. All have left their marks for eternity.
Each act or expressed idea is like a stone dropped in a millpond. The stone may sink to the bottom never to be seen again. But its ripples spread out and may join other ripples to produce an overwhelming wave of social transformation. The origins of any act of social change may be lost in the myriad of its sources. Once this is recognized, people are driven to live a creative life of positive values—to be one of the sources of what will become the cosmic soul. Whether anyone remembers the name of any one of us or not, everything anyone has, does, says, thinks, or writes is part of the evolving cosmic soul.
Each person’s soul is formed by every experience and every thought they ever had. It is passed on in the same way. Each unexpected act of kindness or senseless act of beauty makes a ripple like a grain of sand dropped in the cosmic millpond. Every kind or angry word one utters forms a pebble’s ripples that will be passed on. More telling in the cosmic soul, will be some of the memos, papers, and posts that are written. They are rocks that make a bit bigger splash or at least have a guaranteed longer life. Most important are the interactions among people close to one another—families, friends, and communities. In a person’s children, friends, and colleagues, there is a continual riling of the waters (particularly of the act of beauty, kindness, and understanding). It is passed into the cosmic soul that remains real in the future and assures the immortality of everyone who ever lived.
Recognizing the immortality of our souls suggests a new emphasis on morality. Every act, thought, or word we utter should be in the context of its impact on the cosmic soul. They change the cosmic soul as they happen. They will be remembered and they will affect cosmic evolution for ages into the future. They provide us with reasons for living. To repeat Tom Ellis’s mantra, “Make all decisions based on whatever promotes the health, competence, and adaptive flexibility of oneself and of all the larger system of which one is a part.” Whether we accept this view of the human or the cosmic soul, the Gaian paradigm suggests the creed below:
[This prose/poem might be set in a script type]
A GAIAN CREED
All That Is Are Webs of Being
We belong to the webs of being, to the cosmos, to Earth, to Gaia.
Belonging is the protovalue from which all other values derive.
We belong to the physiosphere, to the biosphere, to the ideosphere.
We belong to Gaia.
As the aborigines said it, “We are the ownees of the land, not the owners of the land.”
As Chief Seattle said it, “We cannot own the land, we are part of the land.”
We belong to and are inseparable from our culture, from one another, from Earth, from Gaia.
We are interdependent with all that is.
Belonging is scientific fact, and belonging is more than scientific fact.
Belonging is not merely “being a member of,” but it is being subject to, being in partnership with, being responsible for.
We belong to—are responsible for the webs of being, the universe, the Earth, Gaia.
Belonging to Gaia means recognizing that we are enmeshed in the webs of being and that our well-being is dependent on the well-being of Gaia.
If we destroy Gaia, we destroy ourselves.
Belonging implies cooperation—working with what is with Gaia, the webs of being.
Belonging implies community. In our face-to-face relationships with people we form community—we belong to community.
Belonging implies responsibility. We are responsible for Gaia.
We are responsible for one another.
Belonging implies love.
We cannot separate love (agape) from the fact that we belong to Gaia.
We love because we must love to preserve Gaia, to preserve ourselves, to preserve the webs of being.
Cultures built on values other than belonging are doomed to self-destruct. A culture built on domination of the Earth and all the animals therein is doomed to disappear. A culture based on self-interest is doomed to disintegrate.
A culture based on “survival of the fittest” will not survive.
A culture based on competition will destroy itself.
To be stable and sustainable, a culture must be based on cooperation, community, responsibility, love, honesty, caregiving, and the other values which are implied by and intertwined with one another and with belonging.
We can no more separate ourselves from belonging—from Gaia—and remain a viable culture than an oxygen atom can separate itself from hydrogen atoms and retain the qualities of water.
CHAPTER 6: OTHER PATHS TO A GAIAN PARADIGM
The hard sciences are not the only nor the primary origins of a Gaian paradigm. Wisdom, common sense, many cultures, and social research have all reached toward a similar worldview. Let’s look at Prof. Mary Clark’s In Search of Human Nature that finds that the most basic human needs are attachment and autonomy; Hart and Sussman who in Man the Hunted show that human progress is possible because of the evolution of a larger brain and cooperation; Alfie Kohn in No Contest: The Case Against Competition that shows that learning and action in concert with one another is not only nature’s way but also provides a win-win, more satisfying life for everyone; Matthew Fox in A Spirituality Named Compassion calls for a common linking and bonding in which each individual supports himself or herself by supporting all others in a unified melding of the world soul; Ivan Illich’s Deschooling Society holds that our education system perpetuates the Euro American cultures of self-interest, competition, and materialism; and Roger Sperry introduced the concepts of evolutionary emergence and downward causation initiating a whole new way of seeing evolution and the future of humanity.
Mary Clark has been professor of biology and conflict resolution in a number of universities. Her most recent book In Search of Human Nature opens with a reminder that what we often think of as human nature is in fact human nurture. We are all born into families, communities, nations, economic systems, social systems, educational systems, religions, and other characteristics of cultures that shape our worldview. We too often accept what we are taught by our culture as the only way life can be. We seldom recognize that our cultural norms are not the only “truths.” Our genes create a proclivity within which our culture creates our human nature.
There are in fact thousands of different cultures and thousands of very different “truths” in which to believe. The introduction in Clark’s book contrasts two to make this point. One is the Western world’s atomic or “billiard ball world.” In Clark’s words, “The Billiard Ball gestalt depicts the universe as made up of isolated objects moving independently and colliding randomly with each other. . . . The 'Self' is discrete and separate from the whole.”
One contrasting worldview is “Indra's Net,” common in the East. “The Indra’s Net gestalt depicts a jeweled net in which each jewel is connected to and reflects all others. No one is a discrete. autonomous form unconnected from the unified and interconnected whole of reality.”
Each culture has its own creation myths, stories, values, lifestyles, totems, and taboos. They shape us within the dictates of nature.
Underlying these cultural norms are, says Clark, three basic human needs: bonding, autonomy, and meaning. Bonding, like belonging (see chapter 5), is the need for being respected and for respecting a family, community, or group of colleagues. Autonomy is the individual’s freedom to think and act, with others of choice, to improve the well-being of one’s self and one’s group. Meaning is probably the only characteristic unique to humans. It is the ability to think, to create and choose worldviews, to form bonds, to communicate, and to cooperate in promoting them. For humans, these three—bonding, autonomy, and meaning—are more basic than, and above, the animal needs of food, housing, and security. Dangers, even death, are willingly faced for one’s family, one’s ethnic group, one’s religious group, or one’s fatherland.
This search for human nature not only reveals why and how humans form communities and cultures but how their importance in human evolution also develops conflict as each individual and each grouping of individuals defends the created culture in which they exist. It is the understanding of different cultures and their inherent conflicts both within each culture and among cultures that is the base of conflict resolution. The rest of Clark’s book is an in-depth analysis of the knowledge needed to create a less conflicted world.
DONNA HART AND ROBERT SUSSMAN
Anthropologists Donna Hart and Robert Sussman shocked the world of human evolution studies with the publication of Man the Hunted: Primates, Predators, and Human Evolution. Hominid fossils showed that the first prehuman primates came down from the trees some five to seven million years ago. They were small, weak, and without tools or fire. Their teeth were suited for living on fruits and nuts, not eating meat. They had neither tools nor fire for their use for millions of years. They were not hunters. They were the prey for giant hyenas, saber-toothed tigers, and even other primates. Their bones were found in the caves of giant cats with the cats’ teeth marks. Our hominid ancestors’ only defenses against their predators were (1) their larger brains, which gave them the power to outwit many of the animals hunting them, and (2) their cooperating in large groups; cooperating in defense of one another provided their security.
This well-researched theory has initiated a radically different, new line of study on the evolution story of humanity. The story of human evolution based on the myth of the domination of mankind since its beginning was one of man as superior animal with dominion over Earth and all life on Earth. Much research has been done on other modern-day primates in an attempt to understand the social organization and human nature of early humans. The picture too often drawn is of large powerful human hunters living in caves hunting small, and even some very large, animals for food with well-developed spears, clubs, and later bows and arrows. In this mistaken view, humans were by nature competitive and evolved competitive and warlike natures. They were, this myth says, man the hunter, man the dominator from the beginning.
The new man-the-hunted view of human evolution tells a very different story. Human nature evolved in necessity by avoiding confrontation. The niche in which humans survived was one of cooperation and mutual aid. We might better picture a group of small timid primates huddled in caves or returning to the trees as their superior cooperative minds built primitive defenses with ever larger bands of other cooperators.
Alfie Kohn is perhaps best known for his ten books and many lectures on education. But these are all produced within a wider concern for society that is most clearly expressed in his first book in 1986, No Contest: The Case Against Competition. Kohn points out that every aspect of our American culture is about competition. Our homes, our schools, our play, our work, our recreation, our legal system, our politics, our government, and our economics all promote and exist in competition. Our goal in life is to see everything as a contest, to defeat one another, and to win. Winning is thrilling and uplifting for the winners. But in every competition there are many, many more losers than winners. There is only one gold medal. And defeat is a loss—a loss of prestige, of self-worth, of friendship, and of self-respect. Competition creates losers. Fear of losing suppresses creativity and innovation. For Kohn, competition not only degrades the winners as well as the losers, it also degrades the system in which it exists. It promotes the economics of self-interest and materialism.
Individuals and families exist for material consumption and the hoarding of material wealth. Consumerism leads to unnecessary waste and pollution, as well as to lording over one’s neighbors by having more stuff.
In a chapter titled “Women and Competition,” Kohn bemoans the fact that the feminist movement has passed through three stages: (1)avoiding competition, (2)competing guiltily, and (3) competing openly and wholeheartedly. Males, on the other hand, have always touted their ability to compete, even when it was limited. Winning is all on the sports field, in the school, on the streets. While girls and women are making friends and expressing a collective interest, boys and men are showing off the independent and personal prowess and individual survival skills by defeating all others. Kohn understands that people who have systematically been denied the opportunity to earn a decent wage, to lead a life with dignity, to make decisions about what affects them may think it peculiar to be told that competition is destructive. But mimicking the ills of men in selfish individualism is giving in to a sick society. Kohn urges men as well as women to rethink the benefits of cooperation.
In two separate and separated chapters, “The Rewards of Working Together” and “Learning Together,” Kohn provides endless facts to show that cooperation in both learning and life is more productive, as well as more satisfying. Kohn backs his conclusion with facts showing cooperation promoted high production in 108 studies, while only 6 found the reverse and 43 found no difference.
In the end, Kohn concludes that every one loses in competition and gains in cooperation. For a healthy future society needs a shift in perspective from what benefits one’s self interest than what benefits one’s group. This sees the Western political, social, and economic systems as misconceived. The individualistic ethic, being based on the well-being of individuals instead of the well-being of the group, is a faulty assumption. A shift to the holism of a Gaian culture is needed to escape from the ills of competition.
Matthew Fox was a Dominican and a Catholic priest with a PhD in spirituality from the Institut Catholique de Paris. He is an ecologist who teaches that the cosmic God is in the creativity that happens between chaos and rigid order. The cosmic God is that creativity and is in all things created. The Vatican took his teaching to be outside of the Catholic church and requested that he leave. He became an episcopal priest and founded the Institute for Creation Centered Spirituality in Chicago where he writes and lectures about the unity of all things.
In his book Compassion, Fox says that compassion is about a spiritual energy that is in us all and all other created entities. He says that compassion is about the spiritual energy we give and take from all creatures, not just from human beings. It is not only an experience between people but among people and trees, among people and animals, people and music, and painting and the arts. Compassion is not about feeling sorry for people; it is about being one with the cosmos. It is a way of life. It is not what we think or what we feel. It is what we do.
This view of the world is in keeping with our view of Gaia as linking all of creation with all of creation, erasing all lines between our individual selves and nature and all lines between nature and society. Fox goes on showing the relationships between compassion and economics, between compassion and psychology, between compassion and sexuality, between compassion and creativity, between compassion and politics, between compassion and healing, between compassion and survival, as well as between science and nature. He paints a picture of a tightly interlinked and wholly interdependent world.
Ivan Illich has been an oft-sighted resource for homeschoolers since the 1970s. But many homeschoolers, and even many Illich fans, miss the message he was trying to deliver in Deschooling Society. Perhaps my own interpretation is enhanced by the numerous opportunities I had to talk with him, hear his lectures, and visit with his “traveling crap game” that met in various universities around the globe. Or it may be that his way of developing an idea was to stimulate the listener’s own thought rather than to lay out an idea so clearly that every one captures exactly the same message.
Deschooling Society is more about society than about schools. Society needs deschooling because society is a mimic of the school system. It engenders it as it is engendered by it. In our current society, individuals are expected to work in dull and stultifying jobs for future rewards. This they are trained to do in schools. They go to school so that they can get a job in the future to work for rewards they may get in the future.
By deschooling Illich did not mean taking schooling into the home, nor did he mean free schools in which curricula are set by the students. Schooling of any kind that limits a person’s capacity and desire to self-learn is detrimental to a person living a full life.
All life, according to Illich, should be convivial. That is, it should be lived in joyous collaboration with friends and colleagues. Learning and work alike should be enjoyable and fulfilling. They should be entered into as, and not differentiated from, play and recreation. A society that does not create that kind of convivial learning and living is not living up to, nor fulfilling the potential of, humanity.
In later works, like Tools for Conviviality and Shadow Work, Illich developed further the theme of what he meant by living the good life. He took the word “good” in both of its connotations—good as moral and good as pleasing. “Vernacular” was the word Illich used to express the good life. The vernacular is simple, local, communal. Every human and every community has its own natural concept of the vernacular. It is wrapped up in being a human. It is what a person can do themselves in the place they are at the time; it is without dependence or external assistance.
The bicycle was the hardware example Illich often used to exemplify the vernacular. The bicycle extends one’s own capability and efforts for transportation. It needs no massive outside system beyond its operator’s. The automobile, on the other hand, is not only a complex apparatus requiring a complex outside system, but it also requires more work and effort than it produces in transportation. If you take into account all the hours you spend to buy a car, to purchase gas and tires, to pay taxes for the road, to insure and license it, to clean up its pollution, and pay for all of the other costs, your rate of travel is less than that of a bicycle, and that doesn’t count either the hours, the costs, or the frustration spent in traffic jams and accidents.
In Medical Nemesis, Illich took the same concept to the medical system showing that not only did the medical not cure ills but it created them. In every aspect of our lives, conviviality and the vernacular have been overwhelmed and diminished by what Illich called the “disabling professions.” The law profession has increased crime, the professional economists have created scarcity and poverty, the teaching profession has dumbed us down, the farming profession has brought hunger. With this loss of the vernacular has come the loss of the family and the community. The single goal of humans has become to “make it” in a materialistic global economy. There is perhaps now better proof that the 2008–2010 recession created by the very people and organization made to stave the downturn off. It may be time to reconsider. Would living, learning, and working convivially for the general good create a more equitable life for all?
In his later essays, Illich brought his concepts to a fitting climax. An essay “The Cultivation of Conspiracy” in The Challenges of Ivan Illich: A Collective Reflection, a 2002 book of a collection of essays by many of his colleagues edited by Lee Honacki and Carl Mitcham. This essay discusses friendship. The friendship Illich wrote of is not just that of being kind and cooperative to your neighbors. It is a deeper conspiriatio. As in much of his writing, Illich went to great length to explore the original meaning and related ideas and actions related to the Latin words. “Conspiriatio” means breathing together. But breathing is not merely expelling air. It is about the breath of life—the soul. Conspiriatio is the melding of one’s inner being with others. It is best exemplified by the wedding kiss that symbolizes, or more exactly is, the combining of two souls. It is more than the ceremony or the license of marriage. It is above physical love. It is the unifying of two beings. This conspiratio, or welding of souls, (although Illich, a former priest, doesn’t use the word “soul”) is the root of the vernacular and of the convivial.
This brief extension of Illich’s concepts is meant only to put his book and the idea of deschooling society into context. Homeschooling grew from the ideas of Illich, Holt, and others. During the 1970s, a few scattered families broke away from government schools and started homeschooling. By 1980 there were some ten thousand to twenty thousand such families homeschooling alone. As the numbers grew, these scattered home schools started linking up, establishing organizations to provide resources and taking on special tasks like the legal defense of homeschooling. By 1990 the cells of homeschoolers had become a melange and ad hoc linking became normal. Home school support groups spontaneously self-organized in many communities and on the Internet. By 2000 there was almost no American community that did not have a home school support group.
But in the practical day-to-day struggle to homeschool their own children, many, if not most, homeschoolers left behind the social idealism of Illich and Holt. Parents who were imbued with the concept of schooling could not really let their children be free to learn whatever the community and nature offered them. They had been guided by their schools and parents and they believed it only natural to be the guides and authorities for their children. They looked to “experts” to provide school texts and curricula. And exchanged information with other parents on how to keep their children’s noses to the books. Their universal cry is for government to just leave them alone. They argued that they have parental rights to raise their children as they wish.
If society is to move beyond the corporate/factory/industrial mentality, it will need to move beyond schools and beyond homeschooling. It will need to reinvent the way future citizens are introduced into society and how they, and we all, learn. That was the message of Ivan Illich: restructuring society by creating new learning communities.
ROGER W. SPERRY
Perhaps the most startling and creative alternative path to a Gaian paradigm came from Roger Sperry who was awarded the Nobel Prize for his research on the right brain/left brain dichotomy. In spite of this honor, perhaps Sperry’s most seminal work was his theory of mind/brain duality simililar to the software/hardware dichotomy of the computer. Neither the relevance of his research to Gaia theory nor the computer was recognized in his writing nor in that of others. Sperry saw that the brain is a physical entity. Its neurons are its physical parts. The mind is the subjective property that emerges from the network of neurons. But the mind has a degree of control over the firing of the neurons of the brain. Thinking, remembering, imagining, feelling, and other subjective properties of the mind that are created by physical neural networks in the brain. The two—mind and brain—are inseparably linked but not the same. His new worldview was anchored in two new concepts, emergence and downward causation.
Emergence is the concept that every step of physical evolution is accompanied by the creation of new qualities that cannot be predicted from its physical parts. A simple example is the subjective quality of “wetness” of water that emerges with the combining atoms of hydrogen and oxygen into entity physical—water. The flight of an airplane is another. The parts of a plane have no qualities that predict the emerging property of flight. It is the organization of the whole that produces the result. The organization of quark into atom, the atoms into molecules, the molecules into life, and life into society, those are all new entities that have new qualities. The computer industry recognizes this difference in the use of hardware and software in their evolution. The two are different realms of thought. The hardware is about physical organization, wiring, and chips. The software is about computation, communication, and gaming. Sperry conceived the mind to be like software and the brain to be the hardware.
Downward causation is the concept that any newly evolved physical entity has a degree of control over its parts. Sperry’s simple example was the spokes of a wheel and atoms within them. They are controlled in their motion to the path of the turning wheel. Sperry expanded on this idea from the suggestions of Karl Popper and others. They held that truth did not have to have a physical basis and criticized science as being too dependent on the physical universe for it proofs.
THE COGNITIVE REVOLUTION
Sperry’s concepts of emergence and downward causation are the foundation of a new worldview that he called “the cognitive revolution.” It redefines evolution to be more than an upward path of physical creation. To use his words, “This view is mentalistic in holding that behavior is mentally and subjectively driven. [It] does not mean that the position is dualistic. In the new synthesis mental states, as dynamic emergent properties of brain activity become inseparably infused with, and tied to the brain activity of which they are an emergent property.” Evolution is a causal system that is driven by both upward causation and downward causation.
The Darwinian view of evolution followed the Newtonian view of causation. It relied on an upward hierarchy of physical changes all based on physical and chemical laws. In this view, understanding any evolutionary step required only understanding all the steps below.
Downward causation suggests that each step in evolution starts with the existing physical forms and their surrounding environment including the existing status of emergent properties. The cognitive revolution tells us that the lower level properties are already fixed and included in the parts of any entity. The parts are not changed by any emerging property. Nor is it necessary to understand all of the lower levels already entities or properties. They were merged into and included in the new entity. But they are superseded by new higher level properties. . In Sperry’s view of evolution, the lower level qualities do not changed,but they are subsumed and ruled by each higher level qualities.
Free will gives us an issue that may clarify Sperry’s view. In the existing paradigm, all causes are at the lowest level. The chain of causes reaches up to the [ STRIKE free] will of humans. All human actions and decisions are dictated by one’s past. Parents, family history, an individual’s history, and the history of the world are all in the hierarchy of causes that make our decisions. One’s fate is imprisoned in the past. There is no free will. It is all upward causation.
Downward causation suggests that at any and every moment in one’s life, every mind. has the power to make decisions. We are each at every moment faced with an infinite number of choices. I can choose right now what letter will be next. I can also choose to stop typing and go skiing, buy a ticket to London, or do any of millions of different things. That’s just common sense. But upward causation contends that hidden behind each decision lies a hidden causal hierarchy that determines my decision. Sperry does not deny the existence of upward causes but suggests they can be overridden downward causes.
Sperry further suggests that the concept of free will exists beyond the mind. Every tree, flower, rock, or star is embedded in a hierarchy of upward causations. Its past is prologue. But the future has many options. Every tree may be felled or not by the wind, fire, or the ax. Every star may be hit by another, explode, or fall into a black hole. Certainly, an upward hierarchy of causes has the largest degree of control. But as with the weather, unknown original conditions may have the well-known butterfly wing effect. The future of any entity or spot in the universe is uncertain, not only uncertain by Heisenberg’s principle at the quantum level but uncertain in its emergent level. We and every new evolutionary entity have high degrees of freedom in the downward causation that overrides without changing the causes from below.
For Sperry this view is mentalistic in holding that behavior is mentally and subjectively driven. It does not mean that the position is dualistic. In the new synthesis mental states, as dynamic emergent properties of mind’s activity. become inseparably infused with, and tied to the brain activity of which they are an emergent property.
Sperry’s books and papers on the emerging consciousness revolution affirm that the world we live in is driven not solely by mindless physical forces but, much more crucially, by subjective human values. The mission of this book is to carry on with the analysis and exemplification of those human values.
THE EVOLUTION OF MIND
Separately and together, the above new paths of thinking and thought suggest that the Descartian and Newtonian reliance on reductionism as the base of all science is seriously challenged with the introduction of systems theory in the 1940s by Ludwig von Bertalanffy, Ross Ashby, and other biologists was the first mainstream breakthrough. They recognized that a complex system could not be fully understood by a reductionist analysis of its elements. A whole is more than the sum of its parts. They recognized that a new complex physical entity gains new qualities in the organization of the system. Information theory was developed by a network of mathematicians, computer modelers, ecologists, and other scientists.
This antireductionism stance was taken to a new level by Donald Campbell in 1974. Campbell suggested that the new properties found in systems might have an impact on the system as a whole. He was first to use the term “downward causation” which he formulated as a poperty of the lower levels of a hierarchy being restrained by and to act in conformity to the laws of a higher level. Some ecologists saw this as the reason why ecology had control over evolution. (And some theologians joined in saying “We’ve been preaching downward causation for a long time.” ) But a broader scientific interpretation came with Sperry’s suggestion that every evolutionary emergence of a new physical entity also included a subjective quality that has a degree of physical control over the lower level physical entity.
The door Sperry opened for theoretical psychology has been largely ignored in his field. It has deeper roots in biology, physics, and philosophy. But its most universal impact may come from an analysis of the evolution of mind itself. Where and when did mind first appear in the evolutionary tree?
Of course the earliest steps in cosmic evolution are with the big bang. Physicists like Paul Davies have duly examined the concept in connection with the quantum theory. In his words, “The committed reductionist believes such inadequacies are mere technicalities and that the fundamental core of explanation is captured completely by the reductionist theory."
A minority of physicists and system theorists challenge this account of nature. Whilst conceding the power of reductionism as a methodology, they nevertheless refute that the putative final theory would yield a complete explanation of the world. They see that in the world of life and other complex systems, new qualities emerge that may not be relevant to the simpler entities that are their parts.
If we look at the very earliest signs of life, the long organic particles of the nanobacteria, we are in a realm in which the lifelike replication of the physical form emerges. Scientists still don’t agree whether these nanobcacteria are a form of life or merely a chemical reaction. In higher levels, but simple one-celled animals there is life that seems somewhat mind like. The amoeba, for example, does surround and absorb organic particles for its survival and reproduction. This is certainly not mind as we think of it. Perhaps we need a lower level term for our search.
Richard Dawkins in his Ancestor’s Tale does an encyclopedic job of tracing our ancestors from the homo sapiens back through our common ancestor with the chimpanzees some 6 million years ago, through the marsupials 140 million years ago, into the lampreys 530 million years ago, and on through fungi, amoeba, plants, eukaryotes, prokaryotes, bacteria, and the chemical origin of life. This fascinating journey in physical evolution is done without attention to the subjective evolution. On a few issues, like the reason for the human’s larger brain/body mass ratio, a downward causation explanation in Sperry’s terms might have been called for. Without it, the evolution of the objective physical system misses the evolution of the subjective mindlike system.
The evolution of mind in the subjective sense has received little, if any, attention. Some work is being done on comparing the chimpanzees’ and lower monkeys’ brains to the human brain. But little has gone much further and even what has been done is mostly on the physical attributes of the brains and not the operation of the minds and downward causation.
There are a number of steps in evolution that might benefit from a closer look at downward causation. The transition from prokaryotes to single-celled eukaryotes initiated the introduction of oxygen-dependent life increasing the energy efficiency of new life-forms living in a distinct advantage to the animal form of life. The emergence of the mammal brain, in the age of the dinosaurs, is another red-letter age in the evolution of humans. There are, no doubt, many steps in evolution in which a closer analysis of causation might provide and keener understanding on how we came here.
But I have already gone well past my own understanding of theoretical psychology to be of help. One book I did read on the topic was a pre-year-2000 review of theoretical psychology. It was a set of essays by leading theoretical psychologists; Sperry had one article in the book. But not a single reference by others touched on it. They were all multidegreed psychologists from Yale, Harvard, Princeton, and other prestigious universities chosen, in my view, more for their degrees than their creativity. Most of them seemed caught, like most theoretical economists, by Whitehead’s “misplaced concreteness.” They were more interested in mimicking physics and applying advanced mathematics to their field than in finding anything really new. My fear is that their progress(?) will lead us into a psychological quagmire to match the economic quagmire the government is now trying to save.
These quick reviews of some of the concepts of leading thinkers in no way covers all of their ideas nor of the relevant ideas of many other scientists, scholars, and futurists. The idea—of Gaia as the Earth and all of its life-forms as being a tightly linked unit evolving as one—is far from new. In the Bible, Ezekiel saw the cosmos as wheels within wheels. All tightly interlinked and interdependent. Many cultures, as we will see in chapter 8 below, are rooted in cooperation and reciprocity rather than competition, self-interest, and materialism.
The purpose of this chapter is to show only the beginning of a few of the paths that lead toward a cooperative, kinder, and gentler society. The following chapters are not a linear development of a single Gaian paradigm but, rather, a smattering glance at some of the ways along some of these paths.
SECTION II: GAIAN CULTURES
The social paradigms that form the foundation of cultures determine the mode of the many elements included in a culture—the economics, the religion, the music, the learning, the food, the health system, the communication, and all other elements of culture. In section II, we will explore some of the cultural modes that seem in concert with a Gaian paradigm.
THE EVOLUTION OF QUALIA
Darwin’s theory of evolution, and of most evolutionists following him, has been concerned with physical change—the biological emergence of new species of plants and animals. Nobel winner for brain research Roger Sperry added new dimensions to evolution when he proposed that each step of physical evolution was accompanied by new qualities or qualia unknown before. And that those qualia had downward causation: a degree of control in the parts. The mind was a new quale that emerged as the brain emerged.
The evolution of qualia has not, in my understanding, been studied systematically. Rather, many individual qualia are noted and studied in detail. The emergence of properties of oxygen-demanding eukaryotic cells that we mentioned in chapter 1 was explored by Lynn Margulis as a major underpinning of Gaia theory.
There are two basic types of biological cells, prokaryotic and eukaryotic. Prokaryotic cells, as the name implies, are environmentally earlier and simpler. They are single celled. They have been evolving for some 3.5 billion years. They are single celled; in general, they do not need oxygen. Some produce oxygen that is a very reactive chemical and is toxic to many other cells. Eukaryotic cells are multicellular and more complex. They emerged some one billion years ago, and some use oxygen to survive. This property makes them uniquely efficient at turning matter into energy and joining together to form even more complex and more efficient organizations. This quale is the property that makes them the foundation for all animal life. All other steps in physical evolution bring with them similar qualia.
As we’ll see in chapter 6, brain researcher Roger Sperry shows that the mind is an independent quale that emerged with the physical brain. It has a downward causation, a level of control over the firing of the neural networks. Like all general qualia, the capacity to think, remember, and imagine is made real only when it is used by the mind. The quale associated with any newly emerged physical entity is an ability of all members of that entity and has a different effect with each.
QUALIA AND THE INDIVIDUAL
Each organization or individual evolves just as species do. Each step in their evolution brings with it new qualia. As one’s body or brain evolves so does one’s essence or soul. We all take on new attributes as we grow and evolve. These qualia combine to create the soul that is more who we are than any other attribute.
As we noted in discussing the soul of a flock of birds in chapter 5, the soul of a flock of birds, a quale, creates as it is created by the souls (or qualia) of its members. The evolution of humans is in part the evolution of the species and in detail is the unique evolution of each person. All people absorb and take for granted the attributes of the people and nature that surround them and the organizations in which they are embedded. This is what is called culture and civilization.
THE EVOLUTION OF CULTURES
The key quale that made human evolution possible was probably the cooperative social organization of the first hominids. Only a cooperative social structure made it possible for “man the hunted” to survive in the vicious and unfriendly world in which he found himself.
Social cooperation has since taken many forms. These are broadly called cultures. Each culture includes its unique patterns of human activity including language, religion, economics, governance, security, literature, arts, technologies, lifestyles, organization, traditions, beliefs, and others. UNESCO defines it by saying, “Culture should be regarded as the set of distinctive spiritual, material, intellectual and emotional features of society or a social group, and that it encompasses, in addition to art and literature, lifestyles, ways of living together, value systems, traditions and beliefs.”
Perhaps the most important qualia in creating different cultures are myth, religion, and belief systems. These are usually passed on in a culture by memories and stories of the elders in the culture. Many, if not most, of the guiding principles of a culture are invisible to the people who accept them without thinking. Most civilized cultures abhor cannibalism without reason. Many accept one or another specific definition of a power beyond nature and human thought as controlling life. In the past generation or so, science, our understanding of natural law, has had some effect on shaping culture. Galileo’s heliocentric theory, Newton’s law of universal gravitation, and Darwin’s theory of evolution created new worldviews and changed all cultures. The theme of this book is that the concept of Gaia is providing the source for the most radical change of our worldview and its social paradigm. In section II of this book, we will open speculation of some possible cultural changes implied by a Gaian paradigm.
CHAPTER 7: GAIAN ECOLOGY
Ecology, in the dominator paradigm, is not considered as an element of a culture. Ecology, like nature, is something in which all cultures are contained. The concept of Gaia sees the Earth and all life-forms as one. Gaia evolves as a unit. Gaia challenges the separation of ecology and culture. Not only does the concept of Gaia blurs the line of separation by showing that culture shapes the ecology as it also recognizes that ecologies shape the culture. Global warming, smog-polluted cities, polluted water, holes in the ozone shield exemplify that we cannot think of a culture without thinking of its ecology just as we think of economics, education, religion, art, sports, agriculture, transportation, and governance as elements of culture.
Gaia theory reveals that life on planet Earth is dependent upon life on planet Earth, as we showed in section I of the book. But even without that theory, the intertwining of human life and ecology has become of ever-increasing importance. Its state now is not unlike the state of the food system at the advent of agriculture. Before agriculture was invented, food too was a part of nature. Hunters and gatherers had not invented growing food as a part of their cultures. That social invention is one of the most profound transitions in human history, or prehistory. Since agriculture’s first innovation, the food system has evolved to the globally privatized one that now creates the gap between the posh elite and the starving masses. As we go further along the food for money system and as the shortage of oil drives global food universally higher, we can expect a global food crisis to take precedence in human activities. The threat demands a radical transformation of the food system.
The concept of ecology as an element of culture is only at the beginning of its evolution. It is being made evident by our increasing knowledge of global warming, acid rain, holes in the ozone shield, urban pollution, poisoned rivers, and many other phenomena. Actions being taken on these ecological problems are signs that ecology is becoming part of our culture.
Perhaps the most startling opening salvo for a fundamental change in our concept of ecology came with the failure of the WTO (World Trade Organization) to come to an agreement at the July 2008 World Trade Summit. The deciding stalemate was the disagreement on the agricultural sector. On one side, the developing nations took the position that the low-cost, subsidized food shipped to their nations competed unfairly with local growers and put local farmers out of business. Yet even the low-cost Euro American standards were too high for poor local consumers. The result is the increasing poverty of many countries. This demonstrates that what may be needed is more respect for nature and recognizing ecology as major elemont of human culture. Ecology is just entering into that realm.
CULTURES OF PEACE
There is probably no characteristic of humanity that Gaia is more important than in creating cultures of peace. The emergence of a Gaian paradigm implies the emergence of cultures of peace. Early anthropologists like Franz Boas, Ruth Benedict, and Margaret Mead brought to public attention the wholeness within the different cultures they studied as well as the radical diversity among different cultures.
Anthropologists study the interlocking of cultural norms within each culture. They find that many acts that we would overlook as unimportant are important clues to a culture. Margaret Mead in books like Growing Up in New Guinea, Coming of Age in Samoa, and even Keep Your Powder Dry: An Anthropologist Looks at America noted that cultural norms were initiated in infants and reflected in almost all human actions.
In some cultures, mothers would tease babies by removing them from their breasts while feeding. Teasing was continued by other family members and peers outside. This teasing grew into more violent actions as youth became teens and grew into adulthood. This grew into more violent and warlike performance as in the Apache in the Midwest who lived largely by attacks on the more gentle native Americans of the Pueblos.
A few native American games, like lacrosse played since the 1600s and condemned by the Catholic church, were violent games but often had the goal of settling a dispute between tribes and preventing a more violent killing war. Most other games were methods of learning, animal tracking, basket making; snowcross, for example, taught the skills of tracking. One member zigzagged across a snow-covered, heavily tracked courtyard. Other members cooperated in following the track.
In most cultures, children are loved, taught, and protected by all members of the clan or tribe. Elder members of the tribe are the babysitters and gather the young around to recite stories of clan history, emphasizing the parables that teach the culture of the group and to impart skills and learning. Mead studied many tribes like the Arapesh people on the Sepik River in Papua New Guinea, She noted that they, like many other cultures she observed, were pacifists. They shared the egalitarian emphasis in child-rearing and had peaceful relations with other groups. Some cultures on the Pacific Islands provided free goods and services to other villages, which, in reciprocity, gifted their surplus to others. For example, gardeners in the highlands gave vegetable produce to the fishermen of the coast. There was no form of money and no word for exchange. Each tried to outdo the other in their generosity. These were, and many still are, cultures of cooperation and reciprocity.
The culture of cooperation was a theme my wife, Margaret, and I covered in a front-page story for the Futurist magazine of March–April 1989 titled “Non-Western Cultures and the Future”; we noted one example of a case in Papua New Guinea where, at the urging of tribal elders, some entrepreneurs had been put to death by the tribal shaman for abandoning the tribe’s cultural norm of doing all work for the public good. Instead, they had become personally rich by selling what they produced and hoarding their material wealth. In other cultures we visited through out the Pacific we noted many that the people worked cooperatively giving the profit to the elders to spend on the well-being of the community. Dancing for tourists in Tahiti, harvesting, drying, and exporting sea cucumber to Japan supported another village. Roads in a section of Papua New Guinea were maintained by a club of teens without cost to the community. The iKung of Africa recognize the scarcity of their resources but assume that by cooperative use they can go further. The message we tried to impart in this article was that Europeans and Americans could remove their own cultural blinders by studying and adopting a more cooperative lifestyle.
One does not have to go too far afield to find examples of the primacy of public interest. The Amish culture in the USA does not teach its children to say “please” or “thank you.” Such words are an affront to their cultural norm of doing good for others. Such acts are not special. They are normal and expected. This form of reciprocity is expressed in the bumper sticker “Practice random acts of kindness and senseless acts of beauty.” There are also the extensive networks of NGOs in which citizens put peace and social well-being ahead of personal gain. The transition being urged here is only an extension of some things that are already happening and the elimination of others. It suggests that the values of self-interest, competition, and materialism—greed—be replaced by the values of public interest, cooperation, and the health of Gaia. This seems to be what comes from the modern science that suggests that the Earth and all life on Earth are tightly linked as an interdependent whole. Each of us is responsible for each other. This peace is not just the absence of war or violence; it is the harmony of reaching outward and living in partnership with all the rest of Gaia. It is a way of thinking.
PEACE AND THE HOLOCAUST
The 2000 conflict in Gaza has brought a deeper concept of peace to the forefront. The WWII genocidal holocaust adds an important new dimension to thoughts of peace. The inhuman brutality against Jews of the holocaust raised a global understanding and sympathy for the plight of Jewish populations. The establishment of a home for Jews in Israel was hailed universally a justified settlement for their long-endured suffering. Monuments around the globe, including the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC, were established to be constant reminders of “never again.”
Tanks with the militarily might of Israel rolling across and overpowering the poor and weak Palestine nationals in Gaza have initiated a worldwide rethinking of the lessons of the Holocaust. It has made it clear that a culture of peace does not grow out of years of violence and suppression. It will take much more than national pledges, flag waving, and antiwar resolutions to bring lasting peace to the world.
UNESCO was founded on the theme that “since war begins in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that peace must be constructed.” Toward this end, UNESCO considers learning, science, social science, arts, and communication as the means to achieve peace. The wholeness of the UNESCO charter shows how comprehensive is the pursuit of peace. The statements of national leaders show us how far we are from universal peace. Statements like “If you are not with us, you are against us,” “We must crush the enemy,” “Winning is the only thing,” “Get out there and fight” are all part of cultures based on competition. They not only exemplify our current culture but also are instilled in each of us from infancy by family, school, and society. We are taught to believe that competition and winning is good and that violence and war is human nature.
Bringing peace to the war-torn world starts with bringing peace to ourselves and our neighborhood. Peace must be inherent in our learning system, our play system, our work system, and in our mindset. It must spread from us to others around the world. Peace will only come when it is part of our worldview. A culture of peace must be built on the principle of Gaia. Each of us is an integral part of and responsible for all of the Earth and its life-forms including each other person on the planet.
OTHER CULTURAL NORMS
There are many factors other than ecology that are overlooked by our American culture. This was brought to my mind one evening while haveing a Japanese traditional meal in a remote village in Japan. We were gathered around a family kotatsu, a low table over a pit with a heater in it and a table covering that covered our legs, keeping them in the warmth below. Each of us had a thimble-sized sake cup. Porcelain containers of sake were distributed around the table. After one shot of sake, I decided I should not take more. My neighbor at the table kept asking me if I wouldn’t like another portion. I demurred until my interpreter from my other side pointed out that the culture forbids anyone from filling his own glass or for asking for a refill. The custom was for each person to offer and to fill the glass of others. It was rude for me not to offer to fill my neighbor’s glass. Who was hinting?
In other cultures we visited throughout the Pacific, we noted many in which the people worked cooperatively, giving the profits to the elders to spend on the well-being of the community. Dancing for tourists in Tahiti gained no pay for the dancers. It all went to the community. Cooperative harvesting, drying, and exporting sea cucumbers to Japan supported another village. Roads in a section of Papua New Guinea were maintained by a club of village teens without payment. The iKung of Africa recognize the scarcity of their resources but assume that by cooperative use they can go further. The message we tried to impart in this article was that Europeans and Americans could remove their own cultural blinders by studying and adopting more cooperative lifestyles—living within the concept of Gaia.
Other different cultural norms are so taken for granted that locals are shocked or disgusted when they are ignored. I recall and incident in Japanese apartment. Our first entry into Japan was late at night but a local resident had planned a traditional welcoming party. I broke the standard precident by entering the apartment with my shoes on. I would not have shocked the local Japanese more if I hadwalked in nude. In many Japanese homes there were sandals at the door to use on entering. And a change of sandals to use when you used the bathroom. A more sensitive norm I learned in Nepal when I put my left arm around a teenager's shoulder. He shuddered as if I were a leper. I was told by an American friend that the left hand is reserved for wiping one's bottom or other unhealthy practices. One never made contact with a local with the left hand including passing money.
CHAPTER 8: GAIAN ENERGY
No element of American culture is more important to the well-being of humans nor exemplifies more clearly the concept of Gaia than energy. The interrelationships of humans and the Earth’s resources are clearly evident in the human-energy synergy. The current dominator paradigm claims that the Earth was made for the use of man. The resulting ethical code tells us that self-interest is the only motivation of humans. The result has led to the misuse and overuse of all resource particularly energy. Under the dominator paradigm, corporate ownership of the oil under the Earth has contributed to the gluttonous use of energy and the rich getting even richer. Continuing thinking and living along these lines will lead to the transfer of the world’s oil supplies into supreme wealth of a few oil barons. The end of the oil era is well recognized by nearly everyone now. There is no agreement among experts whether the end will come in 2015, 2050, or 2500. But there is no one who does not recognize that it will come to an end. Still many believe that the dominator paradigm—God, or science, or “they”—will find a new solution. And we continue this march to folly, leaving it to the future to solve our oil crisis.
Gaia sees energy in a very different light. Gaia is an open system. That is, it has a flow of energy from outside the system. That energy is primarily a flow from the sun in solar energy, a very limited amount coming from the moon’s pull in the tides. All of the oil, as well as coal and other stores of energy, are only stored solar energy. In ages past, photosynthesis of the sun’s energy grew lush forests and other plants that we carbonized to become the lifeblood of our current society. To continue thinking and acting in terms of an endless planet will only lead toward the annihilation of our species.
To contemplate on the depth of Gaia, we have to remove from our minds the Newtonian clockwork mode of the atomic material cosmos. Descartes’ dictum “I think therefore I am” implies that only what we think in our minds is real. The material world is not to be trusted. There is something more fundamental than economics as the purpose of life. Gaia is it.
This view of Gaia as a spiritual being, or at least a living one, puts the flow of energy through Gaia as our most crucial life force. If that energy were to stop flowing, life would immediately cease to exist. The ancients who worshipped the sun were more right than they could know. That solar energy flow is evident in everything we see or do. The flow of traffic, the lights of Broadway, the electrical appliances in our homes, the electrical generators that run our industries are all part of the flow of energy. So are personal activities of work and play. The food we eat turns into energy to keep our bodies healthy and is the source of the energy we use in everything we do. If there is any element of Gaia that might be called divine, it is energy.
We see energy as coming from many sources. There is the flow of water, wind power, direct solar power, energy from wood, energy from food, energy from explosions as in engines, and energy from the electric grid. All of these come ultimately from the sun with only a small part from tides caused by the moon. This is the energy that is part of Gaia. The flow and transformation of this energy should be the central concern of every individual and as well as of our governments.
It should be obvious that I have neglected both the energy stored under the ground in coal, oil, gas, and the energy obtainable for nuclear reactors. The first I ignore because it cannot be in our long-range planning. The second I ignore because it should not be in our long-range planning. Nuclear energy comes from plutonium and other large-sized atoms that decay, providing large amounts of energy that can be transformed into the grid on which we live. The catch is that there is no known way to store the spent nuclear fuel safely. Already there are small nonhabitable islands of spent nuclear energy scattered around the world. If we consider such waste from all of the energy flow needed and now used by humans, we end up with staggering amounts of spent fuel. Those few islands of inhabitable land that now exist would become a pockmarked planet. As these islands of waste spread, it would create a deadly rash, leaving only pockets of gated communities for those few investors on whom the money had landed and a chaos of suffering humanity with poverty spread to the streets and lower classes to add to the hunger they now share.
This foreboding forecast is not original here. It is common among the pundits locked in the dominator paradigm with its values of self-interest, competition, and materialism. They see civilization remaining on its march to folly and being swallowed up in its corporate greed.
THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN INSTITUTE (RMI)
Contemplation of energy as a force within Gaia paints a very different picture. A few bold innovators have challenged this whole scenario and are taking actions to change it. One example is the work of Amory Lovins at the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI).
Lovins is an American with physics degrees from Harvard and Oxford. In 1973, he became notable in the environmental community with an article in Foreign Affairs titled “Energy Strategies: The Path Not Taken.” It noted that energy was wasted. Most designs could be more energy efficient. The message did not go over well with those promoting energy use and making their fortunes in energy sales. But it led many environmental advocates into a new realm, that of energy conservation.
In 1982, Lovins moved back to the States and founded RMI. During their first year, Amory, with his first wife Hunter, designed and built their home and RMI offices in Snowmass, Colorado. Their four-thousand-square-foot super-insulated building is largely glass on sun facing south with its north side built into a hill. It is completely solar heated by a central solar greenhouse. The sixteen-inch-thick well-insulated masonry walls and the four-inch-thick cement floor act as the thermal mass, storing the heat from the greenhouse, windows, and skylights. For looks and cloudy day insurance, there are wood burning fireplaces in the main rooms. The energy-efficient establishment caught the interest of a wider audience and assured the success of RMI. In 1993, Lovins and members of RMI followed their housing design with the Hypercar. The Hypercar invention was a hybrid-electric vehicle that had tripled the gas mileage of other cars on the road. It was also safer and cheaper.
Such energy-saving technologies have been the core of RMI’s work. Over the years, it grew to a staff of fifty and a host of books on energy saving. At the twenty-fifth anniversary of RMI, President Clinton remarked, “The work of RMI over the next five to ten years, in my opinion, may be cumulatively more important than all the work that’s been done in the last twenty-five years because they have finally gotten a consensus for their essential mission. The crying need is for our nation and, indeed, the whole world to adopt what they already do best: getting organized and proving this is good economics in very practical, specific ways.”
While RMI continues to win high praise for its contributions, both the Lovins have moved to new fields. Hunter is president and founder of Natural Capitalism Solutions (NCS) based on the concept of natural capitalism developed in the book by that name authored by Paul Hawken and the two Lovinses. Natural capitalism reminds us that capitalism is not money. It is natural and human resources that produce goods and services. NCS works with corporate leaders and other decision makers to enhance natural capital while making a profit.
Amory has turned his full attention to winning the oil endgame. Toward this end, he adapts the concepts of E. Schumacher’s Small Is Beautiful and George McRobie’s Small Is Possible to show also that small is profitable with the enhancement of the natural capital.
Winning the oil endgame is, of course, now a central concern of much of the nation. Still many of the players are still enmeshed in the dominator paradigm and look to moneymaking as their basic driving force. They see the end of the oil game as a source for creating more billionaires. As it is already proving to be. A few are looking for a more Gaian future and foresee a radically different energy future. “A Positive Future” by Ken Zweibel, James Mason, Vasilis Fthenakis in The Scientific American, projects that by 2050, solar power could replace foreign oil. The two hundred fifty acres of wasteland in the Southwest, if covered with solar collectors, can convert the four thousand five hundred quadrillion BTU of solar energy to usable power. Only 2.5 percent of that would equal the total energy used in the USA in 2006. The technology is here and improving rapidly. That, or any other transformation, will not be easy. Their scenario would require some $429 billion in investment and a concerted government effort like the Nuclear Bomb Effort during WWII or the later Man to the Moon Program of President Kennedy. Not only is direct solar energy available, but wind power, wave energy, thermal energy, hydro dams, and other new technologies could be added to energy conservation to create a sustainable and comfortable life for Gaia including all humans.
None of the positive and optimistic scenarios for the energy future are likely to be brought to fruition by the government alone nor within the dominator paradigm. The transformation of our energy system requires a radical change of our view of the world. We must think and act as if we were all part of Gaia and responsible for its health as much as it is responsible for ours. Technology is important and necessary. But it is not enough. Each of us must accept personal responsibility to Gaia, the systems in which we live. Only when we all reduce our consumption of energy and increase our use of alternative energy can we move to a sustainable future.
CHAPTER 9: CORPORATE ECONOMICS
There are, as we’ve seen, many paths to a Gaian future. That is, there are many scholars who see the need of such a radical change. But as the saying goes, “It’s easier to act your way into a new way of thinking than to think your way into a new way of acting.” But there are many social innovations that are showing us the way. In the next chapters, we’ll explore a few. There is no more crucial or compelling element of our culture needing radical transformation than economics. And it is happening. Far too much has been written on corporate greed than we could cover here. Nor is it the purpose of this book to dwell on the failure, and sometimes evil, of the dominator paradigm outlined in chapter 1. Nevertheless, it may be well to remind ourselves of the history of economics before reviewing some of the alternatives to economics.
Producing and distributing goods and services within their communities has been the primary human activity since humans first formed bands for self-protection some 5 million years ago. Cooperative hunting and gathering, as well as protection, was a prime human undertaking even before human brains evolved, invented tools, and initiated the use of fire 150 thousand years ago. For most of that time, including much of the past two thousand or so years, humans worked without the thought of ownership or self-interest. For those who lived, their survival and well-being was recognized as being dependent on the survival and well-being of their tribe or community. They were dependent on cooperation. Only in the past two hundred or so years have self-interest, competition, and material accumulation been the overriding human goals. In the current age, the exchange of money for goods and services has come to rule economics. The purpose of human life has become one of getting, spending, accumulating, and conspicuous consumption—having more than one’s friends or neighbors.
Before democracy was initiated in America in the 1775, public ownership was limited to the divine rights of kings. During the age of colonization, the kings of European nations sent their ships around the world to conquer new lands and new people. Their goal and success was measured in the tons of gold or other valued booty brought back to enrich the thrones of Europe. Privateers or pirates were part of the kings’ dominion. To give some royal cover for this looting, the British established the East India Company. The East India Company was an early joint-stock company chartered by Elizabeth I on December 31, 1600. Its purpose was to promote discovery and trade with India. To make money for its owners, the Royal Charter gave the private company a twenty-one-year monopoly on trade in the East Indies. The company took on not only commercial ventures but also assumed the powers of the government in the name of the queen. It assumed the British military might until the Indian Rebellion in 1857 and its dissolution in 1858.
This model of private ownership and corporate power was assumed by other nations as they captured control of all the land around the world. Other royal charters like the Hudson Bay Charter, the Massachusetts Charter, and others rapidly unified control of America. Here the American Revolution almost put an end to the domination of royal charters. The American colonies resented the power the British corporations held over their manufacturing factories. They resented the corporate military domination of their cities. They resented their lack of freedom to control their own lives. In general they resented the power of British corporations and the British government in all aspects of their lives. The American Revolution was a war to rid America not only of the power of the crown but even more to get rid it of the power of corporations. The Declaration of Independence was an effort to free America from not only the divine right of kings but also from the corporate greed of the wealthy. It pitted us—the people—against corporate greed. Among the stated grievances against the crown the Declaration stated, “He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution and unacknowledged by our laws, giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation.”
“We the people” in the American Declaration of Independence was not primarily a statement of individual freedom and liberty. It was a rejection of the power of the king and of his corporations chartered by him to bring wealth from and to control land and resources beyond European shores. These were cruel and inhuman regimes. In America, they consisted of a few British elites with mass populations brought from the slums, streets, poorhouses, and prisons of England. In England, corporate-owned militia swept the streets for vagabonds, criminals, and children to be indentured servants in the New World. The East India Company, the Virginia Company, the Massachusetts Charter, and other European corporations ran inhuman prisonlike detentions in America. Criticizing or uprising against corporate government was punished by severe lashings, cutting off toes or fingers, or piercing the tongue so that the miscreant starved to death. In one account, of 3,570 indentured colonists sent to join 700 already here, only 900 were alive in 3 years. The Boston Tea Party was only one example of many street-level uprisings objecting to the harsh treatment.
In writing the U.S. Constitution, the power over corporate charters was left to the individual states. It was believed that the strong wording of the Declaration of Independence for we—the people—had ended corporate greed forever.
There was a brief period after the writing of the U.S. Constitution when the corporation was issued and controlled by local communities. The corporation then was limited to performing functions wanted by the local communities. Corporations were restricted in their capital value to usually $50,000 or so. The stockholders were in control and were liable for any crimes or misdemeanors of the corporations. Corporations had to stick to a narrow charter and could not buy out competitors or other corporations. A corporation charter could be canceled by the people if it did not perform for the public good. Slowly but surely, the courts, with the permission of the elite Congress, whittled away the public good and other requirements for corporations. Finally in 1886, the Supreme Court gave full personhood to corporations. The Supreme Court ruling in Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad read the following:
Corporations are persons within the intent of the clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which forbids a State to deny to any “person” within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. That Amendment had been written only to assure the equal rights of freed slaves. The personhood of the corporation has since been extended to give corporations more freedom and rights than is given to actual human blood, flesh, and soul persons.
The war between Corporate Greed and We-the-people has been central to the discussion of government ever since. Even before the personhood of corporations. Abraham Lincoln in 1864 had written: “I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. As a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.”
To counter the court’s action, promote competition and lower prices, the Congress in 1980 passed the Sherman Antitrust Act. This act declared it illegal for corporations to form monopolies, to buy stock in competitors, or otherwise reduce competition in the market. Little use was paid to this Act until “trust buster” President Teddy Roosevelt mounted both an administrational and a congressional attack on vested interest with his antimerger campaign. In 1902, Roosevelt shocked financiers on Wall Street with his decision to approve the government’s lawsuit against Northern Securities Co., a large and recently merged western railroad company. This angered J. P. Morgan, the financier who had arranged the merger, and other American plutocrats. The courts again took their side of the banking and oil barons, so the antitrust movement languished again.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt noted that “we have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals; we know now that it is bad economics.” And President Eisenhower produced a flurry of interest in his 1990 farewell address to the nation. He warned that
we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations. . . . This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence—economic, political, even spiritual—is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society. . . . In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.
In his 2003 anticorporation book Gangs of America, Ted Nace, as the book jacket says,
likens the personhood of the corporation to a Frankenstein—an immortal pseudo-person created by human will, but with powers beyond human control. This amoral intelligent being is slowly and surely abrogating human freedom and human rights. Taking over all it means to be human, Even the CEOs who enrich themselves by serving this false god, do not live, as they do, beyond a human lifetime. Nace calls for an uprising to restore humans to their rightful place in Gaia. As one step toward this end he suggests that Isimov’s Three Laws of Robotics, conceived to forestall the possible take over by robots with artificial intelligence from destroying human existence. Nace would substitute “corporations” for “robots.” They would then read:
1) A [corporation] cannot do injury a human being nor through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2) A [corporation] must obey the laws given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with Law 1.
3) A [corporation] must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with Laws 1 or 2.
Before looking at some of the options, we might correct a possible false impression of our tirade on corporate greed. The corporate greed we’ve talked about is not of individuals. We firmly believe that no person is out to be evil. Even the Mafia and street gangs see themselves as doing good within their cultures. Corporate managers are even more restricted by the laws of the land that defines the legal purpose of their corporations. It is to make a profit and grow. The Supreme Court ruling of 1886 changed the face of America and made it the Frankenstein that brought on the 2008 and other economic breakdowns. It will remain to be seen if President Obama can assume the mantle of President Teddy Roosevelt or FDR and return America to the power of the people.
The 2008 bailouts of the corporation, banks, and other organizations that were too big to let fail has been a vicious reminder that change is needed. Whether or not most intelligent leaders can break the hold of the corporate enterprise on the government as well as the production and distribution of goods and services remains to be seen.
Chapter 10: ALTERNATIVES TO ECONOMICS
Although since 1886 the legal purpose for all corporations has been the bottom line—profit—not all corporations ignore their social responsibility. Some Quaker and other NGOs have refused to support the military since the time of the American Revolution. But in spite of warnings from presidents Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, and Eisenhower, banks, Wall Street, and economic theories still hold tightly to their mantra that greed is good. They firmly believe that self-interest alone is responsible for the wealth of America. A couple of actions softened that thinking during the 1980s. One was the university and street demonstrations calling for economic withdrawal and boycotts of corporate investments supporting apartheid in South Africa. It was part of their protests for peace, ecology, and civil rights, a reminder of the Boston Tea Party. The other was the consciousness raising of a few investors and the establishment of SRI (socially responsible investing). At first, the economists and the “market” took SRI as a joke. Publications like Esquire touted socially responsible investing as “feel-good investing.”
SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE INVESTING (SRI)
By the 1980s, SRI mutual funds were springing up throughout the USA and overseas. Among the early-screened funds were Pax World Funds, Calvert, Dommini, and Parnassus. These investment programs called for not only the screening of corporations for peace, environment, health, civil rights, and worker safety, but also the launching of stockholder initiatives in those and other areas. SRI funds have become mainstream and are now well recognized by most investors.
Between 1995 and 2007, SRI assets grew from $639 billion to $2.71 trillion. That is 324 percent. In the same period, the total market grew by only 260 percent. Now one of every $9 invested is in SRIs. Now a majority of the investors recognize that self-interest was, in fact, bad economics, and that social responsibility is good economics.
This success has brought a new dimension to the SRI world. That is sustainable investment. This innovation moves SRI from just avoiding the ills of the past corporate agenda to supporting a more positive future. Screening for sustainable investing include rejecting alcohol and arms production as well as supporting of gays and lesbians, operation of small farms, third world development, alternative energy, and right livelihood. Stock owner initiatives on these and other social concerns have become a standard part of SRI programs.
THE GRAMEEN BANK
SRIs are a positive and constructive variation on the overreach of corporations. But there are many other alternative economic experiments suggesting the possibility of a new corporate world order.
In 1980 during a trip to Bangladesh, I heard a buzz in development quarters about a unique program started in 1976 by an economist/banker Muhammed Yunus with the assistance of banks of the country. Yunus was experimenting with very small loans to poor people without any collateral or credit rating. These impoverished people, most often women, needed ten to one hundred dollars or so to buy tools for cottage businesses, set up a table in a local market, or buy a couple of chickens to start an egg business. Yunus’s plan was to meet with small groups of such women in their villages and to suggest that the small group work together on a small short-term loan to one of them. When that was paid back, another loan would be made to another member of the group.
From 1976 to 1979, the experiment was confined to a small region around the capital of Bangladesh. In October 1983, the project became an independent bank, the Grameen Bank, owned by its borrowers. It was served by “barefoot bankers who traveled from village to village making loans and collecting repayments. Today, Grumman Bank is owned by the rural poor who own 90 percent of its shares while the remaining 10 percent is owned by the government. As of December 2007, it had 7.41 million borrowers, 97 percent of whom are women. With 2,481 branches, GB provides services in 80,678 villages, covering more than 96 percent of the total villages in Bangladesh.
The success of the bank is nearly the opposite of the standard banking system. In the standard system the more you have, the more you get. A loan is dependent on collateral and credit rating. In the Grumman Bank, credit is accepted as a human right. Those who have the least are given the most help. It holds that poverty is a potential waiting to be tapped. This theory holds up. the Grumman Bank has a much higher rate of return and a much lower rate on nonpayment than do most other banks.
My own excitement over this concept of development fell on deaf ears in the World Bank, where I was a consultant, and in other financial institutions. Why make one-hundred-dollar loans when with equal amount of time you could be make million-dollar loans that require no more paperwork and bring in a much larger profit with much less effort?
Although the financial institutions showed little interest, by the 1990s, the nongovernmental development agencies were taking notice. Since 2000, the concept under the new rubrics of microcredit, microloans, peer lending have become standard financial tools from Ghana to Brazil, from Papua New Guinea to India. Even the wealthier nations have joined in. My home county, Franklin County in Maine, has a peer-lending program. In the USA, worldwide Grumman-like program have over a million clients and disbursed more than $472 million in loans.
Their success was finally not missed by the banking institution. In one critical article, an American banker stated, “We have always been a peer lending institution.” What he didn’t mention was that the banks’ peers were the other institutions with a billion dollars or more.
Muhammed Yunus did not suffer such inconspicuousness for long. In 2005 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in economics for “turning the banking practice upside down.” His fame as well as his ideas has spread. Now he is taking his ideas on poverty to a new level with his new book Banker to the Poor: Micro-Lending and the Battle Against World Poverty published in 2008, that explores the economic causes of poverty as well as his social innovation that could solve it.
THE TRICKLE UP PROGRAM
It would be unfair if I left this microloan topic without giving credit to the "Trickle Up" foundation. Before Yunus started the peer-lending movement, a couple in New York City, Glen and Mildred Robbins, had observed third world poverty. As they traveled the world, particularly Africa, they discovered poor women whose productivity could be increased a thousand times by the purchase of a slightly more appropriate technology. Without the support of any institution, they took one thousand dollars of their own money and made one hundred personal loans to individuals with nothing but their word on repayment. Their small loans never made headline news but hundreds of villages still remember those passing visitors. And many other individuals volunteered and donated to expand the program. Because of their success, they established the Trickle Up Program.
Since its unheralded start, the Trickle Up Program has helped some 150,000 entrepreneurs; the average program now has five participants. TUP makes over 10,000 loans per year. It has representatives around the world: Africa, Asia, and South America. A review of one of the loanees in one year found that for 81 percent, their business is their main source of income; 76 percent provide better, more nutritious food for their families; 69 percent feel more financially secure as they face the future; 55 percent can afford better medical care; 52 percent can afford to send more of their children to school; 52 percent are wearing higher-quality clothing; and 27 percent have improved their housing.
Certainly, all involved in this program deserve high praise. But its success as a people-to-people program without the need for government or corporate help is possibly the most remarkable part of the story. It should move us all to recognize our own potential for changing the world through mutual aid.
A new level of microfinance has been established in the peer-to-peer lending program MicroPlace established by the New America Foundation, e-Bay, and Calvert SRI. This program allows the less affluent, socially minded Americans to invest to bring the working poor out of poverty and make a financial as well as a psychic return with their savings. MicroPlace on e-Bay is a place for the average Americans to maintain their retirement account while helping others move into the working world and to become part of today’s economic system.
I in no way want to belittle the important changes in the milieu of American business. But we cannot forget that the economic system is still bound by the dominator paradigm. For most of America, the purpose of life is still, and is supposed to be, self-interest, competition, and material accumulation. As long as the courts, the press, and Congress hold to the personhood of the corporation and declare that their only legal purpose to make a monetary profit, the Damascus sword, is hanging over the heads of all other ethical values. Programs like those above give us hope that the corporate agenda might be tweaked for the good of all. But we may also see an alternative to corporate economics in the steady growth toward a cooperative commonwealth. We will explore below some examples of the alternatives to monetary economics in which people come before profit.
THE ROCHDALE SOCIETY OF PIONEERS
Early in the days of the concentration of private wealth, the concept of cooperative community economics was forming. As new technologies came online, their cost was putting cottage industries out of business. The new machines were more expensive than the homemade alternatives. The corporate greed solution was for wealthy landowners to buy the machines and rent them to the workers or to gather them in existing buildings and pay the workers a minimal wage for their labor. Charles Dickens paints heart-wrenching portraits of the corporate world in many of his novels. A potential solution came to a group of poor, unemployed spinners and weavers in England. In 1844, they formed the Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers.
The driving goal of these pioneers was mutual aid. They would help one another. They would buy food and supplies together, help build houses for their community, set up training and educational programs, and help members obtain the tools needed for employment. Every member who joined the co-op was equal to every other. Sex, race, religion, social position, and politics had no standing among members. Every member had one vote, an equal share of any capital purchased, and an equal share of any profit made by that capital. Their first agreement was to gather whatever money members could donate. In a few meetings, they were able to gather twelve pounds. Their first rent was at 31 Toad Lane. It became their storefront, their meeting space, their office space, their schoolroom, and it soon housed spinning wheels and looms so members could add co-op income to their goods and services. This model grew to compete with other factories in the area. It was also copied by other communal groups to become the worldwide co-op movement we know today.
MONDRAGÓN COOPERATIVE FEDERATION
An outstanding example of the co-op movement today is the Mondragón network of cooperatives in the Basque county in the Pyrenees mountains of Spain. A local priest, Jose Maria Arizmendiarrieta, initiated the idea of the first Mondragón co-op and shepherded its growth to become the largest cooperative network in the world. The MCC network in 2006 accounted for 3.8 percent of all jobs in the Basque autonomous community and for 8.6 percent of employment in industry. Its cooperative bank, CAA Labial-Euskadiko Chute, profit before taxes increases by 24.3 percent over the first nine months of 2007. One of its cooperative factories, Fagor, makes one out of every three pyrolytic ovens sold in Spain. Its co-op supermarket chain, Eroski, continues its rapid rate of growth in 2007, with the opening of 50 new stores.
This amazing growth started with Arizmendi’s recognition that in spite of his teaching in the local traditional schools, his students were unable to find jobs and the local community was unable to supply job opportunities. His approach to the solution was two pronged. One is to provide job training, and two is to provide local jobs. In 1956, using the first letter of the surnames of five of his young graduates, he founded the first cooperative, Ulgor (It is now called Fagor Electrodomésticos). In the following years, other worker co-ops organized in much the same way. In 1959 a new level of service was provided to the workers and to new start-up cooperatives, the CAA Labial Popular (People’s Worker Bank), a credit union. The bank also invited other co-ops to participate in the network and helped failing small business to revive as co-ops. The 150 co-ops in the network in 1980 formed MCC (the Mondragón Cooperative Corporation) and in 1990 extended their education function with the founding of Mondragón University.
As of 2007, MCC had over 83,000 employees in 256 companies with 44 percent in the Basque area, 80 percent of whom were co-op members. Over 65 of their worker cooperative plants were outside of Spain, including plants in Brazil, France, Germany, India, Italy, and 18 other countries, of which the United States is one. Laws that permit the cooperative organization were used so that over half of all employees were co-op members and the goal was to be closer to 100 percent by the end of 1980. Mondragón has proven that cooperatives can compete on a global scale with greed-based corporations while at the same time maintain their values of personal and community well-being.
My own favorite cooperative community experience was with the Seikatsu Club Consumers’ Cooperative in Japan. My wife, Margaret, and I were part of a small experimental tour of alternatives in Japan. We arrived in Tokyo after a long flight from Maine to be housed in an organic farm in the heart of Tokyo. The farm has been with the O’Hara family for many generations. It now grows organic vegetables for the emperor and for the Seikatsu Club. SC is a club of three hundred thousand Japanese housewives. It started in 1965 when one Tokyo housewife convinced one hundred others to buy milk together directly from the local farmers, cutting out the middlemen and reducing costs to the farmers and the price to the co-op members. Now housewives around the nation are organized into hans of eight families each. Each han elects its own representative who meets in branches of about fifty hans that make their own plans and send representatives to a general assembly that elects SC’s board of directors.
While we were at O’Hara’s, a Tokyo branch of some fifty kimono-clad housewives met with six or so farmers who grew produce for them only. One issue taken up was the need for a larger supply of a specific green vegetable used in one of their traditional Japanese celebrations. In the discussion, the farmers agreed to increase the amount produced on that special day to what the han members called for. This, like other produce, was sold in supermarkets owned by the SC. These supermarkets reduced the number of products on the shelves by selecting only those that met their organic, environmental, health, and price standards.
At another time we met with a farmer at a traditional Japanese high tea ceremony high up on the side of a mountain fruit orchard. The owner had been a Japanese officer during the war. We learned the intricacies of the tea ceremony and examined the superlarge fruit on the well-manicured trees. As we wound our way down the narrow footpath we’d climbed to get there, we passed a group of Japanese women climbing up to inspect the fruit and to bargain with the owner for its purchase by the Seikatsu Club. At their storefront in the town below, we learned that when suppliers could not provide the quality of goods, these housewives wanted to set up their own manufacturing plant. One example was for a chemical-free soap powder for dishwashing.
As well as providing healthy, safe, and environmentally friendly products, the SC promotes recycling, an employment service for women, equality for all, resource conservation, and a democratic society.
COOPERATIVES IN THE USA
Cooperatives had an early introduction in the United States. Benjamin Franklin’s vision of a new nation was one of cooperatives—free citizens on their own, organized for mutual aid. Time after time, Franklin gathered people together to form new voluntary institutions to meet the citizen’s needs. Franklin founded the Library Company (1731); Union Fire Company (1736); American Philosophical Society (1743); University of Pennsylvania (1749); Pennsylvania Hospital (1751); and the Philadelphia Contributionship (1752). When, in 1747, the Quaker colony of Pennsylvania declined to participate in a military action to defend the port of Philadelphia from a British threat to capture it, Franklin raised a volunteer militia. His militia elected its own officers. When the First Continental Congress met in Philadelphia in 1774, it was in a hall owned by a cooperative of carpenters, with the cooperative Library Company on the second floor. Samuel Adams and the Continental Congress took advantage of and thanked the library for its service during the Congress. In 1785, when the group gathered to draft the Declaration of Independence, the library again offered its space. Nine signers of the Declaration were also members of the cooperative Library Company. The freedom of the United States of America was thus assured by the concept of cooperatives.
Since those days, the United States cooperative movement has grown immensely. There are now over 40,000 cooperatives providing more than 100 million Americans with $123 billion in goods and services, not to count the millions of housing co-ops, health co-ops, credit unions, and other specialty forms of cooperative business and living.
Most of these are, in one or another, cooperative federations. Many form cooperative bonds with other cooperatives to exchange products and mutual aid. A few live completely within their cooperative network. Some work toward a global cooperative commonwealth—a network of cooperatives with each producing what others need coordinated so that everything anyone needs is produced and distributed to them. They see a future global cooperative commonwealth that could replace the current corporate agenda. A true adoption of a Gaian paradigm
THE COOPERATIVE FUND OF NEW ENGLAND (CFNE)
One of our favorite American cooperative services is the Cooperative Fund of New England. Although my family rainy day fund is now being saved for old age, it is productively saved in an SRI. We tithe one-tenth of it for loans to emerging cooperatives through CFNE. CFNE is a joint fund to which individuals or organizations loan, or donate, money for the use of helping co-ops or other democratically controlled local organizations. Loaners to the fund may choose the return they need—from 0 to 4 percent. Loans are made to existing or starting co-ops of all kinds—food co-ops, worker co-ops, collectives, housing co-ops, land trusts, cooperative schools, etc. In 1975, their first year of operation, they had $60,000 in loans. In 1993, they had $1,000,000. In 2007, they had $5,000,000.
In the past, loans have usually been for working capital. In 2007, CFNE initiated an affiliate. The Cooperative Capital Fund Inc. (CCF) of New England is a socially responsible investment fund that will invest in cooperative businesses in the form of patient capital or equitylike financing. CCF seeks to assist the New England cooperative industry to grow and flourish by providing capital that acts like equity without requiring cooperative businesses to give up control over their own management and destiny.
The rapid growth since 1993 reminds one of the rapid growth in the 1980s of SRI and the impact it had on corporate economics. The pool of money in the savings of the millions of middle-class Americans must be close to equal to the few wealthy Americans at the top. But we middle-class citizens are not in the position of starting new foundations or making large grants. We are in the position of loaning a small percent of our savings until the moment of family need. Cooperative community loan funds like CFNE might have a larger impact on transforming society from one of corporate greed to one of community well-being.
There are many other alternatives to economics that have spontaneously self-organized as replacements for the corporate greed, consumerism, and the money agenda: LETS (local exchange trading systems) that creates credit and debit accounts for members based on agreements of individuals supplying goods and services; time dollars systems, like baby sitting groups, that provide hours of service to one another; local scripts that create paper money that can be used only locally or among members; credit unions that loan out local members’ deposits to support only local members’ needs; food cupboards that provide free food to those in need or from local garden surpluses. Cooperatives, collectives, and many other alternatives to economics are already making substitutes for money and changing the way some communities work.
CHAPTER 11: GAIAN FOOD SYSTEM
You cannot speak of any human culture, in fact any animal species, without recognizing its food system. Food is our most basic animal need. The food system includes growth, harvest, distribution, eating, and nutrition. The history of our food is almost the history of our culture. The human food system has evolved from its very primitive man-the-hunted days of hunting and gathering when nature and humans were one, through the origin of agriculture, to the current complex and demanding economic system. Currently, the American culture separates food from nature as it separates all aspect of our culture from all others. Every step in our food system now has a single purpose—making a profit. The food for money system exemplifies the distortion caused by economics and the failure to recognize Gaia as a unit.
The current concept of food in America was brought home to me by an eight-year-old who asked where the hamburger he was eating came from. To him it had come from a plastic package bought at the supermarket. When he was told it was cow parts, he stopped eating and has been a vegetarian ever since. Now he is turned off by learning that the cow parts were grown on land that was once a rain forest.
The economization of the food system has done much more than hide the sources of food. It has also put our home food supply in constant jeopardy. That is well proven by the threat of any environmental catastrophe. The mere approach of a hurricane, flood, or snowstorm sends everyone to the nearest supermarket to stock up on food. The shelves are soon emptied.
I recall my experience with a railroad strike when my wife-to-be and I were students at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks. The Anchorage to Fairbanks railway supplied all the produce from the south. It went on strike. In less than a week, all food shelves were emptied except for a few exotics like a few cans of caviar. Most of the students lived on pasta with a small bit of meat. Occasionally, a student in our common dining room would raise his or her fork with a small morsel of meat on it and shout, “I got the meat today!” The student dining room was saved by the temporary lifting of a ban on reindeer hamburgers. I was lucky because I had half a moose stored under my nearby cabin. That won me the approbation of the student body including Margaret as my future wife.
In addition to unintentional loss of local food supply is the threat of an intentional stoppage. Foreign mono crops, tankers and cargo ships, centralized storage, trucking, and supermarkets are all good targets for storms and terrorists. If that is not threat enough, there is the threat and the actuality of contamination and its recall from the market. The 2007 recall of 5.7 million pounds of beef contaminated with E. coli is only one example. Salmonella-tainted peanut butter from the Peter Pan and Great Value brands sickened hundreds of people in forty-four states. Others became ill from E. coli after eating at Taco Bell restaurants. Three died, and two hundred-five consumers fell ill from contaminated spinach bagged by Dole. Eight people died, and fifty were poisoned by lettuce before Pilgrim’s Pride recalled over twenty-seven million pounds of frozen and prepared poultry products. If our concerned national food system officials with their government oversight could let these happen, what could an imaginative terrorist do using our centralized corporate food system?
Even without being the target of terrorists (at least identified terrorists), more than 854 million people in the world go hungry every day. In the third world, 16 million children die from preventable causes daily; 60 percent of these die of hunger. Even in the United States, 11.7 million children are forced by poverty to skip meals every day. That means one in ten households in the United States are living with hunger or are at the risk of hunger.
The present world hunger crisis may be only a small blip on the screen in the coming world without oil. The increasing costs of transportation, refrigeration, and fertilization in addition to the biofuel surge, using food crops to make oil, is already increasing food prices. Analysts predict that by 2050, if not before, our whole world economic system will be in shambles. The luxury of shipping not only exotic foods but even the most mundane of staples around the world at prices affordable by even the middle class will be a luxury few will be able to enjoy.
The failure of the Green Revolution to end hunger is a case to study. Hi-tech biosciences have been used to develop high-yield crops. Rice, barley, wheat, and other grains were developed that produced up to nine times that of traditional plants. With this new horticulture, the world now produces enough wheat, rice, and other grains to provide every human being with three thousand two hundred calories a day (one thousand five hundred to two thousand calories is considered an adequate diet). Even with justified use of corn and other grains for biofuels or food for grain-fed cattle, this should be enough to end hunger worldwide.
Again, the devil is in the details. Food costs money. The Green Revolution and the GM (genetically modified) foods now being made available on the market have increased the price and added to the food-for-profit concepts that have ruled the food system for decades. Flooding the world with American surplus crops, patenting even seeds developed in the field and used for generations, and inventing new super GM crops highly dependent on heavy doses of expensive nitrogen fertilizers all multiply the costs of growing. The higher prices create more starvation rather than decrease it. And the privatization of seeds and fertilizer gas made it impossible for local farmers, in America as well as the third world, to stay in business. Exporting excess food grown with government subsidies in the USA adds one more level of competition for putting an end to local farmers around the world.
Decades of development programs have plowed billions of dollars into less-developed nations to improve their infrastructure of highways, dams, and communication systems. They have created hybrid crops that are pest resistant and grow better in other climates. We have exported surplus grains and produce from the North to the starving South. Large-scale technologies, or mono cropping, have been transferred to all parts of the globe. But rather than creating self-reliance, they have offset the potential third world development by forcing them to be part of the corporate money/food system. Our exported technologies have been no replacement for the simple tools used by farmers. Our export of subsidized food has only made it impossible for a local farmer to sell his produce at a profit at the local market. Exporting hi-tech factories to make products for the industrial world has only distorted the local labor market and made it impossible to create internal programs of social or economic improvement. Crops for export have taken land and labor away from production of local food products. A glaring example of this has been the export of giant prawns from Pacific nations. Not only did prawn farms take over land from rice. But they cut down the mangrove forests that protected low-lying villages from high tides and ocean waves. Prawn farms destroyed a long, sustainable lifestyle with no hope of providing anything better for local communities.
FEEDING PEOPLE IS EASY
There is an easy solution to the failing food system. It was well stated by Colin Tudge in his 2007 book Feeding People Is Easy. In his words, “It should not be difficult to feed everyone to the highest standards of nutrition and gastronomy and do so forever without being cruel to livestock or wrecking communities and landscape.” To do so, Tudge argues, we cannot expect the governments or corporations to change. We must do it ourselves. This is not only a theme of a Gaian paradigm but it is echoed by many social critics and it is happening. If the goal is to improve human diet, we need to transform our thinking about the food system and away from the economic system.
The American food system of less than a generation ago was more Gaian. We lived closer to nature. My village in northwestern Maine was a village center for small family farms. Large areas of farmland had been carved out of the forested hills that surrounded the lakes, mountains, and villages in Maine. Wool and apples were the primary cash crops. They were taken down the narrow, bumpy rock-infested trail forty miles to market. But every household had its own garden, cow, chickens, and orchard. As a youth, my job was to lead our cow to the public pasture on the way to school and lead it home in the evening. The garden, berry bushes, and apple trees provided produce for canning, pickling, drying, and the root cellar. The forty miles to the nearest city of five thousand was closed by snow in the winter (November to April) so we lived off our own preserves, hunting deer and rabbits and whatever we could exchange with others in the community.
Technologies today have made such lifestyles unnecessary if not impossible. But perhaps, they have also made the deep fundamental transformation of society to a Gaian way of life even more possible and more necessary. The tightly interlocked and interdependent food system with economics, transportation, communications, oil supply, ethics, and other cultural aspects of our civilization exemplifies the importance of recognizing the unity of Gaia.
Rudolph Steiner emphasized this unity long before the Gaia theory was enunciated. Steiner was born in Austria in 1961. He was a philosopher, literary scholar, educator, artist, playwright, social thinker, and esotericist. He was the founder of anthroposophy, Weldor education, anthroposophical medicine, a new artistic form of eurythmy, and biodynamic agriculture.
The latter, like all his other concepts, was a holistic and spiritual view of the world. It followed no philosophies of the past and was considered a religious sect more than a set of practical social innovations. The core of all his ideas grew from his inner view of a spiritual world. Biodynamics was a result of questions raised to Steiner by a number of farmers in 1924. He urged that growing food be taken as dictated by nature’s creation. And that it should be practiced as such. Chemicals, technologies, and hybrid plants were not part of creation and should not be parts of agriculture.
The biodynamic farming system saw nature as human’s ally rather than something to be controlled. It used the sun, moon, stars, and planets to determine the times of planting and harvesting and, in general, fitted his biodynamic food system into his broader network of social systems. His central theme was that thinking was the sixth sense of humans that discovered ideas just as the other five senses discovered taste, smell, feeling, sound, and sight. They all came from nature through the soul of the universe and the soul of humans.
The publication of Silent Spring by Rachel Carson in 1962 brought to light chemical pollution by fertilizers, herbicides, fungicides, and pesticides in addition to the loss of soil by poor farming practices and the deteriation of health due to poor nutrition. As a result, the organic gardening spontaneously self-organized.
The first use of the term “organic” came from J. I. Rodale in 1940. It quickly caught on, so Rodale started the still successful magazine Organic Gardening and established the Rodale Press and the Rodale Institute. The goal is to return horticulture to nature and to promote ecological health by more use of natural materials, composting, manures, crop rotation, and other traditional practices including improved diets for the gardeners/consumers on a local basis. Rodale advocated the return to the use of natural materials such as composts and manures as a better way to feed the garden, and the return to traditional cultural practices such as crop rotation as a better way to prevent and control garden pests.
The organic gardening movement was one of the movements of the 1960s. It was promoted through many food co-ops and health food stores as the core to a new food system that was easy on the environment as well as being better for the health. First looked on as a fad of the hippies, the success of both the food co-op and organic farming soon moved into the mainstream and is now a marketing technique for most supermarkets.
The organic movement also spread worldwide. The International Federation of Organic Movement (IFOAM) in Germany publishes facts showing that today there are some 31 million certified organic hectares being planted on. The global market includes 130 nations with a $38.6 billion market and is still growing rapidly.
CSA (COMMUNITY-SUPPORTED AGRICULTURE)
A later addition to the organic food movement shortened the field-to-fork gap even more. I first witnessed community-supported agriculture (CSA) in Switzerland in the 1970s. Several biodynamic gardeners independently brought the idea of CSA to North America in the mid-1980s. CSA takes many forms. In one, a group of local citizens purchases the land and hires a professional horticulturist to plan and produce garden products. In another form of CSA, a practicing farmer sells shares to members. Members prepay the planting costs. As produce is harvested, whatever grows is split equally among the members on a weekly basis.
CSA makes consumers part of their own food system. Consumers not only get their food directly from the field in which they may work part time, but they know the growers and have a voice on what is grown and on how it is grown. The Seikatsu Club mentioned in chapter 10 provides one good example. The CSA movement draws consumers and growers into a tighter network and adds a new level of democracy to the food system.
THE SLOW FOOD MOVEMENT (SFM)
An even more democratic, or might I say Gaian, evolution of the organic food movement is in to the slow food movement. This movement started in Italy in 1989. The Italians love their food and wine and resented the incursion of fast-food and fast-life aspects of dining from America. They wanted to recover the local gourmet food and eating traditions with the more leisurely and life-loving-living that went with it. But its growth did not stop there.
Food is not just what we eat, as we have shown, it is also our lifestyle and our economy. We not only work to earn money for food but also the industrial food system is a multibillion-dollar industry supplying millions of jobs. The SFM is not only about taste, nutrition, service; it is also about the effect our food choices have on other people and other nations. We need to know where our food comes from and how it is processed, packaged, shipped, displayed, and sold. All of these aspects are part of the SFM and are part of the annual conference initiated by the SFM in the USA in September 2008
FOOD AND GAIA
Books like The New Paradigm for Financial Markets, Dr. Gary Alexander’s eGaia: Growing a Peaceful, Sustainable Earth through Communications, as well as Colin Tudge’s Feeding People Is Easy are coming from very different premises but all arrive at the same conclusion. As Tudge says “We can feed ourselves forever—without cruelty to livestock and without wrecking the rest of the world. . . . [But] It is clear that we cannot leave our affairs to the powers-that-be. And this means that we have to reinvent democracy, or rather to make it work almost for the first time in the history of civilization.”
“It is not the growing of food that is the problem,” as poet, author, farmer, Wendell Berry, put it. “There is another way to live and think: it’s called agrarianism. It is not so much a philosophy as a practice, an attitude, a loyalty, and a passion—all based in close connection with the land. It results in a sound local economy in which producers and consumers are neighbors and in which nature herself becomes the standard for work and production.” Food is tightly interwoven within Gaia as are all other aspects of any culture.
A GLOBAL FREE FOOD NETWORK
A Gaian food system can be imagined. It is in part already being created. It is divided into two sections. The first separates food from money. It recognizes food as a human right. In the future it will be operated by a worldwide network of nutritionists, agronomists, and local-community organizers. A small team working in each community will (1) determine what minimum diet can be grown in the local area by local citizens, (2) assist every citizen to grow what they can, (3) provide seeds, training, and simple tools on a per-citizen basis, (4) establish CSA, WWOOFs (Willing Workers on Organic Farms), and other cooperative and exchange programs to assure the minimum nutrition reach every local citizen.
WWOOF and IFOAM and other existing NGOs could expand established training centers for training master gardeners and placing them in positions in participating communities. Others like the World Food Programme (WFP), the Red Crescent, the Salvation Army, the Red Cross, and local food cupboards could enlarge their food distribution programs. Other free-food programs could join a global cooperative network to provide information and help to one another as well as to cooperating communities.
The second part of the world food system already exists. It is the money system that will supply anything wanted above the minimum no-cost diet. This will include meat, imported food, and other food products that have a monetary value and provide pleasure as well and the necessary nutrition.
The Association for the Study of Food and Society (ASFS) is a multidisciplinary international organization dedicated to exploring the complex relationships among food, culture, and society. It is currently constructing a list and network of NGOs concerned with food. Community by community, region by region, nation by nation, it is working to bring together a united nongovernmental effort to solve the food problem. Bread for the World, FAA (Food and Agriculture Association), the Heifer Project, and many other organizations are already pushing in the direction of a worldwide Gaian food system. As food security for all is created, other elements of Gaian cultures will spontaneously self-organize.
Brazil is already taking some giant steps toward making food available to low-income neighborhoods and to the rest of the world. It was started with research on how to make the barren lands of Brazil productive. Many processes and many crops were tried on plots throughout the country. The results were surprising. Some crops not known to grow in the tropics, like soybeans, were most productive. In the first ten years, the soybeans thrived and not only became a staple for many poor families but became an export crop passing the former leader, the United States, in export.
Brazil did not stop with a newfound export. As well as exporting food, it started exporting their technology. Successful farmers as well as researchers took their knowledge to poor local communities in Africa and other parts of the world to help them create their own neighborhood food systems.
The Brazil Neighborhood Food Program is similar to the Cuban Neighborhood Health program (see chapter 13). They suggest that community development could replace the failed nation development strategies.
CHAPTER 12: GAIAN HABITAT
The concept of the unity of Gaia gives a new connotation to housing and habitat. Or at least opens our minds to a broader definition. “Habitat” means more than protection from the elements. It is a place to which we belong—our home. It is the people we respect and who respect us as well as a shelter. This meaning has been in the center of society since primitive hominids first started to cooperate for security. It has been in the wings in alternative communities at least since the Gnostics formed their communes over two thousand years ago. It was the reason that monks formed monasteries and Jews organized kibbutzim and hippies lived in communes and other formed other alternative intentional communities. These and other forms of Gaian habitat bring attention to more than shelter. They emphasize a closeness among members and with nature. The monasteries were centers of health and gardening as well as communion. CoHousing and ecovillages have become models for mainstream housing developments. Specially designed community kitchens are adopted by other NGOs. It can be hoped that the interconnection and interdependence of humanity and nature will become even more central to humanity’s future.
Alternative intentional communities have been established almost since the beginning of civilization. The late poet, cultural visionary, and progressive Kenneth Rexroth, in his book Communalism, a history of millenarian movements and utopian communities, provides a good coverage of the communalist tendencies of early Christianity, the radical millenarian movements of the Middle Ages and Reformation (Anabaptists, Diggers, Brethren of the Free Spirit) and the numerous attempts, successful or otherwise, to set up utopian communities in nineteenth-century America (Brook Farm, Oneida, Fourierists, Hutterites) to the revival of communalist ideas and experiments in the 1960’s counterculture. Our interest starts where he ends. It is concerned with the alternative communities of today and the future.
One intentional community with which I have been sometimes associated is the Farm in Tennessee. The Farm started, of all places, on the street corners of Berkeley, California. Steve Gaskin was a street-corner preacher. His sermons, if you can call them that, were about the evils of modern society and the need to start a new one. Steve and a few disciples bought a number of old school buses and headed across country. They ended up in Tennessee, pooled all their money, and bought a large tract of land. They lived off a common purse by buying and owning jointly whatever they needed—tools, food, seeds, etc. Their numbers soon reached over one thousand members. Their community had large fields of soybeans and other food crops that, with a few purchases, filled a common distribution center in an old barn. Any member could help himself to whatever they needed. A communal health system with ambulances, physicians, assistants, and midwives concentrated on preventive medicine and healthy living.
A commercial-sized soy dairy made soy milk, soy ice cream, and other soy foods. Community trucks were left for the use of anyone with legitimate need. And wireless communication kept them in touch with one another.
It was the wireless communications later that brought me in close contact with the Farm. I was working at the World Bank. The president of the Bank, Robert McNamara, had responded to a common criticism of the Bank and announced a new plan to “help the poorest of the poor.” The Bank soon concentrated on appropriate technology (AT)—small, low-cost, human-scale tools and techniques that could be developed with local skills, local resources—to meet local needs. I was fresh from the establishment of TRANET and the UN Conference on Science and Technology (UNCSTD) where AT had been a major topic. I was asked to act as a part-time consultant. I was to read pending loans and make suggestions on alternative appropriate technologies.
One project brought to my attention was a grant to Bangladesh to develop a countrywide communications system. Their problem was that no sooner had they installed the copper wires than needed that the copper was stolen, melted down, and sold. My suggestion was to examine the Farm’s wireless system. That was in the days before the Internet, cell phones, or other technologies well-known today. The Farm’s options were walkie-talkies linked through ham radio stations. After some hemming and hawing, the Bank officials asked me to invite the Farm to come in for an interview.
I called Tennessee and was told that Steve was with the ambulance that was serving the “longest march,” a protest walk of Native Americans from Washington State to Washington DC. They said, “Hold a minute.” In less than a minute, Steve was on the line. I asked, “How did they find you? I thought you were lost along the route of the march.” He answered, “They contacted our local ham station with a walkie-talkie, that ham station contacted the one in the ambulance, they in turn connected me on my walkie-talkie.” I stated the Bank’s invitation and he said, “Great, we arrive in the district tomorrow and I’ll be glad to come by.”
The next day, a group from the top-level management with one of the vice presidents had gathered in the front office boardroom. With them, I was waiting for the arrival of Steve. Suddenly a member of the Bank security came in and whispered to me, “There is some kind of a demonstration at the front door and they are calling for you.” I rushed down, expecting the worst. There was Steve, his wife Ida-Mae and three or four others standing quietly. Steve was dressed in nothing but overalls and sandals with his long ponytail braided with an American flag. As I recovered, I led the Farm contingent to the boardroom. With little more than a nod at the line of penguinlike Bank personnel in their black suits, white shirts, and ties, Steve and crew set up a slide show describing the Farm communication system. At the end of the slide show, without asking a question, the Bank employees, with little more than an off-hand “thank you,” left the room and the farm team returned to their grassroots march.
As I left the room, my boss stopped me with an angry look, saying, “If ever again you bring a mob like that into the Bank, it will be the last time you come in.” When I got back the office, I found the representatives from Bangladesh and a member of the Bank technical staff waiting in my office. They asked, “Who else can we get who knows what they know?” I demurred, saying I know of none. They then allowed that the Bank could never hire such a rag tag crew. But I wondered if I, through the organization TRANET, might not hire them for a visit to Bangladesh. I agreed.
The Farm and the Bank met with Bangladesh officials in Bangladesh the next month. During the office meeting, one question was asked as to frequencies needed. One of the Farm technicians walked out, and in a minute the walkie-talkie on the table rang, and the outside technician asked, “Can you hear me now?” After an hour of such calls, all agreed that it could be done. A wireless communications system could be set up in Bangladesh. Then the Bank officials were asked to go home and leave the Farm crew there for more discussions.
The upshot was that this successful experiment was reported to Congress and the Bank got high praise. It goes without saying that I ended my consulting there for other reasons.
The Farm and TRANET had many other good relations. Plenty a Farm-run third world service located many grassroots AT centers to which TRANET sent some of the over-one-hundred AT libraries it distributed. The TRANET library project selected the one hundred best AT books from the thousands reviewed in the Appropriate Technology Sourcebook edited by Ken Darrow and Mike Saxenian. It purchased copies, packaged the library, and sent it to the selected AT centers in third world villages. Steve and others at the Farm, familiar with grassroots programs in developing countries, were great sources for the gift.
Steve had always worried that his word had too much authority than was good for the development of a democratic community. So he stepped aside and urged others to be more vocal. Today (2008), the Farm continues with Albert Bates as a principal leader.
Far more typical of the modern intentional community movement is Twin Oaks (TO) in Louisa County, Virginia. Twin Oaks is one of the nine hundred communities listed in the Communities Directory published by the Federation of Intentional Communities (FICA). The number listed is a poor estimate of the real number because many communities do not want to be promoted by the publicity.
TO was founded in 1967 by a small group in the 1960’s counterculture. They wanted out of the competitive, materialistic culture and wanted to live cooperatively in line with Walden Two, B. F. Skinner’s novel. Since then, their social model has broadened to include human-scale solutions to problems of land use, food production, energy conservation, and appropriate use of technology. TO is located on a piece of rolling farmland with woods, streams, and pastures. The members have constructed seven group houses with children’s space, a community center, and a communal kitchen as well as industrial and storage space. They use a time-worked system to assure equal contribution. Some forty-five hours a week are counted and include family time as well gardening, cooking, and financial employment. A major part of their money comes from their manufacturing of rope hammocks, one of which is hanging in my front porch and is a favorite hangout for my five grandchildren. Other TO businesses include soy food production and a book indexing service.
Governance is by a weekly town meeting system in which each member has equal say. The executive power is in three planners with staggering yearly tenures.
Other intentional communities have other forms of governance. One of the more popular is consensus decision making. In this form, there is no “go” or “no go” voting. No proposition that is presented to the community is considered official until everyone is in agreement to collaborate. This often calls for lengthy discussions. Decisions are usually made by three choices—yea, nay, or stand aside. A single “nay” forbids action. A “stand aside” usually means “I don’t fully agree, but I’m willing to try it to make it work.” The goal is to reach a compromise in which everyone sees a gain. This is the way many government cabinets work as in the UK. If consensus is not accepted, a disagreeing member usually resigns from the government. As many did over the Iraq war.
The intentional communities movement took on a new middle-class dimension with the introduction and growth of choosing in America. CoHousing is the concept of the people themselves designing a cooperative community. The idea originated in Denmark in the 1960s. It grew slowly during the 1970s.
But the peace, equity, and harmony of the choosing communities drew public attention. In 1981 Denmark passed the Cooperative Housing Association Law. Since then the banks, developers, and town planners have promoted the system. It not only assures the selling of the houses before they are constructed but also assures a conflict-free neighborhood because the homeowners have already decided on, and taken responsibility for, the neighborhood in which they will live. In most Danish plans, the size of the individual living units has grown smaller. While the size of the public space and facilities has gown larger.
In 1980 Kathryn McCamant and Charles Durrett met in a Denmark university. They returned to the United States to promote the idea. Their 1988 book Cohousing caught the eyes of some TV hosts. Their TV appearances started others thinking in these terms. By 1995 there were eight choosing systems completed in the United States, fifty under way, and one hundred in the planning stage. There are no good statistics on current activity. Nor has the concept stayed strictly at person-to-person planning. Real estate companies have adopted the concept and are building specialized communities in over twenty-three states.
The basic concept is for a cluster of twenty-five or so small houses or condominiums surrounding a public facility. That facility usually includes a kitchen and dining room in which most residents take about half of their meals. Other public space may include playroom, library, self-learning facilities, exercise equipment, teen lounge, sports playing fields, a food co-op, laundry, or anything else the cooperators want. The choosing development may be specialized for young families, a specific faith, gay couples or singles, gardening, senior citizens, ecology, movie fans, the physically handicapped, or any other topic one wishes to pick.
My contact with Denmark community movement was before the advent of CoHousing. In 1975 I was working to help develop an NGO forum in collaboration with the United Nations Conference on Science and Technology for Development (UNCSTD). We were bringing together local entrepreneurs from around the world to network with one another and to show some of the technology being developed by the local people to solve local problems with local resources and local skills, the so-called appropriate technologies. I had heard of an alternative community in Denmark that was hosting a meeting of European alternative and transformational organizations. So I sent in my application. I arrived in Copenhagen and was given a room in the Blue House of Christiania.
Christiania was a deserted eighty-five-acre military base taken over by the homeless, disenfranchised, and other misfits of Copenhagen in 1971. They were squatters who had blocked the entrances to the base and were living in the many deserted buildings. With the help of a bunch of hippie protesters they had come to terms with the government. The military would not evict them nor would it give them any aid or protection. The semi-legal citizens of Christiania got together and formed a “rainbow nongovernment. Each color of the rainbow stood for a different service—cleaning the streets, maintaining order, running the learning centers, and others. Anyone could join any service and mark themselves with a rainbow armband. Each service would meet together to agree on what they would do. Each individual house would be likewise self-governed. The Blue House was a cooperative of mostly professionals who worked outside of the compound.
The operation of the whole was as chaotic as it sounds. People from outside the community came in daily to smoke and sell pot on “Pusher Street” and to carry on other hippie-liked activities. There was street music, street theater, and, for a while, even stage plays performed by a house of gay actors. The Christianites have made their own set of laws that allow pot selling but not hard drugs (like cocaine, speed, ecstasy, and heroin). They also do not allow cars inside the compound but have special entering places in case of need for medical service, fire, or other emergencies.
Danish governments have never been completely at home in Christiania. Some have tried to close it down without success. Others have tried to work with the Christianites sometimes without success. In 2004 the sale of even pot was forbidden by the government. They seem to have made more progress on that than they have with hard drugs in the city. In 2007 there was a raid by massed police that got stopped by the massive uprising of the people. In 2006 Christiania drafted a new plan for the area that got rave reviews from planning organizations and passing reviews by the government. We await now to see if the now nine hundred Christianites can fulfill their plan.
As to my own project for the UN forum, I found a lot of support, and many of the European groups who met there attended the UN week-long conference and set up their own alternative village in a Vienna Park. I’ve returned a few times to Freetown Christiania and wondered what it might become without the constant bickering with the government.
Christiania, also known as Freetown Christiania, but most commonly known amongst its inhabitants and visitors as Fristaden or simply Staden, is a self-governing neighborhood of about 850 residents covering 34 hectares (85 acres) in the borough of Christianshavn in the Danish capital Copenhagen. Christiania has established semi-legal status as an independent community.
Ecovillages are, as the name implies, another form of intentional communities that give the ecology first attention. On the basis of ecology they are concerned with humanistic economics and social health. They recognize that the current American culture is not sustainable. They usually attract people who personally want to decrease the size of their ecological footprint by living cooperatively off the land, consuming less, recycling more. They often hold that the current mainstream social and economic lifestyles are ecologically unsustainable and want to show that a more fulfilling life can be lived than that of the mainstream culture. They adopt a global view and often have a special link of mutual support with ecovillages around the world.
Ecovillages are intended to be socially, economically, and ecologically sustainable intentional communities. Most aim for a population of 50–150 individuals because this size is considered to be the maximum social network according to findings from sociology and anthropology (Hill and Dunbar 2002). Larger ecovillages of up to 2,000 individuals may, however, exist as networks of smaller ecomunicipalities or subcommunities to create an ecovillage model that allows for social networks within a broader foundation of support.
Ecovillage members are united by shared ecological, social, or spiritual values (see intentional community). An ecovillage is often composed of people who have chosen an alternative to centralized power, water, and sewage systems. Many see the breakdown of traditional forms of community, wasteful consumerist lifestyles, destruction of natural habitat, urban sprawl, factory farming, and over-reliance on fossil fuels as trends that must be changed to avert ecological disaster. They see small-scale communities with minimal ecological impact as an alternative. However, such communities often cooperate with peer villages in networks of their own (see Global Ecovillage Network for an example). This model of collective action is similar to that of Ten Thousand Villages, which supports the fair trade of goods worldwide.
Damanhur is a unique ecovillage or, better, a federation of ecovillages. It was the dream of Oberto Airuda in 1975. His dream was of a new society that rejected the values of self-interest, competition, and materialism. It would be one of mutual aid, cooperation, enlightened spirituality. He saw a spark of divinity and creativity in every person and felt that they could emerge in a society that was based on different principles.
Now his dream is near reality. In the Pyrenees in northern Italy there are twenty communities of around twenty members each in fifty houses on four hundred hectares. Those Damanhurians link with others around the world who want to adopt the Damanhurian philosophy, that is, to develop cooperatively with others, each person’s own socio-spiritual pathway to a better world. It is to be based on science, optimism, spirituality, and a deep understanding of the cosmos and humanity.
Their path is expressed in a multidimensional labyrinth carved in the rock under a nearby mountain. Numerous interconnected rooms and corridors have been hewed out. Each one is to express one concept of the new society—meditation, maleness, feminism, love, etc. Each with its statues, altars, columns, other artwork is elaborately designed and decorated to stimulate the human emotional needs for belonging and creativity. Tiffany glass, gold plating, elaborate painting on walls, ceilings, and floors are reminiscent of the interior of ancient Egyptian pyramids or Gothic temples. Each room, passageway, and grotto is meant to center one’s mind and emotions on the topic of that chamber. This massive construction, created in secret, has been called the eighth wonder of the world. When it was exposed by the Italian government, it became a mecca of its new philosophy of life. Pilgrims from all over the world come here to participate in its wonders and to carry home the feeling of a humanistic reawakening.
Chapter 13: GAIAN HEALTH
Health is one element of life that almost demands a Gaian approach. Like earthquakes, forest fires, hurricanes, security, and floods, it is not completely in the hands of individuals. It requires some form of mutual aid. The recognition of Gaia that we are all linked and interdependent automatically suggests we are in fact a mutual aid system. In many cultures, mutual aid is a norm. Native American whalers of the Northwest coast, for example, have a formal distribution system for whale meat. The tenderest meat, the top fin, goes to the oldest woman of the tribe. Other portions are ritually divided among other tribal members. Only the lesser parts are kept by the whalers who actually did the catching and killing. Their payment comes in the honor they get from feeding the tribe its badly needed fat and protein.
In Christian, Muslim, and Jewish religions, tithing for the less fortunate is a requirement. Health in most societies, excluding America, is likewise considered a function of we-the-people governments. In the past, health service was considered more a public contribution of medical personnel than a moneymaking opportunity.
I recall our local village doctor as a public servant. I remember his service one night in particular about sixty-five years ago. It was before the day of road plows for winter roads. The town roads were rolled to support sleighs and horses and logging roads kept usable by the snow continually packed by horses’ feet and dragged logs. One evening, the local doctor had been called to go about fifteen miles into a logging camp. He hitched up his horse, picked up his black bag, cuddled in thick robes, and took off. His daughter was a member of our teenage group so we all gathered at her house to keep them company until the doctor returned by playing board games on the kitchen table. As midnight approached, we heard the horse and sleigh returning. We went out to greet it only to find the doctor not with it. His family said, “Don’t worry, he probably fell asleep in the sleigh and was tipped out.” We went back to our game. About an hour later, in came the doctor, a bit disgruntled but otherwise no worse for wear. Such were the house calls in those days. But the doctor did not pile up a huge cache of wealth. When this doctor died, he left a huge pile of unpaid bills for his service. His payment had been in the respect, honor, and love from the townspeople and a flood of gifts from the farms and logging camps he served.
Another example of Gaian medical aid came to me when, a few years later, my father was diagnosed with a nearly ruptured appendix. He had to go to the hospital forty miles down the mountain through forests and around lakes in a wind-driven snowstorm. Plows that sometimes kept the roads open were available. One of them took the lead in front of the primitive ambulance. They phoned every house along the road for news and information on their task. And a number of pickup trucks with shovels and shovelers followed the line. The short story is that with only a few pushes, my father made the hospital, had the operation, and lived for a good number of years after that. His life was saved by mutual aid.
This kind of community concern for health has long since disappeared as the center of American health care. Now the bottom line is money. And health care is ruled by the insurance programs, the pharmaceutical corporations, and other professional medical managers. This cost-oriented medical system has not reduced illness in the USA in spite of increasing specialization in the medical profession. In fact, numbers, published Jan 8, 2008, show America in last place in health care among nineteen industrial nations although most European nations had decreased the death prevented by health care by large percents. The United States had made little improvement. For examples, France, lowest on the list of potential saved lives in both 1997 and 2002, lowered its rates between those years from 78 to 65 per 1,000 people. The United States had lowered from 105 in 1997 to 101 in 2002. It was estimated that if America reached the average of European nations, it would have saved between 75,000 and 100,000 American lives. The survival rate for breast cancer in the United States is higher than Switzerland, Britain, and Norway, The rate of death from asthma is higher in the USA than it is in Sweden or Germany. Cervical cancer kills a higher percent of Americans than it does in Italy, Germany, or Ireland.
This poor rating in health care is matched by increasing costs. America spends much more per capita and per GDP than any other nation. Health care costs are rising. In 2007 the United States spent 16 percent of its GDP. That is $2.1 trillion or $7,026 per person. They are rising at 6.7 percent per year and are projected to reach 19.5 percent of GDP by 2017.
In justification, it is often argued that medical care is provided by more superspecialization in America. But research does not bare that out. Nor does my personal use of systems in France, England, and Cuba. While living in England, my wife came down with a serious case of hives. After a week, we visited the out clinic of the nearest hospital expecting, as in America, to wait for hours and then be sent to a specialist. She was almost immediately sent to a doctor who subscribed some medication and we were home in less than an hour. In Cuba we were being entertained at a gathering of locals when one of them had a minor accident that left a badly bleeding cut. A local community doctor was there in minutes. She did emergency work and bundled the patient off to a hospital. They were back, with a number of stitches safely bandaged, before the party broke up. The local doctor was to see her at her home the next day.
We learned from that incident that Cuba has a neighborhood health care system surpassing the health care system of the USA. Each block or small town is assigned a general practitioner whose job is primarily preventive medicine. That local doctor visits every local family about once a month to see if there are any medical questions to be answered. If there were any that the local general practitioner can’t handle, an appointment with a specialist is made on the spot. An example of their efficiency is Cuba’s control of HIV and AIDS. Special houses are set aside for those infected. Those infected receive special medical care and the freedom to continue their working lives as long as they are infected.
Cuba may, or may not, be a worthwhile system to study for its medical care. That depends on one’s fear of political contamination rather than medical contamination. But many third world countries and some others have sent their medical students to Cuba to learn. And many Cuban doctors have gone outside to teach and to learn. Regardless of where they learn, the American medical profession, as well as our political leaders, need to think outside the box and create a new more personalized health system in the USA.
There are, as everyone knows, a lot of medical practices that lie outside the scientific realm on which modern medicine rely. Most of these probably have some degree of medical relevance. But too many of them are taken to extremes by quacks or laymen. Nevertheless, they should not be left outside the realm. Some of these are clearly relevant among them:
1. Homeopathy treats diseases by stimulating the body’s own defense and repair systems with highly diluted doses of medication. Good Explanations.
2. Naturopathy believes in the healing power of nature to help the body heal itself.
3. Acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine believes the body has the potential to cure its own diseases if treated correctly.
4. Ayurvedic medicine is an ancient Indian medical system that deals with a complete approach to life.
5. Hypnotherapy uses a hypnotic trance to modify a subject’s behavior, emotional content, dysfunctional habit, anxiety, stress-related illness, pain, and personal development.
6. Holistic medicine concentrates on the whole person—physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual, as well as personal responsibility and participation in one’s own health care
7. Mind/body control that holds that the state of mind can affect physical health.
There are many others that should be, and are being, given due consideration as complementary processes more than alternatives to standard medical practices as prescribed by today’s doctors. There is little doubt in my mind that as practice and science advance, so will the trust in many of the alternative therapies. But the first step in developing a more Gaian or holistic approach to health will be in more mundane practices. Wellness rather than sickness will become the central concern of health professionals. This includes a holistic approach to the body and mind. Like the old family doctor, the whole medical profession will become more focused on the whole person rather than the special illness in which the doctor was trained. Nutrition, exercise, and a healthy lifestyle will become personal goals of the people with the assistance of medical professionals. Preventive medicine will keep patients out of the waiting room and reduce the use of drugs prescribed for every symptom.
As we recognize the unity of Gaia, the walls between its interconnected parts will fade and the health of the person will be more tightly linked in our minds to nature and to the health of the whole.
SECTION III: GETTING THERE
One of the strongest implications coming from chaos and complexity theories is that the future cannot the predicted, designed, or planned. No newly evolved complex entity or quale can be predicted from the parts that combine to compose it. The butterfly-wing metaphor was the first chaos finding to show it. The finding was that even the smallest initial condition can determine a future event. Like the flap of a butterfly’s wing in Brazil can be the cause of a hurricane in Texas. Computer models show that the change in the fourth or greater decimal place in the original conditions of a weather model radically changes the whole path and intensity. This is, of course, born out in your local weatherman. His models, at best, give only probable paths of storms and weather changes. This may be only the effect of the quantum mechanics in Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. This tells us that in the microworld of very small particles, it is impossible to determine both the position and momentum (speed) of a moving particle. In a quantum mechanical world, we can determine only the probability of any given path for a moving particle. This may extend to the prediction of the weather or of any other future event. The saving grace is that in our world we are usually dealing with many particles at the same time, so the probability in our world can usually be predicted with a reasonable degree of accuracy. But certainty for the future is never assured. It is dependent on the initial condition, which can seldom be known with complete confidence. And the further out one tries to predict, design, or plan the future, the more that prediction may be off the mark.
With that caveat clearly in mind, we need not give up on efforts to create a kinder and gentler future. We may not know exactly which social innovation will be relevant in the far future but we do know that the future will be radically different than the present. It always has. And we do know that unless we create the cultural options we’d like to see in the future now, they will not be there when we need them in times ahead.
That is not to say that there are not many social innovations now in the experimental stage. They are a good beginning. But few of them are embedded in the concept of change. Most of them are mere reflection of the status quo. They are substitutes for specific cultural norms. They are not yet driven by an integrated movement for change.
Gaia provides that centralizing need. It provides the unifying presence that highlights the niche for a new evolution. In the final chapters of this book, I will try to emphasize how the current call for change may become a united movement for change.
CHAPTER 14: SOCIAL REVOLUTIONS
Humans evolved from their primate origins because of two unique characteristics—their larger brain/minds and their cooperative communal living. The bigger the group and the more cooperative its lifestyle, the more chances its members had of avoiding the predators by which they were continually threatened. Through time, their technical evolution was accompanied by their social evolution to give them a larger degree of control over their environment.
Social evolution is driven by three major forces—need, opportunity, and knowledge. Need is driven not only by physical need, but also by fear. Fear in the early days of hominids came not only of the animal predators surrounding them but also fear of the ecological forces that threatened them—cold, heat, thunder, lightening, fires, crop failures, and others including the unknown. As different bands evolved into tribes, there became a new threat of hostilities and violence. A balancing force for evolution was an opportunity. Early humans learned to use sticks and stones to get food, to live in caves, to make clothing, and to discover new resources. And they learned to support one another within their tribe and among tribes to improve their well-being. They recognized these forces not only as individuals but even more as social groups.
As the mind developed and knowledge grew, so did opportunity. Opportunity is shaped by what humans know and what they can imagine. In the earliest days of humans, the level of knowledge was low, so imagination ruled opportunity. Thunder and lightening were among major fears that stimulated major imaginings. Lacking true knowledge, such fears suggested a world of superhuman powers associated with every fear and every happening. Elaborate ceremonies, music, and daily practices were invented to appease those powers and to bring their benefits.
For example, take the traditional dances of the Pueblo Indians. The dancers do not dance to honor the gods of nature. They dance to become one with natural forces. In the corn dances, they become the corn; in the buffalo dances, they become one with the buffalo; in the rain dances, they become eagles and soar into to rain clouds to understand and participate with the forces that bring rain. Other indigenous tribes around the world had songs, dances, costumes, and ceremonies to bring themselves into harmony with nature. In some cultures, offerings of food to the gods and even sacrifices of animals and even humans were among their religious practices. Need and opportunity drove, and still drives, social evolution.
Through social and cultural evolution, obeisance to the gods of nature, and later to gods beyond nature, became central to almost all cultures. In some religions, they evolved to become more than acts of esteem, reverence, and veneration for the powers of nature and their gods. They became sources of power of humans over humans. Those who acted as go-betweens for commoners to their gods became honored and later took power to control their tribes and communities then later to control nations and the world.
Social evolution always had a second characteristic and power. It was dependent on the level of human knowledge. In fact, as societies evolved, knowledge of the cosmos slowly replaced the power of imagination of superhuman powers. Also, as human knowledge advanced, social evolution become more and more reliant on opportunities given by knowledge than in the fears of nature. New technologies based on new knowledge came to be a major factor in the well-being of people.
THE HELIOCENTRIC WORLDVIEWS
One of the most outstanding examples of knowledge gained through science came with the transformation due to Copernicus and Galileo. Before the telescope of Galileo, the cosmos was believed to be of two realms. Humans lived in the Earth realm of god, created matter, plants, and animals. It was solid Earth obeying its own laws. Outside of that was an ephemeral cosmos, the home of the gods and antigods free of earthly laws. Man was the purpose of the Earth, and the Earth was the center of the universe. The cosmic centrality of man and Earth provides a level of certainty and immutability to the ethical and moral laws of god. The concept that the Earth was not the center of the universe shook the foundations of all that made peace, equity, and divine power, the purpose and core of a human being.
Even when the first spaceships were sent to the moon, there were those who fell on their knees and helped in special church services, begging forgiveness for the human intrusion into God’s world.
THE THEORY OF GRAVITATION
Likewise, the Newtonian theory of gravitation showing that the heavenly bodies obeyed the same laws as those on Earth, and the Darwinian theory that the cosmos evolved for fifteen billion years from a simple mass of pure energy to the complex cosmos in which we live brought on social changes that submerged the needs for social change recognized by most humans. The Copernicus, Newton, and Darwin revolutions were not concerned with fixing a dysfunctional economic or social system. They happened because of the revelation by science of a new base for knowledge. Likewise, today, we have the revelation of a new base for knowledge in science.
Today’s step in social revolution is far more fundamental than any previous shift in the social paradigm. It is the most profound and fundamental transition in five million years of human evolution. Most human cultures developed with a concept of each person dependent on belonging to a community and devoting their lives to improving the well-being of the whole community. The health and security of the community assured the health and security of each member of the community. But the Euro American cultures devolved along a different path—our dominator paradigm.
The Gaian paradigm suggests that the transition we all want is not just, or even, to fix the past or the present. It is far more basic, even more basic than the Copernicus, Newton, and Darwin revolutions. Even if there were none of the evils so often witnessed in our current culture, the transition from the dominator paradigm to the Gaian paradigm would be the base for a radical change in our worldviews, our mindsets, and our cultures. The future will be radically different from the past because it will be built on a radically different knowledge base. And it is happening.
The applicable development of a Gaian paradigm is exemplified in the growing interest in creating a social revolution not unlike those brought on by Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, and Darwin. One driving force is based on the failures and evils of today’s Euro American culture with its dominator paradigm. Before we look to those past revolutions as models for a new social revolution, it may be of value to look deeper into exactly what causes social change and what has been the foundation of those and other social revolutions.
Those social revolutions were not primarily the result of the need to fix dysfunctional economic or social systems. They happened because of the revelations from new scientific knowledge. Like them, today, we have the revelation of a new base of knowledge. Galileo demonstrated that the Earth went around the sun. Newton that gravitational forces controlled the heavens as well as the Earth. Darwin that life could evolve from one species to another.
Today’s social revolution is far more fundamental than any previous shift in the social paradigm. It is the most profound and fundamental transition in the five million years of human evolution. Most human cultures developed with a concept of each person dependent on belonging to a community and devoting their lives to improving the well-being of the whole community. But the Euro American cultures devolved along a different path—our dominator paradigm.
The Gaian paradigm suggests that the transition we want, and see coming, is not just to fix the ills of the past or the present. It is far more basic, just as were the previous science-based social revolutions. Even if there were none of the evils so often witnessed in our current cultures, the transition to the Gaian paradigm would be the base for a radical change in our deepest worldviews, our mindsets, and our cultures. The future will be radically different than the past because it will be built on a different knowledge base. And it is happening.
We could go on exploring examples of that happening. Social innovations—e.g., cooperatives, Community-supported agriculture, peer lending (that won the recent Nobel Prize for its founder), intentional communities, homeschooling, homesteading etc.—are giving many of us the change to live outside of the mainstream. The religious—e.g., Fox, Sponge, and others—and the nonreligious—e.g., Harris, Smith, Dawkins, and others—are leading a quite different major transformation of our view of the world. New technologies including computers and the Internet are giving us tools for change. Schools are releasing the hold they had on knowledge and many students are accepting “personal learning” as their mode of fulfillment. Certainly, we are overusing and polluting the world resources. But the solution may not be to put them up on the bulletin board but to do something to help create options.
The goal should be obvious. Rather than railing against what is, critics should work for what is not and what could be (someone else suggested that wording before).
Many of us think that the transition from the dominator paradigm to the Gaian paradigm is such a revolution. In fact the scientific revelation that the cosmos is an interconnected network of holons within holons reveals that we are all interdependent. Any change in any piece of the cosmos causes a change throughout the network of which we are part. Gaia (the Earth and all of its life-forms) is a typical example of the interdependence of holons within both the physical cosmos and the global social network. The golden rule has a scientific base.
THE NEW ATHEISTS
But narrowing it to the Copernican/Newton/Darwin revolution brings to mind the “coming out” of the new atheists promoting the rejection of God theories. The books of Dawkins, Harris, Dennett, Hitchens, Smith, and many others promote the rejection of any kind of magic, miracle, god, Bible, divinity, or other speculations on an outside design for the evolution of the cosmos. This is a radical break from the religious tolerance that has been (and is) the social norm of our society.
Most people, including most scientists, have (and do) ignore the religion and simply let anyone believe anything they wish. Now with the rise of Islamic fundamentalism and with the incursion of Christian fundamentalism into American politics, there is a groundswell of repudiation of all unreasoned faiths. There is a recognition that if one gives an inch, they will take a mile. A passive membership in a UU (Unitarian Universalist) Church, or even acceptance of the New Christianity of Bishop John Shelby Spong, is support for those who take reasoned Christianity to its logical, though radical, ends. There is good reason to agree with the new atheists that challenge even the most benign faiths—those that promote the Ten Commandments in courthouses and prayer in schools, forbidding stem cell research, ending gay marriages, teaching creationism, controlling women’s right to abortion, and all sorts of insupportable ideas.
The position we might take in this book is, “What can we do to promote the there-is-no-God movement?” But not, as many of the new atheists do, by denying the fundamental need for religion. But as Huxley did in A Piece of Chalk by clearly showing that scientific discovery can reveal different beginnings for the cosmos, for Gaia, and for humanity, we cannot wait for powers outside ourselves to cure our social ills. We cannot even wait for those in our culture to whom we have surrendered power, religion, or government to do that for us. We—the people—must create, and are creating, a new worldview and new forms of governance.
Just for clarification, the Gaia theory of Lovelock and Margulis is not about the social paradigm. Nor is it antireligion. In fact, Lovelock, partly in jest, suggests that Gaia may be the first religion based on science. Margulis demurs from this interpretation, abhorring the co-optation of Gaia to religious beliefs. It is about feedback loops in the physical Earth and the biological Earth that control the heat, oxygen, moisture, and other qualities that make life possible. This is not the will of man but the property of Gaia (the Earth and all its life-forms)—the laws of nature.
Chaos, complexity, and Gaia theories suggest that these laws are valid for the physical/biological evolution of the cosmos and the Earth. But the mechanisms that are being revealed seem to be valid even beyond that. It may be a bit of a stretch to apply these theories to the social sphere. But they, and unrelated research, do suggest that human nature too, and its evolution, is based on the basic need for belonging and for communal living.
The position we take in this book is not a lack of tolerance for the beliefs of others but a lack of tolerance for those who have a lack of tolerance for the beliefs of others. With the Founding Fathers we support the separation of church and state. We’ll expand on this theme in chapter 21.
This Gaian view of the future is expressed and put into action by many groups. One of the leaders in the social field is the Bioneers. Founded at their first annual gathering in 1990, the Bioneers is now a nonprofit organization that “promotes practical environmental solutions and innovative social strategies for restoring the Earth and communities. Bioneers offers pragmatic solutions that honor the living web of the natural world as the most fertile source of inspiration and models.” Bioneers recognizes that Gaia is alive and intelligent. It teaches us that there are no single issues because it’s one whole that can be addressed only by bringing together all the parts.
Since their 1990 founding, annual meetings and the establishment of an ongoing and very active 501c3 organization and website have promoted deep changes in all aspects of our cultures from education through housing, communications, lifestyles, and governance.
The applicable development of a Gaian paradigm is exemplified in the growing interest in creating a social revolution not unlike those brought on by Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, and Darwin. One riveting force is based on the failures and evil of today’s Euro American culture with its dominator paradigm. Before we look to those past revolutions as models for a new social revolution, it may be of value to look deeper into exactly what causes social change and what has been the foundation of those and other social revolutions.
BLESSED UNREST/WISER EARTH
There are thousands, nay hundreds of thousands, of organization like the Bioneers springing up around the world. In fact, Paul Hawken was so impressed with the numbers that, after fifteen years in the environmental movement, he started counting. He soon found over thirty thousand environmental groups. When he observed that they were closely linked to indigenous people and human rights movements, his list grew to one hundred thousand. His list kept growing as he realized that he was looking at one of the most profound and active movements the world had ever known. But it was hidden and unrecognized to most of the world. It had no name. So he called it merely “the Movement.”
Hawken’s book Blessed Unrest that grew from this study shows that for every evil created by civic, political, and corporate leaders of the existing dominator paradigm, there are millions of grassroots activists protesting. His book is an encyclopedic exposé of the good guys and their nonprofit and nongovernmental organizations. Over half of the three-hundred-page book is an appendix describing in four or five pages the issues of social activism. Each issue gives a number of identified activist organizations. A few examples are agroecology (152), air quality (1,055), fish (590), child labor (1,085), environmental education (11,789), health care access (4,035), sustainable living (5,627), and the list goes on and on.
To help these organizations network with one another to become a more unified social economic and political power, Hawken has started a multifaceted URL wiserearth.org.
We could go on exploring examples of what is happening. Social innovations—e.g., cooperatives, community-supported agriculture, peer lending (that won the recent Nobel Prize for its founder), intentional communities, choosing, homeschooling, homesteading etc.—are giving many of us the chance to live outside of the mainstream. The religious—e.g., Fox, Sponge, and others—and the nonreligious—e.g., Harris, Smith, Dawkins, Smolin, and others—are leading a quite different major transformation of our view of the world. New technologies including computers and the Internet are giving us tools for change. Schools are releasing the hold they had on knowledge and many students are accepting “personal learning” as their mode of fulfillment. Certainly, we are overusing and polluting the world resources. But the solution may not be to put them up on the bulletin board but to do something to help create options.
The goal should be obvious. Rather than railing against what is, critics should work for what is not and what could be (someone else suggested that wording before).
Many of us think that the transition from the dominator paradigm to the Gaian paradigm is such a revolution. In fact the scientific revelation that the cosmos is an interconnected network of holons within holons reveals that we are all interdependent. Any change in any piece of the cosmos causes a change throughout the network of which we are part. Gaia (the Earth and all of its life-forms) is a typical example of the interdependence of holons within both the physical cosmos and the global social network. The golden rule has a scientific base.
CHAPTER 15: PEOPLE
It would be a mistake to fill this book without giving credit to the many people I’ve met and learned from who are creating a Gaian paradigm. On the other hand, it would be impossible to mention them all.
George McRobie is probably my closest colleague among the AT (appropriate technology) renowned. George was a colleague of economist E. F. Schumacher at the coal board before Schumacher visited India and came back with the idea of appropriate technology or AT. When Schumacher left the coal board to write his book Small Is Possible, George followed him and founded the Intermediate Technology Development Group (ITDG). I met George about that time while I was with UNESCO and attended a conference on AT in London. He was a leading participant at the Habitat NGO forum and proposed that I become the facilitator for a continuing transnational network of AT practitioners, TRUANT. And while I was at the World Bank, he joined me in a nationwide tour to
develop bridges between the autonomous AT centers springing up across the USA and the somewhat similar IT centers in the third world. That tour ended up in a report on United States AT centers for our funders, AID and the Bank, and in a book George published, Small Is Possible.
George had worked mostly with those technologists who worked to develop intermediate technologies simple and low-cost tools for the third world. The standard third world development programs were large, costly attempts to develop the infrastructure with dams, communication systems, roads, and bridges and to bring the third world in line with the developed countries. George recognized that those countries did not need massive structures for development. The problem of the third world was that they had more people and potential workers than they had capital. It was the exact opposite in the industrial world. It had an overabundance of capital but few unemployed workers. Whereas the poorer nation needed work-creating technologies, the industrial world needed to reduce the number of people needed in their factories. They could use capital-intensive technologies. The intermediate technologies developed by ITDG and other organizations concerned with development were useless to the industrial world.
What he found interesting was that for completely different reasons, an almost relevant level of technology was being developed by the hippie counterculture in America. The primary motivations for the American AT movement were radically different from the IT movement for the third world. The American movement grew from three main concerns:
1. Ecological studies like Silent Spring (1962) by Rachel Carson pointed out that herbicides sprayed on crops killed not only the insects that ate the plants but also the birds and animals that ate the insects and, in the long run, the humans that lived on farm produce. Her book showed that all aspects of the Earth were damaged and being unfit for life by chemicals.
2. Economic studies like Limits to Growth (1972) by Donella H. Meadows, Dennis L. Meadows, Jorgen Randers under the auspices of the Club of Rome, showed by a study of the data that overpopulation and the overuse of natural resources put a limit on the time the Earth could support humanity. Follow-up reports like Planet Report 2002 by WWF showed that mankind’s ecological footprint is already 1.2 Earths. Reviving the concern, if not the numbers, is the Meadows’ report.
3. Humanistic concerns expressed by dissatisfied workers, college students, lower school pupils, and people in general that the economic system and its technologies rather than serving humans has made them slaves. Life, as it is today, is not worth living for some and is continually getting more difficult and less convivial for almost everyone.
Such concerns have led to the autonomous organization in many unconnected parts of America. By the 1970s there were some five thousand concerned organizations listed in the directory “Alternative America” that recognized and were working on economic, technical, and social change. Hawken in 2007 showed that social change organizations grew by a factor of 10. Over two hundred AT centers in the United States alone were then working on social and technical innovations that conserved natural resources, reduced waste, and made a more humane society.
With this recognition of the different motivations but similar results, and with support form AID, the World Bank, and OECD (in Paris), George and I took a cross-country tour of the United States to determine if and how the AT centers here could work in closer harmony with the growing number of IT centers worldwide. We didn’t try to cover all two hundred of the AT centers but visited thirty of them with expertise from rooftop gardening in the Bronx to poverty centers in Tennessee, from organic farming in California to small waterwheels in Colorado, and many others.
The result was a published report to our sponsors and a chapter in George’s book Small Is Possible published in 1981.
Building the bridge between IT and AT—the third world and the industrial world—was the Appropriate Technology Sourcebook by Ken Darrow and Mike Saxenian first published in 1975. It was later expanded first in microfiche form and later as DVDs. Early in the development, Ken, a member of the TRANET board, worked with me to develop a library of the one hundred best AT books. We purchased those books at large discounts; it still cost $1,000 per library. Volunteers at TRANT packed and shipped the AT libraries to selected AT centers in villages of the third world. Over time we shipped over one hundred libraries.
Now in DVD format, the library can be bought for $459 in the USA and as low as $195 for third world villages. The library reviews over 1,150 AT books with designs and data in the 100. Want to build a bridge, design a cookstove to save fuel, survey a field for irrigation, replant a forest, install a water system, or pursue any other small-scale technology project? Invaluable, practical resource on small-scale technologies covers 1,150 of the most useful appropriate technology books with design drawings and information on the following:
1. Background reading
2. General references
3. Local self-reliance
4. The workshop
6. Agricultural tools and implements
7. Crop drying, preservation, and storage
10. Water supply: background
11. Water supply: pumps
12. Water supply: tanks
13. Water supply: solid wastes
14. Water supply: treatment
15. Water supply and sanitation
16. Energy: general
17. Energy: improved cookstoves and charcoal production
18. Energy: wind
19. Energy: water
20. Energy: solar
21. Energy: biogas
22. Housing and construction
24. Health care
25. Science teaching
26. Nonformal education and training
27. Small enterprises and cooperatives
28. Local communications
30. Small industries
31. Disaster preparedness and relief
JOHN AND NANCY TODD
If one were looking for either the philosophical base or practical unique inventions of appropriate technology, he/she would end up from either road with John and Nancy Todd. The Todds have been outstanding practitioners of AT since before it all started. Nancy is an accomplished and visionary author, able to put into words the future being made imaginable by the working ecological designs of her husband and other progressive scientists.
Dr. John Todd, born in 1939, started a promising career as a university research professor with degrees in agricultural design, biology, aquaculture, and fisheries. His encyclopedic knowledge led him, with his wife, Nancy, and a few others, to found the New Alchemy Institute on Cape Cod. The stated goal of the institute was
the creation of ecologically derived human support systems—renewable energy, agriculture, aquaculture, housing, and landscapes. The strategies we research emphasize a minimal reliance on fossil fuels and operate on a scale accessible to individuals, families and small groups. It is our belief that ecological and social transformations must take place at the lowest functional levels of society if humankind is to direct its course towards a greener, saner world.
Our programs are geared to produce not riches, but rich and stable lives, independent of world fashion and the vagaries of international economics. The New Alchemists work at the lowest functional level of society on the premise that society, like the planet itself, can be no healthier than the components of which it is constructed. The urgency of our efforts is based on our belief that the industrial societies which now dominate the world are in the process of destroying it.
The institute followed no academic pattern but mixed, out-of-the-box ideas of such progressive leaders as Buckminster Fuller with every-woman-down-home practical techniques. Their organic gardening, bioengineering, aquaculture, and unique architecture both in the USA and in Canada were drawing cards for other imaginative activists and designers from 1969 to 1991. One particular design concept, living machines, had practical applications that led John and Nancy to found another organization, Ocean Arks International (OAI), with a for-profit wing, in 1991. Living machines are applications of biological processes to the practical use of humans. For municipal wastewater treatment plants, OAI copies the natural design of wetlands. A network of aerobic reactors, plants, fish tanks, filters, and ecological fluidized beds remove the harmful chemicals and microbes from the water, not only making it potable but also producing edible plants and fish as well as other by-products for sale.
Now there are thousands of living machines around the world. Each one designed to use and harmonize with the local ecology and culture. John is now an adjunct professor at the University of Vermont where he is working with the next generation of bioengineers who will carry his and Nancy’s design and concepts into a more hopeful future.
SIM VAN DER RYN
Born in the Netherlands in 1935 Sim fled war-torn Europe in 1939 with his family to the outskirts of New York City. Sim, with colleagues from Berkeley, founded the Farallones Institute Rural Development Center and the Integral Urban House in California in 1969. They helped to create national awareness of ecologically integrated living design. The work started at the Farallones Institute continues today at the nonprofit Ecological Design Institute (EDI), www.ecodesign.org, a tax-exempt, nonprofit corporation. EDI’s activities comprise two branches: One provides education, facilitation, public event speeches, and presentations. The other branch provides design and consulting services through Sim Van der Ryn and a network of collaborative talents.
The Ecological Design Collaborative. is the design and consulting arm of EDI focusing on what Sim calls “surpassability” design solutions for a carbon-neutral world through design workshops, retreats, and brainstorming, master planning and conceptual design, and green architecture. The Center for a Livable Future is EDI’s educational and training arm. EDI offers training, facilitation, education, and research services in ecological design and “surpassability” to businesses, government agencies, professional organizations, and educational institutions.
“We are engaged in an ecological revolution every bit as profound as the preceding industrial revolution,” Sim explained while addressing an assembly of architects. “The worst thing you can do is keep making no changes. That’s where the risk lies.”
SCOTT AND HELEN NEARING
As well as covering some of the activists who are still leading us toward a new society, it may be well to recall some of the thinkers who put us on the path and whose innovative work is still with us. Scott and Helen Nearing are a great example. Their books and article on the “good life” were staples of the New Earth magazine in the 1960s. The good life, to them, held both connotations of “good” as being supportive of others and “good” as enjoyable. Their good life was a back-to-the-land self-reliant good life.
Scott, born in 1888, had been an economics professor at Chicago University until WWI. His strong protest of the war blackballed him from university teaching. He continued writing his challenging books and pamphlets with such title as Wages in the United States (1908—10), A Study of State and Federal Wage (1911), Poverty and Riches: A Study of the Industrial Regime (1916), The Great Madness: A Victory for the American Plutocracy (1917), The American Empire (1918), The Next Step: A Plan for Economic World Federation (1922), and Dollar Diplomacy: A Study in American Imperialism (1925).
Helen was born in New Jersey in 1904. She had grown up in an economically comfortable and well-educated vegetarian family of Theosophists. She was trained as a musician. As a young woman, she traveled extensively, exploring nature and other worldviews. For some time she lived with the philosopher and writer Krishnamurti during his “enlightenment” experience under the pepper tree.
Back in New York, Scott and Helen met and discovered that their rejection of the American system gave them much in common. So in 1932, they left New York and bought a small run-down farmhouse in Vermont and turned to living off the land and off the grid as much as they could. Their daily life was divided into four three-hour sessions: one for “bread labor,” one for music or writing, one for sleep and relaxation.
I first met the Scott and Helen shortly after they had decided that the Vermont ski area was not for them and moved to the rocky and barren coast of Maine to start a new homestead. They were constructing a house out of local stones, each selected for the corner, lintel, or wall for which it was shaped. A stonewall also surrounded their large garden to keep wind out and to absorb solar heat. Seaweed and river silt compost piles fed their garden. A free-standing greenhouse made from discarded windows grew greens planted in late fall for their winter harvest.
Their home had as much storage room as the living room. The Quaker-like simple surroundings were decorated with hanging drying herbs. Canned, spiced, pickled, and dried foods in a bevy of containers lined neatly filled open shelves in every room. For the meals I had with them on rare occasions, we were each given a wooden bowl and a spoon. Popcorn, bread, and other hand foods were dumped in the middle of the bare wooden table, and the bowls were laden full of a thick soup from a boiling pot on the nearby stove. I learned as much in our mealtime conversations as I learned working with the Nearings in their carefully planted garden.
What I learned and much more was penned into a different line of books by Helen and Scott. Among titles are The Maple Sugar Book, Living the Good Life, Wise Words for the Good Life, Simple Food for the Good Life, and, after Scott’s death, Loving and Leaving the Good Life by Helen. I still practice some of those lessons in my unheated greenhouse. I remember that nothing grows during the short winter days. So you have to have them near harvest growth by late fall. I pick greens and broccoli throughout the twenty-below winter days but simply leaving them to unfreeze when the sun hits them. Tomatoes, cucumbers, and other produce can be in-season both earlier and later than the outdoor gardens.
Scott lived to his one hundredth birthday in 1998. Then he decided he had written enough and stopped eating. Helen lived a few years longer before an automobile accident took her life. But they live on in their books that are still sold and in the hearts and practices of many whom they taught, like us, and in the Good Life Center at Forest Farm that still carries on their learning programs for social justice and simple living.
CHAPTER 16: COMMUNITY GLOBAL GOVERNANCE
The renewal happening around us has many roots and many names. The environmental movement in the USA was initiated by books such as Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring in 1957. The common ownership movement in Britain was given impetus with the transfer of ownership of the Bader works to the workers; in Jacques Ellul’s The Technological Society brought on a reevaluation of technology; Eric Dammann’s The Future in our Hands, in Norway, initiated a major reexamination of first world–third world relationships. The Consumer Association of Penang in Malaysia, the co-op in Bolivia, the Gandhi Peace Foundation in India, the Tasor Women’s Group in Ghana, and the Eco-development Centre in Paris are only a few of the independent actions which indicate a deep-seated and global desire for change.
The theories of quantum mechanics and relativity have laid a philosophical base for this global transformation. As physicist David Bohm demonstrates in Wholeness and the Implicate Order, the shift from Newtonian to modern physics necessitates a change in our mode of thought from one of atomism and fragmentation to one of wholeness and continuum. The notion that individuals and parts of the universe have separate existences is an illusion. It is to some extent necessary for humans to divide things up and to separate them so as to reduce certain problems to manageable sizes. But, Bohm argues, we have let fragmentation become our dominant approach to life. We separate our thinking into desperate disciplines. Religion, art, science, work, leisure are all put into separate unrelated categories. This proclivity to divide and subdivide leads ultimately to negative, destructive, and unreal results. In modern physics it is recognized that the Newtonian, mechanistic, and fragmentary view of the universe is valid only within certain limited domains. Once we go beyond those domains closer to reality, each particle or individual becomes part of a continuum reaching to infinity. It is Bohm’s belief that the new view of the unity of the universe is affecting world culture just as it is affecting modern science and our general mode of thought.
The search for wholeness and rejection of fragmented lives was marked in the 1960s by billows of smoke rising from the riot-rocked cities of Amsterdam, Newark, London, Washington, Tokyo, San Francisco, and Paris. During the 1970s, the concerns of the counterculture moved into the mainstream of acceptable society. Studies such as the Club of Rome’s “Limits to Growth” made even the most academic scholars look out of the windows of their ivory towers; stagflation sent shivers of fear through all ruling capitols of the world; the oil crunch is making every household recognize the need to reappraise our social forms. Now, in the twenty-first century, the many small beginnings and the many independent actions in all parts of the world are beginning to coalesce into a single network for transformation.
The counterculture was well-described in The Aquarian Conspiracy by Marilyn Ferguson. According to Ferguson, there is a conspiracy among people who seldom know one another. They are nonetheless conspiring in that each recognizes the turnabout in the consciousness that is bringing about the radical change in our culture. She notes that the unspoken beliefs of people change long before they publicly concede the transformation. We are, thus, still mouthing conviction in bygone values, mores, and paradigms while we already live by different principles.
James Robertson in The Sane Alternative delineated some of the mental shifts needed and taking place. Wealth, for example, can no longer be counted in stocks and bonds, mansions and limousines. Particularly since 2008 depression, the wealthy person is coming to be the one least dependent on the fragile economic-social system for his or her livelihood and well-being. “Work” can no longer be defined only in terms of hours away from home and financial income. More and more people are mixing recreation with employment to combine self-sufficiency with self-realization. Dogmatic religion is giving way to personal spiritual transformation, professional services are being replaced by personal relationships, and the established government is being bypassed as communities and individuals dominate social innovation.
Chilean Gustavo Lagos ties this age of transition and wholeness to world government in “The Revolution of Being,” one of a number of articles with decentralist themes from the World Order Models Project. He contends that “the revolution of having” has failed to bring either justice or happiness. The future world system must be based on a cultural and spiritual transition from “having” to “being.” It is his belief that the world culture based on fragmentation and accumulation is being replaced by one of unity and faith in human beings.
It would be illusory and hypocritical to talk of a major cultural and spiritual revolution without recognizing that it will be neither sustained nor effective without a major structural change in the formal social, economic, and political system by which we are governed and by which we govern. It would be equally illusory to speak of a future world government without recognizing the unalterable transformation in human thought and in human being now in progress. To speak sensibly of world government, we must recognize that formal government is merely one part of a complex of informal and formal governments.
Each of us is governed and governs by many forces. Physical forces hold us to the Earth, biological forces dictate what we need to survive physically, inner spiritual forces determine our requirements for meaningful life, and social forces govern our associations with other people. Families, churches, employers, schools, and technologies are all part of the system of governance. Each influences what we can do and how we can influence the behavior of others. Government is only one element in this system of governance. Government is only necessary, and only effective, when some other element of governance is ineffective.
Current discussions of world order are premised on the omnipotence of the nation-state. They seldom recognize the full range of forces that are part of the system of governance. In fact, the nation-state system of world government is an invention of a few European rulers within the last two hundred years. It was spread from a small sector of the Earth to the rest of the world by the force of arms, the dogma of a religion shaped to do its bidding, and an economic-industrial system that relied on it for control and protection.
World order based on the nation-state assumes that the resources and the people within a political boundary are the inalienable property of that nation-state. Leaders within each nation-state gain control through some form of competition that eliminates opposition. Once in power, and in order to maintain power, they must compete to maximize their nation’s share of the world’s resources. They are entrapped in a competitive world system. Though recognizing a degree of economic independence, no nation dares recognize its political interdependence. The fact that all persons have a stake in programs and policies that distribute the world’s resources is given no voice. Nor are the selection of national/world leaders open to all those affected by the choice. Each nation-state is accepted to be politically supreme, autonomous, and independent regardless of the effect its government’s actions have on people outside, or even within, its borders.
There is nothing inalienable or permanent in this European-invented form of government. The study of history, even European history, reveals many alternative political systems. In fact, history shows that the societies with the least bureaucratic and hierarchical structures have had the greatest stability over time. Many of these societies are based on precepts that are much more in line with the emerging Gaian age than the precepts of the nation-states. Consider, for example, the Native American system of governance.
For most Native Americans, the whole culture—religious, economic, social, technological, and political—is based on the concept of a community of beings, or more correctly, a community of being. Each individual—human, animal, plant, and even force of nature—is a part of a single living system we now call Gaia. Each element of Gaia has its purpose and its proper niche as part of the whole. The individual, the person, is not bent on mastering nature, controlling others, or competing to win respect or property. Each strives to perfect his or her own being in harmony with, and as part of, the whole. Human rights are not a matter of law bestowed by government. They are parts of one’s duty, and one’s obligation, to being. Each being, human and nonhuman, is responsible for developing not only his own creative powers but those of all others of Gaia of which they are part.
The Native American economic-political system designed itself from this metaphysical understanding. One could not own property for property had its own being. Even tools, clothes, and utensils had a being and purpose to be fulfilled. One’s own future and the welfare of his family were not assured by an accumulation of material wealth but by one’s service to being. Elaborate ceremonies were developed to provide for the broad distribution of food, shelter, and the other necessities of life, particularly to the aged and weak. The dignity of the individual was gained not by what he owned but by what he was able to give away—his contribution to society. The great hunter or craftsman had no concept of selling the product of his work. His duty to being was to create for the benefit of the community. The natural system was one of cooperation, consensus, and confederation rather than one of competition, confrontation, and struggle for power.
Variations on this theme were well-known in Africa and Asia as well as the Americas. They were the rule rather than the exception before the advent of European expansion. They are, perhaps, too idyllic to be copied without change in the overpopulated, under-resourced, and stressful world we know today. But by envisioning ourselves in the framework of alternative governmental systems we may be able to break the bonds which tie us to the dying paradigms of the passing age.
Governance for the future cannot be based on the narrow concepts of government through bureaucratic nation-state hierarchies. The current transformation is holistic and multidimensional. In keeping with this transformation, the world government should be holistic and multidimensional. We must recognize the many forces of human governance and construct a world that reflects, promotes, and takes advantage of the emerging spiritual and ethical affirmation of human rights and human dignity. A future world government can be pictured as a multidimensional network or networks that provide each individual with many optional paths through which he can provide for his own well-being and can participate in controlling world affairs.
A multidimensional system of world governance is, in fact, nothing new. World religions have never completely surrendered their power of governance to the nation-states. New systems of supranational control have been created by multinational corporations that have not only been able to avoid the meddlesome interference of national governments but have in some cases been a positive force in avoiding destructive wars between nations in which their financial interests were involved. The oil-producing countries, through OPEC, added another dimension to world governance, which goes well beyond the boundaries of nation-state. Such examples prove that the world order has many dimensions; they also show that grassroots participation has not yet been provided for in global decision making.
These beginnings must be extended to provide a system of optional ways in which each planetary citizen can express his or her preferences for the world of the future. A world council of ethnic groups could provide a channel for each individual to reach up from his local village to the highest echelons of world government. A world council of craftsmen could be another. A world council of communities, a world council of laborers, a world council of homeowners, a world council of religions, a world council of nations, a world council of business, and other world councils would provide other equal voices for expressing the needs of the grass roots. A council of world councils could assure coordination, guarantee balanced representation, and provide overall direction in world affairs.
Such a world representing more than the territorial rights of nation-states could reduce the tensions that lead to wars and could give people new agents to which to declare their loyalties and allegiances. But merely substituting many parallel hierarchies for one would not necessarily assure human rights, equity, democracy, peace, or self-realization. Each vertical hierarchy might still remain open to dominance and elitism. New Age governance calls for a more fundamental reordering of our channels of communication and governance. It calls for horizontal linking at the level of individual and their communities as well as multiple vertical linking to the seats of world direction.
It is not even necessary to destroy or replace the current world government system in order to put into effect a Gaian system of world government that gives more voice and more power to the people. As has been stressed throughout this book, formal government is only one element of world order. Informal, nongovernmental, and voluntary agencies already play significant roles even within the very hazardous and faulty UN/nation-state system. The existing, or any, governmental form could provide a more stable, humane, and equitable future for all if the people’s values replaced with those of the competitive ruling elites.
The primary need is for transitional people-to-people networks in which the grass roots can build solidarity based on an understanding of one another’s desires. The strategy for this is to build horizontal networks as complementary alternatives to the existing order. This second level of world governance could grow to take over many, if not all, of the functions now performed by the association of nation-states.
Gaian governance is slowly taking shape. Sister Cities International is a transitional twinning of cities that provide technical assistance to one another to solve urban problems, Action Aid from London has helped small communities and small industries provide mutual assistance. The Experiment in International Living helps students learn about one another’s culture by living in one another’s homes and promotes bilateral links between groups developing appropriate technologies, the International Communities Exchange provides information for groups wishing to exchange experiences in new lifestyles, and many other transitional networks are helping to promote a nongovernmental world system of cooperative self-reliance.
To date, few of these nongovernmental networks have given serious attention to their potential participation in world governance. Those which have, like the official NGOs associated with the UN agencies, have spent many fruitless days reacting to empty proposals and hackneyed propositions advanced by UN committees and bureaucracies. They have spent scattered efforts in their own initiative to bring peace and understanding among people or among nations. Notable exceptions to this general rule have been the Pugwash Conferences. Initiated by Albert Einstein, Bertrand Russell, and her leading scientists at the height of the cold war, the Pugwash Conferences brought together leading scientists from all parts of the world, irrespective of the relationships of their respective nations, to discuss world problems without the hindrance of official national positions. Although elitist and confined to the problems of science and society, Pugwash provided a model on which other people-to-people networks are being built as the harbingers for a Gaian world governance.
As transnational networks mature, there is a growing realization that self-renewal, local community action, alternative technology, human rights, ecological concerns, and other transformational activities must be linked with developing concepts for a just world order. It is not enough to “rearrange the chairs on the Titanic.” A just world order can only be built by recognizing the radical reformation human thought now taking place throughout the planet.
There are many social networks. Some have their heads in the esoteric clouds. Others keep their hands and feet mired in the too-real land of development aid. Others have locked themselves in their academic ivory towers. Many are locked in the corporate economics of self-interest, competition, and materialism. This millennium is a time of coming out and coming together. Gaian governance must have many elements: the spiritual, the technical, the social, the economic, and the political. It will be harmonious and unified, and it will be rooted in the minds, hearts, and souls of all people. As stronger transnational people-to-people networks are built and as bridges between the many Gaian movements grow stronger, a community global governance will emerge for the fuller development of human potential.
Chapter 17: LIFELONG LEARNING
THOUGHTS ON THE TRANSITION
Our current society is too enmeshed in its current cultural blinders to see that options to our cultural norms exist. The daily practices of our families, our schools, our churches, our stores, and our work teaches us that the way we do things and the way we think is normal, natural, and there is no other. Not doing any of them is as abnormal as eating cat meat in the USA or not saying “please” and “thank you” in Amish societies. We take the values of self-interest, competition, and materialism as merely normal and not a value system that we could give up even if we wanted to. We are died into it by our economic system as well as our social system. The transition to a new system and a new paradigm is not normal. It would be a rejection, or at least an open reexamination, of all that we take as inalienable truths.
Manish Jain has opened that door in India with his concern for “unlearning.” School leavers are encouraged and helped to erase from their minds what they learned and the way they learned in school. Ivan Illich in Deschooling Society (see chapter 6) urged Euro Americans to do the same. He went further to show that the cultural norms of our current society, which are emphasized in our schools, perpetuate the illnesses of our current society so that although many recognize the failures, they cannot see their way out. The cry for change in President Obama’s campaign hit a very responsive chord in we-the-people. But the definition of the change that was needed has not yet been enunciated by any of our political leaders. The word “change” hangs in a fog that everyone can see and agree with but which no one articulates clearly.
Trying to fix the organizations that now make up our society is helping to maintain the status quo. Yet ambitious programs rave on about “fixing the schools,” “fixing the government,” “fixing the market,” “fixing the infrastructure,” “fixing the health system” and “fixing” all the other aspects of our culture. All of these not only harmonize with but are also dependent on all of the others. All are based on the same values of self-interest, competition, and materialism. To rise above these limitations and open ourselves to real social change means rejecting the foundation as well as the superstructure.
As we have shown throughout the first two sections of this book, a Gaian paradigm and Gaian cultures give us realistic goals for our lives. What we need now is some ideas on how we can bring the transition about. The first requirement may be to reset out goals. Rather than expecting self-interest, competition, and materialism to bring us the good life, we might set our new goals on public interest, cooperation, and the health of Gaia. Llfelong learning is required for the transition.
Public interest is the true meaning of democracy. It refers to the common well-being or general welfare. Under law, these terms become almost meaningless since almost any action can be defended in terms of public interest. Consumerism and corporate greed, to most people, are in the public interest. In terms of materialism, this is easy to defend. However, as a personal goal within the concept of Gaia, it can become clearer. Public interest is whatever improves the well-being of Gaia—the Earth and all its people.
Cooperation, as we have discussed, is human nature and the core of the successful evolution of humans. A cooperative society is, like a reciprocity culture, one in which life’s purpose is the well-being of all of society. It is the recognition that we are all interdependent. And the well-being of all is the well-being of each. Within a Gaian society, that motto extends to all of nature as well as all of humanity.
Lifelong learning is the active part of this trio. A society steeped in and practicing lifelong learning instead of the accumulation of material wealth is a radical departure from the status quo. Large mansions, speedy cars, and conspicuous consumptions are no longer accomplishments to be sought. Accumulating knowledge and skills and using them in the public interest replaces them.
No one of this trio alone sets out a new social order. Their interdependence does. The question we need to address is, “How can lifelong learning create a cooperative society that puts public interest, cooperation, and knowledge accumulation ahead of self-interest, competition, and material accumulation?”
WHY WE LEARN
The industrial worker of the past is no longer of value in the Unites States. Menial boring jobs are done by machines or by the poor in other countries for far less cost than would support a family in America. What is needed, if the United States is to remain viable, are creative individuals inventing new kinds of goods and services. Locking young people up in schools during the most formative years of their lives to be taught skills and lifestyles no longer of value to society is destructive not only of the individual’s own self-worth but also of the nation’s potential future. The time when graduating from school provided graduates with enough memorized knowledge to live a comfortable long life has passed. The future industry requires lifelong self-learning.
Not only is the industrial need for workers radically different from in the past, but learning must be transformed to meet humans’ psychic and social needs as well. There is no personal satisfaction now, if there ever was, for the self-interest, competition, and materialism of industrial society. As Alfie Kohn in No Contest: The Case Against Competition (see chapter 6) so well points out, the competition we take for granted is destructive to both individual and social well-being. Kohn argues that the cultural norm of competition must be transformed to cooperation. Ivan Illich enlarges the position in making the case that both learning and living should be convivial. That is, we should all learn and live in joyous collaboration with family, friends, and colleagues.
The present education system limits its concern to presociety individuals. It has not given up the old dominator motivation for learning in spite of dramatic social changes and social needs. Young people are still isolated in schools to be taught the mechanics and lifestyles they would have needed for jobs no longer available in this nation. Euro American societies no longer need automatons to work rote jobs in the boring production lines. Even industry now sees it needs creative critical thinkers able to invent, innovate, and imagine new concepts, new systems, and new designs. They need workers able to keep current with the rapidly changing of inventions and innovations. A new learning system must be designed for the future of industry as well as the psychic well-being of the lifelong learners themselves.
HOW WE LEARN
Not only is the reason to learn radically differently, for both the individual and society, but also brain research has revealed how the human mind learns. No two minds are alike, nor is any one mind prepared to absorb and organize the same information as any other at the same time and in the same way. Trying to teach twenty or more people at the same thing and the same time in the same way is an inefficient, if not impossible, task.
Brain research sets a new foundation for understanding learning. It tells us that learning is a nonlinear function of the mind. That is, the input to the brain is not organized. It includes a chaotic jumble of unorganized sounds, sights, feelings, smells, tastes, and ideas. It is the mind that organizes the scattered inputs into logical and useful order. The ability to learn anything new is unique for each person. Learning is something each mind does for itself.
The educate/teach/school syndrome with its government-designed curriculum taught by authoritarian teachers by rote memory is not only inadequate but also even destructive for the process of learning. Manish Jain in India has initiated a new program of unlearning for school graduates and school leavers to enable them to become creative members of society. Roland Meighan in England has organized a personal learning movement to recognize and meet the unique needs of each individual on a personal path. In America, some families have moved beyond homeschooling to “unstopping.” They learn with their children whatever and whenever a child expresses an interest in any topic. A small booklet, How School Affect Your Kids, from the Consumers’ Association of Penang in Indonesia explores “why schools make students ill.” It questions why students are “cut off from reality” and wonders how they can exist in the world having been taught that “only what is authorized is accepted.” The booklet ends with a long list and some stories of great men and women who have become leaders because of their refusal to be schooled. Among them are Ernest Hemingway, Jack London, Ansel Adams, Joan of Ark, Thomas Alba Edison, the Wright brothers, Benjamin Franklin, Steven Spielberg, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Albert Einstein.
We will see later in the book how a few organizations have moved beyond education and adopted programs to help learners learn.
WHAT WE LEARN
What we learn is the central concern of the current education system. In the K-12 system, the curricula are given undue attention by educators, bureaucrats, and legislators. Even at best, a curriculum is broken down into subjects. Each one is taught as if it had no connection with others. The products are graduates who may have gotten straight As but who are not able to synthesize the courses into an integrated view of the whole. They may have skills, facts, and data, but they have no wisdom and little participation in the world in which they live.
Higher education is likewise carefully prescribed by degree-granting institutions as well as is the advance of students. I recall my own university education where as an engineering physics student I was discouraged from taking courses in theater. It was argued, probably correctly, that I had only four years to accumulate all the credits needed for my degree and a job in science. Even in graduate school, the prescribed courses narrow one’s choice of learning. Education is very Newtonian. That is, it is atomized into topics and subtopics. Very much as the dominator paradigm suggests a Gaian holistic approach to learning is taboo.
I found that this approach to education limited the breadth of the physicists I met while in the physics program of the National Science Foundation. Most of them knew all there was to know about their very narrow specialty but were woefully uninformed in other areas. A few, like Einstein, Max Born, Eddington, Russell, Murray Gell-Mann, and others were able to become specialists in their professions and still have a deep and broad understanding of other fields. In my university teaching of physics, I insisted that each of my classes read a couple of the more philosophical books of some of these expert scientists. The dean of my university soon reminded me that I was hired to teach only physics. This may, of course, be just the way the fields of knowledge are, but it may also be that the system of education requires our limits to knowledge.
Certainly in all levels of learning and all levels of life, society can and must develop a broader view of learning than now exists. New concepts of lifelong learning must be freed of current strictures. Learning must be viewed as the purpose of life, replacing work, jobs, and material accumulation. Each person must be free to learn anything at any time in any way from the vast world of knowledge without being limited to small hunks of that world determined by governments, religions, or other outside forces. The major work of learning is learning how to learn. Our mantra should be “freedom to learn.”
WHEN WE LEARN
The current system of education concentrates on the K-12 ages with a passing interest in preschool training. At one time, that may have been a somewhat justified assumption, as was the accompanying assumption that one can be taught, in the k-12 years, all of the information needed for a full life of work earning a living. Both the current social needs and the new brain research give the lie to these assumptions to say nothing about the psychic needs of the individual for a pleasurable, creative, and fulfilling lifetime of learning. Add to that the new techniques and technologies, including the Internet, that make communication around the world possible in nanoseconds and it’s easy to see why schools at all levels are failing to prepare students for life.
Social needs, human capabilities, and technologies make it necessary as well as possible to design a learning system that better serves both individuals and society. The holistic Gaian concept implies that we are all integral parts of nature and society from birth. New information is flowing endlessly and being organized in our brain/mind continually. We are, whether we plan for it or not, lifelong learners.
Lifelong learning is more a change in philosophy or worldview than merely a change in how we do things. It is the view that all people should, or must, be open to new ideas, new experiences, new behaviors, and new skills throughout their lives. This not only leads to a more satisfying life but is also necessary today and will be more so in the future. The world of knowledge is growing so fast that even in the fading industrial world no one alone can keep current with all the knowledge they need. No one can get enough knowledge in their heads to serve them for more than a few years. A few years ago, the turn of time for knowledge was twenty-five or more years. In the past decade or two, it has shortened to five or ten years. This speeding up in the growth of knowledge needs to be accounted for not only to maintain the skills one needs for a series of ever-changing jobs but also for rapid change in all aspect of our cultures—music, art, services, goods, leisure, religions, foods, medicines, and others. Today with computers, the transformation of knowledge is rapidly getting even shorter.
For this reason alone, it is clear that the school system is inadequate and that a learning system must provide more flexibility so that each person can learn at any time what they need and want at that specific time. This fact drives many families to take their children out of school and become homeschoolers. In doing so, they also take their children out of the learning environment and away for learning peers.
In cooperative learning with peers, a learner gains from the interest, knowledge, and help of others. The breadth of the topic studied comes not only from what others know but also from what they don’t know and the questions one learner asks that might never come to another one’s mind. In addition, comrades in study fill in the basic human need to belong. That feeling of friendship, conviviality, cooperation, and sense of belonging lasts well beyond a session in math, English, or nature study. It is usually a lifelong enjoyment.
Chapter 18: GAIAN LEARNING
Thus it seems that transforming learning implies a transformation of not only how individuals learn but also of how society as a whole evolves. A mantra for social change might be the same as we stated above for the individual: “Every person should have the right, the freedom, the resources, and the opportunity to learn what they want, when they want, and how they want.”
All of the elements of our culture are subject to radical transformation by the emergence of a Gaian social paradigm. But none is more important to social evolution and transformation than the way future citizens learn and how they are introduced into society. Future citizens are now being trained within the dominator paradigm for a culture that is no longer relevant to human survival or well-being. The dysfunctional educate/teach/school syndrome perpetuates this dysfunctional social social system. Looking at learning from a position of social need, we can repeat the concern that “during their most formative years, young people are locked away from family, community, society, and nature.” Thus, society is denied the continual input of new citizens involved in the emerging culture.
To better understand the relevance of learning to our social being, it may be well to examine the evolution of human cultures, mindsets, and worldviews. Many books, listservs, blogs, and Web sites dwell on our Euro American cultures’ values of self-interest, materialism, competition—that is, greed and violence. But few have analyzed how we have reached this state of our culture.
The first human cultures were deeply dependent on nature. Their earliest creation stories recognized, honored, and worshipped the natural order. Mother Earth, the sky, the land, the moon, the sun, lightning, and thunder were the forces that controlled their lives and which became their gods. Some have called this rule by nature as “dharmocracy.” It is nature-centric rather than anthropocentric. It acknowledges that only by cooperation and interdependence with nature and other people could humans, and their world, exist and evolve. This acknowledgment led each individual to work for the public good. Production and distribution of goods and services was by reciprocity, not economics. Each individual produced, and gave what they produced, for the good of all. They recognized their interdependence with the well-being of the Earth and all of its life-forms, not unlike the Gaian worldview that is now being revealed by modern science.
A second level of worldviews came to a few of the evolving cultures. The earliest worldviews were in Asia. The mystery of the unknown was taken as the need of a personal process: becoming one with powers beyond nature, removing one’s thoughts and being above daily suffering, and living a life of harmony with those unknowable powers.
The mystery of the unknowable also gave room for a belief in powerful humanlike creators—the sun god, the moon god, the god of travel, the god of rain, the god of crops, and others. In one culture, at least, the concept of one all-powerful God was born. Others had many baals, gods, angels, and other humanlike superpowers. The view of nature’s control of the world was replaced by theocratic beliefs. A world controlled by nature was transformed to a world controlled by supernatural humanlike powers. That power was transmitted to humans through shamans, priest, holy books, prophets, ceremonies, and divinely sanctioned governments.
The Renaissance and Reformation brought a third element of social control. The age of faith was slowly replaced, or at least added to, by the age of reason. Control of the world shifted from the priests alone to the governments, the banks, the politicians, and the moneyed class. An oligarchy, still claiming divine sanction, ruled the world. It was this culture in Europe that became the most powerful. With its sword (technology), flag (nationalism), and cross (Christianity), its social paradigm by divine sanction soon dominated the whole world.
Slowly religion lost control as technology strengthened the hands of the owners of the tools of production. And materialism replaced spirituality. A fourth major paradigm shift came typified in 1776 by the advent of political democracy in America. This social paradigm was little changed from the preceding dominator paradigm that had been growing since humans were first taught that the Earth was made for them. The stated goal of this paradigm was individual freedom and democracy—power to the people. This democratic political paradigm adopted the moral code of self-interest, competition, and materialism, which led to material wealth as well as to the destruction of the natural habitat. But it also eliminated the divine right of kings and gave some power and responsibility to the people or, at least, to representatives of the people. Technologies and techniques of the day did not make direct democracy possible. This glitch kept political and social control in the hands of a moneyed elite that continued to own the tools of production and distribution.
Today there is a fifth major paradigm shift evolving, as we showed in chapter 1; science is revealing a radically different worldview. It shows that independent, lone individual freedom is neither economically nor scientifically sound. Gaia, like the cosmos, is shown to be a single unit or holon composed of tightly interlocked and interdependent smaller holons embedded in a larger, more comprehensive holons. The dominator paradigm of the past is being replaced by a Gaian paradigm. All entities in the cosmos are no longer seen as free and autonomous. They are tightly interlinked to all the other parts of Gaia. The well-being and freedom of each element of Gaia is subject to the well-being and freedom of all. Humans are part of Gaia and are controlled by, as they affect, the Gaian paradigm. Separate researches on human evolution and human nature reveal that cooperation and interdependence are social necessities as well as human nature and cosmic law.
This understanding of social evolution suggests that the evolution from dharmocracy through theocracy, oligarchy, and democracy is being followed by new social/political system. We might call these new system “cosmocracy.” Cosmocracy implies that the cosmos is its own, and our, controlling agent. The most we can do is to try to understand it. It could be a more fruitful form of human control. Individuals empowered by new scientific knowledge and new technologies can cooperate directly with one another at the community level in the production and distribution of goods and services. Community cooperatives could exchange with one another on a global level. Cosmocracy would not be bound, as is oligarchy and democracy, by the space, time, and human limits. Today we can know what’s going on in any part of the world in real time. No matter where we are, we can converse with anyone in Uganda, Iraq, or Nepal on our cell phone. Our reliance on any bosses, governments, corporations, or boundaries is ephemeral. We have the ability to form communities with others to control, within cosmic laws, our own lives and to have an effective voice in our own governance. The question is now only one of will and wisdom.
Whether we can take advantage of the possibilities is the crux of the topic learning and democracy. When material production was the primary need of society, it was important to train willing workers for service and factories. In the 1840s, the compulsory state school system was established to transform an agrarian society into an industrial one. The influx of immigrants searching for industrial jobs extended the value of the system. Authoritarian, hierarchal, competitive schools had the responsibility of molding young people into service of the industrial factory world. It trained them to obey authority, to work by the bell, to learn what was determined by others, and in general, to fit into an authoritarian, hierarchal, competitive, materialistic society.
TRANSFORMING EDUCATION TO LEARNING
A Gaian paradigm, like all those before it, is dependent for its fruition on the intellectual transformation of the youth who will become its members and leaders in a fundamentally different social world. It takes at least a full generation for any new paradigm to become universal. This one particularly demands a broad program of learning to create independent a generation of critical thinkers including everyone. Jefferson’s dictum was that democracy is dependent up to an educated citizenship. Direct democracy requires an even freer and more universal participatory learning. Participatory learning must develop to lead to a participatory democracy.
A Gaian world requires students to be free to learn about freedom and democracy. One learns about freedom by being free in a democracy. This calls for transforming teaching institutions into learning centers and for the morphing schoolteachers into community mentors both or either to be used freely at the will of the learners. It creates a world of critical thinkers best able to participate in world affairs. It transfers the money wasted in prisonlike schools to tax breaks for organizations providing learning opportunities selected by the learners. It puts the hierarchy of individual, family, community, society, and world in a more human-oriented network of command. It replaces self-interest, competition, and materialism with lifelong learning as the purpose of life.
This transformation of the learning system is closely akin to the research being done on artificial intelligence (AI). The new demand for a learning system moves beyond the “dumbing us down” education program that teaches students the qualities of being pseudorobots for the past industrial age. The AI research is moving from the other direction trying to make robots into pseudohumans. This is not to suggest that the meeting point is in the middle in some kind of robohuman. But it does recognize the fact that the AI study of human thinking and learning may provide us with some new knowledge of how the brain works and what is unique in the human mind. Computers today are able to beat the world’s greatest chess master in a game of chess. This is a feat of a machine’s ability to see two hundred chess moves per second ahead compared to a human’s prediction of about eighty future moves. This does not help us understand the human ability to recognize patterns, to reason, to encode conditional dependencies, or to use Bayeseian networks—that is, to establish probabilities and make decisions based on partial data. Researches on these are the functions of human thought, and AI research may be relevant to our concern. It may give humans the opportunity to be fully human. Much more than is provided by the educate/teach/school syndrome, it may give us the chance to practice our free will in a truly free society.
The link between freedom and learning was first brought to public attention by German philosopher Friedrich Froebel (1782–1852), best known for his invention of both the fact and the word “kindergarten.” Froebel’s theory was that to understand freedom, one must be free. He put his idea in practice particularly with children recognizing what they became later was dependent on how they learn in the very beginning of life. Also, recognizing how children played, he designed his learning system around play.
He designed toys, blocks, dances, cards, and other games that had a hidden agenda of learning reading, writing, and arithmetic while learning, to learn to be free by being free. Children were free to learn what they wished. As children grew older and became adapted to being free, other amusements filled their learning programs. Freedom and learning were built up in step-by-step continuous, progressive, accumulative achievements. The Froebelian revolution caught on to become the foundation on which Dewey as well as Buckminster Fuller built their philosophies.
This recognition that the capacity to be free must be built up in us from birth is a natural offspring of a Gaian paradigm too long forgotten by pedagogues. Especially in children, but throughout life, the joy of freedom must be continually renewed and strengthened by internal experiences of freedom. Imposing learning goals from the outside hinders the growth of freedom. The disregard of a child’s, an adolescent’s, or even an adult’s desire to be free and enjoy freedom is not only a damage to the individual but perhaps more importantly a damage to society.
Democracy also fits in these same shoes. “Education for democracy,” an oft-used phrase by educators, is an obvious oxymoron. Any attempt to make a whole classroom of students sit quietly in their seats to be taught democracy is a misdirected cause. One may teach about the structure or history of the operation of a democratic government. But one learns to be democratic only by practicing it. Democratic schools practice letting learners learn themselves by deciding to jointly decide what they want to do.
I remember one example in which I followed its development in day-by-day reports on the Internet. The mentor had removed all furniture and furnishings from his classroom. When the class came into the empty room, he didn’t even suggest that they sit on the floor. He said, “This is a democratic course on democracy, what would you like to do first?” When the cacophony subsided, he agreed that they might need some furniture and pointed out that there was a lot of it stashed in a nearby closet. By the time decisions had been made on the setting up of the room, the students knew what democracy was all about.
An offspring of homeschooling calls democratic learning “unschooling.” In general, unschooling means giving the learner support but full control of when, where, and how he or she learns all of the time. This means no assigned curricula, no courses, no teaching, no schooling, no forcing. It means creating learning opportunities in every aspect of our culture. It means making learning the purpose of life, replacing accumulation of goods and money.
One proponent of learning freedom is Roland Meighan in the UK. Roland has started a network for personalized learning.
My own idea of democratic learning came during a three-month stay at a hotel run by Buddhist monks in Kathmandu during a UN project on which I was working. Every morning I awoke with the chanting of the monks. Before breakfast, the waiters lined up at one end of the dining room holding the spread-out tablecloths high above their heads. With the doors open at the other end of the room, they wiggled the tablecloths, herding the flies out the door. That was a lesson on refusal to kill. But my unschooling lessons came from a series of lectures held in the third-floor library of the hotel. While I and other listeners sat cross-legged on the hard floor, the lead saffron-robed monk sat on a silk cushion slightly higher than the learners. Since some of us spoke only English, we had an interpreter. After each short pronouncement of the leader, the interpreter would follow with “Artishar says” translating his message into English. The eight lectures were on the eightfold path—right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration.
I went in to each session expecting some clear rules on how to live the right life. But Artishar never lectured in good American school or church style. There was no preaching or teaching of what would happen if we did or did not follow the eightfold path. No talk of rewards or punishments. Artishar told stories, often funny stories, of his own life and that of the monks with whom he had learned. I learned by listening to examples. Perhaps my epiphany came near the end. I never did learn the name of our unassuming monk. I did learn that artishar was the pronunciation our translator had for “our teacher.”
This epiphany transformed my understanding of artishar from being close to a divine representative of a holy world available to only a select few humans, to “our teacher,” a blood-and-flesh human who was passing on to us, mere mortals, the wisdom of a long line of blood-and-flesh sages who devoted much of their lives to contemplating the cosmos and the place of humans in it. These mahatmas were neither better nor worse than the priests who offered me bread and wine in cathedrals around the world; the Muslim imams who call me from the turrets of the mosque for cleansing and prostrating myself facing Mecca (Salat) five times every day for prayers to Allah; the community preachers who reminded me of my sins and forgiveness at weekly meetings; the Amish farmers who devote themselves to simple living with nature every day; or those, like myself, who search for the same answers in the results of science.
CHAPTER 19: ALTERNATIVES TO EDUCATION
In the past three decades, there has been a growing movement to reinvent the way citizens learn and how young people are introduced into society. Homeschooling, charter schools, cyberschools, unschooling, lifelong learning, Waldorf schools, and Sudbury schools are just a few of the elements of this movement. The movement has been growing exponentially each decade since 1980. It has become a challenge to the traditional school/teach/educate system. Lifelong learning has been promoted by management guru Peter Drucker in Post-Capitalist Society on one end of the spectrum and, on the other end, by Elise Boulding in Building Global Civic Culture, and by many scholars in between.
The bottom line in this movement is to provide the freedom, opportunity, and resource for self-learners of all ages, with their families and communities, to choose to learn what they want, when they want, and how they want—to self-learn.
In spite of the rapid growth of this movement, it has drawn little positive attention from governments. Professional educators and their unions have shown concern that the proliferation of homeschooling will draw funds away from the public school system. A few public school systems have accepted the challenge and established special programs to provide would-be homeschoolers and other self-learners more autonomy within the public school system. Some have established parent-teacher programs that depend on parental involvement and give parents greater autonomy in the learning process. But as parents are increasingly recognizing that personal liberty and private protection from control by majority rule applies to their children’s learning, none of the existing systems, including homeschooling, have completely incorporated that concept. Nor do they fully meet the needs of our information society, which requires a lifelong learning system to provide for each individual’s continual learning processes, as detailed in the work of writers and thinkers from John Gardiner, John Holt, and Alfie Kohn to Daniel Pink and Howard Gardner, among so many others.
Foundations, likewise, have been slow to rise to the challenge and opportunity that is unfolding. The millions of dollars for public schools, coming from all levels of government, are followed by millions more coming from private foundations. But little, if any, of this private funding is available for the many nonpublic-school personal learning experiments being undertaken. A search of the philanthropy databases with words like “homeschooling” comes up with no program in any foundation whereas a search under “schools” or “education” comes up with many thousands. Individual appeals to hundreds of foundations by home school support groups, learning co-ops, and other forms of nonschool learning communities are regularly returned with the words “this proposal does not fit into our current program of support.”
Motivations for moving toward self-learning and abandonment of traditional public schooling are many. Perhaps the most prevalent is parental concern about the loss of control of the learning of young children. Many families want to take direct responsibility for their curriculum, approach to learning, and the principles and values upon which these are based. Some parents believe that the public school system instills values that run contrary to those of their family. Some are explicitly guided by their religious beliefs to direct the education of their children. Others have had disturbing experiences with schoolyard bullies, unfeeling teachers, or misdirected bureaucracies. A few hold that government support is inherently controlling and that their tax dollars are binding families to a failing system. These parents argue for complete parental control. But there’s the rub. Parent control is an oxymoron. What is called for is personal child control—trust in the motivation, curiosity, and open minds of young people.
Self-learners are also influenced by education critics, philosophers, and religious leaders. Some, like Ivan Illich, believe our current life, including school, is based on the principle of work now for future rewards. They urge that schooling, and life, be convivial and vernacular. That is, that learning and work should be carried out in joyful collaboration with family, friends, and neighbors. And that it should be embedded in the local culture, ecology, and friendships.
With Brazilian adult educator and social activist Paulo Freire, some see schools as perpetuating the socioeconomic rich/poor status quo. This, Freire suggested, prevents the natural social evolution that would occur if all citizens were given freedom to self-learn in their own families, communities, and nature. In his book Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Freire used the education system to arouse the workers, starting a labor movement that is still operative today
Following John Holt, others believe that schooling is not an efficient way to learn, nor for future citizens to be introduced into society. They are working to transform the school system into one of learning opportunities, urging all social institutions to participate in lifelong learning.
Most great philosophical traditions, including those embodied in Gandhi, Tagore, Aurobindo, and Krishnamurti, recognize a spiritual component to learning, teaching that knowledge is more than a way to get a job or score well on a standardized test. It is the purpose for living. It is being human. Rabindrnath Tagore started his learning community Santiniketan to transform the human mindset from self-interest, competition, and materialism to mutual aid, cooperation, and the love of learning. Growing out of a variety of personal, philosophical, educational, or religious motivations, the lifelong self-learning movement continues to expand.
PROOFS OF EFFECTIVENESS
It is impossible to measure the success of self-learning with tests, grades, and scores. Perhaps the most interesting successes are found among those learners who do not flourish in a traditional setting with standard measurements of success. These individuals are free to blossom in their own ways and do—anecdotal evidence abounds about happy and successful learners who have traveled a nontraditional path to their own personal success.
Self-learners are equally honored among our greatest leaders. Thomas Edison, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Abigail Adams, Benjamin Franklin, the Wright brothers, Helen Keller, Albert Einstein, and Margaret Mead are only a few of those who have learned without school. The newspapers are filled with stories of less well-known successes. Ryan Abradi of Maine showed an interest in numbers at an early age, so his parents let him stay home and self-learn; by age ten he was working his way through second-year college calculus. Caitlin Stern of Haines, Alaska, stayed out of school and became a recognized expert by studying bald eagles in the wild. Jedediah Purdy, a self-learner from West Virginia, graduated summa cum laude from Harvard University; in 1996 he was selected as a Truman scholar and as West Virginia’s nominee for the Rhodes Scholarship. He then went on to Yale Law School and, in the meantime, wrote a best-selling book.
The growth rate of self-learning is a partial measure of its success. From a few scattered school leavers in 1980, perhaps twenty thousand, the number has grown, according to Newsweek magazine, to over two hundred thousand in 1990 and into a broadly integrated network of an estimated 2 milllion today.
Considerable research has shown that students learn much more easily when they self-learn. As long ago as 1930, the eight-year study of thirty special schools demonstrated that the most effective schools used a different approach to learning. Instead of organizing learning by subjects, they organized it around themes of significance to their students. There seemed to be an inverse relationship between success in college and formalized education as opposed to student-selected learning.
A recent Cornell University study confirmed this and showed that schooled children become peer dependent while those who learned with their parents have more self-confidence, optimism, and courage to explore. A Moore Foundation study of children of parents who had been arrested for truancy found that their homeschooled children ranked thirty percent higher on standard tests than the average classroom child.
Providing possible insight into the reasons behind these successes, a UCLA project showed that the average schooled student receives seven minutes of personal attention a day but the self-learner receives from one hundred to three hundred minutes of attention daily. Following this, a Smithsonian Report on genius concluded that high achievement was a result of time with responsive parents, little time with peers, and considerable time for free exploration. Standardized tests reflect self-learner success as well. Time magazine reported that “the average homeschooler’s SAT score is 1,100, 80 points higher than the average score for the general population.”
Dr. Lawrence M. Rudner conducted a study in 1998 that included 20,760 students in 11,930 families. He found that in every subject and at every grade level (K-12), home school students scored significantly higher than their public and private school counterparts. Some 25 percent of all homeschool students at that time were enrolled at a grade level or more beyond than indicated by their age. According to the study, the average eighth-grade homeschooler was performing four grade levels above the national average. The average ACT score was 21 out of a possible 36 for public schooled children. It averaged 23 for self-learners. This qualifies the average college-bound self-learner for the most prestigious universities.
This movement is not only addressing the why, how, when, and what all citizens learn but is also rebuilding the foundation for the society in which we all live. How we learn determines the kind of society we build. Authoritarian, hierarchal, undemocratic schools prepare future citizens for an authoritarian, hierarchal, undemocratic society. A lifelong learning system based in family, community, society, and nature could be the foundation for new democracies of freedom, equity, and justice.
The movement continues to promote the concepts of lifelong self-learning in all its complexities to a wider audience to address critics on the issues of accountability and credibility, and to raise funds to help those working to bring its ideals to fruition.
FREEDOM TO LEARN
The common thread among all of the learning modalities is freedom to learn. Freedom to learn has been a topic of a long list of critics of education including Froebel, Dewey, Goodman, Illich, Holt, Freire, and others. It has also been the cry of an increasing number of today’s activists. My concern here is the gap between the wise men of the past and the activists of today. Although the number of leave-school advocates and activists is rising at an impressive rate with the advent of homeschooling, charter schools, cyber learning, vouchers, and a conglomerate of other educational modalities, very few, if any, have escaped the syndrome of educate/teach/school. Christian schooling is the whipping boy for a different purpose for brainwashing. But nearly all other school refusers are based on the nonexistent parental rights—the right of parents to teach whatever they want to their children. Many homeschooling parents are almost paranoid in choosing or designing a curriculum for their children to follow. Oftentimes the state demands such a curriculum before they will recognize one’s right to homeschool.
Unschooling was used by some older critics to emphasize the student’s right to learn what they want, when they want, and how they want. Unschooling was meant to let the students from birth practice their own choice of learning. Most parents do this in the preschool lives of their children. But they somehow don’t recognize that their children learn more by this mode than they do in school. For unschoolers, the parent was expected to continue to be a mentor and to help the children find the resources to learn whatever came to their minds and to learn with them. In practice, unschooling has too often been only a slightly modified form of homeschooling. In a recent computer listserv for unschooling, weeks were taken in discussing how parents could be sure that their children were learning the correct code of ethics. At some times it went further to discuss how parents could be sure that a sound basis for a future job was being built. It is not the purpose of a school, a state, a nation, or the parents to establish a goal for unlearners. Unlearning is based on the principle of the freedom to learn. Any teaching that is done is done by example, not formal education. It follows the “do what I do, not what I say.”
Manish Jain, an unschooling advocate in India, adds a different concept—“unlearning.” Jain’s idea is along the lines of Illich’s Deschooling Society, Gandhi’s honest reflection, Toffler’s deconditioning, Buddha’s letting go, and other oft-used terms like “conviviality,” “de-institutionalizing,” “voluntary simplicity,” “repatterning,” and others. To paraphrase Jain, unlearning is the process of moving beyond all the limitations instilled in a student by schools and carried into their lives. It is not about forgetting, emptying, destroying. Nor is it simply about critical thinking, positive thinking, or problem solving. At its most basic level, unlearning starts with looking at the realities and possibilities of life from other than the school’s points of view. It involves becoming more conscious of the different cultural norms and mental models, assumptions, generalizations, sacred constructs, cognitive blindness, expectations, anxieties, etc., that influence how we understand reality, how we create knowledge, how we make choices, and how we grow. It is not an educational modality as much as it is a new social paradigm. From our point of view, it means escaping from the dominator paradigm and embracing a Gaian paradigm.
Jain’s research is the study of people, particularly young adults, who have escaped the confines of the standard school and social paradigm in spite of the being embedded in it. They have risen above the mindset, worldview, and mainstream culture that are perpetuated by the teach/educate/school syndrome. They have reached a new level of freedom. The goal is to learn how we can all unlearn or, as Einstein put it, recognize that “we can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”
Chapter 20: LEARNING ALTERNATIVES
Nonschool lifelong learning provides an opportunity as well as a challenge. As we move into the future learning system, we have to act out of the box as well as think out of the box. Intellectual problems and solutions that can be learned or memorized and repeatedly applied no longer exist in moving out of a rote fact demanding society we are moving into an information-based society. Its knowledge base is continually changing. The value of any specific bit of memorized knowledge fades rapidly. In today’s world, people have to renew their knowledge and skills continually throughout life. Nothing could be more amazing than to have the same activities that worked in the past work for the future. Most educators, parents, legislators, and the press confine themselves to their march to folly and strive valiantly to fix the schools just as they stick to the old values system of self-interest, competition, and materialism. A few are already using, or at least experimenting, with nonschool techniques for the learning future in society based on a Gaian paradigm.
THE PARTNERSHIP WAY
Riane Eisler was the founder of the Center for Partnership Studies and of a unique new way to look at education. It is so close to recognizing that schools perpetuate the status quo that it fits well into the last section of nonschool education. But Eisler also recognizes the fact that for some time schools will be the accepted way to learn and, for the meantime at least, providing alternatives wthin the current system is the only accepted way to go.
Eisler moved into the field of learning from a beginning as a social historian more than a social critic. This beginning was the adoption of the research findings of Marija Gimbutas, a paleontologist. Gimbutas in researching the Minoan culture in Crete found that this early culture had no weapons or fortifications; it seemed to be a culture of peace. Gimbutas also found literally thousands of small goddess sculptures indicating worship of the female. From continued digging and analysis, Gimbutas concluded that the Minoan culture that reached its peak about thirty-two thousand years ago not only worshiped a goddess but was governed by women in partnership with men. The Minoan culture was based on the value of the homes and family. As she analyzed her data in later years, she found that nomads with metal tools and on horseback from the steppes of Russia had invaded around 3000 BC. Their original goal was destruction and plunder. Later they built walled cities on high hills for protection. Their way of life and male domination not only spread across all of Europe but also drove even the more peace-loving communities to build defended cities and adopt defensive and offensive armies. So cultures were driven into the age of war and violence.
Eisler wrote of this in her best-selling book The Chalice and the Blade, expanding the concept of a “partnership way” to a goal for the future. This she carried forward in other books, for examples, Tomorrow’s Children, Educating for a Culture of Peace, and The Real Wealth of Nations. Finally, she concluded that the only way to initiate a society based on female-male partnership was to introduce it to children in their most formative years, K-12. That, to her, meant designing programs for schools. In order to work directly with schools, the Center for Partnership Studies, a 501c3 nonprofit education organization, works not only in the K-12 schools themselves but also with universities in both education colleges and research centers to continue both discovering new knowledge and providing lifelong learning for educators and others.
In chapter 17, we mentioned many new fix-school modalities of learning within the teach/educate/school syndrome. Even those nonschool modalities often have not unlearned the dangers of those social and cultural norms. They still hold to the need to brainwash children with the values and lifestyle of their parents and this industrial culture.
In the above half of this chapter, we have presented examples of new programs still within the fix-the-schools mindset but which have attempted to introduce at least elements of personal learning, giving the learners a degree of freedom to choose what, when, and how they learn.
In the below examples we have crossed the line. These programs reject any form of schooling for freedom to learn. They rely on the learners’ inherent curiosity and ability to learn what they want, when they want, and how they want. These are good examples of learning to be free by being free.
SelfDesign is a modality of learning. It is also the title of a book and a program designed by Brent Cameron of Britain. The program was founded when Brent’s six-year-old daughter realized that if she went to school she lost control of her life, so she asked her father to be her teacher and to learn at home. Inspired by his daughter’s natural ability to learn and by the experience of watching her learn to talk, he worked with her for the next twelve years to design a learning program based on every child’s natural enthusiasm to learn and their ability to generate their own learning path. That learning path is now the path of over eight hundred children guided by the Wondertree Foundation that Brent founded. The SelfDesign modality has also been adopted by many other learning centers around the world with the help of Cameron and his team of consultants
Brent’s recognition that children were learning from birth and that schools stopped the self-learning process suggested that he established the SelfDesign Learning Community (SDLC), an innovative network of families and learning consultants to help nurture children learning in their homes and communities. SelfDesign helps learners create their own place, time, and way of learning. It supports natural enthusiasm-based learning rather than imposing and teaching a government-designed curriculum. It supports children and their families in a holistic learning model that conserves the disposition of wonder in a context of love.
As the SelfDesign program for children spread, the founders saw that it was relevant for all ages. Since 1985 they have been working on lifelong learning programs for career transition coaching, business productivity, innovation consulting, experiential learning and consulting. As well as expanding its age range, SelfDesign Inc. is expanding its contacts. It is creating a broad international network of affiliates such as Living the Potential Network Inc. of Portland, Oregon; HOPE Co-op Online Academy in Denver, Colorado with over 3,800 online learners who visit seventy-nine learning centers; gateway courses on Barbara Marx Hubbard’s Evolve Web site; Laddie Livingston of VISION in Colorado; and Dan Janik, author of Unlock the Genius Within and president of the Neurobiological Learning Society. The number of proponents and programs for personal learning seems to be growing almost as fast as the need.
Probably the most profound innovations in the way we earn will come from emerging computer technology. The most obvious place to look for new ways to learn is in the world of cyber learning. Of course schools have not overlooked the computer. In fact they have jumped on the commuter bandwagon. But they have used this technology to produce more of the same fix-the-schools and co-opt-computers-to-teach/educate/school way of thinking. They have hardly explored the unique potentials of cyber learning or cyber thinking.
By cyber learning and cyber thinking, I mean to convey a new brand of using one’s mind in learning and using the knowledge one needs. For example, we no longer need to rely on our past education or bound volumes of encyclopedia or even the collection of books in one’s library or all of the interconnected libraries that easily exchange their holdings. Instead, we can quickly check facts and ideas with the push of a few keys. That is the way this book has been composed.
Not only is all knowledge at our fingertips, but any person can now communicate any place in the world in nanoseconds. “Ask a colleague” no longer limits one to a classroom or even a community. Working with colleagues around the world is a daily, or should I say, instantaneous action. In addition, rather than composing pages and pages of notes for an online text, we can allow our reader instant linking to any number of resources that expand or clarify our text. Actions that make these potentials real are almost too common to need elaboration. A bit less understood or well-used are computer games.
SOCIAL IMPACT GAMES
The value of computer games is emphasized by the Web site Social Impact Games. The goal of this site is to catalog the growing number of video and computer games whose primary purpose is something other than to entertain. These are also known as “serious games.” People who want to locate or create serious games can find them and can see what others have done on this site.
There are over five hundred serious games listed on this Web site. They are indexed under the keywords Education, Learning Games, Public Policy, Political, Social, Health, Wellness, Business, Military, Commercial, and Adventure.
One in line with much of this book is Media Blackout. This a 3-D video game in which the players face all of the ills of our current society—corporate interest, religious fundamentalism, and military might. It recognizes the media-compliant government propaganda, fed by the corporate agenda. The game highlights the march to folly controlled by the corporate greed and the military-industrial complex that seeks to dominate the minds of the people at the grass roots. Today’s media message is formed by a coalition of militaristic plutocrats, right-wing media moguls, and neofascist populists stridently attempting to maintain their dominance. Media Blackout creates an allegorical environment through new interactive technologies attempting to immerse both player and viewer in the true “psychological operations” of our time.
Other games show the transition from working hard to educating a new generation in old ways, to using what people enjoy, to helping them learn. Many games are two-faced: one is learning and the other is entertainment. One example of this is the Monkey Wrench Conspiracy. This game has two agenda. It’s game agenda put the player in the role of an intergalactic space agent trying to rescue the Copernicus space station from alien hijackers. Its learning agenda is to help advance engineers to think and design in three dimensions (3-D). That is the computer assisted design (CAD) of drawings in 3-D space rather than a series of two-dimensional drawings first to represent the 3-D final product. The CAD program can then take blueprint drawings directly off the computer. This eliminates hours of tedious drawing.
Beyond the world of video games is a world of virtual worlds. These are not programs in which players win, lose, compete, or play. They are more imaginary worlds in which you just live and participate just as as you live in the real world, but with more freedom. Perhaps the largest and most interesting is Second Life virtual activities made possible by Linden Lab. As they say, Second Life is a 3-D virtual world entirely created by its “residents.” Since opening to the public in 2003, it has grown explosively and today is inhabited by millions of residents from around the globe.
Residents buy land, build houses, organize communities, make laws, provide learning, play games, use computers, design computer games, and take any other action they wish. All this is done in an economic system based on Linden dollars (L$). These you can buy before you enter or you can earn them by selling or exchanging goods and services you make or buy in that virtual world or outside of it. Each resident creates his or her own virtual personhood or “avatar” or multiple avatars. You meet others in your Second Life and work with them just as you work with other people in your first life, creating whatever virtual products or organizations that you wish.
One Second Life game that is in line with the thinking of a Gaian paradigm is Exchanging Cultures. This is a diplomatic game built inside Second Life. It was created to facilitate the creation of virtual communities and relationships based on the exchange of cultural items like dances, art crafts, food receipts, architectural models, clothing, cultural routes, and images of real original places for travelers and explorers. Each player becomes a diplomat who must attempt to understand the cultures of the people with whom he or she is building relationships as well as share elements of his or her own culture.
CHAPTER 21: ESOTERIC PATHS TO THE GAIAN FUTURE
This book is based on hard science to the best of my ability. I believe that the hard sciences provide the most certain path to reliable concepts about the universe and our place in it.
The search of scientific knowledge cannot only reveal new laws of nature but also can provide us the knowledge of ourselves and how we must live in order to survive in an inhabitable universe. The concept of Gaia (Earth and all of its life-forms including humanity) provides us with a new basis for living. As we explored in section I, the unity of Gaia, the knowledge that Gaia evolves as a unit and that we humans are parts of Gaia, all dependent on one another, is the foundation of this new social paradigm.
The path to the future we have laid out in the book is based on science. But it is not the only possible path to Gaian cultures. Nor is it even the primary motivation for social change. In chapter 6, we looked at some of the other sciences and commonsense foundations for a Gaian paradigm. The commonsense approach to a universe based on public service, cooperation, and knowledge, to some, may be a more spiritual worldview. These are also held by many in our culture. Many of these are from creation myths of Mother Earth, the sun, and other forces of nature. Still others are further beyond the pale of accepted science.
One of my personal contacts beyond the pale, as I see it, was with Wilhelm Reich and his concepts of orgon energy. Reich was a leading student of Freud in Austria during the 1920s. He broke from Freud over some disagreements on the place of sex in psychiatry. After working in Europe for a while, he migrated to the USA, established a successful psychiatric practice in New York City, and a summer later set up a research laboratory and library in Rangeley, Maine.
As a then college physics student who had grown up in Rangeley, I came to know Reich quite well. With him I looked through his microscope at dancing smoke particles that he interpreted as life motion in inorganic matter. I see it as the well-studied phenomena of Brownian motion caused by small invisible molecules of air striking the visible carbon particles. His other examples of orgon energy, such as the attraction of hair to a rubber comb, likewise had explanations well within the bounds of current classical physics.
I declined the offer to work at the Reich laboratory but read his books assiduously, with a red pen to underline misinterpretation of physics and a green pen to underline the genius he showed in the emotion being of people. One of the examples of the latter was in his Listen, Little Man, a condemnation of the public’s tendency to reject genius and new concepts in their midst. Another of his earliest contributions was body armoring, the tightening of muscles in the physical body resulting from mental stress. Body armoring has become the basis of many massage therapies for emotional stress, such as Reiki. They seldom give credit to Reich as their initiator.
H O L O D Y N A M I C S
Orgonomy is far from the only science (or pseudoscience) that challenges mainstream science or scientists. The holodynamics of Dr. Vernon Woolf, for example, views reality as a coherent, dynamic, living, holographic information system intimately connected to the human consciousness. It is an extension of social scientist Woolf’s concept of a “quantum field” emerging from the “parallel dimensions of the space-time continuum.”
The cosmos, as Woolf sees it, is a holodyne. Each moment or point in space-time contains information on the whole. Human consciousness is composed of these holodynes and is self-oganized by each human to create a unique view of the world. Humans are capable of knowledge and practice, of reaching deeper into this holodynamic world and to gain understanding and powers too seldom used.
For Woolf, human consciousness is considered the prime condition of the holistic rivers within microtubules of every living cell of the human body and underlies all bodily functions including mental and social functions. As a person alines with these forces he/she has a rebirth of understanding and lives a different life. The society Woolf sees has much the same characteristics as the Gaian culture described in the book
No predictor of the future has led more enthusiastic followers of prediction than Michel de Nostredame (Nostradamus). His book of quatrains first published in 1555 was followed by annual almanacs until his death. Since then they have been interpreted and reinterpreted to predict everything from the Johnstown flood to WWIII. The vagueness and lack of specificity of his prophecies make them easy to falsely interpret. They are often applied after the fact and sometimes rewritten to make them appear more specific than they are. Their prediction of 9/11 is a good example of the widely circulated wild translations of one of his quatrains on the Internet. Today they have become the subject of many popular activities including the work of many rap artists. That some use them to predict the revelation of the Gaian paradigm is almost unsurprising.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a French Catholic priest, was educated in paleontology and geology. In his primary book The Phenomenon of Man, he expanded on the work of Vladamir Vernadski. It abandoned Genesis as the origin of humans and suggested a third stage of cosmic evolution—the “physiosphere” and the “noosphere.”
The physiosphere is the collection of minerals that make up the cosmos. On Earth it has been expanded that the biosphere that makes up life. The noosphere is a third sphere of evolution—the product of the mind. It is the collection of all thoughts, ideas, memories, and concepts that human minds have produced. It is not unlike the concept of cosmic soul developed in chapter 5 of this book. Chardin predicts that the noosphere will go on autonomously evolving to “the omega point”—the unity of human thought with the mind of God. Some have predicted that this unity of mind and spirit will bring a new culture that they call “Gaia consciousness.”
THE MAYAN CALENDAR
The Mayan calendar was not handed down in history to Euro Americans from some ancient text. It was discovered in Mesoamerica in stone carvings on forgotten temples. The interpretation of these hieroglyphics has been a long and arduous study by many European and American scholars. Their research has revealed a complex of overlapping and repeating astronomical cycles. They are amazingly accurate in predicting the paths of the planets. The movements of the moon, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, and Jupiter are accurately determined, as are the times and paths of solar and lunar eclipses and other astronomical events.
Some cycles have been used to predict or plan coronations, wars, climatic catastrophes, and social transitions. The cycles of the Mayan calendar go far back to 500 BC and forward as far as one wants to take them. The cycles within cycles have many periods: 13, 260, 365, 584, and 819 days and 52 and 54 years. The overlapping of the starting and ending of various cycles prophesy memorial and divine days. Currently being watched is a convergence happening on December 21, 2012. Some advocates predict a cataclysmic happening for that date. Others predict that that prediction is incorrect, as was the 9/11 prediction. Still others predict that that will be a day of enlightenment and the expansion of a new consciousness that will put society on a Gaian path.
In the chapter on the food system, we pointed out the contributions of Rudolph Steiner to the horticulture and the food system. This contribution was a result of his unique philosophy, not the new sciences that are the basis of this book. His ideas have been extended and explored by others. One of these is the book Gaiasophy by Kees Zoeteman.
Zoeteman points out that the world, as we know it, is revealed to us by our five physical senses. They reveal only the physical world. These observations are further refined by reason and logic to form scientific models of the physical world.
Gaiasophy accepts the revelations of science from the big bang through Galileo’s heliocentric theory, Newton’s gravitational theory, the theory of evolution, and the findings of chaos, complexity, and Gaia theories. “But,” it questions, “is that all?”
Its conclusion is that for at least the last six thousand years, humans have built a wall around their understanding of this physical world. The physical world has shut out the evolution of nonphysical worlds. Zoeteman suggests that early cosmic evolution, as known by early humans, had nonphysical aspects that are no longer a major part of our worldviews.
Along with and before the physical world as we accept it are other world characteristics that have come through their own evolution. The physical world, the ethereal world, the astral world, and the spiritual self, are enfolded in one another. These characteristics were recognized by early humans. They are found in early myths, in the Mayan and other languages, in ancient temples, in ceremonies such as the Pueblo dances, in the “dream world” still lived by Australian aborigines, and the lifestyles of other cultures. They are invisible to the physical world but inherent in it. Together they compose what proponents call the spiritual world and can be witnessed through spiritual science.
The first layer above the physical world, the ethereal world, is reminiscent of Plato’s Doctrine of Ideas. Ideas to Plato were the forms, purposes, functions, and governance that exist before the physical object exists. The idea is not produced in the physical world. Not two trees, wheels, or humans are exactly alike; they exist only as ideas in the ethereal plane. In today’s scientific world, biologist Rupert Sheldrake has postulated the existence of morphogenetic fields. These fields, said Sheldrake, are initiated by a chance thought or action and built up by parallel inventions or repetitions. As more minds repeat the initial invention, the fields become stronger and a new addition to it becomes easier. This ethereal world is what gives form to the physical world although it is seldom seen or recognized from the physical world.
The third level, the astral world, is the forces of the cosmos that give meaning and drive to the two lower levels through the ethereal world to the physical world.
From this spiritual base, many gaiasophists write a new spiritual evolution theory based on the long history of esoteric myths, stories, and phenomena. They see Greek mythology, Egyptian hieroglyphics, Nostradamus, the lost city of Atlantis, astrology, the Bible, and many creation myths as memories of times before written history, times when physical man still held the shapes and powers of astral and ethereal man. They see Buddhism, Taoism, yoga, revelations, astrology, UFOlogy, contemplation meditation, and other beliefs, skills, and practices are still reaching into a spiritual reality.
They see a future in which a living Earth will be recognized as the only reality and humanity will be recognized as but a reflection of that reality.
THE SPIRITUAL SPECTRUM
We could not, no matter how long we make this book, explore all of the reasons that we are facing a radically different future. There is a deep human desire, if not a crying need, for humans to create a different world. The continued existence of humanity may depend on it. Our goal in this book is to explore one possible path to a sustainable future. We do not hold that science reveals that only path nor event the best path.
In this book, we have tried to open minds to one very likely path. One based in harmony with the sciences of today. We do not hold that science is the only foundation on which a new path can be based. We do hold that science does create the more reliable model of the truth. It makes possible predictions of the orbits of the planets, for the construction of computers, for bettering health, for feeding the world, for communicating around the Earth, and for dealing with humans at home and abroad. Perhaps most importantly, science provides the vision of the cosmos and the place of humans in it that has been most productive and is shared by most rational beings.
Regardless of which path or paths convince humans that a constructive, positive, and equitable new worldview is needed, as are actions to create it, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Doing something to make the world a better place for humanity does not require any particular view of the future or even any view of the future. It requires small local social innovations in which people respect, love, and aid their neighbors. Many such innovations are happening now. If multiplied and expanded, science tells us that they will spontaneously self-organize into the world toward which many paths are leading. We list a few in the final appendix.
This book is not a technical article and does not contain pages and pages of notes and bibliography. It does not attempt to prove that I am right nor does it even claim originality in any of the ideas. Its goal is to suggest a different road for critical thinkers. Where you think a note is needed, plug the questionable name or phrase into a Google search and look in the Wikipedia or other leads given. That is where most of the data came from for this book, if not out of my memory.
Many of the people and resources I used are mentioned in the text. A few may need mention here.
The wording for dominator paradigm was suggested by Riane Eisler in The Chalice and the Blade where she used it to explore a gender-based dichotomy between dominator (male) and partnership (female). I used it to explore a dichotomy between corporate culture and nature. Fritjof Capra has used terms like “Gaian paradigm,” which contributed to many of my concepts. Many online readers have pointed out errors and made comments too many to mention. But a niece-in-law read every page and corrected at least three errors in every paragraph. Sue Morris, a Vermont communalist, also made many useful suggestions. A close friend, Molly Bishop, successfully challenged some of my wordings on religions. My wife, Margaret, who shared most of the experiences with me, was the co-author of some articles that we published elsewhere, and was a critic of it all. And my four children and five grandchildren put up with me sitting at the computer instead of skiing, climbing, playing monopoly, or watching movies in many evenings.
If I were to add notes to this text, I would concentrate on DOING SOMETHING, not reading more. I have no criticism of reading. I do it all of the time. It is my favorite pastime, particularly since it’s not up to skiing anymore. But as someone said, about 80 percent of what you read, especially on the Internet, is criticism and diatribe against the government and the status quo. About 18 percent are Utopian dreams, like this book, about how the world should be. Only about 2 percent or less are taking actions to make the world better. I like to believe that this book will increase the 2 percent who are doing something. Toward that listed end are some of the existing social innovations and a few of the social entrepreneurs who are creating some of the cells that might just spontaneously self-organize into the Utopian Gaian future for which we all dream.
SOCIAL INNOVATION—SOCIAL ENTREPRENEUR
1. Mutual Credit—Tom Greco
2. Local Scripts—Paul Glover
3. LETS—Michael Linton
4. Time Dollars—Edgar Cahn
5. Credit Unions—Bill Sterner
6. Local Currency—Lewis Solomon
7. Community Loan Funds—Rebecca Dunn
8. Peer Lending—Mary Coyle
9. Reciprocity—Dominique Temple
10. Democratic Management—Len Krimmerman
11. Worker Ownership—Carol di Marcello
13. Alternative Trade Organizations—Jim Goetsch
14. Rodale Cooperatives—Joe David Wetly
15. Food Co-op Storefronts—George Keller
16. Food Co-op Buying Clubs—Peg Pritchert
17. Co-op Warehouses—Dave Gutknecht
18. Community-Supported Agriculture—
19. Permaculture—Dan Hemenway
20. Community Land Trusts—Julie Orvis
21. Intentional Communities—Laird Schaub
22. Co-Housing—Ken Norwood
23. Ecovillages—Lois Arkin
25. Education Alternatives—Jerry Mintz
26. Homeschooling—Pat Farenga
27. Community Learning Centers—Francesca Louria
28. Frugality—Vicki Robins
29. Health Communities—Tyler Norris
30. Community Health Systems—Bruce Amundson and Karen Johnson
31. Community Gardens—Phil Green
32. Farmers Markets—Center for Rural Pennsylvania
33. Community BBSs—Ken Komshi
34. Community Patrols—Rita Marth
36. Straw Bale Houses—
A GAIAN PARADIGM
This book is not meant to be an academic study, a promotion, a prediction, a criticism, or a plan. It is meant to suggest that the current worldview and social paradigm is not fixed and concrete. It is a creation of humans and it can be changed by humans. It is the scattered thoughts of one person. It is an attempt to think outside the box and to challenge others to do the same.
The ideas, practices, and speculations have been gathered from innumerable sources over a lifetime of ninety years, but there is little original in the book. Thousands and thousands of creative social concepts are floating round our globe. This book is a collection of only a few of them. It is a result of many resources. The chaotic collection had one author and was composed as a chaotic jumble. Many critics read parts and parcels and suggested changes. A few read the whole treatise. Pat Farenga, a colleague of the late homeschool guru John Holt, read and made suggestions on the whole text, particularly section III on the way to the future, and the organizer of an intentional community redrafted an early version. Others like those mentioned in chapters 6, Other Paths, and chapter 15, People, as well as throughout the text had a deeper and more profound affect in creating a Gaian paradigm.
The final text was edited in spite of my dyslexic errors, poor spelling, and misuse of words by Gayla Ellis, a niece-in-law, to make it all readable. Gayla examined every line and word I wrote many times, suggesting input often. She refused to be listed co-author so any errors or outlandish suggestions aI still must accept.
It would be impossible to thank them all or to even give just adequate credit to the real authors. It would be impossible to give adequate credit to Gayla, to other readers, and the real authors. Instead I will list by chapters the resources used in drafting this text.
Below is a by-chapter listing or my major resources.
Bak, Per. 1996. How nature works: The science of self-organized criticality. Springer Verlag.
Eisler, Riane. 1987. The chalice and the blade. HarperCollins.
Gell-Mann, Murray. 1994. The quark and the jaguar. Freeman.
Golding, William. 1968. Lord of the flies. Perigee.
Gleick, James. 1986. Chaos. Penguin.
Kauffman, Stuart. 1995. At home in the universe. Oxford University Press.
Lovejoy, Arthur O. 1936. The great chain of being. The president and board of Harvard.
Lovelock, James. 1982. Gaia: A new look at life on earth. Oxford University Press.
Smolin, Lee. 1997. The life of the cosmos. Oxford University Press.
Waldrop, M. Mitchell. 1992. Complexity: The emerging science at the edge of order. Simon & Schuster.
Briggs, John, and David Peat. 1989. Turbulent mirror. Harper & Row, 178.
Gould, Stephen Jay. 2002. The structure of evolutionary theory. The president and fellows of Harvard College.
Ellis, William N. 1982. “Transnational networks and world order.” Transnational Perspectives 2, no. 4.
———. “Transnational networks and world order.” Transnational Perspective 8, no. 4:9.
Drucker, Peter. 1993. Post-Capitalist Society. Harper Collins.
Gatto, John Taylor. 2005. Dumbing us down. New Society Publishers.
Mintz, Jerry, ed. 1994. Handbook of alternative education. Macmillan.
Bateson, Gregory. 1972. Steps to an ecology of mind. Balantine.
Descartes, René. 1637. Discourse on method.
Descartes, René. 1912. Every man’s book.
Dr. Thomas I. Ellis, associate professor of English at Tidewater Community.
Leduc, Lautent. 1993. Intellectual conversion and the Gaia hypothesis. Toronto: Michael College.
Lonergan, Bernard. 1957. A study of human understanding. New York: Longmans.
Schumacher, E. F. 1996. Guide to the perplexed. Harper & Row.
———. 1973. Small is beautiful. Harper & Row.
Swimme, Brian and Thomas Berry. 1994. The universe story. Arkana.
Wells, H. G. 1897. “The war of the worlds.” Serialized in Pearson’s Magazine.
The ideas and words of chapter 5 emerged in a letter the author wrote to his grandchildren on his eighty-fifth birthday.
Clark, Prof. Mary. 2002. The search for human nature. Routledge.
Dawkins, Richard. 2004. The ancestor’s tale. Houghton Mifflin.
Fox, Matthew. 1983. Original blessings: A primer in creation spirituality. Bear & Company.
Humaines, Valeurs. 1995. Editions L’Harmattan. 5-rue de L’école Polytechnique, F-75005 Paris, France.
Illich, Ivan. 1971. Deschooling society. Marion Boyers.
Kohn, Alfie. 1986. No Contest: The case against competition. Houghton Mifflin.
Sussman, Robert, and Donna Hart. 2005. Man the hunted. Westview Press.
Sperry, Roger. 1979. Bridging science and values. Unity of Science, UN.
Temple, Dominique, and Mireille Chapal. La Réciprocité et La Naissancedes.
Chapter 7B: Peace
Mead, Margaret. Coming of age. Samoa Perennial Books.
———. 1930. Growing up in New Guinea. Pelican.
Nace, Ted. 2003. The gangs of America. Berrett-Koehler Publishers.
Cahn, Edgar S., with Jonathan Rowe. 1992. Time dollars. Rodale Press.
Yunus, Muhamad. 1998. Banking to the poor. London: Aurum Press.
Carson, Rachel. 1962. Silent spring. Houghton Mifflin.
Kimbrel, Andrew, ed. 2002. The fatal harvest reader. Island Press.
Rodale’s illustrated encyclopedia of organic gardening. 2005. Henry Doubleday Research Association.
Steiner, Rudolph. 1924. Biodynamic agriculture lectures.
Tudge, Colin. 2007. Feeding People is Easy. Pari Publishing.
Wendell Berry, Woes Jackson, Helen Norberg Hodge, David Ernfield, Gerry Mander, and other members of the Foundation for Deep Ecology explore how the current industrial agricultural system has created hunger and why a radically different system is necessary to solve the food problems.
Gaskin, Steve. 1974. Book Publishing Company.
Gaskin has published, and is still publishing, a long series of books on the the hippy culture, drugs, the vegan diet, home birth, the Farm’s third world projects, ecovillages, his lectures, travels, the future, and his thoughts. They have mostly been published by the Book Publishing Company and the Farm’s own publishing house. It publishes a wide range of tracts and books on the hippy life—“life as it should be.”
Hill, R., and R. Dunbar. 2002. “Social Network Size in Humans.” Human nature.
Kincade, Kat. 1973. A Walden two experiment.
———. 1994. Is it Utopia yet?. Twin Oaks Publishing.
———. The first five years of Twin Oaks community. Quill.
McCamant, Kathryn, and Charles Durret. 2004. Cohousing. Ten Speed Press.
Rexroth, Ken. 1974. Communalism. Seabury Press.
Huxley, Thomas Henry. 1868. “On a Piece of Chalk.” Macmillan Magazine, collected essays VIII.
John, Bishop, and Shelby Sponge. 2001 Why Christianity must change or die. Cahners Business.
1992. Alternative America. Resources.
Capra, Fritjof. 1975. The tao of physics.
———. 1982. The turning point: Science, society, and the rising culture.
———. 1997. The web of life.
———. 2002. The hidden connections: A science for sustainable living.
———. 2007. The science of Leonardo.
———with David Steindl-Rast and Thomas Matus. 1991. Belonging to the universe.
Darrow, Ken, and Mike Saxenian. 1986. Appropriate technology sourcebook. Volunteers in Asia
(now available online and in DVD at http://www.villageearth.org/Publications/ATLibrary/ATLDVD.html)
McRobie, George. 1981. Small is possible. Harper & Row.
Meadows, Donella H., Dennis L. Meadows, and Jorgen Randers. 1972. Limits to growth. Club of Rome.
Nearing, Helen. Loving and leaving the good life.
Nearing, Scott, and Helen Nearing. Living the good Life.
———. Wise words for the good life.
Todd, John, and Nancy Todd. 1980. The village as solar ecology.
———. 1984. Bioshelters, oceans arks, city farming.
———. 1984. City farming: Ecology as the basis of design.
———. 1994. From eco-cities to living machines.
———. 1981. Reinhabiting cities and towns: Designing for sustainability.
———. 1980. Tomorrow is our permanent address.
Daman, Eric. 1979. The future in our hands. Pergamon Press.
Ellul, Jacques. 1954. The technological society. Vintage Books.
Ferguson, Marilyn. 1980. The Aquarian conspiracy. J. P. Tarcher.
James Robertson. 1978. The sane alternative. River Basin Publications.
———. Beyond the dependency culture.
———. Creating new money.
———. Future wealth.
———. Future work.
———. The history of money.
———. Monetary reform: making it happen.
———. New economics of sustainable development.
———. “Sharing the Value of Common Resources.”
Most of Robertson’s books are available for free download at http://www.jamesrobertson.com/bookcontents.pdf
Lagos, Gustavo. 1977. The revolution of being. New York Free Press.
Jain, Manish. 2006. Teaching social studies in schools. Cyber Tech Publications.
———with Manjula Jain. 2000. Women! Be rebellious. C&C School of Leadership.
———. 2008. “Being the change: In Gandhi’s footsteps.” Yes! Winter.
Russell, Stuart, and Peter Norvig. 1995. Artificial intelligence: A modern approach. Prentice Hall.
Snider, Denton Jacques. 2007. The life of Frederick Froebel: Founder of the kindergarten. Sigma Publishing Co.
Freire, Paulo. 1968. Pedagogy of the oppressed. Continuum Press.
Purdy, Jedediah S. 1999. For common things: Irony, trust, and commitment.
———. 2003. Being America: Liberty, commerce, and violence.
———. 2004. Democratic vistas: Reflections on the life of.
Cameron, Brent. 2006. SelfDesign. Sentient Publications.
Eisler, Riane. 1987. The chalice and the blade. HarperCollins.
———with David Loye. 1990. The center for partnership studies. HarperCollins
Gilbert, Adrian, and Maurice Cotterell. 1995. The Mayan prophecies. Element Books Inc.
Reich, Wilhelm. The function of the orgasm: Discovery of the orgon.
———. 1943. The Wilhelm Reich infant trust.
———. 1945. The sexual revolution.
———. 1980. Character analysis.
Vernon, Victor. Woolf holodynamics: How to develop and manage your personal power.
Paperback by (Author)
Zoeteman, Kees. 1991. Gaiasophy. Lindisfarne Press.
Abradi, Ryan, 119
Action Aid, 103
Adams, Abigail, 119
Adams, Samuel, 62
adaptive flexibility, 24, 28
AI (artificial intelligence), 55, 114
Airuda, Oberto, 78
Alexander, Gary, 70
eGaia: Growing a Peaceful, Sustainable Earth through Communications, 70
Alternative America, 93
Alternative Education Resource Organization. See AREO (Alternative Education Resource Organization)
alternative trade organizations, 133
American Empire, The (Nearing), 97
American Philosophical Society, 62
American revolution, 53, 57
Amundson, Bruce, 133
Ancestor’s Tale, The (Dawkins), 39
anthroposophical medicine, 68
appropriate technology. See AT (appropriate technology)
Appropriate Technology Sourcebook (Darrow and Saxenian), 74, 93
Aquarian Conspiracy, The (Ferguson), 99
AREO (Alternative Education Resource Organization), 17
Arizmendiarrieta, Jose Maria, 60
Arkin, Lois, 133
Arrow, Kenneth, 7
Arthur, Brian, 7
artificial intelligence. See AI (artificial intelligence)
ASFS (Association for the Study of Food and Society), 71
Ashby, Ross, 38
Association for the Study of Food and Society. See ASFS (Association for the Study of Food and Society)
astral world, 130
AT (appropriate technology), 59, 73–74, 92–95, 143
atheists, new, 89
“Atmospheric Homeostasis By and For the Biosphere: The Gaia Hypothesis” (Lovelock and Margulis), 6
Augustine, Saint, 21
autocatalysis, 7, 12
ayurvedic medicine, 81
Bacon, Francis, 22
Bak, Per, 6
How Nature Works, 6
Bates, Albert, 74
Bateson, Gregory, 20, 24
Steps to an Ecology of Mind, 24
belonging, 19, 29
Benedict, Ruth, 44
Berry, Thomas, 23
billiard ball world, 30
biodynamic agriculture, 68
Bishop, Molly, 132
Blessed Unrest (Hawken), 90–91
Blue House, 76
Boas, Franz, 44
body armoring, 128
Bohm, David, 99
Wholeness and the Implicate Order, 99
Boston Tea Party, 13, 53, 57
Boulding, Elise, 19, 117
Building Global Civic Culture, 117
“Imagine a World Without Weapons,” 19
brain research, 107
Brazil Neighborhood Food Program, 71
Bread for the World, 71
Bread Riots, 13
Briggs, John, 9
Turbulent Mirror, 9
Brownian motion, 127
Building Global Civic Culture (Boulding), 117
Burke, Edmond, 13
Bush, George, 16
CAA Labial-Euskadiko Chute, 61
CAA Labial Popular, 61
CAD (computer assisted design), 125
Cahn, Edgar, 133
Calvert, 57, 59
Calvin, Jean, 20
Cameron, Brent, 123
Campbell, Donald, 38
Capra, Fritjof, 132
Carson, Rachel, 68, 92, 99
Silent Spring, 68
causation, downward, 30, 36–41
CCF (Cooperative Capital Fund), 63
CCL-LLCs (Cooperative Community Lifelong Learning Centers), 16
Center for Partnership Studies, 122–23
Center for Rural Pennsylvania, 133
CFNE (Cooperative Fund of New England), 63
Chalice and the Blade, The (Eisler), 122, 132
Challenges of Ivan Illich: A Collective Reflection, The (Honacki), 35
chaos, science of, 9
chaos and complexity, 6, 8–10, 14–15, 24–25, 83, 90, 130
citizen participation, 11–12
Clark, Mary, 30
In Search of Human Nature, 30
Clinton, Bill, 50
clockwork concept, 5
Clonal School Home-Based Education Center, 17
CLT (community land trusts), 12, 133
Club of Rome, 93, 99
CoHousing, 75, 133 [hanged to “choossinb” by Xlibris indeer]
CoHousing (McCamant and Durrett), 75
Columbus, Christopher, 10
Coming of Age in Samoa (Mead), 45
Communalism (Rexroth), 72
communal living, 85, 90
health systems, 133
community BBSs, 133
community land trusts. See CLT (community land trusts)
community learning centers, 133
community-supported agriculture. See CSA (community-supported agriculture)
complexity theory, 14
Compulsory Mis-Education and the Community of Scholars (Goodman), 17
computer assisted design. See CAD (computer assisted design)
Consciousness Revolution (Sperry), 38
Consumers’ Association of Penang, 99
How School Affect Your Kids, 107
contemplation meditation, 130
Cooperative Capital Fund of New England. See CCF (Cooperative Capital Fund)
Cooperative Community Lifelong Learning Centers. See CCL-LLCs (Cooperative Community Lifelong Learning Centers)
Cooperative Fund of New England. See CFNE (Cooperative Fund of New England)
Cooperative Housing Association Law, 75
cooperative society, 106
co-op warehouses, 133
Copernicus, 86–88, 90, 125
corporate power, 14, 52–53
cosmic soul, 27–28, 129
Coyle, Mary, 133
credit unions, 61, 63–64, 133
criticality, self-organizing, 6–7, 9, 12
CSA (community-supported agriculture), 12, 69
Cuban Neighborhood Health program, 71
“Cultivation of Conspiracy, The” (Illich), 35
cyber thinking, 124
Dammann, Eric, 99
Future in our Hands, The, 99
Darrow, Ken, 74, 93
Appropriate Technology Sourcebook, 74
Darwin, Charles, 5–7, 41–42, 86–90
Darwinian theory, 86
Davies, Paul, 39
Dawkins, Richard, 39
Ancestor’s Tale, The, 39
de Chardin, Pierre Teilhard, 27, 128
Phenomenon of Man, The, 128
Declaration of Independence, 53, 62
democracy, 4, 105, 112–13
direct democracy, 4, 13, 112–13
first phase, 12–14, 105, 112, 115
participatory democracy, 10–11, 13, 113
second phase, 14–15
democratic governance, 12
democratic management, 133
de Nostredame, Michel (Nostradamus), 128
Descartes, René, 22, 26, 48
Deschooling Society (Illich), 17, 30, 34–35, 105, 121
Dewey, John, 16
dharmocracy, 111, 113
Dickens, Charles, 60
di Marcello, Carol, 133
Doctrine of Ideas (Plato), 130
Dollar Diplomacy: A Study in American Imperialism (Nearing), 97
dominator paradigm, 5, 18–19, 43, 48–52, 60, 86–91, 108, 111–12, 121, 132
Drucker, Peter, 19, 117
Post-Capitalist Society, 19
Dumbing Us Down (Gatto), 16
Dunn, Rececca, 133
Durant, Will, 142
History of Philosophy, A, 142
Durrett, Charles, 75
Dyson, Freeman, 25
Imagined Worlds, 25
East India Company, 52–53
Eco-design Collaborative, 96
Eco-development Centre, 99
Ecological Design Institute. See EDI (Ecological Design Institute)
ecological footprint, 77, 93
ecology, 24, 38, 43
economic and social transitions, 6
ecovillage, 77–78, 133
EDI (Ecological Design Institute), 96
Edison, Thomas, 119
Educating for a Culture of Peace (Eisler), 122
education, 16–19, 25–32, 43, 61, 68, 91, 94–96, 108–9, 113–14, 117–19, 121–22, 133
education alternatives, 133
eGaia: Growing a Peaceful, Sustainable Earth through Communications (Alexander), 70
Einstein, Albert, 104, 107, 119, 142
Evolution of Physics, The, 142
Eisler, Riane, 122, 132
Chalice and the Blade, The, 122
Educating for a Culture of Peace, 122
Real Wealth of Nations, The, 122
Tomorrow’s Children, 122
Elementary and Secondary Education Act, 18
“Non-Western Cultures and the Future,” 44
Ellis, Thomas I., 24
“Non-Western Cultures and the Future,” 44
Ellul, Jacques, 99
Technological Society, The, 99
emergence, 30, 36–37, 39
orgon energy, 127
solar energy, 48, 50
“Energy Strategies: The Path Not Taken” (Lovins), 49
equilibrium, punctuated, 6
Darwin’s theory of, 5
theory of, 5, 41–42, 130
Evolution of Physics, The (Einstein and Infeld), 142
Exchanging Cultures, 126
Experiment in International Living, 103
FAA (Food and Agriculture Association), 71
Fagor Electrodomésticos, 61
Farallones Institute Rural Development Center, 96
Farenga, Pat, 133–34
Farmers’ Markets, 133
Federation of Intentional Communities. See FICA (Federation of Intentional Communities)
Feeding People Is Easy (Tudge), 67, 70
Ferguson, Marilyn, 99
Aquarian Conspiracy, The, 99
FICA (Federation of Intentional Communities), 74
First Continental Congress, 62
folk schools, 17
Food and Agriculture Association. See FAA (Food and Agriculture Association)
food co-op buying clubs, 133
food co-op storefronts, 133
food system, 43, 65–71, 129
growing food, 43
Fox, Matthew, 33
Spirituality Named Compassion, A, 30, 33
Franklin, Benjamin, 13, 62, 107, 119
Freetown Christiania. See Christiania
free will, 37–38, 114
Freire, Paulo, 118
Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 118
Fristaden. See Christiania
Froebel, Friedrich, 114
Froebelian Revolution, 114
Fthenakis, Vasilis, 50
“Positive Future, A,” 50
Fuller, Buckminster, 20, 95, 114
Future in our Hands, The (Dammann), 99
Gaia, 4, 112
GAIA (Global Awareness Interdisciplinary Alliance) International, 24
Gaian creed, 28
Gaian energy, 48
Gaian habitat, 72
Gaian paradigm, 5–20, 24–30, 36, 40–44, 87–92, 112, 112–34
Gaian theory, 6, 20, 24, 36, 41, 43, 68, 90, 130
Gaiasophy (Zoeteman), 129–30
Galileo, Galilee, 22–23, 42, 86, 88, 90, 130
Gandhi, Mahatma, 12, 99, 121
Gandhi Peace Foundation, 99
Gangs of America (Nace), 55
Gaskin, Steve, 72
Gatto, John Taylor, 16
Dumbing Us Down, 16
Gell-Mann, Murray, 7
Quark and the Jaguar, The, 7
Gimbutas, Marija, 122
Global Awareness Interdisciplinary Alliance. See GAIA (Global Awareness Interdisciplinary Alliance) International
Glover, Paul, 132
Goetsch, Jim, 133
Golding, William, 6
Lord of the Flies, 6
Good Life Center, 98
Goodman, Paul, 17
Compulsory Mis-Education and the Community of Scholars, 17
Gould, Stephen Jay, 6
punctuated equilibrium, 6
Grameen Bank, 11, 57, 58
grassroots organizations (Gross), 10
Grassroots Support Organizations (GSOs), 11
gravitation, theory of, 86
gravitational theory, 130
Great Madness: A Victory for the American Plutocracy, The (Nearing), 97
Greek mythology, 130
Green, Phil, 133
Green Revolution, 66
GROs (GrassRoots Organizations)
Growing Up in New Guinea (Mead), 45
Growing Without Schooling (Holt), 17
[ STRIKE: Grumman Bank, 11, 58 THIS WORD SHOULD BE "GRAMEE BANK" here and in thw text]
Guide for the Perplexed (Schumacher), 20
Gutknecht, Dave, 133
Handbook of Alternative Education, The (Mintz), 17
Hart, Donna, 30–31
Man the Hunted: Primates, Predators, and Human Evolution, 31
Hawken, Paul, 50, 90
Blessed Unrest, 90–91
health communities, 133
Heifer Project, 71
heliocentric theory, 42, 130
Hemenway, Dan, 133
History of Philosophy, A (Durant), 142
holistic medicine, 81
Holland, John, 7
holocaust, 23, 46
Holt, John, 17, 118, 134
Growing Without Schooling, 17
Instead of Education, 17
Home Education Press, 17
homeschooling, 9, 12, 17, 35–36, 87–88, 91, 107, 117, 120–21, 133
Home School Legal Defense Association. See HSLDA (Home School legal Defense Association)
homesteading, 12, 87–88, 91, 133
Honacki, Lee, 35
The Challenges of Ivan Illich: A Collective Reflection, 35
[ STRIKE:Challenges of Ivan Illich: A Collective Reflection, The, 35}
HOPE Co-op Online Academy, 124
horticulture, 66, 68
How Nature Works (Bak), 6
How School Affect Your Kids (Consumers’ Association of Penang), 107
HSLDA (Home School legal Defense Association), 17
Hubbard, Barbara Marx, 124
Hudson Bay Charter, 53
hunger, world, 66
Huxley, Thomas Henry, 89
Piece of Chalk, A, 89
IFOAM (International Federation of Organic Movement), 69–70
Illich, Ivan, 17, 30, 33–36, 69–70, 105–6, 118
Cultivation of Conspiracy, The, 35
Deschooling Society, 17, 30, 34–35, 105, 121
Medical Nemesis, 35
Shadow Work, 34
Tools for Conviviality, 34
Imagined Worlds (Dyson), 25
IMAT (International Mechanism for Appropriate Technology), 143
Indian Rebellion, 52
Indra’s net, 30
Infeld, Leopold, 142
Evolution of Physics, The, 142
information theory, 38
[“ingots”not in text. should be INGROd (International GrassRoots Organizations)
[ STRIKE; In Search of Human Nature, 30]
In Search of Human Nature (Clark), 30
Instead of Education (Holt), 17
Institute for Creation Centered Spirituality, 33
Institute for Theological Encounter with Science and Technology. See ITEST (Institute for Theological Encounter with Science and Technology)
Institutes (Calvin), 20
Integral Urban House, 96
intentional communities, 11, 72, 75, 77–78, 87–88, 91, 133–34
intermediate technology. See IT (intermediate technology)
Intermediate Technology Development Group. See ITDG (Intermediate Technology Development Group)
International Communities Exchange, 103
International Federation of Organic Movement. See IFOAM (International Federation of Organic Movement)
International Mechanism for Appropriate Technology. See IMAT (International Mechanism for Appropriate Technology)
international non-governmental organizations. See Ingots (international nongovernmental organizations)
Iroquois Nation, 13
IT (intermediate technology), 92, 142
ITDG (Intermediate Technology Development Group), 92
ITEST (Institute for Theological Encounter with Science and Technology), 23
Ithaca Hours, 11
Jain, Manish, 105, 107, 121
Janik, Dan, 124
Unlock the Genius Within, 124
Jefferson, Thomas, 13
Jesus Christ Superstar, 20
John Paul II (pope), 23
Johnson, Karen, 133
Jung, Carl, 27
Kauffman, Stuart, 7
Keep Your Powder Dry: An Anthropologist Looks at America (Mead), 45
Keller, Helen, 119
Kennedy, John F., 50
Kohn, Alfie, 30, 32, 106
No Contest: The Case Against Competition, 30, 32, 106
Komshi, Ken, 133
Krimmerman, Len, 133
Krishnamurti (Jiddu), 97
Laddie Livingston of VISION, 124
Lagos, Gustavo, 100
“Revolution of Being, The,” 100
learning, 19, 107, 111
cyber learning, 124
lifelong learning, 106, 109, 117
participatory learning, 113
Leduc, Laurent, 23
Lehman, Gene, 18
LETS (local exchange and trading systems), 11, 63, 132
Library Company, 62
Life of the Cosmos, The (Smolin), 7
Limits to Growth (Meadows, Meadows, and Randers), 93, 99
Lincoln, Abraham, 54, 119
Linden dollars, 125
Linden Lab, 125
Linton, Michael, 132
Listen, Little Man (Reich), 127
Living the Good Life (Nearing), 97
Living the Potential Network Inc., 124
local currency, 133
local exchange trading systems. See LETS (local exchange and trading systems)
Local Scripts, 11, 64, 132
Lonergan SJ, Bernard, 23
Lord of the Flies (Golding), 6
Louria, Francesca, 133
Lovelock, James, 6
“Atmospheric Homeostasis By and For the Biosphere: The Gaia Hypothesis,” 6
Loving and Leaving the Good Life (Nearing), 97
Lovins, Amory, 49
“Energy Strategies: The Path Not Taken,” 49
Luther, Martin, 20
Ninety-Five Theses, 20
Man the Hunted: Primate, Predators, and Human Evolution (Hart and Sussman), 30–31
Man to the Moon Program, 50
Maple Sugar Book, The (Nearing), 97
Margulis, Lynn, 6, 41
“Atmospheric Homeostasis By and For the Biosphere: The Gaia Hypothesis,” 6
Marth, Rita, 133
Mason, James, 50
“Positive Future, A,” 50
Massachusetts Company, 53
Mayan calendar, 129
MCC (Mondragón Cooperative Corporation), 60–61
McCain, John, 83
McCamant, Kathryn, 75
McNamara, Robert, 73
McRobie, George, 50, 92
Small Is Possible, 50
Mead, Margaret, 20, 44–45, 119
Coming of Age in Samoa, 45
Growing Up in New Guinea, 45
Keep You Powder Dry: An Anthropologist Looks at America, 45
Meadows, Dennis L., 93
Limits to Growth, 93
Meadows, Donella H., 93
Limits to Growth, 93
Media Blackout, 125
Medical Nemesis (Illich), 35
Megatrends (Naisbitt), 8
Meighan, Roland, 107, 115
mind/body control, 81
Mintz, Jerry, 17, 133
Handbook of Alternative Education, The, 17
National Directory of Alternative Schools, 17
Mitcham, Carl, 35
The Challenges of Ivan Illich: A Collective Reflection, 35
Challenges of Ivan Illich: A Collective Reflection, The, 35
Mondragón Cooperative Corporation. See MCC (Mondragón Cooperative Corporation)
Mondragón network, 11
Mondragón University, 61
Morgan, J. P., 54
Morris, Sue, 132
Movement, the, 91
mutual aid, 11, 15, 32, 59–60, 62–63, 78–80, 118
mutual credit, 132
Nace, Ted, 55
Gangs of America, 55
Naisbitt, John, 8
NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration), 6
National Directory of Alternative Schools (Mintz), 17
National Science Foundation, 108, 142
natural capitalism, 50
Natural Capitalism Solutions. See NCS (Natural Capitalism Solutions)
NCS (Natural Capitalism Solutions), 50
Nearing, Helen, 96
Living the Good Life, 97
Loving and Leaving the Good Life, 97
Maple Sugar Book, The, 97
Simple Food for the Good Life, 97
Wise Words for the Good Life, 97
Nearing, Scott, 96–98
American Empire, The, 97
Dollar Diplomacy: A Study in American Imperialism, 97
Great Madness: A Victory for the American Plutocracy, The, 97
Living the Good Life, 97
Maple Sugar Book, The, 97
Next Step: A Plan for Economic World Federation, The, 97
Poverty and Riches: A Study of the Industrial Regime, 97
Simple Food for the Good Life, 97
Study of State and Federal Wage, A, 97
Wages in the United States, 97
Wise Words for the Good Life, 97
networking, 8, 12
transnational networking, 8
Neurobiological Learning Society, 124
New Alchemy Institute, 95
New America Foundation, 59
New Christianity of Bishop Spong, 87, 89
New Earth, 96
New Paradigm for Financial Markets, The, 70
Newton, Isaac, 5, 42, 86–88, 90, 130
Next Step: A Plan for Economic World Federation, The (Nearing), 97
Ninety-Five Theses (Luther), 20
No Child Left Behind Act, 16
No Contest: The Case Against Competition (Kohn), 30, 32, 106
“Non-Western Cultures and the Future” (Ellis), 44
noosphere, 27, 128–29
Norwood, Ken, 133
nuclear energy, 49
nuclear fuel, 49
OAI (Ocean Arks International), 95
Obama, Barrack, 83
Ocean Arks International. See OAI (Ocean Arks International)
OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development), 93
OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries), 102
organic farming, 69
organic gardening, 68–69, 95
Organic Gardening, 68
Orvis, Julie, 133
Paul of Tarsus, Saint, 21
Pax World Funds, 57
Peat, F. David, 9
Turbulent Mirror, 9
Pedagogy of the Oppressed (Freire), 118
peer lending, 58–59, 133
Pennsylvania Hospital, 62
People’s Worker Bank. See CAA Labial Popular
Phenomenon of Man, The (de Chardin), 128
Philadelphia Contributionship, 62
Piece of Chalk, A (Huxley), 89
“Planet Report 2002” (WWF), 93
Plato, 21, 130
Doctrine of Ideas, 130
Popper, Karl, 37
“Positive Future, A” (Zweibel, Mason, and Fthenakis), 50
Post-Capitalist Society (Drucker), 19, 117
Poverty and Riches: A Study of the Industrial Regime (Nearing), 97
preventive medicine, 72, 81
Pritchert, Peg, 133
public interest, 105–6
Pueblo dances, 130
Pueblo Indians, 85
Pugwash Conferences, 104
Purdy, Jedediah, 119
Pusher Street, 76–77
quale, 41–42, 83
quantum mechanics, 20, 83, 99
Quark and the Jaguar, The (Gell-Mann), 7
Randers, Jorgen, 93
Limits to Growth, 93
Real Wealth of Nations, The (Eisler), 122
reciprocity, 40, 45–46, 106, 111, 133
Red Crescent, 70
Red Cross, 70
Reich, Wilhelm, 127
Listen, Little Man, 127
Reiki, 61, 128
relativity, 20, 99
reorganization of learning, 17
revolution, cognitive, 37
“Revolution of Being, The” (Lagos), 100
Rexroth, Kenneth, 72
RMI (Rocky Mountain Institute), 49
Robbins, Glen, 59
Robbins, Mildred, 59
Robertson, James, 100
Sane Alternative, The, 100
Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers, 60
Rocky Mountain Institute. See RMI (Rocky Mountain Institute)
Rodale, J. I., 68
Organic Gardening, 68
Rodale Cooperatives, 133
Rodale Institute, 68
Rodale Press, 68
Roosevelt, Franklin D., 54
Roosevelt, Teddy, 54, 57
Rudner, Lawrence M., 120
Russell, Bertrand, 104
Salvation Army, 70
Sane Alternative, The (Robertson), 100
??????? santiniketan, 118 don't know thie word and can find it ???
Saxenian, Mike, 74, 93
Appropriate Technology Sourcebook, 74
SC (Seikatsu Club), 11, 61–62, 69
Schaub, Laird, 133
Schumacher, E. F., 20, 92, 142
Guide to the Perplexed, 20
Small Is Beautiful, 20, 50
Scientific American, The, 50
SDLC (SelfDesign Learning Community), 123
Second Life, 125–26
Seikatsu Club. See SC (Seikatsu Club) 11
Seikatsu Consumers’ Cooperative, 61
SelfDesign Inc., 124
SelfDesign Learning Community. See SDLC (SelfDesign Learning Community)
SFM (slow food movement), 69–70
Shadow Work (Illich), 34
Sheldrake, Rupert, 130
Sherman Antitrust Act, 54
STRIKE: Siesta Club, 11 This is the Seikatsu Club
Silent Spring (Carson), 68, 92, 99
Simple Food for the Good Life, 97
Sister Cities International, 103
Skinner, B. F., 74
Walden Two, 74
slow food movement. See SFM (slow food movement)
Small Is Beautiful (Schumacher), 20, 50
Small Is Possible (McRobie), 50, 92–93
Smith, Adam, 5
economic theory, 5
Smolin, Lee, 7
Life of the Cosmos, The, 7
social activism, 91
social evolution, 14, 85–86, 113, 118
Social Impact Games, 124
Socially Responsible Investing. See SRI (socially responsible investing)
social paradigm, 5
social revolution, 86, 88, 90
Solomon, Lewis, 133
Sperry, Roger, 30, 36, 41
Consciousness Revolution, 38
spiritual evolution, 130
Spirituality Named Compassion, A (Fox), 30, 33
spiritual world, 68, 130
Spong, John, 87
SRI (socially responsible investing), 57, 63
Staden. See Christiania
Steiner, Rudolph, 68, 129
Steps to an Ecology of Mind (Bateson), 24
Stern, Caitlin, 119
Sterner, Bill, 133
Straw Bale Houses, 133
Study of State and Federal Wage, A (Nearing), 97
Sussman, Robert, 30–31
Man the Hunted: Primates, Predators, and Human Evolution, 31
Tagore, Rabindrnath, 118
tai chi, 130
Tasor Women’s Group, 99
Technological Society, The (Ellul), 99
Temple, Dominique, 133
Ten Thousand Villages, 78
Thomas Aquinas, Saint, 21
Time Dollars, 11, 133
TO (Twin Oaks), 74
Todd, John, 95
Todd, Nancy, 95
Toffler, Alvin, 121
Tom Greco, 132
Tomorrow’s Children (Eisler), 122
Tools for Conviviality (Illich), 34
TRANET (TRANsnational NETwork for Appropriate Technology), , 8, 73, 92–93, 74, 143
TRANET library project, 74
TRANsnational NETwork for Appropriate Technology. See TRANET (TRANsnational NETwork for Appropriate Technology)
Trickle Up Program, 59
SRIKE: TRUANT, 8, 73, 92–93 here and in the text. This should have been TRANET
Tudge, Colin, 67, 70
Feeding People Is Easy, 67
Turbulent Mirror (Briggs and Peat), 9
Twin Oaks. See TO (Twin Oaks)
Tyler Norris, 133
Ulgor. See Fagor Electrodomésticos
uncertainty principle, 83
UN Conference on Human Settlements, 143
UNCSTD (United Nations Conference on Science and Technology for Development), 76
UNESCO, 42, 46, 92, 142
Union Fire Company, 62
Unitarian-Universalist Church. See UU (Unitarian-Universalist)
United Nations Conference on Science and Technology for Development. See UNCSTD (United Nations Conference on Science and Technology for Development)
University of Pennsylvania, 62
Unlock the Genius Within (Janik), 124
unschooling, 115, 121
upward causation, 37
UU (Unitarian-Universalist) Church, 87
Van der Ryn, Sim, 96
Vernaski, Vladimir, 129
Phenomenon of Man, The, 128
Vicki Robins, 133
Virginia Company, 53
voluntary simplicity, 121
von Bertalanffy, Ludwig, 38
Wages in the United States (Nearing), 97
Walden Two (Skinner), 74
War of the Worlds, The (Wells), 25
Washington, George, 119
Weldor education, 68
Wells, H. G., 25
War of the Worlds, The, 25
Wendell Berry, 70
Wetly, Joe David, 133
WFP (World Food Programme), 70
Whitehead, Alfred, 23
Wholeness and the Implicate Order (Bohm), 99
Willing Workers on Organic Farms. See WOOF (Willing Workers on Organic Farms)
Wise Words for the Good Life (Nearing), 97
Wondertree Foundation, 123
Woods Hole Research Center, 95
WOOF (Willing Workers on Organic Farms), 70
Woolf, Vernon, 128
worker ownership, 133
World Bank, 58, 92, 142
World Food Programme. See WFP (World Food Programme)
World Order Models Project, 100
World Trade Organization. See WTO (World Trade Organization)
Wright brothers, 107, 119
WTO (World Trade Organization), 43
WWF (World Wildlife Fund), 93
“Planet Report 2002,” 93
Yunus, Muhammed, 58–59
Banker to the Poor: Micro-Lending and the Battle Against Poverty, 59
Zoeteman, Kees, 129
Zweibel, Ken, 50
“Positive Future, A,” 50
About this book
( not for publication )
This is a very personal book. It is an edited compilation of thoughts, activities, articles, and journal entries I’ve had or written from high school through my current interests and actions to create the groundwork for radical social change based on new scientific knowledge. Some of the articles are almost unchanged. Other ideas come from books I have read or actions in which I’ve been a participant and friends on the Internet. The rest is my imagination and whatever just spontaneously self-organized as I wrote.
My first epiphany occurred in the 1930s, in the local library as a freshman in high school. The librarian suggested I might enjoy reading A History of Philosophy by Will Durant. I was captivated by the wonderful ideas created by the human mind. I delved deeper into the history of ideas for the next few years, considering various concepts, noting correlations and disagreements. The next epiphany came as a senior in high school when I read Einstein and Infeld’s The Evolution of Physics. I suddenly realized that everything I’d read before was speculation! If I wanted to search for a reliable truth, I’d have to become a scientist and draw my conclusions from indisputable facts and a system of logic. Since then, my life challenge has been to do just that. I reject any authority outside my own mind and use facts and logic to understand cause and effect and to reach sound conclusions about the cosmos, Gaia (Earth and all of its life-forms), cultures, and my place in them.
In my search, I skipped around colleges for a number of years studying crucial subjects of the time earning a couple of degrees in physics and gaining some knowledge of other fields like anthropology, history, social studies, etc. I also chose a wife, Margaret, who, as an anthropologist, could join my search. So we settled down to raise and support a family. For the next twenty years, I pursued my high school dream with organizations such as the National Science Foundation, UNESCO, and the World Bank. In all these organizations, my positions included evaluating the impact of science on society. In NSF, the task was to provide support for research in physics with my hidden agenda of concern for practical technologies and social results. After publishing a few articles and joining public discussions on these subjects, I was asked by UNESCO to move to Paris to help design programs to help third world nations determine which scientific programs would most benefit their people. After two years in France, I returned to the United States and responded to a proposal from the World Bank to help establish a new path of foreign aid to help the poorest of the poor.
My work in both NSF and the Bank brought me to the realization that science and particularly the technologies coming from it are as important, if not more important, to the third world as they are to industrial societies. But there is one major difference. What is called for is what E. F. Schumacher (see chapter 14) called intermediate technology (IT)—something better than the digging sticks and winnowing by beating but not as complex and expensive as harvesting machines and spinning jennies. At the same time, social activists in Europe and the USA recognized that we have let technology become our master, not our slave. The industrial world needs to create a new technology kinder to the Earth and to humans.
The welding to the two movements came to be called the appropriate technology (AT) movement. With a commitment to promote AT, I left the world of paid employment to become an AT networker. One of my first freelance assignments was to help bring AT practitioners from around the world to the NGO forum “Habitat,” associated with the UN Conference on Human Settlements. The 1976 two-week-meeting in Vancouver, Canada, increased the level of interest in the United States and in the press. At plenary session near the end, the grassroots innovators considered a proposal from the UN for establishing IMAT (International Mechanism for Appropriate Technology). The plenary session of local activists rejected the idea with the worry that any centralized bureaucracy would soon make the decisions of what local innovators could do. Instead, they called for a nonorganization, a network, that would promote direct communications among the AT practitioners on new designs and new innovations. Since I had been the facilitator of the AT “Habitat” forum, it was suggested that I become the facilitator of TRANET (TRANsnational NETwork for Appropriate Technology).
Since my early retirement from the self-interest, competitive, materialistic rat race, some thirty-plus years ago, I have been the general coordinator, editor, and publisher of the TRANET newsletter-directory and other related alternative and transformational activities. TRANET’s work has taken me and my wife Margaret to visit many of the 1,500 or more local AT centers scattered around the world. We have visited AT centers in remote third world villages and lived in some of them for extended periods. As well, we have visited creative AT centers in the USA and Europe and participated with other AT advocates and numerous conferences and workshops. This life has given us a unique view of not only the alternative and transformational movement of the present, but has allowed us to envision a more humane, equitable, and creative future. In this book, I am trying to give others a feel for and a motivation to join in this almost hidden optimistic view of the emerging future.
11 Lakes St. Box 567, Rangeley, ME 04970
Copyedited and indexed by Deil Jossaine Galenzoga Reviewed by Flordeline Silorio | <urn:uuid:4a1de260-5779-48d8-a2a8-f9d8c826e851> | {
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Under "Explore the NLM" there is a link to the History of Medicine. Looking further, the links break down as follows:
- Books and Journals: NLM pre-1914 books and serials, pre-1871 journals, and pamphlets and dissertations
- Archives and Manuscripts: archive and modern manuscript collections and Western and Islamic manuscripts, from the 11th century to the present
- Prints and Photographs: images illustrating the social and historical aspects of medicine
- Films and Videos: films and video recordings documenting the history of medicine
- Digital Resources: selected digitized material from NLM historical collections, covering a spectrum of centuries and cultures
- Online Catalogs: online resources for searching NLM historical material
- Printed Catalogs and Guides: printed catalogs and guides to historical material
- Reference Services and Information: information about locating and using material in NLM historical collections
Arthritis Rheum. 1991 Sep;34(9):1197-203. Rheumatic diseases among Civil War troops. [emphasis added] Bollet AJ. Source: Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut.
Abstract: There are extensive existing medical records of Federal Civil War troops. More than 160,000 cases of "acute rheumatism" occurred among these soldiers, and acute rheumatic fever was known to be the main cause. Infectious arthritides were frequent but not understood; gout was rare. "Chronic rheumatism" was diagnosed more than 246,000 times; prolonged rheumatic fever and reactive arthritis following dysentery were probably the major causes. Over 12,000 soldiers were discharged because of chronic rheumatism, many with "lumbago," which was probably spondylarthropathy. PMID: 1930338 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]This "hit" looks promising for a start. I'm sure there are more results to mine on the History of Medicine website. Give it a try. You may be able to clarify the history of a medical term or condition discovered during your family research. Good luck!
Follow Friday is one of several blogging prompts suggested on Geneabloggers. If you have a tip, a resource or a special ancestor story, please share it with other readers. Send it to [email protected] and we will post it here.
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ES1 sensor: smallest electrochemical sensor in the world Solid polymer electrolyte gas sensors
Solid polymer electrolyte (SPE) gas sensors offer flexibility in design and size, because the basic sensor design is dry and contains no liquid electrolytes. Liquid electrolyte gas sensors, also known as wet electrochemical cells, are used in many applications ranging from automotive (fuel usage optimization) over industrial (safety) and to emission control (surveillance). Because of the wet current carrying electrolyte, the mechanical design is essential for operation and lifetime of the cell. Over the last 20-30 years certain popular wet electrochemical cell designs have become standard – like the 4-series (diameter 20 mm) for handheld gas analyzers and the 7-series (diameter 32 mm) for stationary gas analyzers. The concept of a dry electrochemical cell based on a solid polymer electrolyte challenges not only the design restrictions of the gas sensor, but also the traditional applications for electrochemical cells.
A dry electrochemical cell has a polymer as basis and chemistry for the electrochemical reactions embedded in the polymer layer. This enables new and innovative mechanical designs for the finished cell. An example of such a new design is shown in the figure below. The ES1 sensor is the smallest electrochemical sensor in the world. The ES1 cell size has been reduced in all dimensions allowing for small and more compact gas analyzers to be build. The gases that can be detected using the SPE technology are many. The first generation ES1 gas sensors have been developed for emission control and monitoring of gases such as O2, CO, NO2, H2S, H2 and volatile organic compounds (VOCs).
The SPE technology support high volume production strategies, because the layers are printed onto a carrier substrate. This is also new in the gas sensor industry and will enable new applications in for instance home appliances and intelligent air conditioning. The power needed to drive the circuit is so low that battery operation and remote applications relying on long battery lifetimes are becoming feasible strategies for new product developments based on the ES1 SPE gas sensors.
The ES1 line of gas sensors comes with different standard measurement ranges, but other measurement ranges are also possible, because the SPE technology allows specific custom designs. Other parameters that can be varied in order to fit certain applications are the response time of the sensor and the sensitivity of the sensor. The sensors are individually calibrated and a test report comes with every sensor. The expected lifetime of the ES1 sensors is more than 3 years.
We have a range of additional products and customized solutions.
Please send us your
request or call us. | <urn:uuid:a36e135f-58e8-4ab0-85ce-48a1396f298e> | {
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Researchers from Harvard Medical School and MIT have developed a new approach for identifying the "self" proteins targeted in autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis, diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis.
In a paper published in Nature Biotechnology, H. Benjamin Larman and colleagues showed that errant immune responses which mistakenly target the body's own proteins rather than foreign invaders can now be examined in molecular detail. Further research could lead to new insights into the exact causes of these debilitating autoimmune disorders. The results come from the laboratory of Stephen Elledge, the Gregor Mendel Professor of Genetics and Medicine at HMS and senior author of the study.
The immune system, the body's main line of defense against disease, has a critical responsibility to distinguish self-derived proteins from those of invaders like viruses and bacteria. Autoimmune diseases arise when a person's immune system fails to make that critical distinction and mistakenly attacks a normal tissue, such as nerve, joint, or insulin-producing pancreatic cells. These disorders are usually progressive and in some cases even lead to life-threating disease. Understanding where the immune system went wrong has been a major goal for generations of biomedical researchers.
"Knowledge of the self-antigens involved in autoimmune processes is important not only for understanding disease etiology, but also for developing diagnostic tests," the authors write. "In addition, physicians may someday use antigen-specific therapies to destroy or disable auto-reactive immune cells."
But looking through the haystack of cellular complexity for those single-needle self-antigens targeted by the immune system has proved daunting, to say the least. Ideally, scientists would be to develop some kind of biological magnet that could pull these fine needles out of the mass.
In this report, the researchers describe an approach which does just that.
Elledge and colleagues improved upon a well-established technique called phage display in which bacterial viruses, called bacteriophage, display DNA-encoded protein fragments on their surfaces. As Nicole Solimini, co-corresponding author on the paper, explained, the researchers "built a reproduction of all the proteins in the human body (collectively, the human proteome) by synthesizing the corresponding DNA fragments for expression on the surface of bacteriophage."
This new proteome library provides a physical link between the protein being studied and the gene that makes it, allowing researchers to look for and identify interactions between any human proteins, such as that between an autoantibody in a patient's blood and a self-protein that prompts an autoimmune response. In fact, this technology can be used to look for any type of interaction between human proteins, providing a powerful new tool to biomedical investigators in any discipline.
Applying their technology to autoimmune disease, the team developed a technique called phage immunoprecipitation sequencing ("PhIP-Seq"). Using cerebrospinal fluid from three patients suffering from an autoimmune disorder called paraneoplastic neurological disease, the researchers could identify known and previously unreported self-proteins targeted by patients' immune systems -- that is, interactions between an autoantibody in the cerebrospinal fluid and the self-protein that drives the autoimmune response.
According to Larman, "a small sample of blood from a diabetic patient, synovial fluid from an arthritic joint, or cerebrospinal fluid from a patient with multiple sclerosis would be mixed together with the proteomic library. The self-reactive antibodies in the patient's sample will seek out and then bind to the targeted proteins in our library. We can then separate out the antibody-bound protein fragments and determine their identity by high-throughput, next-generation DNA sequencing."
Based on six years of laboratory work at HMS, the project is directly linked to the ongoing success of the Human Genome Project, which had already made available almost all of the genes the body needs in order to build, operate and repair itself. As the end products of individual genes, the body's many individual proteins are central players in all aspects of health and disease.
- H Benjamin Larman, Zhenming Zhao, Uri Laserson, Mamie Z Li, Alberto Ciccia, M Angelica Martinez Gakidis, George M Church, Santosh Kesari, Emily M LeProust, Nicole L Solimini, Stephen J Elledge. Autoantigen discovery with a synthetic human peptidome. Nature Biotechnology, 2011; DOI: 10.1038/nbt.1856
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Though the origin of Flag Day dates back to the late 19th century, its inspiration takes us further back to 1777. On June 14th of that year, in Philadelphia, the Continental Congress passed a resolution specifying that the flag carry 13 stripes and 13 stars. The colors would represent hardiness and valor (red), purity and innocence (white), and vigilance, perseverance and justice (blue).
The concept of a specific day to annually recognize the American Flag came 108 years later. In 1885, a Fredonia, Wisconsin schoolteacher, B.J. Cigrand, arranged for the students in his school district to observe the resolution on June 14th as ‘Flag Birthday’. In 1889, George Balch, a kindergarten teacher in New York City, planned similar festivities for his school’s students.
In 1893, Philadelphia became the first city to celebrate Flag Day, and in the following year, New York was the first state to observe June 14th. After decades of expanding community observances, President Woodrow Wilson established Flag Day on May 30, 1916.
Still many communities did not celebrate Flag Day. It wasn’t until 1949, when President Harry Truman signed into an Act of Congress that National Flag Day be observed every June 14th. The Unites States Flag Code, as adopted by Congress, states “The flag represents a living country and is itself considered a living thing.” This is why we should give the flag our full respect.
Flag Day is celebrated on June 14. | <urn:uuid:7510c2eb-15fa-4c32-a09c-2002fa558c15> | {
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Beyond the Grid: Bringing Sustainable Energy to the Frontier
EDITOR’S NOTE: THIS PIECE IS AUTHORED BY Judith Walker, director of operations for African Clean Energy (ACE), manufacturing clean energy products including the ACE 1 Solar Biomass Cookstove. THIS PIECE IS PART OF A SERIES EXPLORING THE SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS. SEE THE INTRODUCTION TO THE SERIES HERE.
When we in the West imagine the future of renewable energy we are typically thinking of large, utility scale projects like offshore wind farms, vast solar arrays, or the ‘supergrid’ infrastructure required to carry this energy to our cities. With energy use per capita in OECD countries reaching a peak of over 8,000kWh a year (World Bank, 2013 figure) these projects are certainly vital to ensuring the sustainability of energy-intensive Western lifestyles. However, the majority of people in the world are not living in high-income countries, and as such utility scale renewable energy generation is unlikely to be the panacea that will provide universal energy access by 2030.
IN THIS PHOTO: A KIVA Loan Group conducting a ACE1 stove demonstration – PHOTO CREDIT: AFRICAN CLEAN ENERGY (ACE)
For example, what about the 13 percent of the world’s population who live in Least Developed Countries, where the average per capita energy usage is just 191kWh a year? Multi-megawatt, multi-million dollar grid-extension projects are unlikely to be fully utilised, and the costs of building and maintaining plant and transmission lines place extra pressure on the already strained finances of LDCs. What about Sub-Saharan Africa, where rapid economic growth over the past decade has led to consumer demand (e.g for mobile phones) outpacing electricity generation capacity? For Ghana, Nigeria, or Ethiopia, where annual GDP growth has averaged 7-8% per year over the past 5 years (the Economist), the decades-long timeline for bringing a power plant online will likely be too little too late. The challenge posed by SDG 7, to “ensure universal access to affordable, reliable and modern energy services [by 2030]”, thus does not just require the mobilisation of resources to extend the grid across the globe; rather, it requires solutions tailored to a multitude specific national, regional and local contexts. In order to determine the future of (renewable) energy in the developing world it is vital to understand how energy is currently used.
THE DEMOCRATISATION OF ENERGY GENERATION
In the developing world, most of the energy used by households is not generated by power plants, nor is it transmitted to homes by nationwide networks of overhead cable. This is because the vast majority of the developing world’s energy demand is for cooking energy, a demand which is overwhelmingly met by solid fuels, usually firewood or charcoal. Energy generation as it currently exists in the developing world is therefore highly decentralised, and largely takes place at the household level. The conventional wisdom in the development community that people in the developing world are unwilling or unable to pay for energy services thus misses a key point: they already are. While the forms of energy delivered in this way are decidedly not modern (or in most cases sustainable) a household level model for providing energy is not inherently flawed, and in many cases distributed energy generation methods can provide much greater value for money than grid extension.
IN THIS PHOTO: ACE1 demonstration in Cambodia – PHOTO CREDIT: AFRICAN CLEAN ENERGY (ACE)
In recent years, solar-photovoltaic technologies have become more powerful and less expensive than ever before, and solar power is quickly becoming the renewable energy source par excellence. In the Sub-saharan African context, where firewood and charcoal expenses can take up 20% of a household’s income, the solar industry is booming: from pico-PV cells powering a single lantern, to powerful rooftop solar home systems capable of meeting an entire family’s energy needs. This is where the promise of SDG 7 can be realised: by providing access to the means of energy generation at the household, business and/or village levels it is possible to extend electricity access far beyond the grid’s reach, and to do so in such a way that capacity can grow (or shrink) with demand. If the barrier of the initial capital investment in a solar product can be overcome (through microfinance, for example) then it is entirely plausible that even the poorest consumers in the developing world can achieve a level of energy independence. Furthermore, the modularity of solar systems mean that solar is among the most scalable of currently available renewable energy technologies, and this scalability allows us to think differently about how energy needs can be met.
PICO, MICRO, MINI: TAILORED SOLUTIONS FOR APPROPRIATE ENERGY GENERATION
There are a number of scenarios in which grid extension is not possible, nor desirable. However, there are efficient and cost effective ways that these populations can be served through decentralised energy generation projects.
In high-growth regions of the developing world there are emergent middle-classes who have increased demand for modern energy services. However, utilities designed for much lower levels of demand cannot immediately satisfy these new customers. This can severely stifle further growth, as it may take years for the utility to catch up with demand (i.e. by building new power plants). In this scenario, a ‘bridging’ technology is required to meet immediate needs while long-term energy generation capacity is still in the pipeline. Solar home systems present a good solution for households and small businesses in this scenario, as they allow for individual households to tailor energy generation to meet their current needs.
In isolated rural areas grid extension can prove highly problematic. Long distances need to be traversed by high-voltage cable, and low demand for services in sparsely populated areas makes this sizeable investment unattractive. Again, there are decentralised alternatives. For larger rural population centres solar mini or micro grids may be suitable for providing a village level solution for energy generation. In cases where the initial capital investment in a mini-grid is not feasible, pico-PV products are an alternative which allow for highly personalised energy delivery.
PHOTO CREDIT: African Clean Energy
This is the space that African Clean Energy (ACE) operates in, providing energy solutions tailored to the needs and capacities of rural populations where grid extension may never be feasible. ACE’s first proprietary product, the ACE 1, provides smokeless biomass cooking as well as off-grid solar energy for lighting and phone charging. The ACE 1 differentiates itself from the rest of the cookstove sector by being the cleanest multi-fuel biomass cookstove available which is capable of using any solid biomass. Being able to efficiently burn anything from pellets and briquettes to cow-dung or agri-waste, the ACE 1 provides contextually appropriate renewable energy technology for the most difficult to reach consumers. Through 9-month micro-finance loans we are able to make this high-tech, high-impact product accessible to BoP consumers, maximising impacts on energy generation. By focusing on the demands of the consumer ACE are able to run a sustainable business while also facilitating bottom-up participatory development.
PHOTO CREDIT: African Clean Energy
In short, the goal of providing universal energy access by 2030 is achievable, but for the developing world it will require flexibility among development actors, and a commitment to providing contextually appropriate solutions. Large infrastructure projects will of course be key for many regions of the global South, but we must also recognise that these projects are unlikely to reach the most isolated communities in the developing world, and certainly will not do so by 2030. The excitement surrounding bleeding-edge renewable power projects should not distract development actors from the less glamorous work of facilitating the democratisation and decentralisation of renewable energy production. | <urn:uuid:e41b6d02-fcee-43e8-b289-40fc1ee451f2> | {
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The evolution of cities may be a lot weirder than you think. Instead of sprawls, they may become ultra-high density constructions that look more like one gigantic building. Here are some incredible plans for buildings that will one day be metropolises.
Vertical Urban Sprawl (by Jake Murray, 2010)
Above, you can see a work of speculative concept design showing how cities might evolve.
Crystal Island (designed by Norman Foster for Moscow, 2007)
The 1,476 ft (450 m) high structure doesn't want to be the highest, but it has a "second skin" to shield the structure from Moscow's weather and could minimize the winter heat loss. The complex would use renewable energy sources. It will be completed in 2014, according to the original plans, but due to the global economic crisis the whole project was postponed.
Dubai City Tower or Dubai Vertical City (designed by Meraas Holding, 2008)
If ever constructed, the 7874 ft (2400m) high building will have 400 habitable stories and a 1312 ft (400m) high energy-producing spire on the top. The main elevator will be a really fast one, it could travel local inhabitants with an amazing 125 mph (201 km/h) speed. The energy will come from renewable sources including wind, thermal and solar energy.
(via Wall Street Pit)
The Shimizu Mega-City Pyramid (over Tokyo Bay, Japan, designed by Dante Bini and David Dimitric in 2003)
It would be 14 times higher than the Great Pyramid at Giza – 6574 ft or 2004 m – and would house almost one million people. The structure would be composes of 204 smaller pyramids on eight layers.
Left: high-rise residential building, right: a skyscraper for offices.
X-SEED 4000 (near Tokyo, Japan, designed by Taisei Construction Corporation and Peter Neville, 1995)
A 13,150 feet high (4000 m) skyscraper that could house one million people.
Tokyo Tower of Babel (designed by Toshio Ojima/Waseda University, 1992)
If the construction begin, it took 100 to 150 years to complete this unbelievably high (32,808 ft or 10,000 m) tower, and it could cost about $306 trillion. It's big enough to 30 million people live inside.
Ultima Tower (Eugene Tsui, 1991)
This 10,560 ft high (3,218.7 m) tower would cost US$150 billion and would have a huge, 6000 ft (1,828.8 m) diameter at the base. One million people would live here on 500 stories.
(via Tsui Design)
Sea City 2000 (1979)
Burj Dubai's Inspiration: Mile High Illinois or The Illinois (described by Frank Lloyd Wright, 1956)
It would have included 528 stories and nearle twice as tall (5,280 ft or 1,610 m without the antenna spire) as the Burj Khalifa. The famous architect began planning this in the 1920s, but only described in his 1956 book A Testament.
What We Are Coming To (1895, Grant E. Hamilton for the Judge Magazine)
This city has its own railway system, school, telephone exchange, armory, theatre, saloon, fire department, meat market and everything that a usual settlement has. | <urn:uuid:bdb38174-7b94-4bd0-9558-4548f16dd1d3> | {
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The word abuse is a very serious one and is not to be taken lightly. It usually takes an awful lot of courage to use it.
Abuse is when a person repeatedly/regularly mistreats you. It is cruel, and can often involve manipulation, control, blackmail, etc. It is a misuse of power and ill treatment of a persons vulnerability. Often, the person being abused will end up feeling as though they are worthless, overreacting, stuck, and like there is nothing they can do. It is like you are the only one with a problem, and it is easy to fall into the trap of believing that you are the problem.
It takes a lot of will, consideration, reflection, and analysation to realise that you are not the problem.
People have a lot of skepticism about the word abuse which makes it even more scary to admit that it is what is happening to you. People often judge the level of the abuse you are facing, saying “if it was that bad you would leave,” “you need to be careful using words like that,” and so on. When you are spending every day being mentally, emotionally, perhaps even physically drained by a relationship, to finally admit that you cannot take it anymore is a hugely intimidating step.
It can always be worse than what it is, but that does not mean what it is should be tolerated, or endured. Happiness is always an option, despite what you have been taught. Happiness comes from within, but is influenced from without. Do whatever it is you need.
A lot of times, the victim of abuse is not always considered entirely innocent. When you are in such a toxic relationship, emotions rise and you do sometimes bite back, lash out, say things out of impulse and fear. The guilt of not being an entirely innocent being is another thing which may keep a person stuck in this relationship. People are not heroes and villains, people have good and bad in them. You may take responsibility of your actions without blaming yourself for an outcome that was uncalled for and escalated to levels beyond control.
To tackle the question of “why don’t you just leave,” it must be brought to attention that there is far, far more to it than that. For a person who does not have resources to help them leave, someone who doesn’t have a place to go, there are practical blockages. For a person who wants to protect a third party from harm, or for someone who feels deep compassion for the abuser, there are emotional blockages. For a person who needs time, and to not rush into things because that way, things would end much worse; there are blockages regarding time. To become judgmental and lose empathy for a victim of abuse because they are facing any of these blockages is entirely wrong of a person. It takes great strength to continue to put one foot in front of the other when in an abusive relationship. You may care for the victim and offer help, but remember that love is not judgmental, love is free, and love is there when and if it is accepted.
Abusers are broken people, who do not always realise they are doing wrong. It is likely that their abusive behaviour is filtered down and learned. They are lost and do not know how to fix themselves, but you must remember it is not your obligation to fix them, and that you are your main priority.
When someone is so reluctant to be open to the idea that they could be wrong, paired with the desire to influence people, they can become manipulative and controlling. Very quickly, a good intention becomes poisoned by the idea that you must restrict a person's freedom and treat them as though they are less than, treat them as though they must learn by any means possible.
This is why abusers do not recognise that they are abusive. They feel as though they are doing right. They feel as though they are misunderstood. They feel as though people must see things through their eyes. They refuse that they are the person with the problem. It is a state of deep denial.
It can be difficult to leave an abuser because you are brainwashed to believe their ways are fine and to play by the rules.
This being said, people may come to the realisation that the abuser is not to be blindly obeyed, and want to help them see another way of living; and repair them with love. This is why people feel as though they are trapped and as though there is no escape. People love the abuser—and feel as though they must teach them to open their mind. It’s a battle of mindsets and everybody is a loser. Abusers can do bad things without being bad people, and for this reason, they can be seen as beautiful souls to those who do not share the same relationship. People will not always believe your truth, but you are the only one who must stand by your truth. You are not crazy for seeing something that nobody else is exposed to.
You can love a person without feeding in to their mistreatment of you. You are not obligated to fix a person. If you have given it all you have got, and the situation does not change, you must save yourself and remove yourself from the relationship.
Free yourself from depending on the person.
Know what they are in control of, and find a way to not rely on them for what they offer you. Do not take things from them that they can use against you. Work towards being fully independent, but have a plan for if they were to turn around and deny you a place to live while you are figuring it out.
When they begin to feel as though they are losing control, the person will begin to clutch at straws, pressuring you with demands and blackmailing you into giving. They will insult you, and react negatively. Stay as balanced as you can and know that this is from a place of fear, and that things are working in your favour. Keep yourself safe. Do not allow yourself to fall for the illusion of power. You are getting your control back, stand in that strength.
Abusers do not always need to be locked up and shunned from society. You do not need to match an abuser on their level. You need to break free from being on their level. Of course most times abusers need help and enlightenment to be able to see things another way, but once again this is not your responsibility. Sometimes all you need is to walk away, and care for yourself. When you have walked away, you will likely experience feelings of anger and resentment due to your newfound empowerment. Do your best to forgive, for your sake before anybody else’s.
You will be thankful for this one day. Right now, it is probably the most awful thing. Right now is not forever, so keep your head up as much as you can, be gentle with yourself, and keep your eye on the end goal. You may be known as a victim of abuse, but you do not need to be a victim. No matter what happens to you or what is taken from you, you have potential to make of life what you will. That cannot be taken from you. There is always something you can do. | <urn:uuid:7d7f14a0-c147-435c-8a50-8bea6db2b419> | {
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I have removed some unused breakers from my panel to create space for 2 new 30 amp breakers to create the 220 volts of power. 20 connect coil wire and spark plug connectorsfiring order.
220 Schematic Wire Diagram Wiring Diagram G8
3 Wire 220v Wiring Diagram Wiring Library Diagram A4
220 Volt Generator Wiring Diagram Wiring Library Diagram A4
How to wire a 123 romex cable.
220 volt 3 wire plug diagram. There is 240 volts between these wires or 120 volts between either wire and the neutral line. Dominik i have a question about running a 220 v 30 amp line breaker and 3 prong plug to a 18000 btu window unit. A 220 volt 50 amp plug is for rvs and really large power hungry appliances such as ranges and furnaces.
Double pole outlets have two power wires that run from the outlet to a 220 volt circuit breaker inside the electrical panel. Romex 123 wire is used in buildings for circuits that use higher amperage than the standard 20 amps. 21 the engine may now be started.
Plug into 220 it answered by a verified electrician. I hot wired it into 120 and the motor runs. A 220 volt outlet or double pole outlet is typically used for heavy duty appliances such as air conditioners stoves and dryers.
When looking at any switch diagram start by familiarizing yourself with the symbols that are being used. Most people are not familiar with this type of wire because it is used to hook up heavy draw appliances such as water heaters and central air conditioning. My 5 hp 220 volt compressor motor is tripping the breaker.
Before you wire a 230v air compressor you should always check the manual for the proper wire gauge. All 230v appliances must be connected to a dedicated circuit powered by a double pole circuit breaker with the proper amperage rating. In most cases there is no plug outlet because it is.
The electrical symbols will not only show where something is to be installed but what type of device is being installed. The wiring procedure may or may not call for a neutral wire. Hi jerry circuit wire for a 220volt dryer if the wire for a 220 volt dryer circuit is not large enough or the wire or cable does not meet the approved circuit specifications then new circuit wiring should be installed which comply with the approved standards for safety and reliability.
A 220 volt circuit which you could just as easily call a 250 240 or 230 volt circuit has two hot wires.
How To Wire 240 Volt Outlets And Plugs
220 Volt House Wiring Diagram Wiring Diagram G8
240 Volt Wiring Diagram Wiring Diagrams Lol | <urn:uuid:901e0b66-c6e4-4764-a99c-67381266292e> | {
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|Reference : What is the best use of sugar crops? Environmental assessment of two potential applicati...|
|Scientific congresses and symposiums : Unpublished conference|
|Life sciences : Biotechnology|
Engineering, computing & technology : Chemical engineering
Engineering, computing & technology : Multidisciplinary, general & others
|What is the best use of sugar crops? Environmental assessment of two potential applications : biofuels vs. bioproducts|
|Belboom, Sandra [Université de Liège - ULg > Département de chimie appliquée > Génie chimique - Procédés et développement durable >]|
|Léonard, Angélique [Université de Liège - ULg > Département de chimie appliquée > Génie chimique - Procédés et développement durable >]|
|18th SETAC LCA Case Study Symposium - Sustainability Assessment in the 21st Century - tools, trends and applications|
|26 - 28 november 2012|
|[en] Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) ; Bioethanol ; Bioplastic ; Sugar crops|
|[en] Agricultural crops became through years an attractive option to increase European energy independence. Brazil has taken this opportunity since the seventies by using sugar cane bioethanol as vehicle fuel. The development of biofuels production is more recent in Europe. Due to temperate climates, bioethanol production is mostly based on wheat and sugar beet, this latter being considered as the ‘equivalent’ sugar crop to sugar cane for Europe.
Biofuel is the most common application of bioethanol but its transformation into bioethylene through a dehydration step and then its polymerization into bioplastic can be an alternative as already found in Brazil. This paper will consider both potential uses and compare them using Life Cycle Assessment methodology.
Common boundaries of the systems comprise the cultivation step for both crops, i.e. sugar cane and sugar beet, with all associated energetic and fertilizer consumptions, the transportation step from field to the industrial plant, the sugar crops transformation into hydrate bioethanol, the by-products valorisation and the specific end-of-life. For the biofuel scenario, a dehydration step using molecular sieve is added to get anhydrous bioethanol. For the bioethylene scenario, industrial dehydration and polymerization steps are added.
Direct comparison between both scenarios is not possible due to different products uses. The comparison was then performed for both scenarios between the bio-based product and its fossil equivalent. ReCiPe 2008 method was used at midpoint level to get the environmental impacts.
As expected, the impact of bio-based products in climate change and fossil fuel depletion categories decreases compared to the fossil counterparts. For other categories, difference is less significant and results are often better for fossil products. Land use change impact was implemented to assess its importance. Depending on assumptions, the greenhouse gas emissions from crop implementation on a natural land can counteract the previous mentioned benefits.
To get an idea of the performance of each considered bioethanol use, a single score relative to the amount of sugar cane and sugar beet cultivated on one hectare was calculated using the endpoint level of ReCiPe 2008 methodology. The environmental gain was then evaluated comparing the bio-based product use with the classical one. The highest performance was obtained for the bioplastic scenario based on sugar cane followed by the sugar beet bioplastic. The E5 biofuel based on sugar beet reaches a slightly lower gain. The E85 fuel obtains less gain due to the higher amount of biofuel needed to drive the same distance as using fossil fuel. When taking the land use change into account, the best gain is given by the sugar beet bioplastic.
On the one hand, this study shows the importance of assumptions, especially in the agricultural field, on the obtained results. On the other hand, it points out that considering bioethanol as a chemical intermediate and not a fuel can be better from an environmental point of view.
|Researchers ; Professionals ; General public|
There is no file associated with this reference.
All documents in ORBi are protected by a user license. | <urn:uuid:85c5d243-b893-4b67-a60b-cadb9ade5879> | {
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If there is any single most important issue that mars bilateral relations among the countries of the subcontinent, it is water. The issues of cross-border water distribution, utilisation, management and mega irrigation/hydro-electric power projects affecting the upper and lower riparian countries are gradually taking centre-stage in defining interstate relations as water scarcity increases and both drought and floods make life too often miserable. Thanks to its location, size and contiguous borders with other South Asian countries, it is India, in its capacity as both upper and lower riparian, that has come into conflict with most of its neighbours, except Bhutan, on the cross-border water issues. Given an atmosphere of mistrust, an upper riparian India has serious issues to resolve with lower riparian Pakistan and Bangladesh and, despite being lower riparian, with the upper riparian Nepal. This, however, does not mean that India is solely responsible for certain deadlocks, even though its share of responsibility may be larger than other countries which have their own physical limitations and political apprehensions. As elsewhere in the world, and more particularly in the subcontinent where population explosion continues and environmental degradation worsens, water resources, like energy, are going to be much lower than the increasing demand, even if they are harnessed to the most optimum. Given the depleting resources of water, the issues of human security, and water security as its most crucial part, are going to assume astronomical proportions. | <urn:uuid:697ab91e-d03d-48b9-a1ad-65369bceba69> | {
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Everyone knows that babies love music. I believe it is natural and innate in them to be connected to music. Babies naturally bounce and move to the rhythm of music without needing any encouragement. Recent research from the University of Kansas finds that adults ages 60 to 83 who had taken music lessons for 10 years or more starting at about age 10 had better cognitive functioning than their non musical counterparts. Interesting....
OK, so I honestly and truly believe that music is very important, especially for children. The numerous benefits speak for themselves. From the very beginning, I have exposed Mason to all genres of music. We sing and dance, take music classes, play the drums and of course, the play around on the piano. Now that Mason is almost 3, I am beginning to introduce him to a more formal approach to music. Of course, Mason is still young for formal lessons, but I have been working on simple concepts like the musical alphabet, how many keys are on the piano and the difference between the black and white keys and patterns on the piano.
So, I may be throwing out musical terms or concepts that you are not familiar with or maybe you have no musical experience, and that's OK. With my musical background, it comes naturally to me to begin introducing Mason to music at an early age. I have years of teaching under my belt and have tried many different approaches when it comes to teaching children. And, although I have the know how, I have also learned that sometimes children learn better from someone who is not their parent. And that is OK, too. The important thing is that there is a musical experience happening.
Here is a brilliant idea that you can use to introduce your children to music and teach your children how to play the piano, even if you don't know anything about music. In fact, you can learn along side your children! FreePianoLessons4Kids.com could be just what you are looking for. Here's how it works:
Pianist, Joseph Hoffman, currently has available almost 50 FREE piano lessons that you can start watching anytime and anywhere from website http://www.FreePianoLessons4Kids.com. No login, user name or payment is required. Nice! From the start, this is a great opportunity to see if your children are interested in taking piano lessons, without the hassle of finding a teacher and spending a lot of money.
I have reviewed several of the lessons myself. I have been impressed with the thoroughness and kid friendly pace of each lesson. Mr. Hoffman takes the time to explain and show you each musical skill completely. It is obvious that much though and preparation has been put into presenting each lesson. He uses fun visual aids, such as colored flash cards and games that children will love to play. Mr. Hoffman clearly understands how children learn.
Each lesson is short, about 10 minutes on average. And while Mr. Hoffman recommends that most children do best with about 2-3 lessons per week or about every other day, you could easily do only one or two lessons a week, depending on how quickly your child progresses. On the days you don't watch a new lesson, it is also recommended that time is spent at the piano reviewing the previous lesson or concepts that were taught. This includes reviewing past material and playing songs that have already been mastered.
In addition to the free piano lessons, there are materials the Mr. Hoffman has designed through "years of kid testing" that help to develop musical reading skills, music theory, dictation, rhythm, and much, much more. In short, this is a well rounded music curriculum. There is a small and very reasonable fee for downloading the additional materials. These materials are conveniently available for printing at home. Although the printable materials are not required, it is recommended and will definitely enhance the learning process.
There is also a Piano Listening Album available for download. Mr. Hoffman assigns this to all of his own students to listen to everyday. As Mr. Hoffman states, "This album features fun, beautiful, original settings of all the songs students will learn using my lessons. By listening often to this album, students become thoroughly familiar with the music, enabling the lessons to progress at a faster, more confident pace."
In case you are still not sure if you can successfully provide to your children piano lessons via the Internet, Mr, Hoffman has also provided a Parent's Guide that will provide you with the information you need to make this a successful experience for your child.
I highly recommend that you check out FreePianoLessons4Kids.com because, honestly, you have nothing to lose and a great start for a promising musical future to gain!
Thanks to Mr. Hoffman for allowing me access to his website, worksheets and piano listening album to complete this review. All opinions are 100% mine. | <urn:uuid:da4da424-f96b-41e4-82de-192ee1d9a5eb> | {
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November 12, 1999
The University of La Verne's celebrates Native American Awareness month through the end of November. "Day of the Dead," a popular term of All Souls Day, was observed last Tuesday, Nov. 2, in the Quad to celebrate Mass in honor of dead relatives. It is also the day to set up home altars with food and other items that were pleasing to them. This celebration is still observed throughout Latin America on the Christian Day of All Souls. Many believe that the dead are not the object of fear, but are instead friendly ancestors who can sweeten the life of the living. | <urn:uuid:3021c742-1eba-41b5-a1e8-c28a56c402ef> | {
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Alien Resurrection introduced a new kind of Alien. It wasn’t just another animal hybrid, this time it was the result of Alien and human DNA contamination. Like Ripley 8, the Queen that was removed from within her had the same genetic crossovers. Due to the blending of Alien and human DNA within her, the Queen developed a second breeding cycle. She soon grew an external womb and from within it, the Newborn was given life.
Over three metres tall, a good metre taller than most adult Aliens, the Newborn is unlike any other Alien ever seen. Due to the combination of human and alien, its appearance is a cross between the two. Outwardly it has more features in common with a human than an alien such as eyes, a nose and a tongue. Unlike the adult aliens seen in other films – and even in Alien Resurrection – it has white/yellow skin rather than the common black and the mutation brown colour. The creature also appears to be somewhat stronger than the normal aliens – it was capable of knocking the Queen’s face off without much trouble.
Increased strength wasn’t the only trait that the Newborn inherited from the alien creatures. It also had acidic blood, like Ripley 8 too, but it is unknown just how acidic the Newborn’s is. The Newborn itself is rather unpredictable. While it killed the Alien Queen, it also killed Distephano. It showed no allegiance to either species, only to Ripley 8 which it believed to be its mother. Unlike the aliens, the Newborn showed emotions. It often looked sad at times, while visibly angry too.
It would seem that the Newborn also inherited certain human traits through the Alien genetic memory. The Newborn appeared to be able to understand Ripley 8 when she was talking to it. The Newborn also seemed to lack the method of communication that the Aliens – and Ripley 8 to a degree – utilized. Whether it be some form of telepathy or not, Ripley 8 couldn’t sense the Newborn aboard the Betty and the Queen wasn’t able to know what its intentions were when the creature was born.
It is very likely that the Newborn we saw was only its first stage of growth – similar to the Chestburster. As seen, the Newborn has a paler skin to that of the other aliens, but Chestbursters also have a different skin colour. It is very likely that the Newborn may have grown in size and molted to look more like the aliens.
Movies – Alien Resurrection (1997)
Writer, Joss Whedon was given almost full creative control while writing Alien Resurrection, apart from to bring Ripley back somehow, he had no other guidelines. In his very first draft he included the idea of a Newborn. However, unlike the final version of the Newborn, in the first draft it wasn’t a Human-Alien hybrid. It was a spider-like creature with pincers and no eyes:
“Something emerges from the wound. An alien, to be sure, but nothing we’ve seen so far, its forelegs arch out of its back like spiders legs, its back legs set on enormous haunches, thick and powerful. Its head is long, eyeless, like the others, but along its white expanse red veins, coming out of the skin and running like thick black hairs to the back. It has retracted pincers at the side of head that come out when its tongue does. Its much bigger the the others, nearly the size of the queen herself. And it’s bone white.”
The final design for the Newborn was inspired by a piece of artwork Chris Halls had drawn of an alien creature. Woodruff and Gillis then tried to mould Hall’s design with the features that director, Jean-Pierre Jeunet wanted in the Newborn. Things such as eyes and a more human inspired form. Something else that Jean-Pierre was adamant about was that the Newborn had some form of genitals. After a while, Jean-Pierre changed his mind, citing “even for a Frenchman it was too much.” The genitals were digitally removed from the film.
The Movie – Alien Resurrection
The Newborn was introduced late into the film when Ripley 8 was captured by the aliens and taken to the Queen’s hive. There, she witnessed the birth of the Newborn. After being born for barely a minute, the Newborn turned on its true mother, the Queen and killed her. Soon, the Newborn crossed over to Ripley 8 who it believed to be its mother.
A distraction from Gediman provided Ripley 8 with the chance to escape. As the Newborn killed Gediman, Ripley 8 climbed up and escaped. Ripley 8 managed to get onto the Betty before it launched, but so did the Newborn. When Call went to close the cargo bay doors so the ship could enter space, she discovered the Newborn which closed the doors. When the ship started to move, Call managed to escape and hid.
Distephano was sent to turn on the auxiliary pump to help the Betty stabilize as it entered Earth’s atmosphere. Angered by the interruption, the Newborn crushed Distephano’s head. When neither Call or Distephano returned to the cockpit, Ripley 8 went down there. Ripley 8 ordered the Newborn to let go of Call, which it does and the two begin to caress each other.
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A geographic information system (GIS) lets us visualize, question, analyze, and interpret data to understand relationships, patterns, and trends. GIS benefits organizations of all sizes and in almost every industry.
The City of Greenville's GIS department has been providing spatial data and analysis since 1983 and was one of the first municipalities in the country to implement GIS. Currently, the department maintains over 140 data layers for use by employees and citizens as well as robust galleries of interactive and printable maps.
Swamp Rabbit Trail
Interactive map assisting individuals interested in experiencing the Swamp Rabbit Trail by providing trail related information
Central Business District
Map of Greenville's Central Business District (PDF, 17" x 22", 5.9 MB)
Historical Aerial Viewer
Interactive map displaying citywide historical aerial photography (1955, 1965, 1979, 1989, 1997, and 2013) and displaying a georeferenced 1920 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map for downtown
Map of zoning regulations accurate as of ordinance and date listed in bottom left corner (PDF, 34" x 34", 5.8 MB)
Zoo Virtual Tour
Interactive map designed to highlight exhibits and animals featured at the Greenville Zoo | <urn:uuid:72624833-df9d-4718-9b99-00af87ebfd10> | {
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BirdLife steps up conservation work in Vanuatu
Vanuatu is one of the hot spots for nature conservation in the Pacific. It is the home to 9 globally endangered bird species and 9 endemic species. Eight important bird and biodiversity areas have been identified by BirdLife.
In 2015 Cyclone Pam devastated Vanuatu and the lives of its people. It is still recovering and this was especially the case for some of the remote villages, many in the areas where nature is most challenged.
With the support of the Critically Ecosystem Partnership Fund, BirdLife has been working with local community conservation groups through the Vanuatu Environment Advocacy Network (VEAN). Helping VEAN develop as a democratic NGO is an important part of the support BirdLife is providing. This includes helping with governance, administration and finance. It has also run courses to help the community participants apply for funding to support their projects.
For conservation to work it has to be driven by the people who are directly impacted by the conservation action being proposed and be part of it. They recognize the impact of land development and introduced predator species on the birds and other wildlife of importance to them.
A number of the species of concern are traditionally harvested for food by the local people and this is important to them. They are, however, concerned about whether the level of harvest is sustainable and this is an area where they would like BirdLife’s help. Species of concern include the Vanuatu Megapode and the Collared Petrel. Sometimes this harvest seems unjustified but it is an important part of the local culture and recognizing that is a key part of getting community support for nature protection. Controlling any harvest at sustainable levels and working with local people to protect population nesting sites and reducing the pressure from habitat modification and predation are all important ways of ensuring a future for these species | <urn:uuid:1e011170-c221-41da-88d4-6666b4733c09> | {
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The field of data changes very quickly. In order to remain on the cutting edge, it is important to expand your knowledge of the newest technology.
Now more than ever it is easy to gather massive amounts of data. To properly analyze the data collected, you need specialized tools to help keep up with the work load.
The most common choice for an effective data program is the free software environment, R. And for good reason.
R is free, user friendly and designed for data. It is also open source, which means that other R users across the world can contribute to improving its functionality.
With its growing popularity and continual development, R is a staple of data analysis.
What does R have to offer?
Because R is open source and continuing to gain popularity, its packages and features are being improved daily.
R especially excels in the fields of data manipulation and data visualization. Within the software, the widely-used package dplyr has changed how users manipulate data. This package can turn clunky code into fast and easy-to-understand actions such as filter, select and summarize.
And while dplyr is successful in manipulation, R's ggplot2 is unparalleled in terms of graphics creation. In this package, it is easy and seamless to turn your data into organized charts and tables.
This brings us to the last of R's awesome packages. It offers a feature known as Shiny, which allows you to create web apps that users can interact with in a user friendly interface.
The KennedyC data pipeline starts with the collection of lead data from tracking software, website traffic data from Google Analytics and paid search data from Google Adwords. Using R, our analysts pull in the data from .csv's, or Google APIs.
Once collected, the team employs dplyr to format the data into relevant and organized tables. Using these tables, they can compute statistics relevant to clients. Like cost per lead or percent increase in traffic. The organized data is also used to create plots and graphs using ggplot2.
All of these graphics and statistics are then pumped into a powerpoint file using the package officer. Once completed, the resulting document is easy to read and full of relevant information for clients.
As an added bonus, our process using R is completely reproducible, meaning that our analysts can create a beautiful report for each client with a simple push of a button.
In addition to the client reporting functions, we also take advantage of what Shiny has to offer. By creating an app, our data team can make the data pipeline, and many other functions, accessible to anyone in the office.
For example, at the push of a button, the paid search team can interactively visualize the geographic performance of their campaigns at the zipcode level thanks to a package called leaflet and the accessibility of Shiny web apps.
With a small learning curve, anyone can get into R and reap the benefits of powerful data analysis. Its possibilities are endless, and its community is strong.
In the world of data, R is quickly rising to the top. Our KennedyC data team can utilize this powerful tool to help your brand analyze massive amounts of data and use that knowledge to make informed decisions about its marketing strategy. Give us a call to learn more. | <urn:uuid:5b359b92-a68f-43f2-8c1f-a0e039a19296> | {
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In his final novel, which he considered his most important, Aldous Huxley transports us to the remote Pacific island of Pala, where an ideal society has flourished for 120 years.
Inevitably, this island of bliss attracts the envy and enmity of the surrounding world. A conspiracy is underway to take over Pala, and events are set in motion when an agent of the conspirators, a newspaperman named Faranby, is shipwrecked there. What Faranby doesn't expect is how his time with the people of Pala will revolutionize all his values and—to his amazement—give him hope.
About the Author
ALDOUS HUXLEY (18941963) was an English writer who spent the latter part of his life in the United States. Though best known for Brave New World, he also wrote countless works of fiction, non-fiction, poetry and essays. A humanist, pacifist and satirist, he wrote novels and other works that functioned as critiques of social norms and ideals. Aldous Huxley is often considered a leader of modern thought and one of the most important literary and philosophical voices of the 20th century.
“A mirror for modern man. . . . Should be read and reread.” | <urn:uuid:0d5a8308-7db9-4fc6-9234-a6a6883d6b58> | {
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Understanding Turbomeca DEECU Systems
By Greg Napert
Question — What do the Arriel, Arrius, have in common? Answer — More than you think!
For starters, they are two major geographical features in the Pyrenees Mountain Range in the South of France.
But this isn't a geography lesson, so for our purposes, they are Arriel 2 and Arrius 2 turboshaft engines produced by Turbomeca in France.
Also, both of these engine models were introduced into service with digital engine controls.
(Incidentally, Turbomeca names all of its engine models after major geographic features in the Pyrenees).
Turbomeca now considers the latest models of digitally controlled turboshaft engines it manufactures "third generation" turbine engines. According to Bill Mizell, Training Manager for Turbomeca Engine Corporation in Grand Prairie, TX, "The Makila, was the first turboshaft engine that Turbomeca designed which used an automatic electronic control. This is an electronic control box using analog type technology. This system works very well, but the natural evolution was to move to digital electronic controls."
He explains, "Many people today use the term FADEC, which stands for Full Authority Digital Engine Control. The Arrius 1A, was the first of Turbomeca's new generation digitally controlled engine to come on the scene. It doesn't have Full Authority, however, it utilizes a manual backup.
Turbomeca doesn't refer to its digital technology as FADEC, however, as the controls are not technically "Full Authority."
"Turbomeca is very adamant about this," explains Mizell. None of the controls on its engines are referred to as FADECs. FADECs technically require two or more channels so that there is redundancy in the system. Instead, Turbomeca uses the acronym DEECU, which stands for Digital Engine Electronic Control Unit. Turbomeca's DEECUs have only one channel and have a mechanical backup — an actual mechanical linkage between the cockpit and the engine. All Turbomeca engine electronic control designs are currently DEECUs so that in the event of an electronic failure, the pilot can revert to manual control."
Mizell continues, "This term FADEC has become one of these buzz words people use to talk about any kind of electronic engine control. But it's important to realize that the DEECU is not full authority, it's single channel and uses a mechanical linkage for backup.
"Having said that, some of the Helicopter manufacturers continue to use the term FADEC when referring to our equipment as installed on their helicopters."
The two Turbomeca products in the medium helicopter, medium engine power class which have new generation DEECU controls are the Arriel 2 and the Arrius 2 which can be grouped together in terms of their technology.
The Arrius 2 engine is an improvement over the Arrius 1 which uses a digital control unit somewhat larger in size than the Arrius 2 units. In both cases, they are using Digital Engine Electronic Control Units. They may be lighter now, but they all work in essentially the same way.
Mizell says the Arriel and the Arrius are very different in terms of horsepower and design, but they still use very similar control units.
Electronic controls have not only made the engine easier to operate, it has allowed the engine manufacturer to increase horsepower output. It does this by enhancing the ability to control the engine during power changes and acceleration and prevent surge.
Mizell explains, "The nice thing about the digital electronic control system is that by using the various assorted sensors on the engine, the control system knows more about what's going on with the engine than a mechanical system does.
"The mechanical system makes certain assumptions and those assumptions are adjusted into the control. For example, a mechanical control doesn't know operating temperatures or compression ratios, so it can't react to these parameters. The electronic control is able to more efficiently operate the engine and provide faster response times, smoother acceleration and deceleration, and higher power without the occurence of a surge due to its ability to react to changing conditions," he says.
Additionally, the digital engine control has contributed to better maintenance practices as more information is available for the technician to use in order to better maintain and troubleshoot the engine.
Understanding the electronic control system
Operation of the electronic control units on all of the Turbomeca engines are very similar. To understand the digital logic of the control unit, Mizell explains that it's important not to over-analyze the electronics. Instead, it's more important to try to understand the decision and logic processes, as well as the inputs and outputs that the computer uses to make decisions.
The following will be an explanation of the basic logic process followed by the digital electronic engine control unit used on the Arrius and Arriel engine models.
Although the Control System Operation schematic referenced here is for the Arriel 2, it is very similar on the Arrius 2.
Mizell explains, "This is a flow chart that represents the decision process that the computer goes through to make up its mind how much fuel flow to give the engine in order to control the rotation speed of the engine. The rotational speed of the engine (N1) is directly proportional to power."
Please refer to the Control System Operation illustration on the following page as Bill Mizell explains the DEECU thought process:
(Step 1) Control Mode Selection
There are certain things the pilot can tell the computer it wants the computer to do to the engine through various controls in the cockpit. These are: Stop, Idle, Transition from Idle to Flight, And Flight.
The pilot can also tell the computer he/she wants to operate this engine automatically, or manually. The pilot can eliminate the computer control on purpose (such as for training). The pilot can transition from automatic to manual control of the fuel control unit and back. The pilot can also tell the computer what amount of power will be the maximum it will allow him to pull on the selector such as; Max. OEI(one engine inoperative) rating, Intermediate OEI rating, and Max Take-Off rating. The pilot can also tell the computer they want to fly normally, or they can choose a training mode and command the computer to fly in either single or twin engine operation. You can actually tell the computer that you're going to pretend you are operating in an OEI condition, and you want all the instruments to do everything they would do during an actual OEI situation.
The computer will decelerate one of the engines back to an idle point so that you're flying on only one engine. While it appears you are pulling the Max power out of the operating engine, in reality you're not actually pulling that power, and you don't use any of the allotted OEI operating time. The computer even gives the pilot more options for training. For example, on the Arriel 2S1, you have an OEI 30 second rating and in the event of an actual OEI situation on takeoff and landing, the maximum amount of power you use is basically limited to 30 seconds continuous use — if you use that power, the engine will have to be removed for inspection. For training purposes, however, we tell the computer that we're going to train for OEI 30-second power. This allows us to simulate OEI 30-second power with all of the visual indications on the instrument panel, yet you're really only pulling Max Takeoff power. Max Takeoff has a 5 minute limit, so if you obey the 30-second limit for OEI training, you remain well within engine limitations.
Throughout the entire thought process, the DEECU continues to check the control mode to ensure that the decisions it makes are compatible with the control mode selected.
Understanding Turbomeca DEECU Systems
By Greg Napert
(Step 2) N2 Control
The first decision the computer makes is to determine if the N2 speed is where it's suppose to be and if it is controlling the fuel flow in order to insure the N2 is where it's suppose to be.
The objective with a helicopter is to keep the main rotor rotating at a more or less constant speed. The main rotor is connected to the free turbine, or the N2 speed. Rotor speed and N2 speed are directly proportional. So, that means the objective will be to keep the N2 speed more or less constant, or within the range dictated by the helicopter manufacturer.
(Step 3) Checking the datum
To do that, it needs to check for a pre-programmed value (called datum). The computer compares actual conditions to the datum and makes a decision as to whether we need to increase or decrease fuel flow. It makes this comparison electronically, and it then sends that signal as to whether it needs to increase or decrease it to the next decision point.
But it's not quite this easy. The datum, in addition to having some pre-programmed parameters, is altered by various operating conditions. For example, the position of the collective pitch, or what we call anticipation, biases that decision. That is to say, we've told the computer we want a certain fuel flow to maintain a specific N2, but if I happen to be moving the collective pitch, that's going to affect the rotational speed — so, I have a collective pitch position signal transmitted electronically to the computer saying "you need to bias that quantity of fuel flow I just asked for based on rotational speed to also make allowances for the load (increased or decreased pitch).
Then, there's an N1 speed signal coming from the other engine, which is compared to the N1 speed on this engine, which makes a load sharing decision as to what needs to be done to fuel flow to keep the N1s matched. Keep in mind that the N1 is directly related to Power on these engines.
So, the computer (DEECU) takes all of these things into consideration, and it makes a decision as to what it wants to do to N1 to get the N2 speed that's required based on these conditions.
N1 is the gas generator speed. So now, we're sending a datum as to how much N1 we want to an N1 datum selection memory in the computer. It then takes this information and compares it to the selected control mode in step 1 to check for compatibility. If these numbers are compatible with the control mode, it passes on the information. This information is called the Raw N1 Datum. In other words, this is what we want N1 to do without taking any limitations into consideration.
(Step 4) Checking the limits
The next step for the computer, is a verification step in the decision process. It checks what the pilot is asking for against limits. It looks at the torque limit and the amount of torque. Also checked is the N1 speed, the control lever position, and it also calculates standard day information to correct for atmospheric conditions. The computer then takes the value that is lowest, the limit, or the raw datum, and passes it on through the logic process. For instance, if what I'm asking for is not as high as the limit, that data will go on through. If what I'm asking for is higher than the limit, it will only let the limit go through.
From this point, the signal is referred to as the "limited N1 signal."
(Step 5) N1 control
The limited N1 signal then goes to N1 control. Remember that the N1 is what needs to be changed in order to control N2. You can think of the N1 control and N2 control as governors, but in this case they are electronic memory. In any case, this N1 control takes this limited N1 signal and compares it to the actual N1 — it checks to see if actual N1 speed is higher or lower than the requested value. This determines if we need more or less fuel flow to increase or decrease the speed of the N1.
(Step 6) Fuel flow selection
Having determined what it needs to do, the N1 control sends a signal to the fuel flow selection. The fuel flow selection is made based on the amount of fuel flow requested, the control mode selected, and whether or not we're starting the engine. In every case it checks the control mode, making sure the selections are compatible with what we're requesting. If we're starting the engine, the DEECU will send a different fuel flow signal than if it's operating. Having verified the amount of fuel flow requested and insuring that it is compatible with the control mode selected, it passes the signal on to the next step.
(Step 7) Limiting the flow
The fuel flow signal is then checked against fuel flow limitation. The amount of fuel flow limitation is based on the air temperature, the air pressure, the compressor pressure (P3) and the N1 speed. All of those are sensors on the engine that are communicating with the computer to calculate fuel flow limits based on atmospheric conditions. And the computer also takes into account the compression ratio (P3 - compressor outlet versus P0 - atmospheric pressure).
(Step 8 and 9) Metering valve control and limits
Based on those functions, it calculates what the limit of the fuel flow will be and makes a decision about what to do with the metering valve. The computer then sends a metering valve position signal to the metering valve control. To review, this is done to change to establish the N1 speed required, without exceeding limits, to get the N1 speed that has been calculated and is needed to rotate the N2 speed and, thus, the main rotor at a particular rotational speed.
(Step 10 and 11) One Engine Inoperative calculations
The computer also, by looking at the atmospheric conditions and rotational speeds, has a memory for how long we operate in the One Engine Inoperative (OEI) mode, how much power we used while in this mode, and how many times we used OEI power. All of these factors are in affect if the engine can be allowed to continue to operate, and if the engine requires maintenance. Certain OEI ratings require that the engine be removed and inspected (30-second ratings, for example). Operating in other OEI ratings, such as the two-minute rating, allow the engine to accumulate a specific amount of time during a given TBO period at that rating before the engine requires inspection and possible maintenance. The computer records the time at these ratings, as well as the number of events, and puts that in memory so that you can interrogate the computer using the instrument panel or laptop computer. It also turns on certain lights in the cockpit for the operator to let them know when they are using OEI power.
More reliable maintenance
Mizell says, "The beauty of the digital control system for maintenance is with all this processing power, the computer is also capable of performing an engine performance checks for you. It can also do your cycle counting for the gas generator and free turbine.
The computer is also capable of fault detection. The computer constantly monitors the entire engine, and its systems, and the internal operation of the computer itself. If there are fault codes, it identifies that fault, records it, and sends an indication of that fault to the cockpit. And, certain kinds of fault codes are available as a maintenance aid and can be downloaded to tell us what has malfunctioned. For example, if a temp sensor went bad and we lost our temperature signal, it would tell you in the cockpit, or through an external monitoring unit.
This system also makes flying the aircraft much easier than in the past. Gone are the days of having to calculate density altitude to determine maximum allowable engine power. Now, the computer does this for the pilot.
How it does this is as follows:
For every density altitude, there is a different N1 speed representing a certain power limitation (let's say Max takeoff power). Max takeoff power at sea level will be one speed of the gas generator, but at a higher altitude, Max takeoff power is reduced, therefore the N1 rotation speed is reduced. So, we have what we refer to as a N1 biased signal to the cockpit. The cockpit indication will always be the same regardless of the density altitude. In operation, every time that needle comes up to that red line, the engine will be at Max take-off power, regardless of what it really is — it could be 100 percent N1 today and 99 percent tomorrow, but because the computer biases the indication, the cockpit indication will always be the same. This reduces the workload for the pilot as they don't have to calculate the density altitude — the computer takes care of this.
The main thing that technicians need to remember about the DEECU is that it is still a machine, and you still have situations on the engine that will occur that the computer won't know about. It won't know, for instance, that the engine has an oil leak or that the engine is consuming oil at a certain rate, or that the engine's making metal. There are other common everyday things that happen to an engine that require monitoring. That's why you have a periodic and daily inspections. The DEECU only serves as one additional tool. It is interesting to note, however, that in some cases, the DEECU has widened the interval between periodic inspections. For instance, your first periodic inspection is 450 hours on the Arriel 2S1 engine.
One last thing to remember — as the engine manufacturer, Turbomeca provides a wide variety of indications and options on its engines. But ultimately, the helicopter manufacturer chooses which ones to make available on their aircraft. So, all of the functions that we discussed may or may not be available on a particular helicopter. | <urn:uuid:71792856-f65b-40dd-b7e2-e247a285d4f1> | {
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White mold, which can survive in soil eight or more years, has become “one of the most damaging pathogens of soybeans in the upper Midwest,” says Palle Pedersen, Iowa State University Extension soybean specialist. “It's also a tricky pathogen since yield losses don't occur every year.”
Soybean white mold, also known as Sclerotinia stem rot, is caused by a soil-borne fungus, Sclerotinia sclerotiorum. It infects the soybean primarily by entering the flower petals as well as through severe abrasions or wound areas on the plant — caused by hail, for example.
“The flowering period, spanning roughly 30 days, represents the window of susceptibility,” says Pedersen, “especially when environmental conditions are favorable for fungal growth.”
Rain, cool temperatures below 80ÞF, high relative humidity and moist soil are all conditions that promote white mold growth.
Once you get past the R1 to R3 growth stages, the chances of infection diminish, according to Craig Grau, University of Wisconsin-Madison plant pathologist.
“You may see some infection on side branches where flowers may still be forming. However, the infection usually remains benign and doesn't migrate into the main stem and kill the plant,” says Grau.
According to Emerson Nafziger, University of Illinois Extension agronomist, white mold was considered one of the biggest yield robbers in 2004. In some years with cool temperatures and wet conditions, yield losses up to 60% were reported.
Extreme yield losses of up to 75% were experienced in parts of northeastern and eastern Iowa, according to Pedersen. In Wisconsin, yield reductions averaged about 5% in 2004, but in some fields losses from 30% to 40% were reported, according to Grau.
While the clear-cut reasons for white mold's sudden spread in the north-central region are not fully understood, many agronomists point to changes in cultural practices and shorter rotations, as well as changes in the genetic base of current soybean varieties or the white mold pathogen itself.
“Management practices and environmental conditions that boost crop canopy density are also strong culprits in the spread of white mold,” says Grau. “Canopy management and the timing of its closure can make a difference in many cases as to whether or not white mold becomes prevalent, especially if wet conditions prevail.”
Grau says the growth and pathogenic activity of the white mold fungus are encouraged by dense soybean canopies created by planting in narrow row widths, high seeding densities, early planting, high soil fertility and other factors that promote plant health. It's unfortunate, Grau says, because in many ways white mold penalizes progressive soybean growers.
“However, it can be managed by variety selection,” says Iowa's Pedersen.
Since 1996, Grau and other researchers at the agricultural colleges in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota and Wisconsin have received checkoff funding from the North Central Soybean Research Program to tackle the white mold problem. Some of that work has involved searching and identifying germplasm with increased resistance and developing more unified control recommendations to producers.
To help combat white mold, Pedersen and Grau recommend several basic strategies:
Do a thorough job of scouting fields for white mold and keep good field records on where the disease is occurring and under what types of conditions.
If you have problems with white mold, be sure to closely examine and stay up-to-date on variety trials so you can focus on particular lines exhibiting resistance or tolerance.
Good variety selection is still your best defense, according to the agronomists, and it can serve as the foundation of your white mold management plan. You can't compromise on variety selection if you have a history of white mold in a field.
Keep close tabs on your seeding rates and row spacings to maintain a canopy that isn't overly dense and promotes good airflow. Choosing the optimum seeding rate and not exceeding it will help somewhat. If white mold has been an ongoing problem, you might want to consider 30-in. row spacings.
“If producers are using varieties with a very solid record of low mortality from white mold, I wouldn't hesitate to continue drilling, if that's your plan,” says Grau. “And if you're using a 30-in. row system, I'd continue with that also. However, I would keep seeding rates below 150,000 — probably more in the 125,000-130,000 range.”
Reevaluate your tillage practices and/or crop rotations if you're experiencing white mold problems.
“Based on Wisconsin data and surveys of producers during the '90s in the North Central states, I think a blanket statement can be made that white mold tends to be less severe and prevalent in fields under no-till management,” says Grau. “We don't yet totally understand the full reasons for this, but that's what we're seeing from the data so far. The worse cases of white mold I've seen have been with moldboard plowing.”
Pedersen adds, “Since soybeans are a host plant of white mold, planting them more frequently in specific fields, year after year, can contribute to the problem. If white mold is present, planting continuous beans will only encourage the reproduction of the fungus that could lead to a high population in the soil and result in damaging outbreaks.”
The risk is even greater if other host crops are grown in rotation with soybeans. There are literally hundreds of host plants for white mold, according to Pedersen.
Besides soybeans, other broadleaf plants that are highly susceptible to white mold include dry beans, snap beans, lima beans, sunflowers, canola, carrots and cabbage.
Peas, potato, alfalfa and red clover, although considered hosts, are less susceptible to the white mold pathogen. Examples of non-host crops include corn, small grains and all forage grasses.
“Over the years, I've seen less white mold problems when comparing a corn-soybean-winter wheat rotation compared to a traditional corn-soybean rotation,” says Grau. “This has been especially true in the southeast part of Wisconsin where some producers have added a small grain into their rotation.”
Grau encourages producers who have white mold problems to seriously consider mixing up their crop rotation by adding in a non-host crop such as small grains, grasses or even a rye cover crop, for example.
“Using non-host crops like small grains tends to shade the ground more thoroughly and help deplete the white mold fungus,” he says.
According to the agronomists, it's also important to control broadleaf weeds that can also be hosts of the white mold pathogen, especially in crops grown in rotation with soybeans. | <urn:uuid:9179b8fc-2985-4483-a3ed-5e07837f4cf6> | {
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|This article needs additional citations for verification. (August 2009)|
|Effects of air pressure and water pressure|
|Classification and external resources|
Dysbarism refers to medical conditions resulting from changes in ambient pressure. Various activities are associated with pressure changes. Scuba diving is the most frequently cited example, but pressure changes also affect people who work in other pressurized environments (for example, caisson workers), and people who move between different altitudes.
- 1 Ambient pressure
- 2 Effects of pressure on the body
- 3 Types of dysbarism
- 4 See also
- 5 References
Ambient pressure is the pressure in the water around the diver (or the air, with caisson workers etc.). As a diver descends, the ambient pressure increases. At Script error: No such module "convert". in salt water, it is twice the normal pressure on land at sea level. At 40 meters (the recommended safety limit for recreational diving) it is 5 times the pressure at sea level.
Pressure decreases as we rise above sea level, but less dramatically. At 3000 feet altitude (almost 1000 meters), the ambient pressure is almost 90% of sea level pressure. Ambient pressure does not drop to 50% of sea level pressure until 20,000 feet or 6,000 meters altitude.
Effects of pressure on the body
Direct effects on tissues
This is not of practical importance, because the body is mostly composed of barely compressible materials such as water. People often wonder whether scuba divers feel their body being crushed by the pressure, but divers would have to reach depths of thousands of feet before their flesh began to suffer significant compression.
Air is very compressible. Humans have many air spaces: sinuses, middle ears, gas in our bowels, cavities in our teeth, and largest of all, our lungs. On land in our daily lives, the pressure in our air spaces is usually exactly the same as the pressure outside, because our air spaces are connected to the outside world. If there was a pressure difference between the outside world and one of our air spaces, then we experience painful pressure on the walls of that air space, as air pushes from the higher-pressure side to the lower-pressure side. This is why we sometimes get painful ears on air trips.
A percentage of the gas we breathe (air) is always dissolved in our blood, like the gas dissolved in a soda bottle with the lid on. If we move to a higher ambient pressure, then the gas we breathe is at a higher pressure, and more of it dissolves in our blood and body tissues. If we move back to a lower pressure, and we move slowly, then the extra gas comes out slowly until we are back to our normal amount of dissolved gas. But if we move quickly to a lower ambient pressure, then the gas comes out of our blood and tissues violently, in large bubbles, like to the difference between slowly opening a bottle of soda (dropping the pressure in the bottle slowly down to sea level), versus ripping the cap off quickly.
Types of dysbarism
Different types of illness result from increases in pressure (for example, descent during a SCUBA dive, descent during a plane flight), versus decreases in pressure (for example, coming up from a caisson, or ascending a mountain). Dysbarism comprises several types of illness:
Decompression sickness (DCS)
Decompression sickness, also called caisson workers' disease and the bends, is the most well-known complication of scuba diving. It occurs as divers ascend, and often from ascending too fast or without doing decompression stops. Bubbles are large enough and numerous enough to cause physical injury. It is quite possible that all divers have microbubbles in their blood to some extent, but that most of the time these bubbles are so few and so small that they cause no harm. When DCS occurs, bubbles disrupt tissues in the joints, brain, spinal cord, lungs, and other organs. Symptoms vary enormously. DCS may be as subtle as unusual tiredness after a dive, or an aching elbow, or a mottled skin rash. Or, it may present dramatically, with unconsciousness, seizures, paralysis, shortness of breath, or death. Paraplegia is not uncommon.
Arterial Gas Embolism (AGE)
Arterial Gas Embolism (AGE) occurs on the arterial side. AGE can present in similar ways to arterial blockages seen in other medical situations. Affected people may suffer strokes, with paralysis or numbness down one side; they may suffer heart attacks; they may suffer pulmonary embolism with shortness of breath and chest pain. It is often impossible to distinguish AGE from DCS, but luckily it is rarely necessary for physicians to be able to distinguish between the two, as treatment is the same. Sometimes AGE and DCS are lumped into a single entity, Decompression Illness (DCI).
Nitrogen narcosis is also called “L’ivresse des grandes profondeurs” or rapture of the deep. Nitrogen comprises 79% of the air breathed by aerobic organisms, but at surface pressures it has no sedating effect. At greater depths, however, nitrogen affects the brain in precisely the same way as nitrous oxide (also known as laughing gas). The effect is similar to the effects of alcohol, and to some extent there is cross-tolerance. Unlike alcohol, the onset and disappearance are instantaneous. A diver may be quite clear-headed at 20 meters, and yet giddy and silly at 30 meters. Ascending to 20 meters will almost instantly clear the head. Divers suffering nitrogen narcosis may put themselves at risk by doing stupid things such as offering their regulator or mouthpiece to a fish. Because it reverses completely with ascent, divers never suffer nitrogen narcosis after a dive.
High pressure nervous syndrome (HPNS)
High pressure nervous syndrome is rarely of importance to recreational divers. Breathing any gas at great depths (hundreds of feet) can cause seizures. Interestingly it was discovered because divers were using gas mixtures without nitrogen to be able to go to great depths without experiencing nitrogen narcosis. It turns out that nitrogen prevents HPNS. The answer? Add very small amounts of nitrogen to gas mixes when diving at great depth, small enough to avoid nitrogen narcosis, but sufficient to prevent HPNS.
Barotrauma is injury caused by pressure effects on air spaces. This may occur during ascent or descent. The ears are the most commonly affected body part. The most serious injury is lung barotraumas, which can result in pneumothorax, pneumomediastinum, pneumopericardium, subcutaneous emphysema, and arterial gas embolism. All divers, commercial air travelers, people traveling overland between different altitudes, and people who work in pressurized environments have had to deal with some degree of barotrauma effect upon their ears, sinuses, and other air spaces. At the most extreme, barotrauma can cause ruptured eardrums, bleeding sinuses, exploding tooth cavities, and the lung injuries described above. This is the reason why divers follow a golden rule of never holding their breath: by breathing continuously, they avoid any pressure differences between their lungs and ambient pressure. See barotrauma for more information.
In addition to the foregoing, dysbarism is sometimes classified according to the source of the excess gas, with "trapped gas" dysbarism referring to the expansion of pockets that were already in a gaseous state in the body, and "evolved gas" dysbarism referring to gasses (primarily nitrogen) dissolved in the body coming out of solution to form gas bubbles.
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When parents are seeking to adopt a child internationally, it is important for them to understand the Hague Adoption Convention. This law helps protect children and requires inter-country adoption co-operation. This is essentially an international agreement that helps safeguard the intercountry adoption process.
Established on May 29, 1993, in The Hague, the Netherlands, this convention seeks to establish international standards when countries participate in intercountry adoptions. The U.S. signed this agreement in 2004 and the Convention was officially enforced in April 2008.
This agreement applies to the U.S. and other countries that have voluntarily agreed to participate and have joined the Convention. While the adoption process is similar whether a country is a member of the Convention or not, there are certain protections people receive when they are sheltered by the Convention rules, regulations and practices. These include:
- The Convention requires participating countries to establish a Central Authority and point of contact for information. For example, the Department of State is the U.S. designated authority.
- The Convention seeks to prevent and abolish the sale of, abduction or trafficking of children, helping work towards putting children’s needs first and foremost.
- The Convention supports and recognizes that intercountry adoption is an acceptable means to finding a permanent home for a child when a suitable option is not available domestically. This allows intercountry adoption to occur when the child is deemed eligible by the child’s country of birth and the proper efforts have been given to provide a domestic home for the child.
- The Convention also helps ensure that formal international and intergovernmental recognition of these forms of adoption are recognized and given the proper effect in participating countries.
- Accredited Adoption Agencies are required under the Convention, helping prospective adoptive parents know they are working with a reputable agency that is professionally licensed and has a high standard of ethics.
- Transparency is also a requirement, as countries participating in the Convention must disclose and itemize all adoption-related fees ahead of time. The Convention also offers a formal complaint procedure against accredited adoption agencies.
- The U.S. issues adoption certificates after all Convention requirements have been met. The U.S. consular office will also determine a child’s visa eligibility prior to adoption finalization. This allows parents to know ahead of time if the child will be able to enter the U.S.
- Forms and visa categories are regularly updated. Forms I-800A and I-800 are required completion materials for prospective parents prior to adopting.
Heart to Heart is a Utah adoption agency that specializes in domestic adoptions within the U.S. They offer help for birthmothers looking for abortion alternatives, including private adoption and open adoption options. | <urn:uuid:3764e81e-a8b5-40d3-82f8-d7352726d6fa> | {
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Applied and Environmental Microbiology
Environmental gradients are expected to promote the diversification and coexistence of ecological specialists adapted to local conditions. Consistent with this view, genera of phototrophic microorganisms in alkaline geothermal systems generally appear to consist of anciently divergent populations which have specialized on different temperature habitats. At White Creek (Lower Geyser Basin, Yellowstone National Park), however, a novel, 16S rRNA-defined lineage of the filamentous anoxygenic phototroph Chloroflexus (OTU 10, phylum Chloroflexi) occupies a much wider thermal niche than other 16S rRNA-defined groups of phototrophic bacteria. This suggests that Chloroflexus OTU 10 is either an ecological generalist or, alternatively, a group of cryptic thermal specialists which have recently diverged. To distinguish between these alternatives, we first isolated laboratory strains of Chloroflexus OTU 10 from along the White Creek temperature gradient. These strains are identical for partial gene sequences encoding the 16S rRNA and malonyl coenzyme A (CoA) reductase. However, strains isolated from upstream and downstream samples could be distinguished based on sequence variation at pcs, which encodes the propionyl-CoA synthase of the 3-hydroxypropionate pathway of carbon fixation used by the genus Chloroflexus. We next demonstrated that strains have diverged in temperature range for growth. Specifically, we obtained evidence for a positive correlation between thermal niche breadth and temperature optimum, with strains isolated from lower temperatures exhibiting greater thermal specialization than the most thermotolerant strain. The study has implications for our understanding of both the process of niche diversification of microorganisms and how diversity is organized in these hot spring communities. | <urn:uuid:7113f38d-95f9-4784-a8b6-b43ec45e5aa3> | {
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On July 5 on Tynwald Hill, St. John’s, Isle of Man, the people gather to celebrate an old Norse assembly system established more than 1,000 years ago. The ceremony still takes place on the old Norse field of assembly at St. John’s, near the center of the island, where there stands the ancient circular Tynwald Hill, 12 feet high and surrounded by four concentric steps or platforms. It is believed that the hill is atop an old burial mound that made it a place of Celtic gatherings where the Old Midsummer rites (July 5) were held during Pagan times.
From the chapel nearby, the queen’s Lieutenant Governor leads the Tynwald’s procession to the hill, on a path strewn with green rushes, a survival of offerings to the sea God, Manannan. Once at the hill, there is the reading of old laws as new ones are presented. As each new law is read, it is followed by loud shouts and cheers. This custom prevails today. Before the lieutenant governor can sign a law into effect, he must wait for the assent of the people. | <urn:uuid:8fcccdac-e47e-4612-b590-500ace77b4fb> | {
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for National Geographic News
With rising levels of toxins in the Arctic threatening wildlife and humans alike, scientists are on the hunt for what's behind the pollution boom. Wind currents carrying pollutants from industrialized countries are known to be largely responsible for toxins in the Arctic seas. But on the coasts birds are the key culprits, a new study says.
Researchers who studied a large seabird colony in the Canadian Arctic found that ponds below the birds' breeding cliffs are laced with persistent organic pollutants, or POPs.
The birds, it seems, are eating carrion, squid, and other marine animals from POP-contaminated seas. The flyers then return to their coastal home and deposit their contaminated preyin the form of excrementin local ponds, which see their POP levels skyrocket as a result.
Experts say the study adds to concerns over the impact of toxic substances on the health of the Arctic's wildlife and people.
"What's unique about this study is that it identifies a new method of bio-transmission that's potentially causing contamination to the local environment," said Russel Shearer. Shearer is the manager of the Canadian government's Northern Contaminants Program, based in Hull, Quebec. The program investigates the risks and impacts of chemical pollutants to remote communities in northern Canada.
"Such contamination should be taken more seriously," Shearer added.
The researchers' findings are based on observations of a colony of more than 20,000 northern fulmars at Cape Vera on Devon Island in the Canadian province of Nunavut. The study will be reported tomorrow in the journal Science.
"This mode of chemical movement can lead to surprisingly high levels of contaminants, because the contaminants are first accumulated in the food chain and then funneled into relatively small areas where the birds nest," said the study's lead author, Jules M. Blais. Blais is a biogeochemistry professor at the University of Ottawa, Ontario.
Northern fulmars are a keystone Arctic species, providing vital nutrients to an otherwise desolate landscape.
"We have a unique ecological situation, where birds that feed over the ocean are nourishing an entire ecosystem under their cliffs," Blais said. "If the seabird colony left, mosses, lichen, insects, and small birds like snow buntingsand even small carnivores like foxes and jaegers [a type of large bird]would probably be displaced or disappear altogether."
But the "biological pump" provided by seabirds is now also transporting industrially produced contaminants.
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Author: Sarah Whelan
School: George Washington Middle
Grade Level: Middle School
Time Estimated: 9-10 days (75-minute periods)
This is a unit of study about Reconstruction, the time period from 1865-1877 when the United States was rebuilding and reuniting after the Civil War. This unit will be taught after students have gained a solid understanding of the causes and major developments of the Civil War. Students will understand the events and tensions that fractured the country, and will also know the course of the war and how it came to an end. The Reconstruction unit will begin with the end of the war and its immediate aftermath, including President Lincoln’s plan for Reconstruction and his assassination. Students will then examine President Johnson’s plan and how his policies were implemented in the South. Students will also consider the changes in the South brought about by the 13th Amendment and the work of the Freedmen’s Bureau. Another major topic will be the policies enacted by the Radical Republicans during Congressional Reconstruction. Students will also learn about the 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution, and examine their impact on freedom and equality for African -Americans. After these social and political changes have been considered, the unit will move onto how Reconstruction came to a close in 1877, and much of the period’s progress was reversed in the following years. To culminate the unit, students will evaluate the successes and failures of the Reconstruction period by considering its enduring legacy.
This unit is designed for heterogeneously-mixed, multicultural classes. I have a variety of abilities in my classes, including special education students, ESL students, and Talented & Gifted students.
Reconstruction is one of the most critical and complex periods in United States history. In 1865, four years of brutal destruction in the Civil War came to an end. 600,000 American soldiers lost their lives, far more than in any other war in American history. Four million enslaved African Americans were emancipated. The South was laid to waste; railroads, factories, farms, and cities were destroyed. Soldiers’ graves and smoldering ruins were the tangible signs of the rift that went far deeper. Anger, bitterness, grief, and fear overwhelmed the nation. The United States faced innumerable challenges: how would the nation rebuild? How would the Confederate states be reunited with the Union? What did freedom for slaves really mean? How would the emancipated become part of society? How would the nation heal the wounds made by four years of bitter war?
As the nation cautiously started to celebrate the end of the war in April of 1865, a shocking tragedy quickly cast Americans into further despair. President Abraham Lincoln, who had fought so passionately to maintain the Union, was shot and killed. Lincoln had given hope to millions with his second inaugural address, in which he stated: “With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.” Lincoln envisioned a forgiving nation that would quickly bind its wounds and move forward. His death, however, increased Northern resentment and vengeance toward the South. It added a layer of grief to an already struggling nation. It also left the country in the hands of a leader who was not well prepared to govern.
Vice President Andrew Johnson assumed the presidency after Lincoln was assassinated. Johnson was a southerner and, like Lincoln, a self-educated man who climbed up the ladder from humble origins. He was also a Democrat who had been placed on the Lincoln ticket in 1864 to project a Union party image and keep the votes of the border states. Lincoln’s Republican cabinet distrusted Johnson, and he was excluded from most conversations and decisions. He took over the presidency after only a few months as vice president and very little time spent with Lincoln. He was ill-prepared to handle the problems facing the nation at the time, and in conflict with Congress and the Radical Republicans in Congress during this period. Johnson’s Reconstruction plan was lenient toward the former Confederate states. Amnesty and pardon were available to former Confederates who pledged loyalty to the Union and support for emancipation. Major Confederate leaders and extremely wealthy planters, however, had to apply individually for Presidential pardons. Johnson was determined to overthrow the slaveocracy that ruled the South. He was not, however, interested in increasing equality and providing suffrage rights to African Americans. He stated that this decision should be left to the states, but he was aware that no state, northern or southern, had been willing to expand the political rights of African Americans.
The Presidential Reconstruction period proved troublesome. After Confederate states had been admitted back into the Union, and Confederates pardoned, members of the pre-war political ruling class were soon re-elected as state legislators, governors, Congressmen, and Senators. These leaders had no intention of extending political equality and the right to vote to the freedmen. Black Codes were soon passed by all southern state legislatures. These laws restricted the freedoms of African Americans and limited the economic options of the freedmen. By enforcing labor contracts and anti-vagrancy laws, the strict Black Codes kept many freedmen tied to the plantation. Additionally, this period was characterized by violence and vengeance against African Americans. The justice system of the South provided no recourse; the all-white police force frequently terrorized African Americans, and judges and other officials seldom prosecuted crimes against Blacks. News of Black Codes and violence against freedmen spread to the North, creating indignation. Even citizens who were not committed to full political rights for African Americans recognized that the basic freedoms and economic opportunities must be provided, or the idea of emancipation would be a farce.
Leading the complaints against Presidential Reconstruction were the Radical Republicans of Congress. Radical leaders viewed Reconstruction as an opportunity for sweeping changes and a building of a new, restructured South. The old social and political order would be overturned, and the national government would ensure equal rights for all. By 1867, Republicans had a majority in both houses of Congress and could overrule a presidential veto. In 1867, Congress passed a new Reconstruction Act. It threw out the state governments of states that had refused to ratify the 14th Amendment. It also divided up the South into five military districts, with military governors who were given power to enforce Reconstruction. In order to rejoin the Union, states had to write new state constitutions, ratify the 14th Amendment, and allow African Americans to vote. Under these new constitutions, many former Confederates were not allowed to vote. With military protection, freedmen were. Under these conditions, Republicans were able to gain control of southern state governments. The 15th Amendment was ratified in 1870, providing a constitutional guarantee of voting rights for African American males.
With new political forces in the South, including white southern Republicans, northerners who moved to the South, and African Americans, many changes were made. During Reconstruction, African Americans made significant political gains. They voted in large numbers and were also elected to political office. African Americans were elected as sheriffs, mayors, legislators, Congressmen, and Senators. Though their participation was significant, it was exaggerated by white southerners angry at the “Black Republican” governments. Reconstruction governments built public schools for both black and white children. They also rebuilt and added more railroads, telegraph lines, bridges, and railroads. These costly efforts led to tax increases that further angered southern whites. Anger and resentment of white southerners led to the rise of secret societies like the Ku Klux Klan, who used threats and violence to intimidate African Americans and prevent them from voting.
By the mid-1870’s, enthusiasm for Reconstruction waned. Republicans were losing power, and Northerners were tired of trying to reform the South. In 1872, Congress passed the Amnesty Act, which reinstated voting rights to nearly all white southerners. At the same time, the efforts of the KKK and other violent organizations resulted in fewer African Americans at the polls. By 1876, almost all southern states were back under the control of Democrats. The end of Reconstruction came with the election of 1876. Neither Democrat Samuel Tilden nor Republican Rutherford B. Hayes was able to win a clear victory in the electoral college, so a Congressional commission was set up to decide the election. In a compromise, Republican candidate Hayes was declared the winner, in exchange for a promise to end Reconstruction. Upon taking office in 1877, Hayes removed the remaining federal troops from the South. With no one left to enforce the Reconstruction reforms, Reconstruction was over.
White conservative Democrats remained in control of southern governments, and systematically reversed the steps taken toward political and social equality during Reconstruction. Southern states denied African Americans’ voting rights through voting restrictions such as the poll tax, grandfather clause, and literacy test. Jim Crow laws separated blacks and whites in restaurants, schools, theaters, railroads, hospitals, and all other public spaces. This segregation was endorsed by the Supreme Court in the landmark Plessy v. Ferguson case in 1896. African Americans continued to be victims of violence, intimidation, and lynching. It would not be until the Civil Rights movement of the 1960’s that the full protection of the 14th and 15th amendments would be granted to African Americans.
The period of Reconstruction was one of great promise for the United States and for African Americans. During this period, African Americans continued their struggle for freedom and worked to improve their communities. Institutions of the African American community, such as churches and schools, were strengthened. Though there were long-term consequences of Reconstruction’s failures, the Reconstruction era provided a Constitutional basis for later attempts to end discrimination.
Reconstruction was one of the most critical time periods in American history. The Civil War changed the nation greatly; most importantly by bringing an end to slavery. Reconstruction was a period of great promise, hope, and progress for African Americans, and a period of resentment and resistance for many white southerners. The end of Reconstruction ushered in the Jim Crow era and a hundred-year period of segregation and disenfranchisement, setting the stage for the Civil Rights movement.
- Demonstrate ability to write from a historical perspective by comparing and contrasting the different plans for Reconstruction, including the plans of Lincoln, Johnson, and Congress
- Persuasively argue a position on an issue, both orally and in writing
- Identify the provisions of the Reconstruction Amendments and consider their effects
- Describe the work of the Freedmen’s Bureau and the impact it had on African-Americans in the South by interpreting and analyzing primary source documents
- Analyze the social and political changes brought about by the emancipation of slaves and Reconstruction policies
- Examine the events that led to the end of Reconstruction and the subsequent removal of African American rights by sequencing events in history and analyzing cause and effect
US I.1: The student will develop skills for geographical and historical analysis, including the ability to:
a) identify and interpret primary and secondary source documents
b) make connections between past and present
c) sequence events in United States history
d) interpret ideas and events from different historical perspectives
e) evaluate and discuss issues orally and in writing
U.S. I.10: The student will demonstrate knowledge of the effects of Reconstruction on American life by:
a) identifying the provisions of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution of the United States of American and their impact on the expansion of freedom in America
b) describing the impact of Reconstruction policies on the South | <urn:uuid:5413f6f9-c3ed-4646-b31b-fb57dc6c12b2> | {
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Expository essay healthy eating in the workplace - by srhughes5683 writing majestys aaahh resume services atomos recorder comparison benefits essay. Student: i don't know what to say this is an expository example of a 5 paragraph essay explaining why kids should eat vegetables the essay shows organization.
Informative speech outline example - eating healthily with a busy lifestyle you can incorporate healthy eating into your lifestyle even if you are always on the go. Check out our top free essays on expository essay healthy eating to help you write your own essay. Expository essay on healthy eating and wellness use appendix i to proofread your final draft if you cannot answer yes - answered by a verified writing tutor. | <urn:uuid:bde13105-e8eb-42dc-9ad2-718c3c62dcb9> | {
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President Mbeki of South Africa belongs to the generation of leaders who worked with Nelson Mandela to create a democratic nation in which all parties shared common rights of competing in the marketplace of ideas. Mbeki can not plead ignorance of the past nor can he claim lack of knowledge as to what occurs to a society when its leaders use thugs to enforce the laws in order to retain power. Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of Zimbabwe’s Orange Democratic Movement, blasted Mbeki for his failure to aid the oppressed peope of Zimbabwe. He asked Mbeki to step down from the role of serving as a mediator in the political conflicts that have been raging for years. “The reasons are obvious,” said the Zimbabwean leader, “it’s nine years the crisis in Zimbabwe has been going on endlessly, people are dying in Zimbabwe.” Tsvangirai expressed his appreciation to the South African president, but urged new leadership in the effort to restore democracy to his nation.
Tsvangirai was being polite when he noted it was time for Mbeki to get off the stage of politics. President Mbeki had the nerve to claim there were no problems in Zimbabwe and everything was under control by his buddy, President Mugabe. At this moment, hundreds of police and thugs are wandering the countryside of Zimbabwe beating up supporters of Tsvangirai and making it clear to one and all there is only one way to vote-for Mugabe or else. Mbeki’s own party, the African National Congress has attacked his weak stand on the Zimbabwe issue. | <urn:uuid:e98072aa-b5a9-476e-a139-cf25bc32c503> | {
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Fair (and Not So Fair) Division
Executive Summary — "Fair" could be defined as what people of good will would want to be. This does not constitute an operational definition, however. This paper provides a specific procedure to calculate what could be considered fair and reasonable for various situations that require a fair division. A simple example would be a family that has inherited objects of artistic and/or sentimental value and wants to divide them up fairly while taking into account differences in taste. Laymen, mathematicians, and economists all have their own proposals for creating a fair division. Pratt suggests a procedure that, when put to the test of a range of examples, produces outcomes that accord with our intuitive sense of what is fair and desirable while previously proposed procedures do not. Key concepts include:
- The procedure measures the value of each object in terms of its desirability to the various participants. It allocates the objects so that the participants receive the same total value (or value proportional to their entitlements if they are unequal), without envy or waste ("money left on the table"). Randomization is used if needed to accomplish this.
- Many procedures work well on average problems. Indeed, all reasonable procedures are much alike in near-symmetric problems. It is the lopsided examples that test the procedures, especially with more than two participants.
- Participants are not penalized for receiving objects of no value to anyone else or for being honest about their values for such objects.
Drawbacks of existing procedures are illustrated and a method of efficient fair division is proposed that avoids them. Given additive participants' utilities, each item is priced at the geometric mean (or some other function) of its two highest valuations. The utilities are scaled so that the market clears with the participants' purchases proportional to their entitlements. The method is generalized to arbitrary bargaining sets and existence is proved. For two or three participants, the expected utilities are unique. For more, under additivity, the geometric mean separates the prices where uniqueness holds and where it fails; it holds for the geometric mean except in one case where refinement is needed.
- Full Working Paper Text
- Working Paper Publication Date: September 2007
- HBS Working Paper Number: 5784 | <urn:uuid:afccbc95-d1af-481a-bc60-f22f8a092f3c> | {
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Website User Agreement
Copyright ©2009 Beaufort County Library
A Department of Beaufort County Government
We mention the "Local History and Nature" pages regularly to highlight this aspect of our "Virtual BDC" services. In honor of Black History Month, we draw your attention to some African American native sons who found prominence on the state and national scene:
Thomas Ezekiel Miller (1849-1938):
Born in Ferrebeeville, S. C. of free black parents, Miller attended schools for free African-Americans in Charleston (although these schools were prohibited by law). He studied for the bar in Columbia, S. C. after his graduation from Lincoln University in Pennsylvania (1872). It was in the course of his law studies that Miller’s involvement in the Beaufort County Republican Party began.
His first public office was that of Beaufort school commissioner (1872), and in 1874 he was elected as representative to the state General Assembly. Miller served in the U. S. House (having successfully contested the election of William Elliott) from 1890-1891, and his term was plagued by contests from the opposing Democrats. When he returned to Beaufort, he served again in the South Carolina House of Representatives (1894-1896).
Miller joined with Robert Smalls in the state constitutional convention of 1895, failing to block legislation that would disfranchise black citizens. At this same convention, Miller expressed his support for women’s suffrage. More successful was Miller’s efforts to found a state-supported college for African-Americans, the Colored Normal, Industrial, Agricultural and Mechanical College in Orangeburg, now known as South Carolina State College. Miller became the college’s first president in 1896 and served until 1911-- forced into resignation by Governor Coleman Blease.
He died in Charleston, where his epitaph reads, "Not having loved the white man less, but having felt the Negro needed more."
Additional information about Miller:
Another image of Miller
"Miller, Thomas E. (1849-1938)," Online Encylopedia of Significant People and Places in African American History http://www.blackpast.org/?q=aah/miller-thomas-e-1849-1938
"Thomas E. Miller, 19th Century Politician” in the African American Registry http://www.aaregistry.org/historic_events/view/thomas-e-miller-19th-cent... .
“Miller, Thomas Ezekial,” Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=m000757
Almost of the content within the Famous Beaufortonians webpage was written by Dennis Adams, Information Services Coordinator (Retired). | <urn:uuid:fa599346-abc7-4096-9519-07666336750e> | {
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1.1.1. KNP Lion Demographic StudyThe lion Project
The demographic study of lion populations within the Kruger National Park represents one of the most extensive lion research studies undertaken to date. This flagship project is the result of increasing concern over the prevalence of Bovine Tuberculosis (BTb) in lion populations within the reserve.
The 6 year study will investigate the intrinsic and extrinsic factors influencing carnivore dynamics – the extrinsic factors will focus on artificially introduced diseases to lion populations and which have the potential to lead to localized extinction. It is now commonly believed that BTb was first introduced into the reserve in the 1950’s by domestic cattle that, in turn, infected regional buffalo populations. Interestingly, buffalo herd dynamics do not appear to have been significantly affected and are regarded as BTb hosts. Lion predation on buffalo has spread the disease into prides predominantly in the south of the Park and to date, 10 prides have been darted and GPS radio tracking collars fitted to representative females in each pride.
Phase II of the project will involve a 5-6 year monitoring period during which time, focal sampling will be undertaken across all study zones of varying BTb prevalence in prey and prey biomass. The final phase of the project will focus on a survey or focal sampling to re-estimate lion populations and structure within the defined study zones.
This study will allow scientists to evaluate how lion dynamics have changed across varying areas of BTb prevalence and to introduce appropriate management plans accordingly.
This project is quite vital to the greater ecology of the Kruger National Park and your support in both observation and funding will go a long way in ensuring the future preservation of the African lion within the greater Kruger National Park. | <urn:uuid:50d0035c-8d39-4f61-99a7-46cfe44d2267> | {
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Spotted Hyena (Crocuta crocuta)
In a clearing near the airstrip of Stanley’s Camp, located in the Okavango Delta of Botswana, we encountered a clan of spotted hyenas (Crocuta crocuta).
From a distance we could see some standing sentry in every direction while others napped in the tall dry grass of the savannah.
Though their silhouette is more canine, their fluffy fur coat suggests their feline roots.
Our guide, Poniso, knew right away that they had just eaten; observing the red blood coating their necks and legs with their heavy bellies hanging low to the ground.
The quiet lazy mood indicates that there was enough for everyone, even sufficient to produce rich milk for young cubs. Spotted hyena milk has the highest protein content of any terrestrial carnivore, second only to polar bear milk.
Cubs shed their brownish-black coat at age two to three months and then they develop the spotted coat.
Hyenas are well-equipped predators. They have the second most acidic digestive system in the animal kingdom, after the crocodile, allowing them to tolerate bacteria from carrion. Their strong jaws are capable of eating entire animals, pulverizing bones, horns, and teeth. Their scat is chalky white, filled with the calcium from the bones.
Completing the eco-cycle, the African Leopard Tortoise eats this dung to fortify its shell.
Though their skulking profile probably contributes to the hyena’s sinister reputation, they looked like real pussycats to me. | <urn:uuid:47ac6b59-f5be-40e0-b345-2d1bdc8d275e> | {
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What exactly does "desecration" mean? Is it just flag burning — or does it also include smearing the flag with dirt? How about dropping it on the ground? And why should law enforcement get to decide who to arrest for such desecration? Free expression and the right to dissent are among the core principles which the American flag represents. The First Amendment must be protected most when it comes to unpopular speech. Failure to do so fails the very notion of freedom of expression.
Our democracy is strong because we tolerate all peaceful forms of expression, no matter how uncomfortable they make us feel, or how much we disagree. If we take away the right to dissent - no matter how unpopular - what freedom will be sacrificed next?
Make a Difference
Your support helps the ACLU defend free speech and a broad range of civil liberties.
Burn the Flag or Burn the Constitution? (2011 blog): Sadly, Congress is once again considering an amendment to the U. S. Constitution banning desecration of the American flag and, in doing so, testing our political leaders' willingness to defend what is arguably one of America's most sacred principles — protecting political speech.
Flag Amendment Defeated, First Amendment Stands Unscathed (2003): On June 27, 2006, the Senate voted down the proposed Flag Desecration Amendment by the slimmest margin ever. The vote was 66-34, just one vote short of the two-thirds needed to approve a constitutional amendment.
Reasons to Oppose the Flag Desecration Amendment (2004 resource): Talking Points on Opposing the Flag Desecration Amendment
Background on the Flag Desecration Amendment (2004 resource)
Fight for the Flag - Resources (2006 resource) | <urn:uuid:cbe1a6ba-f0ca-4f88-86c8-7605d31dcf07> | {
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Purpose Even mild iodine deficiency may negatively affect cognitive performance, especially at a young age. Our aim was to investigate iodine status in very young children and to assess the importance of iodized salt in processed foods as an example for a country with voluntary salt iodization.
Methods 24-h urinary iodine excretion (UIE) as a marker of iodine intake was measured in 378 repeatedly collected 24-h urine samples (2003–2010) of 221 3-< 6 year old participants of the DONALD Study. Parallel 3-d weighed dietary records and measurements of urinary sodium excretion provided data on the daily consumption of the most important iodine providers in the children’s diet (iodized salt, milk, fish, meat and eggs). Time trends of UIE (2003–2010) and contributions of the different food groups were analysed by using linear mixed-effects regression models.
Results Median UIE of 71 µg/d in boys and 65 µg/d in girls, corresponding to an iodine intake of 82 and 75 µg/d, respectively (assumption: 15% non renal iodine losses) was below the WHO intake recommendations of 90 µg/d. Milk, salt and egg intake were significant predictors of UIE; milk and salt together accounted for >80% of iodine supply. Between 2003 and 2010, UIE decreased significantly by approximately 1 µg/year. The contribution of salt intake to UIE decreased from 03–06 to 07–10.
Conclusion In countries where salt is a major iodine provider, already modest decreases in the iodized proportion of salt used in processed foods may relevantly impair iodine status even in preschool children.
Statistics from Altmetric.com
If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways. | <urn:uuid:079ffbc2-2b57-413f-9f62-b7d4acb51317> | {
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Priapulid, (phylum Priapulida), any of some 15 species of predatory, marine, mud-inhabiting, unsegmented worms. Once considered a class of the former phylum Aschelminthes or placed with echiuran and sipunculan worms in the former phylum Gephyrea, priapulids have no obvious relationship to any other group of animals. The largest of the priapulids are 10 to 15 cm (4 to 6 inches) long and inhabit the colder seas, while the smallest, several millimetres long, inhabit warmer seas.
The presoma, or anterior end of the body, with the mouth at the tip, can be retracted into the trunk and is used in locomotion as well as in feeding. The body is covered with a cuticle that is secreted by the hypodermis. Beneath this cuticle lie body-wall muscles that enclose a spacious body cavity. The cuticle hardens into a ridged case (the lorica) during the larval stage. It forms spines on the presoma, especially around the mouth, within the pharynx, and to a lesser degree elsewhere on the body, and it molts as the worm grows to an adult.
The mouth of the priapulid leads into a large muscular pharynx, a short esophagus, a larger intestine (with musculature), and a rectum with the anus at the hind end. There is no circulatory system. The excretory system consists of flame cells (solenocytes) opening by ducts to the exterior. The nervous system is very simple, consisting of a nerve ring surrounding the mouth, a ventral nerve cord, and peripheral nerves. The reproductive organs are tubular, with posterior openings, and internal fertilization is known to occur in one species.
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Relentless and alarming scientific research, and a succession of sensational newspaper articles on multi-resistant bacteria have reached a climax. Academic and political concern for the consequences of multi-resistant bacteria on people’s health is increasing. Worst of all, there appears to be an absence of effective ways to counter superbugs, which are resisting even the strongest of super-antibiotics. “If scientists call it the ‘ post-antibiotic era or antibiotic apocalypse’ t he alert level must be raised and everything possible must be done immediately. ” said Alberto Rodolfi, President of Copma.
Writing last month in ‘The Lancet’ medical journal, David Paterson and Patrick Harris from Australia’s University of Queensland, say that a new critical era has arrived for the use of anti-biotics in veterinary and human health.
“Studies conducted by researchers at the University of Ferrara suggest that something can be done,” said Copma’s Rodolfi. “With the probiotics based PCHS it is possible to have a healthier environment, with low and stable presence of potentially pathogenic germs; therefore we must all act without delay in terms of our health environment. First, we must reduce this first level of risk,” says Copma CEO, Mario Pinca.
“Recently, a new study has been completed on the impact of the PCHS sanitation system on the microbiota in the hospitals surfaces,” said Prof. Sante Mazzacane, Director of the University Research Center CIAS, “On one hand, this confirms results which are already the subject of previous International scientific publications as far as safety and hygiene are concerned; and on the other hand, it highlights new possible scenarios concerning the reduction of the resistance possessed by pathogens as a result of the application of these protocols. The results are now being published in international scientific journals”
Mario Pinca added: “The timing of this new study is critical, because, as The Lancet reported, in China a new gene has been observed which makes bacteria highly resistant to a last-resort class of antibiotics. The gene has been found in people and pigs in China – including in samples of bacteria with epidemic potential.
Reuters news agency reported that Laura Piddock, a professor of microbiology at Britain’s Birmingham University wrote: “All use of polymyxins must be minimized as soon as possible and all unnecessary use stopped.”
According to Reuters, the team already has evidence of the gene “being transferred between common bacteria such as E.coli, which causes urinary tract and many other types of infection, and Klesbsiella pneumoniae, which causes pneumonia and other infections.”
Pinca remarked: “The impressive progression of antibiotic resistance should lead the scientific community and institutional authorities to seek every possible solution by evaluating the potential deriving from what researchers at the University of Ferrara found on the reduction of the resistance possessed by pathogens. ” | <urn:uuid:838ecb22-1eb7-49fe-9cbf-db2138911b1d> | {
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Europe in 12 lessons
What purpose does the EU serve? Why and how was it set up? How does it work? What has it already achieved for its citizens, and what new challenges does it face today? In a globalised world, can the EU compete successfully with other major economies while maintaining its social standards? How can immigration be managed? What will Europe’s role be on the world stage in the years ahead? Where will the EU’s boundaries be drawn? And what future is there for the euro? These are just some of the questions explored by EU expert Pascal Fontaine in this 2017 edition of his popular booklet Europe in 12... lessons. Pascal Fontaine is a former assistant to Jean Monnet and former professor at the Institut d’Études Politiques, Paris.
- Corporate author(s): Directorate-General for Communication (European Commission)
- Personal author(s): Fontaine, Pascal Themes: Construction of Europe, Activities of the European Union
- Subject: common market, customs territory (EU), deepening of the European Union, EU activity, EU law, EU Member State, EU national, EU police cooperation, EU policy, EU relations, euro, European Communities, European cooperation, European integration, European political cooperation, European Union, free movement of persons, free movement of workers, history of Europe, public awareness campaign, vision of Europe | <urn:uuid:46a59cf6-d8f0-4ed7-b2f1-5da30b7d0e0f> | {
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One Laptop per Child (OLPC) project wants to create affordable educational devices for the children in the developing countries. The project was originally funded by companies such as AMD, eBay, Google, Marvell, News Corp, Nortel, Red Hat, and Quanta. The XO-1, “the “$100 Laptop” is the first device developed by OLPC. It’s an inexpensive rugged, low-power notebook with a flash memory instead of a hard drive and a Linux-based operating system. By 2008, OLPC had distributed 600,000 XO machines throughout Asia, Africa and South America.
One Education, OLPC’s partner non-profit in Australia, has been working on a new educational laptop called XO-infinity. Until now they delivered over 50,000 XOs to teachers and children at over 300 schools.
The XO-infinity concept is a hybrid laptop/tablet convertible with modular components and multiple operating systems (Windows, Android, Linux).
The concept is divided in 2 main parts, the tablet with the screen module and the keyboard/base station. Battery, CPU, camera, Wi-Fi connection are inserted into big colored modules behind the screen, concealed under a soft silicon cover. The green module is the CPU (and RAM, and storage), the blue one is the battery, the violet one a camera, and the orange one is the Wifi.
A child will be able to easily repair or upgrade the XO-Infinity by pulling a old module and plugging in a new one. The old parts can be re-sold, or better yet, donated to those who wouldn’t normally be able to afford them at all.
Rangan Srikhanta, Ceo of One Education, in a recent interview, said “We want to teach kids they don’t just have to be consumers. That they can actually pull things together and give them the opportunity to update the parts. All the machines you see, especially the tablets on the market, they are glued together, quite literally. If a part breaks or a part needs to be changed the standard solution is actually to throw away the whole device and purchase a whole new one. We think there’s a tremendous amount of waste in that.”
The modular laptop is still in a prototype stage of development and is expected to start shipping in 2016.
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Differential Equations Overview
A course in differential equations involves the study of equations that represent real-world systems requiring multiple variables changing at different rates.
Differential Equations in the Classroom
Students may encounter a course in differential equations if they elect to take higher level mathematics courses in their undergraduate or graduate career. Such a course is typically required for people hoping to attain a degree in mathematics, physics, or engineering.
Differential Equations Tutoring Program
Parliament's Differential Equations Tutoring Program equips students with...
- The skills necessary to master the concepts in Differential Equations.
- Effective study skills which can be translated into use for other disciplines.
- Our Differential Equations Tutors will introduce students to all the relevant fundamentals as well as important concepts to master these sections. | <urn:uuid:3726951d-6ef7-450c-9db2-58e266e62384> | {
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Edexcel GCE History A2 Unit 3 E2 A World Divided: Superpower Relations 1944-90 Paperback / softback
Edited by Steve Phillips
Part of the Edexcel GCE History series
Packed full of exam tips and activities, students can be sure they will develop all the historical skills and understanding they need.
Written by experienced examiners and teachers and tailored to the Edexcel specification.
An active, engaging approach that brings History alive!
Exam tips, activities and sources in every chapter give students the confidence to tackle all the questions that come up in the exam.
Carefully written material ensures the right level of support at AS or A2.
- Format: Paperback / softback
- Pages: 224 pages
- Publisher: Pearson Education Limited
- Publication Date: 13/07/2009
- Category: General & world history
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To understand why gravity modification is not yet a reality, let’s analyze other fundamental discoveries/inventions that changed our civilization or at least the substantially changed the process of discovery. There are several that come to mind, the atomic bomb, heavier than air manned flight, the light bulb, personal computers, and protein folding. There are many other examples but these are sufficient to illustrate what it takes. Before we start, we have to understand four important and related concepts.
(1) Clusters or business clusters, first proposed by Harvard prof. Michael Porter, “a business cluster is a geographic concentration of interconnected businesses, suppliers, and associated institutions in a particular field. Clusters are considered to increase the productivity with which companies can compete, nationally and globally”. Toyota City which predates Porter’s proposal, comes to mind. China’s 12 new cities come to mind, and yes there are pro and cons.
(2) Hot housing, a place offering ideal conditions for the growth of an idea, activity, etc. (3) Crowdsourcing, is a process that involves outsourcing tasks to a distributed group of people. This process can occur both online and offline. Crowdsourcing is different from an ordinary outsourcing since it is a task or problem that is outsourced to an undefined public rather than a specific body. (4) Groundswell, a strong public feeling or opinion that is detectable even though not openly expressed.
I first read about the fascinating story of the making of the atom bomb from Stephane Groueff’s The Manhattan Project-the Making of the Atomic Bomb, in the 1970s. We get a clear idea why this worked. Under the direction of Major General Leslie Groves, and J. Robert Oppenheimer the US, UK & Canada hot housed scientist, engineers, and staff to invent and produce the atomic bomb physics, engineering and manufacturing capabilities. Today we term this key driver of success ‘hot housing’, the bringing together a group of experts to identify avenues for further research, to brainstorm potential solutions, and to test, falsify and validate research paths, focused on a specific desired outcome. The threat of losing out to the Axis powers helped increase this hot housing effect. This is much like what the Aspen Center for Physics is doing (video here).
In the case of the invention of the light bulb, the airplane, and the personal computer, there was a groundswell of public opinion that these inventions could be possible. This led potential inventors with the necessary basic skills to attempt to solve these problems. In the case of the incandescent light bulb, this process took about 70 years from Humphrey Davy in 1809, to Thomas A. Edison and Joseph Wilson Swan in 1879. The groundswell started with Humphrey and had included many by the time of Edison in 1879.
In the case of the airplane the Wright brothers reviewed other researchers’ findings (the groundswell had begun much earlier), and then invented several new tools & skills, flight control, model testing techniques, test pilot skills, light weight motors and new propeller designs.
The invention of the personal computer had the same groundswell effect (see Homebrew Computer Club & PBS TV transcripts). Ed Roberts, Gordon French, Fred Moore, Bob Harsh, George Morrow, Adam Osborne, Lee Felsenstein, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, John Draper, Jerry Lawson, Ron Jones and Bill Gates all knew each other before many of them became wealthy and famous. Bill Gates wrote the first personal computer language, while the others invented various versions of the microcomputer, later to be known as the personal computer, and peripherals required. They invented the products and the tools necessary for the PC industry to take off.
With protein folding, Seth Cooper, game designer, developed Fold It, the tool that would make the investigation into protein folding accessible to an undefined public. Today we describe this ‘crowdsourcing’. Notice that here it wasn’t a specialized set of team that was hot housed, but the reverse, the general public, were given the tools to make crowdsourcing a viable means to solving a problem.
Thus four key elements are required to foster innovation, basic skills, groundswell, hothouse or crowdsourcing, and new tools.
So why hasn’t this happened with gravity modification? Some form of the groundswell is there. In his book The Hunt for Zero Point, Nick Cook (an editor of the esteemed Jane’s Defense Weekly) describes a history that goes back to World War II, and Nazi Germany. It is fund reading but Kurt Kleiner of Salon provides a sober review of The Hunt for Zero Point.
There are three primary reasons for this not having happened with gravity modification. First, over the last 50 years or so, there have only been about 50 to 100 people (outside of black projects) who have investigated this in a scientific manner. That is, the groundswell of researchers with the necessary basic skills has not reached a critical mass to take off. For example, protein folding needed at least 40,000 participants, today Fold It has 280,000 registered participants.
Second, pseudoscience has crept into the field previously known as ‘antigravity’. In respectable scientific circles the term used is gravity modification. Pseudoscience, has clouded the field, confused the public’s perception and chased away the talent – the 3 C’s of pseudoscience. Take for example, plutonium bomb propulsion (written by a non-scientist/non-engineer), basic investigation shows that this is neither feasible nor legal, but it still keeps being written up as a ‘real’ proposition. The correct term for plutonium bomb propulsion is pseudoscience.
Third reason. Per the definition of gravity modification, we cannot use existing theories to propose new tools because all our current status quo theories require mass. Therefore, short of my 12-year study, no new tools are forth coming.
Benjamin T Solomon is the author & principal investigator of the 12-year study into the theoretical & technological feasibility of gravitation modification, titled An Introduction to Gravity Modification, to achieve interstellar travel in our lifetimes. For more information visit iSETI LLC, Interstellar Space Exploration Technology Initiative.
Solomon is inviting all serious participants to his LinkedIn Group Interstellar Travel & Gravity Modification. | <urn:uuid:63df8f95-5d6f-4028-99d2-cbdd1565a84d> | {
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Washington HawthornCrataegus phaenopyrum
The Washington hawthorn is a small, colorful tree that will brighten any landscape. Its pleasant display begins with reddish-purple leaves emerging in spring, then turning dark green as they are joined by a graceful display of white flowers. In autumn, the leaves turn orange, scarlet or purple. Red berries extend the colorful show into winter, often contrasting beautifully with the first winter snow.
Beyond its beauty, it also performs an important function in nature. A number of the songbirds rely on the tree’s late-season berries as a winter food source, making the Washington hawthorn a great choice for bird enthusiasts. | <urn:uuid:2e7daad7-f3cc-43db-b96e-c3eb3abcb4b4> | {
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Hold off on making those big decisions when you feel you have too much on your plate. Feeling stressed alters how you calculate risk and reward. It might be better to first focus on crossing the little things off your list until you feel more in control, and then try to conquer the big issues. A new article published in Current Directions in Psychological Science, reviews how, under stress, people tend to pay more attention to the upside of a possible outcome while discounting the downside.
When researchers induce stress on subjects in a controlled situation (by telling them they are required to give a public presentation, for example), they find that more attention is paid to positive information and less to the negative. A real life example would be when someone is stressed and deciding whether or not to take a new job, they may weigh the increase in salary more heavily than the longer working hours and decrease in free time.
“It’s a bit surprising that stress makes people focus on the way things could go right,” says Mara Mather in a press release. Dr. Mather, who co-wrote the review paper with Nichole R. Lighthall, is at the University of Southern California. “This is sort of not what people would think right off the bat,” Mather says. “Stress is usually associated with negative experiences, so you’d think, maybe I’m going to be more focused on the negative outcomes.”
Decision making involves complex and sometimes competing brain circuits that compute the potential or reward value of certain outcomes, versus those circuits that take into account uncertainty and risk. The authors find that stress enhances how “rewarding” we think a certain outcome may be by activating the dopamine/reward circuits of the brain. While it may seem counterintuitive, stress can help people learn from feedback that is positive, but impairs the integration of negative feedback.
The increased focus on the positive also helps explain why stress plays a role in addictions. Under stress, you would have a harder time controlling your urges. “The compulsion to get that reward comes stronger and they’re less able to resist it,” Mather says. A person who’s under stress might think only about the good feelings they’ll get from a drug, while the possible negative repercussions of taking the drug fade in comparison.
Their review also sheds light on the difference between the sexes when it comes to stress. Men under stress become more willing to take risks, while women become less likely to take risks.
Knowing that your decision-making abilities are affected by stress, you can optimize your results by taking a deep breath before making that big choice, or even postponing the decision until you feel more calm. When in doubt, remember to breathe. | <urn:uuid:de38f475-27f7-4f30-85f7-329184b39463> | {
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Photo courtesy of Mary Ellen (Mel) Harte, bugwood.org
Taraxacum officinale Weber.
Scientific Name Synonyms:
Life Span: Perennial
Growth Characteristics: A 5 to 40 inch tall forb with erect stems that contain a bitter, milky-white juice. It has a fleshy, deep taproot. It flowers April to October and reproduces from seeds and sprouts.
Flowers/Inflorescence: Yellow colored, located on the tip of the leafless stem. It becomes a ball of white silky bristles at maturity.
Fruits/Seeds:Seeds of dandelion are topped by a parachute of bristles that aid in dispersal.
Leaves: Basal, deeply lobed, 2 to 16 inches long, and forming a rosette. Surfaces of leaves can be lightly pubescent.
Dandelion is widespread throughout Utah and North America. It most commonly occurs in disturbed areas such as cut-over or burned forests, avalanche areas, overgrazed ranges, and marshy floodplains. It also occurs on highway and railroad rights-of-way, waste places, old fields, pastures, and lawns. It grows at elevations between 500 and 11,000 feet.
Dandelion can reproduce vegetatively by sprouting from the caudex after disturbance
Soils: Found on a variety of soils, but most common in heavy loams and sandy loams.
Associated Species: Foxtail barley, thistle, Kentucky bluegrass.
Uses and Management:
Dandelions provide fair to good forage for livestock and wildlife, and are readily eaten because they are relatively succulent. Antelope, as well as sage and forest grouse, use it heavily. It is a species that inhabits disturbed areas. It is generally abundant on overgrazed rangelands, but can also occur on well-managed ranges.
Young leaves can be eaten as spring greens. Roots can be ground and used as a coffee substitute, mild laxative, or to treat heartburn. It is a good honey plant. Tea and wine can be made from the flowers. Flowers can be fried in batter and eaten. | <urn:uuid:3d667183-4b6f-4cb9-bede-43109d491f5b> | {
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Are the cultural upheavals of the 1960s nothing more than a media myth, recycled as endless nostalgia? Woodstock, the Summer of Love, student protests, the debacle that was the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago evoke a period of material prosperity, cultural innovation, and youthful rebellion. But how far did the radical aspirations and utopian ideals really go? And what is the legacy of the social, political, and cultural transformations which characterized the decade?
In an interdisciplinary collection of specially commissioned essays, "Cultural Revolution?" uncovers the complex economic and political contexts in which these changes took place. Covering a wide variety of art forms--drama, television, music, film, poetry, literature, and the visual arts--the contributors investigate how the culture of the 1960s became politicized, and how its inherent contradictions still have repercussions for the arts today.
"Cultural Revolution?" will be an important resource for students and teachers involved in cultural studies, and media and communication studies. | <urn:uuid:d12db282-3aa4-4e6d-8b01-fd3fe61318de> | {
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In Western styles of music, from classical to pop, some combinations of notes are generally considered more pleasant than others. To most of our ears, a chord of C and G, for example, sounds much more agreeable than the grating combination of C and F# (which has historically been known as the “devil in music”).
For decades, neuroscientists have pondered whether this preference is somehow hardwired into our brains. A new study from MIT and Brandeis University suggests that the answer is no.
In a study of more than 100 people belonging to a remote Amazonian tribe with little or no exposure to Western music, the researchers found that dissonant chords such as the combination of C and F# were rated just as likeable as “consonant” chords, which feature simple integer ratios between the acoustical frequencies of the two notes.
“This study suggests that preferences for consonance over dissonance depend on exposure to Western musical culture, and that the preference is not innate,” says Josh McDermott, the Frederick A. and Carole J. Middleton Assistant Professor of Neuroscience in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT.
McDermott and Ricardo Godoy, a professor at Brandeis University, led the study, which appears in Nature on July 13. Alan Schultz, an assistant professor of medical anthropology at Baylor University, and Eduardo Undurraga, a senior research associate at Brandeis’ Heller School for Social Policy and Management, are also authors of the paper.
Consonance and dissonance
For centuries, some scientists have hypothesized that the brain is wired to respond favorably to consonant chords such as the fifth (so-called because one of the notes is five notes higher than the other). Musicians in societies dating at least as far back as the ancient Greeks noticed that in the fifth and other consonant chords, the ratio of frequencies of the two notes is usually based on integers — in the case of the fifth, a ratio of 3:2. The combination of C and G is often called “the perfect fifth.”
Others believe that these preferences are culturally determined, as a result of exposure to music featuring consonant chords. This debate has been difficult to resolve, in large part because nowadays there are very few people in the world who are not familiar with Western music and its consonant chords.
“It’s pretty hard to find people who don’t have a lot of exposure to Western pop music due to its diffusion around the world,” McDermott says. “Most people hear a lot of Western music, and Western music has a lot of consonant chords in it. It’s thus been hard to rule out the possibility that we like consonance because that’s what we’re used to, but also hard to provide a definitive test.”
In 2010, Godoy, an anthropologist who has been studying an Amazonian tribe known as the Tsimane for many years, asked McDermott to collaborate on a study of how the Tsimane respond to music. Most of the Tsimane, a farming and foraging society of about 12,000 people, have very limited exposure to Western music.
“They vary a lot in how close they live to towns and urban centers,” Godoy says. “Among the folks who live very far, several days away, they don’t have too much contact with Western music.”
The Tsimane’s own music features both singing and instrumental performance, but usually by only one person at a time.
The researchers did two sets of studies, one in 2011 and one in 2015. In each study, they asked participants to rate how much they liked dissonant and consonant chords. The researchers also performed experiments to make sure that the participants could tell the difference between dissonant and consonant sounds, and found that they could.
The team performed the same tests with a group of Spanish-speaking Bolivians who live in a small town near the Tsimane, and residents of the Bolivian capital, La Paz. They also tested groups of American musicians and nonmusicians.
“What we found is the preference for consonance over dissonance varies dramatically across those five groups,” McDermott says. “In the Tsimane it’s undetectable, and in the two groups in Bolivia, there’s a statistically significant but small preference. In the American groups it’s quite a bit larger, and it’s bigger in the musicians than in the nonmusicians.”
When asked to rate nonmusical sounds such as laughter and gasps, the Tsimane showed similar responses to the other groups. They also showed the same dislike for a musical quality known as acoustic roughness.
The findings suggest that it is likely culture, and not a biological factor, that determines the common preference for consonant musical chords, says Brian Moore, a professor of psychology at Cambridge University, who was not involved in the study.
“Overall, the results of this exciting and well-designed study clearly suggest that the preference for certain musical intervals of those familiar with Western music depends on exposure to that music and not on an innate preference for certain frequency ratios,” Moore says. | <urn:uuid:cca80181-3d57-423e-86c8-1a1c61851827> | {
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The Year 3 pupils have been linking their literacy learning with our science work. The children have been reading The Pebble in my Pocket. This book explains the geographical history of the earth.
This has led to the pupils looking at the life cycle of rocks. We have seen how lava erupts out of volcanoes to form igneous rock. Over time this becomes sedimentary rock. Extreme heat then transforms this to magma, and so the rock cycle starts once again.
Science investigations have been completed by Year 3. We have carried out a science experiment to see if all rocks sink in water. The pupils were surprised to find that pumice stone can float. We found that this is because it contains air pockets.
We also looked at the permeability of some rocks. This relates to how well a rock can hold out the water. Our experiment concluded that slate is very impermeable. This is why it is such a good material to use for roofs. | <urn:uuid:bd405c07-66e5-4c4d-9114-5c5c296caffa> | {
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Thanks to the Gulf Stream, Iceland enjoys a cool, temperate maritime climate; refreshing summers and fairly mild winters. The weather is also affected by the East Greenland polar current curving south-eastwards round the north and east coasts. As a result, sudden weather changes are common, and travelers should prepare accordingly.
Greenwich Mean Time (GMT)
Icelandic is the national language. English is spoken by most Icelanders and is the official second language taught in schools. Danish is the official third language taught in schools in Iceland.
Iceland / Ísland | <urn:uuid:97600b52-9359-4870-a3ee-6e0e26b4393b> | {
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Historical revisionism is the great intellectual adventure of the end of the 20th century.
Despite its size, the present handbook offers only a glimpse of that adventure; and so it seems necessary here first to specify the precise historical problem upon which the Revisionists have concentrated their research, then how revisionism arose in the 1940s and how it developed in the years 1950 to 1978; and finally how it really took off in the years 1978 to 1979, to experience such an increase in the present day that nothing any longer seems likely to halt its onward march.
In the Nuremberg Trial (1945-46), Germany had been judged and condemned for "crimes against peace", for "war crimes" and for "crimes against humanity". The Revisionists have been led in a way by their successive discoveries concerning these three points to call for a revision of the Nuremberg Trial. Regarding the first two points, the Revisionists have been able to present their arguments without too much difficulty, and it is probable that no serious historian today would contend that anyone is in a position to lecture Germany concerning "crimes against peace" and "war crimes": as a matter of fact, it has become evident that the Allies bear their share of responsibility in the starting of the war, and that they themselves committed in-numerable "war crimes" (if that expression has any meaning, given that war itself may be held a crime). On the other hand, concerning the third point, that is with regard to "crimes against humanity", they keep on dinning into our ears that Germany attained a peak of horror all her own with the 'genocide' of the Jews. It is on the study of this precise point that the Revisionists have specifically concentrated their efforts. And so, by degrees, historical revisionism has become what the Americans now call 'Holocaust revisionism'.
According to the accusers, Germany was not content just to persecute the Jews, to deport them and put them into concentration camps or forced labor camps; those 'crimes' - as every historian knows - are unfortunately frequent in the history of mankind, and we have only to turn on our TV sets today to note that all kinds of human societies continue to suffer such 'crimes'. Germany, her accusers still contend, went far beyond that. Taking a giant leap in horror, in 1941-1942 she allegedly decided on the total extermination of the European Jews, and in order to perpetrate this specific crime, supposedly devised and utilized a specific weapon: the homicidal gas chamber (or gas van). Making use of abominable chemical slaughterhouses, she allegedly began a collective assassination of industrial proportions. That crime (the genocide) and that weapon used in the crime (the homicidal gas chamber) are in that sense inseparable, and it is consequently impossible to maintain, as some do, "that whether or not there was a gas chamber makes no fundamental difference". Germany thus presumably committed an intrinsically evil crime against the Jews. The Jews say further that the whole world knowingly allowed the Germans to perpetrate that crime. The paradoxical result of so enormous an accusation is that today in the dock of the accused, 'criminals' Hitler, Himmler, and Goering are joined by their 'accomplices', Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin, Pope Pius XII, and the International Committee of the Red Cross, as well as the representatives of many other countries and organizations.
Things are such that in the United States, for instance, from Los Angeles to Washington, they hammer away at it in the 'Holocaust museums', where today's Jews have set themselves up as accusers of the whole world; they go so far as to incriminate the Jews in positions of responsibility who were living in Europe, in America, or in Palestine during the war: they have the effrontery to reproach them for their collaboration or their indifference, or for the spinelessness of their reaction to the 'systematic extermination' of their co-religionists.
The earliest rumors of a gassing of Jews by the Germans apparently circulated in December of 1941 in the Warsaw ghetto. But throughout the war such rumors found only a feeble echo in circles hostile to Germany. One has only to read a book such as that of Walter Laqueur's The Terrible Secret to realize that the skepticism was general. People still held long-lived memories during the Second World War of the invention of atrocities during the First World War, when stories were already being spread about the gassing of civilians (in churches or elsewhere), as well as stories about corpse factories. The Foreign Office saw the new rumors of the Second World War only as Jewish inventions, and many in American circles shared that conviction. Edward Beneš, President of Czechoslovakia (in exile in London), announced in November 1942, after inquiry by his staff, that the Germans, contrary to what had been reported to him, were not exterminating the Jews. The American Jew, Felix Frankfurter, a Supreme Court judge, stated to Jan Karski on the subject: "I can't believe you." In August of 1943, Cordell Hull, Secretary of State, warned the U.S. ambassador in Moscow by telegram that in planning a joint Allied statement on "the German crimes in Poland", it would be advisable to eliminate any mention of the gas chambers, since, as the British pointed out, there was "insufficient evidence" in the matter.
Even after the war, high-ranking Allied officials such as Eisenhower, Churchill and De Gaulle, in their respective memoirs, would refrain from mentioning the existence and operation of 'Nazi gas chambers'. In a manner of speaking, all these skeptics were in their own way Revisionists. Neither the Vatican, nor the International Committee of the Red Cross, nor the anti-German Resistance acted as if they put any faith in the rumors which, moreover, took the most fantastic forms: invariably the Germans were said to be exterminating the Jews, but as to the methods of extermination they were most varied: steam, gas, electricity, fire, acid, an injection of air, drowning, vacuum pump, etc. Why gas wound up the winner in the Greuelpropaganda competition is not exactly known.
The Frenchman Paul Rassinier was the first true Revisionist of the postwar period. In 1950, this former deportee began to denounce the "myth of the gas chambers" in Le Mensonge d'Ulysse and in a whole series of works. In 1976, the American engineer Arthur Robert Butz published The Hoax of the Twentieth Century which is the most profound revisionist work written to date on the subject of the alleged genocide and the gas chambers. In 1979, a German judge, Dr. Wilhelm Stäglich, in turn published Der Auschwitz Mythos, a study devoted principally to the manner in which the German courts of law were able to collaborate in the fabrication of a myth, somewhat the same way that the judges of the witchcraft trials in the past, above all from 1450 to 1650, lent their support to even the most preposterous stories told about the stake, the grill and Satan's ovens.
Without wishing to diminish the great importance of Paul Rassinier, of Arthur Butz, and of Wilhelm Stäglich, I hope I may be permitted to say that, at the end of the seventies, revisionism would for once become materialistic and scientific with the research conducted on the ground by Ditlieb Felderer, the Swedish Revisionist, as well as with my own discoveries at Auschwitz proper, my observations on the use of Zyklon B for disinfestation (de-lousing), and my reflections on the utilization of hydrogen cyanide gas in the gas chambers of US-American penitentiaries for the execution of men condemned to death. Neither Rassinier, nor Butz, nor Stäglich had gone to Poland to the supposed sites of the crime, and none of them, moreover, had really utilized to their fullest extent the arguments of a physical, chemical, topographical, and architectural nature which today, following the investigations of D. Felderer and my own inquiries, are currently employed by the younger generation of revisionist researchers. As for the Jewish researchers, who defend the theory of the extermination of the Jews, they have resolutely remained what I call paper historians: Léon Poliakov and Raul Hilberg have stayed with paper and words and in the realm of speculation.
It is surprising that this vast field of properly scientific argument was not seen by Germany, which has so many chemists and engineers, and by the USA, itself with no lack of scientific minds who even had the examples right there before them of their own gas chambers using hydrogen cyanide. In 1976 at Auschwitz, I discovered both the exact configuration of the crematories that were supposed to contain homicidal gas chambers, of the delousing gas chambers (Entlausungsgaskammern), and the plans (hidden until then) of certain crematories. In 1978/1979, I published two articles in Le Monde in which I summarized some of my discoveries. In 1979, at the first conference of the Institute for Historical Review, in Los Angeles, I presented those discoveries in detail. Among those present in the audience was one Ernst Zündel, a German now living in Toronto. From 1985 on, this man would prove to be the most ardent, the most effective, and also - though many seem not to know it - one of the most innovative minds among all the Revisionists. He was the first to understand why I so insisted on the chemical argument and, in particular, on the importance that the technology of the American gas chambers in the thirties and forties had for us. He understood why I wanted a specialist in these American gas chambers to go and examine the alleged execution gas chambers on the spot, in Poland. Thanks to my correspondence with American penitentiaries in the seventies, I had already discovered such a specialist in the person of Fred Leuchter, but it was Ernst Zündel, and he alone, who had the brilliant idea of asking him not only to make an examination of the buildings, but to take constituent samples of material from the disinfestation gas chambers on the one hand and from the alleged execution gas chambers on the other. In February of 1988, he took the risk of sending Fred Leuchter and an entire team to Poland at his own expense to study the alleged gas chambers of Auschwitz, Birkenau and Majdanek. The results of the study of the buildings and of the analysis of the samples taken proved spectacular and totally in favor of the revisionist thesis. In the following years, other reports would confirm the basic accuracy of the Leuchter Report: first the very learned report of Germar Rudolf, then the involved and secret specialist's report of the Poles, and finally the study of the Austrian Walter Lüftl.
It only remains to be said that if Germany's accusers are not satisfied with these studies, they are at liberty to initiate their own specialist's report. What has kept them from doing it publicly, in broad daylight, these past fifty years?
We must understand the disarray of Germany's accusers in the face of revisionism's successes. For half a century they have sincerely believed that the tragedy undergone by the Jews during the Second World War was of exceptional seriousness and magnitude, whereas, when reduced to its proper proportions - that is, without genocide and without gas chambers - their tragedy was just one of many other tragedies of that terrible conflict. Under the thrust of revisionist inquiries their historians step by step have had to admit
"sources for the study of the gas chambers are at once rare and unreliable [...]. Besides, from 1942 to 1945, certainly at Auschwitz, but probably overall, more Jews were killed by so-called 'natural' causes [starvation, disease, sickness and overwork] than by 'unnatural' ones."
Since 2 July 1982, at the end of an international symposium the exterminationists had organized at the Sorbonne (Paris) to attempt to answer me, they had shown themselves incapable of producing the slightest proof of the existence and the operation of a single gas chamber. In March of 1992, I hurled my challenge:
"Show me or draw me a Nazi gas chamber!"
Jean-Claude Pressac, on whom the exterminationists so much counted, had proven himself incapable of bringing forth anything but what he called "traces of the crime", and he had taken great care not to provide us with a total physical representation of the weapon used in the crime.
On 30 August 1994, I had a meeting with Michael Berenbaum, the scientific director of the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, in his office and in the presence of four witnesses (two on his side and two on mine). I forced him to admit that, paradoxically, his museum contained no actual representation of a 'Nazi gas chamber' (the model of Krema II being only an artistic creation bearing no relation to reality). I asked him why. He finally re-plied:
"The decision had been made [by us] not to give any physical representation of the Nazi gas chambers."
His response was equivalent to that of a Catholic priest - Mr. Berenbaum is a Jewish theologian - who decided to eliminate any representation of the cross from his church. To be driven to such extremities, one must surely feel that he has his back to the wall.
I think that the co-religionists of Mr. Berenbaum will at last abandon the gas chamber as they have abandoned the Jewish soap and the Auschwitz 4 million. They will go farther than that. As in the two previous cases, they will present themselves as the discoverers of the myth and accuse the Germans, the Poles, or the Communists of having fabricated the 'myth of the gas chambers'. In support of their impudent thesis, they will then invoke the names of Jews who are Revisionists totally or in part (J.G. Burg, Jean-Gabriel Cohn-Bendit, Roger-Guy Dommergue, Arno Mayer, David Cole, Christopher Hitchens, Joel Hayward ¼ ). They will then assign themselves the starring role.
At the same time, however, transforming the 'Holocaust' of the Jews into a religious belief, this time divested of all material content, they will be only the more inflexible in denouncing authentic Revisionists as 'deniers', or 'negationists', as being intolerant, heartless, basely materialistic and hostile to the free expression of religious sentiments. For those Jews, the true Revisionists will thus continue to be diabolical in spirit even if they must be acknowledged to be in the right from a factual point of view.
The Revisionists are neither diabolical nor negative. By no means are they 'naysayers'. They are positive in outlook. At the conclusion of their research - which is positivist in character - they affirm that certain beliefs are just myths. Such myths are harmful in that they feed hatred. The Revisionists strive to describe what has taken place and not what has not taken place. In sum and substance, what they proclaim to a wretched humanity is good news. Seeking only historical accuracy, they find themselves fighting against calumny and for justice. They have suffered and they will continue to suffer, but I believe, all things considered, that history will declare them right and render them justice.
Robert Faurisson, September 23, 1994Notes: | <urn:uuid:98eb2187-a08e-49b8-986d-c983c82313f7> | {
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Electricity was discovered and harnessed over 200 years ago, but for most of its 100-plus years powered flight has relied on hydrocarbon energy and hydraulic force. That is changing, fast. Aircraft designers recognise the benefits of an all-electric systems architecture. No more pipes and pumps, filters and vales, regulators and reservoirs, and the ability to channel the energy wherever it is needed whenever it is needed.
The Boeing 787 and Lockheed Martin F-35 are the first big steps in that direction. But they still draw the energy to propel the vehicle and power its systems from hydrocarbon fuel. Now the first small steps towards electric propulsion are being taken. France is claiming the first flight of an electrically powered aircraft with the 23 December debut of the Electra, a single-seat ultralight powered by a 25hp electric motor and lithium polymer batteries.
The 49min flight round a 50km closed circuit was a “world premier”, says APAME, the French association for electric-powered aircraft. The retro-looking Electra was conceived and built by ACV Aero Service and Electravia, with French aerospace laboratory Onera helping with the aircraft’s “silent propeller”.
At Oshkosh in June, Sonex Aircraft and motor developer AeroConversions unveiled the E-Flight Initiative to fly a Waiex kitplane on electric power, lithium polymer batteries providing up to 45min endurance at speeds up to 130mph.
Boeing’s Madrid research centre, meanwhile, is preparing a hybrid fuel-cell/battery-powered two-seater for flight tests. The modified Diamond Dimona motorglider will use the fuel cell to cruise at around 62mph, but will take-off and climb on lithium-ion battery power. Boeing says it will be the first demonstration that a manned aircraft can maintain level flight on fuel cells only.
They are small steps, but the age of electricity is coming to aviation. | <urn:uuid:9eaa7078-2e07-4507-8265-5d4a1b94811e> | {
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Reputedly the oldest chronological record in history, the ancient Chinese Lunar Calendar dates back beyond 2,600 BC. Based on the appearance of the new moon, it associates a different animal with each year in the 12 year lunar cycle.
Traditionally, the first year of the lunar cycle is ‘ruled’ by the mouse. According to legend, the order of the animals in Chinese astrology was determined by their race across a river. Unknown to the ox, the mouse hitched a ride on its back, leaping to victory at the very last second. The tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, rooster, dog and pig followed the quick thinking mouse and the flabbergasted ox to dry land.
In Chinese culture, each animal is believed to influence the personality of the people born under its ‘rule’. The following table makes it easy to determine your most likely lunar animal. The exact dates of the current lunar year, which are dictated by the appearance of the new moon, are included below.
Year of the Pig – 5 February 2019 to 24 January 2020
The pig is the twelfth and final animal of the Chinese zodiac. People born under this sign are said to be diligent, generous and compassionate.
The mild mannered, easy-going pig is calm in the face of danger, and represents good fortune and wealth.
Famous people born in the Year of the Pig include Elvis Presley (1935), David Bowie (1947), Alfred Hitchcock (1899), Henry Ford (1863), and Humphrey Bogart (1899).
Year of the Dog – 16 February 2018 to 4 February 2019
The dog is the eleventh animal in the 12-year cycle of the Chinese zodiac. People born under the influence of the dog are said to be good-natured, loyal, kind, and sincere.
Fiercely loyal to those that they love, the dog will do anything for friends and family. They value honour, respect tradition and enjoy helping people.
Famous people born in the Year of the Dog include Vince Vaughan (1970), Madonna (1958), Bill Clinton (1946), and Winston Churchill (1874).
Year of the Rooster– 28 January 2017 to 16 February 2018
The rooster is the tenth animal in the 12-year cycle of the Chinese zodiac. People born under the influence of this sign are said to be highly motivated, hardworking and multi-talented.
The talkative Rooster can be quite social and enjoys being in a group setting or crowd, where they can display their many talents and skills.
Famous people born in the Year of the Rooster include Beyoncé Knowles (1981), Steffi Graf (1969), Goldie Hawn (1945), Groucho Marx (1890) and Eric Clapton (1945).
Year of the Monkey– 8 February 2016 to 27 January 2017
The Monkey ranks as the ninth animal in the 12-year cycle of the Chinese zodiac. The Monkey is a symbol of health and wealth and those born under the influence of this sign are said to be intelligent, quick-witted and adventurous.
People born in the Year of the Monkey are always interested in learning and new experiences. They are ambitious, optimistic and can be seen as impulsive. Monkeys are smart with their money and opportunities, pictures of monkeys are often placed on doors and walls to bring good fortune and wealth.
Famous people born in the Year of the Monkey include Leonardo da Vinci (1452), Tom Hanks (1956), Will Smith (1968), and Elizabeth Taylor (1932).
Year of the Goat– 8 February 2015 to 7 February 2016
The goat is the eighth sign of the Chinese zodiac. The goat is a symbol of independence and curiosity and those born under the influence of the sign are said to be elegant, charming, artistic, gifted and calm.
People born in the Year of the Goat are artistic, kind, inspired, very empathetic, and naturally creative. They appreciate beauty in all its forms and have a tendency to be introspective.
Famous people born in the Year of the Goat include Julia Roberts (1967), Mick Jagger (1943) and Bill Gates (1955).
Year of the Horse– 31 January 2014 to 18 February 2015
The horse is the seventh sign of the Chinese zodiac. The horse is a symbol of happiness and liberty and those born under the influence of the sign are said to be fiercely independent, hardworking, energetic, optimistic and animated.
Always the life of the party, people born in the Year of the Horse are popular with a passion for entertainment and large crowds. Quick-witted and clever, the horse is a master of repartee, amusing and delighting his audience wherever he goes.
Famous people born in the Year of the Horse include James Dean (1931), Frederic Chopin (1810), Jerry Seinfeld (1954), Barbara Streisand (1942), President Teddy Roosevelt (1858) and Oprah Winfrey (1954).
Year of the Snake– 10 February 2013 to 30 January 2014
The snake is the sixth sign of the Chinese zodiac. The snake is a symbol of wisdom and is believed to bring good luck and prosperity.
Those born under the influence of this sign are said to be wise, independent, analytical, graceful and charming. They are natural leaders, known for their courage and determination.
Famous people born in the year of the snake include Abraham Lincoln (1809), Mohandas Gandhi (1869), John F Kennedy (1917), and Martin Luther King (1929).
Year of the Dragon – 23 January 2012 to 9 February 2013
The Dragon is the fifth sign of the Chinese Zodiac. The Dragon is a symbol of power and wealth and is believed to bring good fortune and prosperity.
People born in the year of the dragon have a natural charisma, ambition and determination. They are natural organizers, known for their positive attitude and vibrant personalities.
Famous people born in the Year of the Dragon include Sigmund Freud (1856), Salvadore Dali (1904), John Lennon (1940), Al Pacino (1940) and Keanu Reeves (1964).
Year of the Rabbit – 3 February 2011 to 22 January 2012
The Rabbit is the fourth sign of the Chinese Zodiac. The rabbit is a particularly lucky emblem and those born under this sign are believed to have an uncanny gift for choosing the right thing.
Well-respected and wise, people with ‘rabbit’ personalities are renowned for their excellent memories and good taste. They make honourable and successful business partners and are also conservative by nature.
Famous people born in the Year of the Rabbit include Brad Pitt (1963), Angelina Jolie (1975), George Orwell (1903), Germaine Greer (1939), Albert Einstein (1879), and Confucius (551BC).
Year of the Tiger – 14 February 2010 to 2 February 2011
According to ancient Chinese mythology, beneath the calm exterior of people born in the Year of the Tiger lies the courageous and competitive personality of a natural leader.
Well-liked, people with ‘tiger’ personalities are charming, affectionate and passionate. Prepared to take risks, they remain optimistic in the knowledge that they will always land on their feet. Above all, the tiger symbolises power and daring.
Famous people born in the Year of the Tiger include Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II (1926), Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890), Sir Richard Branson (1950), and Steve Irwin (1962).
Year of Year of the Ox – 26 January 2009 to 14 February 2010
Calm, confident and determined, these people reject get-rich-quick schemes and are prepared to work hard to make their fortune.
Said to make good leaders, people born in the Year of the Ox can be inspirational to others, usually make good parents, and possess an innate ability to achieve great things.
Intelligent, tolerant, easygoing and self-assured, they are often regarded as dependable, patient and modest. Most compatible with people born in the Year of the Rat or the Year of the Dragon, they also exhibit the need for financial and emotional security.
Year of the Mouse -7 February 2008 to 25 January 2009
These people are said to possess enterprising spirits and are willing to work hard to achieve their goals. They love spending money and accumulating possessions. However, they should show restraint to avoid be labelled as greedy.
People born in the Year of the Mouse are also regarded as quick-witted and insightful, which equips them to succeed at almost anything. Ambition fuels their success, but sometimes it’s a stumbling block, particularly if they take on too many projects at once.
People born under the influence of the mouse are generally positive, cheerful, optimistic and charming, enabling them to make friends easily. They are most compatible with people born in the Years of the Dragon and Monkey. | <urn:uuid:e16c730d-d55c-41bb-a26c-3d642357cf04> | {
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In the past 10 to 20 years, there has been a fundamental change in the way mental illnesses are viewed and treated. Simply put, we now know that people can improve and recover from even the most serious mental illnesses. Also, we know that people recover better when their treatment is focused on meeting their individual needs
Mental health professionals and other health care providers are in a unique position to impact the lives of people with mental illnesses. Because of their scientific knowledge and special relationship with mental health consumers, providers have a singular opportunity through their attitudes and practices to promote self-esteem, self-efficacy, decision making about treatment, illness self-management practices, and recovery.
This section will help care providers learn more about issues related to mental illnesses and the people who have them. | <urn:uuid:13483f7d-a44a-493d-8d00-7ea44fe5d2ce> | {
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Redirected from Thomas Beckett
He was born in London between 1110 and 1120. His parents were of the middle class, and his family was from near Rouen in France. He received an excellent education, which he completed at the University of Paris.
Returning to England, he attracted the notice of Theobald, Archbishop of Canterbury, who entrusted him with several important missions to Rome and finally made him archdeacon of Canterbury and provost of Beverley. He so distinguished himself by his zeal and efficiency that Theobald commended him to King Henry II when the important office of chancellor was vacant.
Henry, like all the Norman kings, desired to be absolute master of his dominions, in both Church and State, and could well appeal to the traditions of his house when he planned to do away with the special privileges of the English clergy, which he regarded as so many fetters on his authority. Becket struck him as an instrument well adapted for the accomplishment of his designs; the young man showed himself an accomplished courtier and cheerful companion in the king's pleasures and devoted to his master's interests with such a firm and yet diplomatic thoroughness that scarcely anyone, unless perhaps it was John of Salisbury, could have doubted that he had gone over completely to the royal side. King Henry even sent his son Henry, later the "Young King", to live in Becket's household, it being the custom then for noble children to be fostered out to other noble houses. Later that would be one of the reasons his son would turn against him, having formed an emotional attachment to Becket as a foster-father.
Archbishop Theobald died April 18, 1161, and the chapter learned with some indignation that the king expected them to choose Thomas his successor. That election took place in May, however, and Thomas was consecrated on June 3, 1162.
In the schism which at that time divided the Church, he declared for Pope Alexander III, a man whose devotion to the same strict hierarchical principles appealed to him, and from Alexander he received the pallium at the Council of Tours[?].
On his return to England, Becket proceeded at once to put into execution the project he had formed for the liberation of the Church of England from the very limitations which he had formerly helped to enforce. His aim was twofold: the complete exemption of the Church from all civil jurisdiction, with undivided control of the clergy, freedom of appeal, etc., and the acquisition and security of as independent fund of church property.
The king was not slow to perceive the inevitable outcome of the archbishop's attitude and called a meeting of the clergy at Westminster (October 1, 1163) at which he demanded that they renounce all claim to exemption from civil jurisdiction and acknowledge the equality of all subjects before the law. The others were inclined to yield, but the archbishop stood firm. Henry was not ready for an open breach and offered to be content with a more general acknowledgment and recognition of the "customs of his ancestors." Thomas was willing to agree to this, with the significant reservation "saving the rights of the Church." But this involved the whole question at issue, and Henry left London in anger.
Henry called another assembly at Clarendon[?] for January 30, 1164, at which he presented his demands in sixteen constitutions. What he asked involved the abandonment of the clergy's independence and of their direct connection with Rome; he employed all his arts to induce their consent and was apparently successful with all but the primate.
Finally even Becket expressed his willingness to agree to the constitutions; but when it came to the actual signature, he definitely refused. This meant war between the two powers. Henry endeavoured to rid himself of his antagonist by judicial process and summoned him to appear before a great council at Northampton on October 8, 1164, to answer charges of contempt of royal authority and malfeasance in the chancellor's office.
Becket denied the right of the assembly to judge him, appealed to the pope, and, feeling that his life was too valuable to the Church to be risked, went into voluntary exile on November 2, embarking in a fishing-boat which landed him in France. He went to Sens, where Pope Alexander was, while envoys from the king hastened to work against him, requesting that a legate should be sent to England with plenary authority to settle the dispute. Alexander declined, and when, the next day, Becket arrived and gave him a full account of the proceedings, he was still more confirmed in his aversion to the king.
Henry pursued the fugitive archbishop with a series of edicts, aimed at all his friends and supporters as well as Becket himself; but Louis VII of France received him with respect and offered him protection. He spent newly two years in the Cistercian abbey of Pontigny[?], until Henry's threats against the order obliged him to move to Sens again.
Becket regarded himself as in full possession of all his prerogatives and desired to see his position enforced by the weapons of excommunication and interdict. But Alexander, though sympathizing with him in theory, was for a milder and more diplomatic way of reaching his ends. Differences thus arose between pope and archbishop, which became even more bitter when legates were sent in 1167 with authority to act as arbitrators. Disregarding this limitation on his jurisdiction, and steadfast in his principles, Thomas treated with the legates at great length, still conditioning his obedience to the king by the rights of his order.
His firmness seemed about to meet with its reward when at last (1170) the pope was on the point of fulfilling his threats and excommunicating the king, and Henry, alarmed by the prospect, held out hopes of an agreement that would allow Thomas to return to England and resume his place. But both parties were really still holding to their former ground, and the desire for a reconciliation was only apparent.
Both, however, seem for the moment to have believed in its possibility, and the contrast was all the sharper when it became evident that the old irreconcilable opposition was still there. Henry, incited by his partizans, refused to restore the ecclesiastical property that he had seized, and Thomas prepared to issue the pope's sentence against the despoilers of the Church and the bishops who had abetted them. It had been already sent to England for promulgation when he himself landed at Sandwich, on December 3, 1170, and two days later entered Canterbury.
The tension was now too great to be endured, and the catastrophe that relieved it was not long in coming. A passionate word of the angry king was taken as authority by four knights -- Reginald Fitzurse[?], Hugh de Moreville[?], William de Tracey[?], and Richard le Breton -- who immediately plotted the murder of the archbishop, and accomplished it near the altar in his own Canterbury Cathedral on December 29.
1173, while on July 12 of the following year Henry humbled himself to do public penance at the tomb of his enemy, which remained one of the most popular places of pilgrimage in England until it was destroyed in the Dissolution of the Monasteries. A shrine was later re-established there and remains popular with tourists today.
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"Geometry All around us"
Period 4, Causey
Is it possible to prove the above highlighted triangles congruent? If so, what postulate would you use?
What kind of triangle is highlighted in the picture above?
You are given that ΔBAC is isosceles and the measure of angle C = 57º. What is the measure of angle A?
What is the relationship between angles 2 and 6 if lines a and b are parallel?
What is the converse of the above statement?
How would you describe the relationship between these two lines?
What is this pattern of repeating shapes called?
The above triangles are similar. What is the scale factor of the larger triangle one to the smaller triangle?
What is the contrapositive of the above statement?
Find the measures of the two missing angles.
1.) Yes, it is possible to prove the two highlighted triangles congruent. You would use the HL postulate (Hypotenuse-Leg).
2.) The highlighted triangle is an isosceles triangle.
3.) The measure of angle A is 66°.
4.) Angles 2 and 6 are corresponding angles.
5.) If you can believe, you can wish.
6.) The two lines are perpendicular.
7.) A pattern of repeating shapes such as this is a tessellation.
8.) The scale factor is 5.
9.) If you do not hit that bridge, you will not hit this sign.
10.) The measure of each missing angle is 35°. | <urn:uuid:7c959f6d-3087-4b79-8fbd-1c4185ba28b5> | {
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Giving vitamin supplements to infants just might increase their risk of developing asthma or food allergies, according to a study reported at a major pediatric conference. The findings could help explain an epidemic of allergies and asthma among children in the United States, but more research is needed to confirm the association. The study, presented at the 2003 Pediatric Academic Societies meeting in Seattle, followed more than 8,000 infants from birth to age three. The link between vitamin supplements and allergies and asthma was strongest for formula-fed African-American children, who were almost twice as likely to develop food allergies and one-and-a-half times as likely to develop asthma if they were given vitamins during their first six months. The study comes just a month after the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommended vitamin D supplements for infants. The group noted that vitamin D deficiency is a particular problem for breastfed infants, because breast milk contains little of the vitamin. Vitamin D is needed for the absorption of calcium to develop strong bones.With Belle, I knew our doctor didn't recommend the vitamins, but I didn't ask why. I wanted to supplement anyway, because I was concerned about her not getting enough vitamin D, since we live in a northern latitude and are darker skinned, which means we need more sunlight to get enough vitamin D. (Vitamin D deficiency has been linked to multiple sclerosis, which runs in my family.) But in light of the asthma/allergy study, I guess I'll skip the vitamins for Wes and just make sure we get outside enough every week -- even through the winter. This article on Kellymom has a lot of good information on breastfeeding and vitamin D. It cites studies that say about 2.5 hours per week, or 20 minutes a day should be enough. That squares with what our doctor said. Also, the fact that Wes was born in August -- after I had spent the whole summer out in the sun -- should mean that he has a good buildup of vitamin D in his system:
During pregnancy: The primary source of vitamin D for babies, other than sunlight, is the stores that were laid down in baby's body prior to birth. Per [Hamosh 1991, p. 155], several studies "suggest that infants born to mothers with inadequate vitamin D status are highly dependent on a regular supply of vitamin D through diet, supplements or exposure to ultraviolet light." Because mom's vitamin D status during pregnancy directly affects baby's vitamin D stores at birth and particularly during the first 2-3 months, it would be very helpful for pregnant women to make sure they are getting enough vitamin D. It is easy to determine if mom is vitamin D deficient by using a simple blood test to check parathyroid hormones. If these hormones are elevated, it can indicate a deficiency in vitamin D. Baby's fetal stores of vitamin D are sufficient for around 3 months if baby gets very little sunlight, but will last much longer if baby is exposed to sunlight regularly.Full story »
The latest news about calcium and vitamin D may not look so encouraging, but most experts say the take-home message is the same: Keep taking your pills. The biggest study ever to examine the value of the supplements suggests they convey only limited protection against broken bones. They failed to protect against most fractures in the mostly low-risk women, but seemed to offer some benefit against hip breaks among women over 60 and those who took the pills most faithfully. The outcome could affect an enormous number of people, since an estimated 10 million Americans have break-prone bones thanks to osteoporosis. One of two women will suffer such a fracture in her lifetime.I've been taking calcium citrate supplements for years, on the advice of my doctor, because of my body type (not a whole lotta muscle here). So on one hand, this would be great -- maybe I could stop taking those horse pills three times a day, and that would shave a bit off our monthly grocery bill. But on the other hand, what then? If calcium helps bone density, but it doesn't necessarily prevent fractures, what will? Maybe I should get back into weight training, also recommended by my doctor. But ugh, I'm so lazy. Comments? Email me. Also, check out the Parenting Forum. Full story »
The reason is that vitamin D increasingly seems important for preventing and even treating many types of cancer. In the last three months alone, four separate studies found it helped protect against lymphoma and cancers of the prostate, lung and, ironically, the skin. The strongest evidence is for colon cancer. Many people arent getting enough vitamin D. Its hard to do from food and fortified milk alone, and supplements are problematic. So the thinking is this: Even if too much sun leads to skin cancer, which is rarely deadly, too little sun may be worse.As the weather warms up and we're starting to spend lots of time outdoors, I have felt borderline neglectful if I let Belle outside without sunscreen (which I do occasionally, because I want her to get Vitamin D for another reason). So I guess I can relax about letting her skin (and mine) soak up some sunshine, as long as she doesn't ever burn or get really tanned. Comments? Email me. Also, check out the Parenting Forum. Full story »
Because this study follows children who received treatment for their iron deficiency, and yet they still showed ill effects up to adulthood, Lozoff said it emphasizes the importance of preventing infant iron deficiency in the first place. Iron-deficiency anemia affects about 25 percent of infants worldwide and twice as many have iron deficiency without anemia. Many poor and minority children in the United States are also affected. During development, iron performs a variety of important roles. Iron is required to build myelin, which covers nerves and helps them share signals more efficiently, for example. Iron is also needed for brain chemicals, such as the neurotransmitter dopamine, which sends signals within the brain. Iron deficiency also differentially affects the hippocampus, which is involved in certain types of memory and other important processes.We're now giving Belle vitamin drops that contain iron. Post your comments here. Full story »
"It's pretty clear that when levels of vitamin D are too low, there's a greater tendency for cells that cause autoimmune problems to come out in those genetically susceptible people," Cantorna tells WebMD. "And it's pretty clear that taking supplemental vitamin D is a good idea. You're hard-pressed to get enough vitamin D solely from food or from sunlight in the winter."Yet another reason to make sure both Belle and I get plenty of vitamin D. I think I'll 'fess up to the ped. Post your comments here. Full story »
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The U.S. Forest Service released a report Wednesday, saying three-quarters of rangelands are in relatively good ecological shape and that there's enough forage for wildlife and livestock.
But the report says there are thousands of non-native plant species in the U.S. and the 16 most pervasive ones have affected 126 million acres. In some regions, invasive plants are spreading at a rate of more than six square miles a day.
Most rangelands are in the West.
Federal officials say the size and scope of the problem make determining the amount of effort needed to combat invasive species difficult. The report notes that in 2000, the damage and control efforts resulting from the annual costs of invasive plants was about $137 billion. | <urn:uuid:1c2e9d1f-3838-4c5e-8342-0571ffa2535e> | {
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Julia Child's lectern was a kitchen island, and she had a television crew at her feet while she spoke. Because her show, "The French Chef," was a public television show on a tight budget, she was encouraged to talk and not stop—if possible—to avoid racking up overtime charges.
And while speaking for nearly half an hour, she had to make a classic French dish from scratch, explaining clearly how you could make the same dish in your kitchen. You should try it sometime.
Anyone whose public speaking consists of training, teaching or lecturing would do well to study Child's first and most famous television series, "The French Chef." Launched in 1963, it revolutionized how Americans cooked at home, created a new vision of what public television could be, and stands as a great example of instructional speaking.
"I won't do anything unless I'm told why I'm doing it," Child told Terry Gross in an interview. "So I felt that we needed fuller explanations so that if you followed one of those recipes, it should turn out exactly right."
She became the model to follow, and while today food television has its own channel, Child was a pioneer in teaching cooking on television.
Watch any episode of "The French Chef" and consider it a recipe for public speaking. The episodes mix clear explanations and definitions with a dash of humor, and a flurry of demonstrations with props (e.g. kitchen tools and food).
In this episode, Child shows and tells us how to make a quiche lorraine from scratch. "I'll give full details as we go along," she reassures her viewers. And she does.
Watch Quiche Lorraine on PBS. See more from The French Chef.
Here's what you can learn about public speaking from Julia Child:
1. Musicality helps you vocalize and emphasize points.
Much has been made—and made funny—about Child's voice. But if you listen to her, its musicality shines through. It's a quality that helps her vocalize better. She emphasizes particular words with different tones and rhythms.
In an instructional show that conveyed hundreds of facts and nuances, that vocal variety helped her to hold viewers' attention and direct them to what was most important.
2. Enthusiasm carries the instruction.
Audiences loved watching Child cook—whether live or on television—primarily because her enjoyment and enthusiasm were evident as she worked. If she loved a dish, ingredient, or particular kitchen tool, you knew it.
Too often speakers who train or teach forget they can captivate audiences with their enthusiasm. Here, it's a vital ingredient in Child's success as a speaker.
3. Descriptions and details can help your viewers "see."
Shut your eyes and listen to Child walk you through the recipe. You'll be able to see it in your mind's eye because she's so deft at creating what I call "invisible visuals." They make her instructions easier to remember. This is another key ingredient when you speak to instruct an audience.
Denise Graveline is the president of don't get caught, a communications consultancy. She also writes The Eloquent Woman blog, where a version of this article originally ran. | <urn:uuid:80ed40d0-ec97-4ede-98e6-4e35f6662f96> | {
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Hallowe’en can be an exciting time for kids but parents or caregivers are encouraged to follow some important food safety tips to ensure kids and adults stay safe.
Trick or Treating
- If candy treats are not commercially wrapped, or are found in torn, damaged or loose packages, throw them out!
- Wash your hands before opening and eating candy treats.
- Remove any choking hazards such as gum, peanuts, hard candies or small toys from the loot bags of young children.
- Wash fresh fruit thoroughly and cut it open before allowing a child to eat it. Inspect for holes, including small punctures and cuts, and if any, do not let children or adults eat the fruit. When in doubt – throw it out!
- Avoid giving out treats that may contain ingredients like peanuts, milk and egg. These ingredients can cause severe reactions in individuals who have allergies or sensitivities. Parents or caregivers of children with food allergies should read labels carefully and avoid candies that do not have an ingredient list.
Wise advise for kids
- It’s wise to instruct kids not to eat any goodies or give any goodies to their friends until their parents see them first. | <urn:uuid:ac31fcf2-8dfa-41c2-a4ac-7d74e00ac2b1> | {
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Other hand held props
Bell, eboshi hat, and fan in Sanbasō
GloPAD image 1007219
In general, there are two kinds of tenugui, crepe cloths called chirimen and cotton cloths. Almost all tenugui have patterns, as well as performer’s crests. Crepe cloths are often used by female roles as seen in “Musume Dōjōji” and “Sagi Musume,” while cotton cloths are often used as a part of costumes such as hachimaki (a headband) or a hood. Tenugui, in mitate, are used to stand for oars or ropes, but they are also used directly to express sorrow or pouting with the cloth clenched in the performer’s mouth.
The odamaki is a spindle of thread, and looks like a bobbin winder on a stick, with many layers of hemp yarn wound around its hollow center. It is sometimes written in different kanji 小田巻. This prop is used as a symbol of love in the Tokiwazu version of “Imoseyama Michiyuki,” in which two odamaki with red yarn and white yarn are used. In the Kiyomoto version of “Ryūsei,” odamaki with five color yarn is used and to stand for an umbrella and shaku (a ritual baton) in mitate and it is also an emblem of weaving, as a weaver (Vega) figures in this piece.
|GloPAD record 1007234||GloPAD record 1007245|
The mochi-eda means a branch that performers hold, and often a flowering branch such as the wisteria seen in “Fuji Musume” or the cherry blossom branch seen in “Seki no To.” Other types of branches include Japanese maple, as seen in “Kumo no Hyōshimai,” and the bamboo branch with three kinds of masks seen in “Mitsumen Komori.”
Other hand props include suzu (bells), such as the stick with fifteen bells seen “Sambasō” or “Kurama jishi,” sarashi nuno (bleached cloth), as used in “Omi no Okane,” and hana-shakujō (a walking stick wrapped in red and white with flowers) used in “Kisen.” | <urn:uuid:5ba21b30-20e5-40e1-93e6-75024e2363c1> | {
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Free chatting or structured dialogue?
Cloud created by:
The Cloudworks Team
17 June 2008
Student discussion can be designed to be more or less structured, according to the choice of tool and the expectations and instructions set by the facilitator. When is free chatting best, and when is it appropriate to impose some form of structure? George Kahrimanis and Nikolaos Avouris suggest that free chat is most appropriate where brainstorming or divergent thinking is required – for example, in the early stages of a problem solving activity, when students are agreeing strategy and dividing up tasks. Structured dialogue, such as a requirement to define a category for each message or to use standard sentence openers or forms of argumentation, may be preferable where students need the help of such scaffolding to negotiate conflicting statements or make specific kinds of contributions to the task. See pp. 104-105, ‘Choosing the appropriate means of dialogue in a NSCL tool for synchronous collaborative learning activities’ TELL Pattern Book | <urn:uuid:08e04012-cbce-4411-b182-b2df4703fbf4> | {
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View FREE Lessons!
Definition of an Embargo:
is a government ban on trade with a foreign country. Trade can be limited on all goods or specific goods.
An embargo restricts trade by prohibiting all importation or exportation of a particular good or service. In the short-run embargoes can create large shortages of the targeted goods. The reduced supply results in an increase in the equilibrium price and quantity of those goods, until the reduction in the global supply is replaced by another country. For example, the effect on the price of crude oil following an embargo on Iranian oil was reduced when other countries, such as Saudi Arabia, increased their production to diminish the shortage.
Embargoes are usually politically motivated and directed at only one country. The objective is to isolate a country and cause economic hardship as a way of motivating the government to change its behavior. In 1986 many European nations banned the importation of many materials including coal, iron and gold from South Africa. The United States followed with an embargo of its own. The objective was to pressure the South African government to end apartheid. It is debatable whether or not the embargo played a major or minor role in ending apartheid.
In 1979 President Carter froze Iranian assets following the seizure of the American Embassy and hostages in Tehran. Since 1979, trade sanctions were eased and imposed several times. The United Nations Security Council imposed sanctions in 2006 in an effort to pressure Iran to discontinue its development of nuclear weapons and support of the terrorist organization Hezbollah. The sanctions were lifted on January 16, 2016.
Most embargoes target imports, but occasionally an embargo, like the Arab Oil Embargo in 1973, restrict exports. The Arab members of OAPEC (Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries) refused to sell oil to the United States and its allies in response to the US decision to resupply the Israeli military during the Yom Kippur War (1973). The political unrest in the Middle East and restriction of supply caused oil prices to increase to record levels (at that time) in Europe, Japan, and the United States. The price increase triggered a slowdown in the world economies and a period of stagflation.
Dig Deeper With These Free Lessons:
Supply and Demand - The Costs and Benefits of Restricting Supply
Changes in Supply - When Producer Costs Change | <urn:uuid:d4307d28-547b-4250-980d-cc6ab82cb76b> | {
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What St Martin Is Made Of And How She Came To Be
St Maarten/ St Martin mainly consists of rock: the layered rock formations which form the two hill ranges were pushed upward from the ocean by tectonic forces and are about 50 million years old. Later volcanic rocks and boulders were uplifted above sea level and you can find these anywhere on our island. The lowlands and Tintamarre island were also pushed up from the seabed and consist of limestone, which is compressed coral and other marine deposits. And then we have lots of sand which basically is eroded coral.
Through the currents of the Atlantic and the Caribbean Sea sandbanks mounted up and ponds and lagoons were formed behind it. Healthy and living coral reefs are still found today around our coast and offshore. Our reefs have had to withstand and recover from several hurricanes in recent history.
In an era long gone, although still millions of years after dinosaurs roamed the earth, St Maarten/ St Martin was high above the sea level and formed a landmass together with our current neighboring islands of Anguilla and St Barthelemy (St Barths). The island which then existed is now called the Anguilla Bank. The effects of this landmass now can still be found in some of our wildlife species: unique land bound animals that can be found on St Martin also live on Anguilla and St Barths, like the Anguilla Bank Ameiva and the Anguilla Bank Anole.
Would you love to see layered rock, remains of old times and hear all about St Maarten and St Martin’s history? Then our St Martin History Tour is the tour for you.
Long before humans came to St Martin animals were already occupying our island. Not very many different species though since St Martin has never been connected to a greater landmass or continent. Some animals flew in, others swam in or drifted over on debris or got blown in by hurricanes. The only original land mammals on St Martin are our six bat species. Our marine mammals are dolphins and whales which come to breed from January to April.
Between 3300 BC and 1600 AD Amerindians lived on St Maarten/ St Martin or Soualiga, land of salt, as they called it. Due to the amount of construction on the island in the last 50 years some of the sites where these original inhabitants lived have been destroyed, our Dutch and French archeologists have been able to uncover some sixty Amerindian sites though of which dug up artifacts can be admired in the two historical musea St Maarten/ St Martin has. One of these sites appears to be the most ancient Amerindian village in the Caribbean and dates back to 560 BC.
They – as well as the first ‘New World’ settlers – saw our hillsides overgrown with forests and tall hardwood trees. After Columbus spotted our island on 11/11/1493 he named her St Martin after a French saint. By the time the first Dutchmen set foot on St Martin in 1627, the Amerindians were already gone. The Dutch were interested in the salt ponds which they reaped to use as a much needed preservative in those days.
With the Dutch and then the French, English and Spanish – St Martin changed Nationality quite a few times – came development of the land. It was then that the slave trade was at it’s height and by 1750 more than two thirds of the approximately 3000 people living on St Martin were slaves. One of the remains of this era in our landscape are the dry walls or so called slave walls, which we will point out during our tours. Even though not cultivated anymore, descendants of the cotton and indigo plants can still be seen on roadsides.
After the second world war St Martin started to become a tourist destination. It started out with an hotel in Marigot in 1937 and large beach homes built by Americans in the early 1950s after the construction of the first airport. The first cruise ship docked in 1958 and by 1970 tourism was a considerable source of income. From 1980 an economic boom started which still lasts up to today. The enormous growth in population and visitors on this small island inevitably has effects on our natural environment.
Human Impact on St Martin’s Nature and the Need for Conservation
The Amerindians didn’t have a great impact on our natural environment as there were only a few of them.
The first major changes were instigated by the settlers in the colonial era: the big hardwood trees were cut and used for construction and as fuel and lots were cleared for plantations. With the settlers and their slaves also came animals from other continents. Some were introduced on purpose like the mongoose from India to kill rats, which themselves were stowaways on the trade ships and prospered well on the sugar cane plantations. Yet more mammals were kept as pets like the Green Monkey which originates from Africa and now roams free as well as livestock such as cows and goats from Europe.
Introduced species are often invasive, they don’t have a natural predator, and some endemic species are now extinct on St Martin because of them. For example: the mongoose introduced to kill the rats has eaten the eggs of the Lesser Antillean Iguana to local extinction.
Because of development, especially on the Dutch side, our ecosystems have come under great pressure. Our Great Salt Pond is much smaller than it used to be and the pollution from the dump site in the middle of it is not contributing at all to the water quality and its wildlife. There are less salt and fresh ponds and the ponds that are still there, including the lagoon, have less and less mangroves and other natural growths around and in them. Because of this, less wildlife survives here, gets born here or stops over here during their migrations. Our beaches are also getting smaller and have more human activity and light on them during the night, affecting nesting sea turtles and other breeding animals.
Our submarine ecosystems like the coral reefs close to shore suffer from island water runoff and stirred up sea sand due to underwater construction. What then happens is that floating particles in the water block sunlight and healthy corals get overgrown by algae and die. Fish and invertebrates and everything that feeds on them will leave the reef.
Our latest invasive species causing a lot of worries is the Lion Fish. Beautiful to see, but feasting on Caribbean juvenile fish without being eaten themselves, they multiply rapidly and the worst case scenario is that we won’t have nearly as many species of reef fish in a decade as we have now.
Conservation is of utmost importance for the survival of our beautiful nature and all its inhabitants, read more on the protection of St Martin’s ecosystems in the Conservation section.
For such a small island – you can drive around it in an hour on a quiet day – St Martin offers a wide variety of habitats. Each habitat has its own unique flora and fauna life and during our Peak, Pond and Snorkel Tour we visit them all.
St Maarten mainly consists of hills and mountains. The lower hills are covered in lower shrubs including cacti and small trees. Our highest peak, Pic Paradis, has a lush tropical forest on her Leeward side with magnificent trees and flowers and has a spring. This area seems to have quite some tall hardwood trees from before the colonial era, which survived chopping down for construction, fuel or to clear ground for growing sugar cane and other crops. Part of Pic Paradis’ hillside has been turned into a nature reserve and attraction park.
Our wetlands are made up by salt and fresh ponds which are often fringed with mangroves and some of them have mud flats. Besides a lot of ponds, St Martin has the biggest lagoon in the Caribbean. The wetlands are great for bird watching, both resident birds as well as – in season – migratory birds can be found there in abundance. To see St Martin’s birds go along on our Birdwatching Tour.
Shore and Ocean
St Martin has a few rocky shores and lots of soft sandy beaches, one of the reasons why our island is a favorite holiday destination. The beaches are home to many crabs, hiding in their holes, and they are the birthing grounds of three endangered species of sea turtle. Birds such as stilts forage on the beach and in the air you’ll often see our national bird the brown pelican and other sea birds like gulls, frigate birds and terns.
Our beaches are the hard work of parrot fish and since we don’t have a national fish yet, David believes it should be the parrot fish. Parrot fish scrape algae and coral off the reefs and after digestion deposit the remains back in the sea, creating wonderful fine and white sand.
St Martin has lovely tropical submarine life too. While snorkeling you’ll encounter sergeant majors, trumpet fish, damsel fish, blue tangs, parrot fish, needle fish, sea urchins and perhaps a queen conch and hard and soft corals like brain coral and sea fans. Our Peak, Pond and Snorkel Tour will show you our lovely underwater nature too.
St Martin is a densely populated island; we have 900 inhabitants per square kilometer. Our urban areas are the home to birds like the banana quit, pearly eyed thrasher, grey kingbird and several species of doves and hummingbirds. The common sparrow can only be spotted in some neighborhoods and then there are plenty of lizards, spiders and insects. Also bats can be seen catching insects at dusk. Although they don’t live in the urban areas, the introduced green or velvet monkey can be spotted on the outskirts and in gardens with fruit trees.
The different habitats on St Martin boast many species of flora and fauna. A few species are only to be found on St Martin, some only in the Eastern Caribbean region and most of the species can be found in wider geographical areas like the Caribbean or the Americas. If you are from Europe: you’ll have a hard time finding the species living on St Martin in your back garden!
During our tours we’ll point out typical and remarkable wildlife as we go. To give you an idea of what you might see, below a limited overview of our local wildlife sorted by chance of seeing.
For a more elaborate display and description of our fauna, check out the online version of Mark Yokoyama’s Incomplete Guide to the Wildlife of St Martin.
Very Likely- St Maarten’s National Symbols
Even before the Dutch side, St Maarten, became an independent country in 2010 – albeit within the Kingdom of The Netherlands – she has had her own national symbols for quite some time. The following national symbols we are very likely to come across on any of our trips:
Flamboyant Tree and Brown Pelican.
Another national symbol is not a living thing but is very much ‘alive’ and you’ll see it no doubt: our flag.
Very Likely – Other
Banana quit (sugar bird), Roaming cattle, Grey Kingbird, Zenaida Dove, Magnificent Frigate Bird, Anguilla Bank Anole, Anguilla Bank Ameiva, Green Iguana, Black-necked Stilt, Royal Tern, Snowy Egret, for more birds check out our Birdwatching section.
Silk Cotton Tree, Mango Tree, Tamarind Tree, Gum Tree, Elephant’s Ear, Bromeliads, Manchineel, Seagrape, Divi-divi tree, Mangroves, Coconut Palms, Coralita
Maybe – But Very Likely When Staying Longer on St Maarten
Mangrove Warbler, Green-throated Carib Hummingbird, Antillean Crested Hummingbird, American Kestrel, Pearly Eyed Thrasher, Bearded Anole, Green Monkey
Mangrove Cuckoo, Caribbean Grey Reef Shark* , Green Turtle*, …
*If you want to be more sure you see those, ask us about scuba diving! | <urn:uuid:2e616079-dca7-47b2-96f0-057ab17eb028> | {
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Ian Wilson spoke about the use of AI during the panel discussion “Technologies and Treatments - What’s on the horizon?”, at the 16th Anglonordic Life Science Conference.
ImaginAB, a company focusing on positron-emission tomography (PET) molecular imaging, has developed antibody fragments aiming for safe, fast and detailed illumination of the targeted cancer cells by the radioisotope.
On the path to create precise images of disease activity, ImaginAB’s technology requires fast and efficient data management and, in order to achieve this, the company uses artificial intelligence (AI) and ‘machine learning’ tools.
“We collect multiple data sets from images, biopsies and health records. However, creating a database and storing it in the cloud is easy; what we need to do is look for trends into the complex data sets,” Wilson told us.
This is where AI tools can contribute. “Machine learning allows us to rapidly question and explore those trends. Through automatic data comparison we get the chance to identify new things and test hypotheses,” he said.
According to Wilson, the implementation of AI in whole body PET molecular imaging not only reduces the image processing times but also allows to produce images of a higher quality.
As a result, the patient gets scanned for less time and is exposed to less radioactivity. This leads to improved patient comfort, more reliable and faster diagnoses, and improved treatment decisions.
ImaginAB is currently testing in Phase II clinical trials for its ‘89ZrCD8’ PET tracer and, as Wilson told us, AI tools are in use to determine how effective the tracer is for monitoring clusters of differentiation 8 (CD8) T cells, in patients treated with immunotherapies.
Nevertheless, Wilson acknowledged that the results of AI tools can only be as good as the data provided.
“Bad data in, bad comparisons out. If the experiments aren’t robust, the machine won’t learn. So, the key in trusting computer algorithms is being very certain that the data used is robust.
“Users need to keep in mind that AI teaches itself, making use of the data we provide it. AI always knows what it’s looking for and that is the main factor we should benefit from,” he concluded. | <urn:uuid:76087727-10b7-409e-9ef5-2565c7550b8f> | {
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RELIGIONS & LANGUAGES
The areas in which Pakistan is situated has long chronological routes. The people have been coming to this area long before Jesus Christ. Aryans, Alexander, Mahmud of Ghazni, Lodhi, Mughals and British all passed and stayed here for significant period of time to leave their mark on this region.
RELIGIONS IN PAKISTAN. The people living in this region practice different religions which are given below :
(1) Islam. (2) Christianity. (3) Hinduism. (4) Zoroastrianism
(5) Sikhism. (6) Buddhism.
ISLAM. The major religion in Pakistan is Islam. The people who follow Islam are called Muslims. The majority of people in Pakistan are Muslims. They believe in one God, they follow the teachings of Hazrat Muhammad (P.B.U.H), the last messenger of God. The holy book of the Muslims is the Holy Quran. All the Muslims follow the words and teachings of the Holy Quran. The Muslims offer their prayers in mosques.
CHRISTIANITY. The followers of this religion call themselves Christians. Christians follow the teachings of Jesus Christ (A.S.). The holy book of Christians is called the Bible, they believe in four different bibles. They offer their prayers in Church. They follow the teachings of the Bible and Jesus Christ and believe that he is the Son of God.
HINDUISM. The people who believe in Hinduism are called Hindus. They worship in temples. The Hindus believe in four holy books. The Hindus believe in one supreme God but they believe in the concept of incarnation meaning that god comes to earth in different forms again and again; therefore, they worship many gods and goddesses.
ZOROASTRIANISM. Zoroastrianism is named after its founder called Zoroaster. He lived in Persia (present day Iran) in about 6th century BC. The followers of this religion are called Parsees. The holy book of Parsees is known as Avesta. They offer their prayers in temples, which are also called fire temples.
SIKHISM. An Indian sant Guru Nanak preached a religion. The followers of this religion are called Sikhs. This is about 450 years old religion. The Sikhs believe in the teachings of Guru Nanak and other Gurus who came after him. The teachings of Gurus are compiled as a book known as the Guru Granth Sahib. Sikhs worship in Gurdwaras.
BUDDHISM. Buddhism is about 2,500 years old religion. The founder of Buddhism was a Prince who left his palace to find some peace and answers to some questions. He roamed in jungle, till he believed in Karma and Nirvana. His name was Gautama Buddha and later came to be known as Buddha or the enlightened one.
LANGUAGES. National language of Pakistan is Urdu. Pakistan is divided into four Provinces, Baluchistan, Punjab, Sind and Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa, But the number of languages spoken is much more than that. Despite the URDU, the population in Pakistan speak other Languages which are as follows:-
Saraiki or Multani. Majhi or Gujrati. Jhangvi. Shahpuri.
Pothowari. Hindko. Kashmiri. Burusharki. Shina.
Khowar. Kalash. Wakhior Xikwar. Brahni. | <urn:uuid:4ead002f-16d2-4a0b-b0d3-5831f43f2c29> | {
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Scientific American published an article summarizing what I’ve written about for a couple of years: the IPCC’s projections aren’t 100% correct. Gasp – the horror! But, contrary to what skeptics think, the direction the IPCC’s reports were wrong are opposite of what they claim. The projections time and again underestimated future changes. I think a valid complaint, and one I’ve made many times myself, is that the IPCC process is too conservative – it takes too long to get the kind of consensus they’re looking for. Rapidly changing conditions are not well handled by the IPCC process. When there is conflicting evidence of something, the IPCC has tended to say nothing in an effort not to upset anybody. The good news is there are indications this is changing. The list:
This is the biggest one. Too many studies focused on moderate emission pathways, when yearly updates showed our actual emissions were on the high range of those considered by the IPCC. I actually posted on this two days ago: CO2 Emissions Continue to Track At Top of IPCC Range. This has implications for every other process that follows.
More accurately, energy in the climate system is the variable of interest. It is easy to point out that temperatures since 2000 haven’t increased as much as projected. It is also easy to compare observed trends since 1980 and claim AR4 models over-predicted temperature rise. This conflates a couple of issues: the AR4 wasn’t used to project since 1980. More importantly, the difference between observed trends since 1980 and projected temperatures from half of the AR4 models was less than 0.04°C (0.072°F). That’s pretty darned small. With respect to the trend since 2000, the real issue is energy gain. The vast majority of energy has accumulated in the oceans:
More specifically, if the heat is transported quickly to the deep ocean (>2000ft), the sea surface temperature doesn’t increase rapidly. Nor does atmosphere or land temperatures change. This is true at least in the short-term. When the ocean transports this heat from the deep back to the surface, we should be able to more easily measure that heat. Put simply, the temporary hiatus of temperature rise is just that: temporary. Are we prepared for when that hiatus ends?
The relatively small increase in near-surface air and land temperatures is thus explained. The IPCC never claimed the 4.3° to 11.5°F temperature rise (AR4 projection) would happen by 2020 – it is likely to happen by 2100. Expect more synergy between projected temperatures and observed temperatures in the coming years. Also remember that climate is made up of long-term weather observations.
Additionally, aerosols emitted by developing nations have been observed to reflect some of the incoming solar radiation back to space. Once these aerosols precipitate out of the atmosphere or are not emitted at some point in the future, the absorption of longwave radiation by the remaining greenhouse gases will be more prominent. The higher the concentration of gases, the more radiation will be absorbed and the faster the future temperature rise is likely to be. These aerosols are thus masking the signal that would otherwise be measured if they weren’t present.
3. Arctic Meltdown
This is the big story of 2012. The Arctic sea ice melted in summer 2012 to a new record low: an area the size of the United States melted this year! Even as late as 2007 (prior to the previous record-low melt), the IPCC projected that Arctic ice wouldn’t decrease much until at least 2050. Instead, we’re decades ahead of this projection – despite only a relatively small global temperature increase in the past 25 years (0.15°C or so). What will happen when temperatures increase by multiple degrees Centigrade?
4. Ice sheets
These are the land-based sheets, which are melting up to 100 years faster than the IPCC’s first three reports. 2007′s report was the first to identify more rapid ice sheet melt. The problem is complex cryospheric dynamics. Understandably, the most remote and inhospitable regions on Earth are the least studied. Duh. That’s changing, with efforts like the fourth International Polar Year, the results of which are still being studied and published. Needless to say, modern instrumentation and larger field campaigns have resulted in advances in polar knowledge.
5. Sea Level Rise
It’s nice being relevant. I just posted something new on this yesterday: NOAA Sea-Level Rise Report Issued – Dec 2012. The 3.3mm of sea-level rise per year is higher than the 2001 report’s projection of 2mm per year. Integrated over 100 years, that 1mm difference results in 4″ more SLR. But again, with emission and energy underestimates, the 3.3mm rate of SLR is expected to increase in future decades, according to the latest research. Again, another mm per year results in another 4″ 100 years from now. Factors affecting SLR that the IPCC didn’t address in 2007 includes global ocean warming (warmer water takes up more volume), faster ice sheet melt, and faster glacial melt. Additionally, feedback mechanisms are still poorly understood and therefore not well represented in today’s state-of-the-art models.
6. Ocean Acidification
The first 3 IPCC reports didn’t even mention this effect. In the past 250 years, ocean acidity has increased by 30% – not a trivial amount! As the article points out, research on this didn’t even start until after 2000.
7. Thawing Tundra
Another area that is not well-studied and therefore not well understood. The mechanics and processes need to be observed so they can be modeled more effectively. 1.5 trillion tons of carbon are locked away in the currently frozen tundra. If these regions thaw, as is likely since the Arctic has observed the most warming to date, methane could be released to the atmosphere. Since methane acts as a more efficient GHG over short time frames, this could accelerate short-term warming much more quickly than projected (See temperatures above). The SciAm article points out the AR5, to be released next year, will once again not include projections on this topic.
8. Tipping Points
This is probably the most controversial aspect of this list. Put simply, no one knows where potential tipping points exist, if they do at all. The only way we’re likely to find out about tipping points is by looking in the past some day in the future. By then, of course, moving back to other side of the tipping point will be all but impossible on any time-frame relevant to people alive then.
There are plenty of problems with the UNFCCC’s IPCC process. Underestimation of critical variables is but one problem plaguing it. Blame it on scientists who, by training, are very conservative in their projections and language. They also didn’t think policymakers would fail to curtail greenhouse gas emissions. Do policymakers relying on the IPCC projections know of and/or understand this nuance? If not, how robust will their decisions be? The IPCC process needs to be more transparent, including allowing more viewpoints to be expressed, say in an Appendix compendium. The risks associated with underestimating future change are higher than the opposite. | <urn:uuid:05b24e17-d7d4-4e56-baaf-4644f0253fbf> | {
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Shorter Catechism Q. 26
Q. 26. How doth Christ execute the office of a king?
A. Christ executeth the office of a king, in subduing us to himself, in ruling and defending us, and in restraining and conquering all his and our enemies.
Ps 2:6; Matt 28:18; 1 Cor 15:25; Col 1:13
Christians rejoice to declare Jesus Christ as Lord and King. For as the Shorter Catechism teaches us, Jesus is our king who subdues us to himself, rules and defends us, and restrains and conquers all his and our enemies. In other words, when Christians confess Jesus Christ as Lord and King, we are making a profession of faith that it makes a world of difference whether one is a citizen in Christ’s kingdom or not.
If we are the citizens of Christ’s kingdom, then we have been delivered from the domain of darkness and transferred to his kingdom by the eternal love of the Father and for the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ (see Colossians 1). Indeed, the alternative to having Christ as our King is not freedom. It is not even anarchy, where everyone does as he please. Rather, the alternative to having Christ as our Lord and King is bondage in the domain of darkness. The choice is between serving the Creator, and serving the things that have been created (see Romans 1). To serve Christ and to follow him means freedom indeed. But when we do not bow before Christ, we are only elevating to Christ’s place various created things, idols of our own making. Idolatry, after all, is not just a practice of ancient superstitions. Idolatry is whatever gods we bow before. The difference, however, between the true God Jesus Christ and false gods is this. Jesus Christ indeed satisfies our heart’s deepest longings. False gods only demand and consume, until we give them everything and end our lives utterly spent and unsatisfied. Have you ever seen a happy addict? Whatever their gods may be - alcohol, drug, sex, money - they never satisfy. False gods demand and demand, and addicts (i.e. those in bondage to false gods) give and give, until they are utterly drained of everything and are in the end destroyed.
But Christ subdues us to himself. His word and Spirit increasingly make us in his image that we begin to experience real freedom from the destructive effects of sin. He likewise rules us by his word and Spirit. And by his grace we gradually, but surely, learn to love God and obey his will gladly.
Jesus is also our King who defends us. He restrains and conquers his and our enemies. This he did first by rising from the dead. Jesus destroyed our enemy, death, by rising from the dead. And so he has given us the ultimate and final protection from death. For we too will rise from the dead to be with him in glory, body and soul.
But Jesus also watches over us both in big and small matters so that not a hair can fall from our head without his will. And he knows how to cause all things to work together for our good (Rom 8:28). This does not mean, of course, that we will not experience trials in this life. We will. But we can take heart when we are hard pressed and discouraged. “I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33)
Jesus is our faithful and powerful redeemer. He is the prophet who reveals God’s grace. He is the priest who has made perfect atonement for us and continues to intercede for us. He is the king who rules us and gives us true freedom. Let us worship our redeemer, Jesus Christ! | <urn:uuid:d7dea004-3d90-4fc2-b4a6-87269f4bac43> | {
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The amount of dissolved oxygen that must be present in water in order for microorganisms to decompose the organic matter in the water, used as a measure of the degree of pollution. Also called biological oxygen demand.
- Another body, the U.S. Council on Environmental Quality established five measures for judging water quality: biochemical oxygen demand, nitrogen, phosphorus, dissolved oxygen, and fecal coliform bacteria.
- Maintaining the biochemical oxygen demand, nitrogen and organic matter content of wastewater outside the limits that are favourable for mosquito breeding is very helpful.
- Gives easy to understand and clear instructions for testing dissolved oxygen, fecal coliforms, pH, biochemical oxygen demand, temperature, total phosphate, nitrates, turbidity, and total solids.
For editors and proofreaders
Syllabification: bi·o·chem·i·cal ox·y·gen de·mand
What do you find interesting about this word or phrase?
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Infertility is the condition incapable of conceiving, after one year of regular sexual contact without contraceptives. It is the problem that not only affects the physical but also abnormalities of both male and female partners. Both male and female are equally responsible for conception. According to Ayurveda, Sukra dhatu or reproductive tissues, sperm in men and ovum in women together unites for fertilization. Healthy sperm, ovum and uterus is necessary for conception. Herbs have been used for the treatment of infertility since at least 200 A.D. Using nutritional supplements could improve key physiological factors to fertility. Vajikarana is the important branch of Ayurveda which deals with sexual and reproductive health. Various herbs has been effective to improve reproduction.
Causes of infertility :
The most common cause of female infertility is ovulatory disorders like oligomenorrhea or amenorrhoea and immunological factor and the cause of male infertility are sperm production disorders like quality of sperm, its quantity and anatomical factors. Approximately 10% of infertile women suffer from unexplained infertility. One-third of cases, infertility is due to causes involving both the male and female, one-third due female and remaining one third due to male partners only.
- Due to poor digestion , lack of nutrition, nutrition does not reach reproductive tissue.
- Having sex by compulsion with a person whom you do not like.
- Eating spicy, salty and hot food increase pitta and destroys shukra (semen).
- Overindulgence in sexual activities leads to shukra kshaya. It may lead to clibya (impotency).
- By controlling sexual urges for longer duration leads to veeryaavarodha (Obstruction of semen) and this leads to decreased libido.
- Infertility can also arise when the reproductive tissue is damaged by infection or trauma.
- Some acquire the impotency by birth
Ayurvedic treatment is based on the Ayurveda concept of reproductive system. Reproductive tissue or shukra dhatu in men are produced after the long chain metabolic processes. The tissues are produced in both men and women naturally equal. In women it is converted as ovum as part of menstrual cycle while in men it is activated as Sperm. Ayurvedic treatment aims to keep the process of transformation of both male and female tissues to health condition. Shukra is the seventh dhatus after blood, muscle, fat, bone, bone marrow and finally shukra.
- Ovulation disorders:
Ashoka (Saraca indica), Dashmool, Shatavari (Asparagus racemosus), Kumari (Aloe vera), Guggulu (Commiphora mukul), Hirabol (Commiphora myrrh) and Harmal (Paganum harmala)
- Ovulation problems caused by PCOS
Latakaranj (Caesalpinia crista), Varuna (Crataeva nuervula), Kanchnaar (Bauhinia variegate) and Guggulu. Jeevanti (Leptadania reticulate)
- Pelvic Inflammatory disease :
Kanchanar guggul, Triphala Guggulu, Gudhuchi, Kutaki (Picrorrhiza kurroa), Punarnava
- Undevloped uterus or cervix:
Aswagandha (withania somnifera), Vidarikand (Pueraria tuberose), Ksheeravidari (Ipomoea digitata), Bala (Sida cordifolia), Samudraashok (argyria speciosa), Nagbala (Grewia hirsute), Shrungatak (Trapa natans) Yastimadhu
- Aswagandha (Withania somnifera) : For stress induced loss of libido and sexual drive.
- Jatiphal (Myristica fragrans) : It is best aphrodisiac and anti oxidant to improve libido.
- Kapikachu (Mucuna pruriens ) : It is potent antioxidant and useful for sperm counts.
- Argyreia speciosa : It has androgen like activities and posses tonic properties.
- Gokshura (Tribulus terrestris) : It increase testosterone improves sexual desire and sustains penile erection.
- Asteracantha longifolia: it is useful for impotence, spermatorrhoea, and semina debilities.
- Leptadenia reticulate : It treats sexual disorders like improper erection, night emission, premature ejaculation, Spermatorrea and functional impotence.
- Hibiscus abelmoschus : It enhance desire, sexual drive and performance
- Crocus sativus : It alleviate male sexual dysfunction
- Curculigo orchiodes : It is best Ayurveda vajikarana rasayana with antioxidant.
- Lactuca scariola : it posses sedative , nutrient properties and rejuvenators
- Shaileyam (Parmelia perlata) : It is helpful in seminal weakness | <urn:uuid:7ab8b947-d824-4019-9735-99bdbb05bfb9> | {
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Black Lion Tamarin
The Black Lion Tamarin (Leontopithecus chrysopygus) also known as the Golden-rumped Lion Tamarin is a lion tamarin found only in the Brazilian state of São Paulo, almost exclusively at the Morro do Diabo State Park. It lives in secondary and primary forests along its restricted range.
The first zoo to breed this species was Jersey, and now they have sent their offspring to other European zoos. Bronx also keeps the species, as does São Paulo.
- ^ Groves, C. (2005). Wilson, D. E., & Reeder, D. M.. ed. Mammal Species of the World (3rd ed.). Johns Hopkins University Press. pp. 133. ISBN 0-801-88221-4. http://www.bucknell.edu/msw3.
- ^ Rylands AB and Mittermeier RA (2009). "The Diversity of the New World Primates (Platyrrhini)". in Garber PA, Estrada A, Bicca-Marques JC, Heymann EW, Strier KB. South American Primates: Comparative Perspectives in the Study of Bahavior, Ecology, and Conservation. Springer. pp. 23-54. ISBN 978-0-387-78704-6.
- ^ Kierulff, M. C. M., Rylands, A. B., Mendes, S. L. & de Oliveira, M. M. (2008). Leontopithecus chrysopygus. 2008 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. IUCN 2008. Retrieved on 2 January 2009.
|This article includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please improve this article by introducing more precise citations where appropriate. (June 2009)|
- Neotropical Rainforest Mammals (1997), Louise Emmons and Francois Feer | <urn:uuid:4820dca4-17ae-42cb-9338-7c228fc8a57f> | {
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Emotions can be very strong and feel overwhelming at times, and this is especially true for children. Depending on their developmental level, they may not fully understand what the feeling is, what it is called, why they feel that way or what caused it, and especially how to handle the feelings. It’s up to us as adults to recognize this emotional immaturity and help them to grow.
About a month ago, I was introduced to The Home Teacher’s series of anger management activities called “Don’t Be An Angry Bird.” These are brilliant exercises that incorporate the popular Angry Bird characters into teaching kids about types of anger and various coping skills. They are so fun. All I had to do was hang a picture of the various angry birds up in my room and the curious kids actually initiated the discussion!
Here is a picture of the different types of angry birds.
Side note: For the “Angry Eyes” Bird, I have the kids show me their angry eyes and I show them mine. We have a good laugh at one another! 🙂
So, of all these different types of “birds,” which one would you choose to represent your anger? Which one do you think kids choose most to describe their anger? I have done this activity with at least 10 kids and 9 have chosen the BODY OUT OF CONTROL bird to describe how they perceive themselves when they are angry. I find this fascinating and insightful!
This activity has reinforced the idea that kids are still very new to the big world of feelings. Emotions can be strong and often overwhelming, and for little ones, it’s magnified. Depending on their developmental level, they may not fully understand what the feeling is, what it is called, why they feel that way or what caused it, and especially how to handle the feelings.
The “terrible two’s” is a prime example of what it looks like when feelings are new and the body feels out of control. A toddler will scream, stomp their feel, stiffen their body, roll around on the ground, and run around the room. It’s obvious they are feeling out of control. Consider this the starting point in a child’s emotional development. Over time, they begin to recognize the feelings and learn some self-control. However, it’s not until adulthood (hopefully) that they are fully mature in this emotional development.
So how can we help our kids in their path to emotional maturity?
- Validate the child’s feelings. Let them know their feelings are normal and acceptable (even if their current expression of those emotions is not).
- Give their feelings a name. Anytime you have an opportunity, label the feelings you observe in the child and help them to label their feelings as well.
- Encourage them to verbalize their feelings out loud with I-statements (I’m mad, sad, etc…).
- Teach them appropriate coping skills. Keep in mind that modeling these skills is the best teaching tool!!
I will end with a favorite quote from Yoda for all the Littles out there struggling with these Great Big Feelings!
“Control, Control, You must learn control!”
You May Also Like: | <urn:uuid:55cac9cb-cec6-4a6f-8048-2fd03c6eb562> | {
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Unfortunately fluorine is poisonous.
Fluorine must be prescribed with care to stay under the poisonous dose.
Water distributed by the public network is fluorined at the dose of 1500 µg/l.
Water distributed in bottles is fluorined at less than 400 µg/l.
We have also fluorined table salt, fluorined toothpaste, and eventual fluorined
mouth wash while an everyday use is not often indicated.
So the posology must be linked with these different daily consumptions.
Maximal daily fluorine dose is linked with the age.
until six months old no fluorine.
From six months to 30 months old 250 µg.
From 30 months to 6 years old 500 µg.
From 6 years to 12 years old 1000 µg.
The need of fluorine for the adult is far less important because dental mineralization
Fluorine provided by general way with tablets is not often indicated except for
radiotherapy of oral sphere.
For pregnant women it is recommended to provide fluorine from the fourth month
top of the page TOOTHWASH
Washing the teeth after each meal is the best way to keep an healthy mouth.
The time used to wash is important but we can also perform a bad toothwash
even if the the length of time is for three minutes.
The movement to get is beginning on the gum to the tooth, so this is not the same for the two jaw bones.
This is a movement without horizontal component and with a very slight vertical component.
This is a wrist movement.
On the molars we make an horizontal come and go movement over the mastication part or occlusal face.
This is also important because of the grooves on these surfaces.
It must be in nylon and soft.
Naturals bristles are not indicated (those are empty tubes gradually filled with
People never talk about!
It is of no avail to soak off the dental plaque and keep it in mouth because of a
ineffective rinse off !
dental plaque will be very fast sticked back.
It is necessary to rinse several times and with strength.
It must be done with the cheeks those creates a stream in the mouth.
An efficient rinse is obtained when salivar viscosity is much decreased.
The brush cleans the dental surface with the discontinuous bristles surface.
So the toothwash may be incomplete.
To get a smoother surface we need a continuous surface as the surface of a tissue.
So we can use a clean handkerchief surrounded on a finger and rub the dental
surfaces with the whole.
We have then an excellent polishing of the surfaces.
top of the page DENTAL THREAD
Dental thread is used to clean up alimentary scraps between teeth, and also clean
both of the two dental surfaces between the teeth.
One end is winded round an index finger, the other end is winded round index finger
of the other hand.In that way dental thread is tightened with only two fingers.
see picture above
top of the page TINY BRUSHES
In case of wide inter dental spaces and also prosthetic bridge tiny brushes may be
top of the page DENTAL JET
This appliance throw in the mouth adjustable underpressure water and it is the ideal complement of toothbrush
for dental wash.
Water fluidity allied with pressure make a very complete washing, more efficient than with the toothbrush alone.
top of the page MOUTHWASH
This patent medecine must not be used continuously or frequently. It must be used
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Every month, Control's editors take a specific product area, collect all the latest, significant tools we can find, and present them here to make your job easier. If you know of any tools and resources we didn't include, send them to [email protected], and we'll add them to the website.
The most common and frequently measured variable is temperature. But, this "Calibrating Temperature Instruments" whitepaper reports that every temperature measurement is different, which makes the temperature calibration process slow and expensive. While standards determine accuracy that manufacturers must comply with, they don't determine the permanency of accuracy. So, users must be sure to verify the permanency of accuracy. If temperature is a significant measurable variable from the point of view of the process, it's necessary to calibrate the instrument and temperature sensor. This is a free download.
CALIBRATING SMART TRANSMITTERS
This whitepaper outlines practices for calibrating smart transmitters. It covers subjects, including range setter, current trim, sensor trim, device integration, getting better calibration results and pre-commissioning calibration. It is free and no registration is required.
Across various industries, the performance of a flow measurement device is ultimately dependent on the proper functioning of its sensors or other signal-producing elements, which have an active relationship with the flowing fluid. In order to be confident that a meter is accurately measuring the flow volume or mass, it must be recalibrated on a periodic basis. This whitepaper presents various choices for building a successful recalibration program. It's free, but registration is required.
HOW TO CALIBRATE A DP TRANSMITTER
This link is to a brief, basic tutorial on calibrating DP transmitters. It includes step-by-step instructions, including diagrams and charts.
Learning Instrumentation & Control Engineering Blog
Chapter 2 of the updated version of NIST's Engineering Statistics Handbook contains a long section on calibration. The purpose of this section is to outline the procedures for calibrating artifacts and instruments while guaranteeing the "goodness" of the calibration results. It covers artifiacts, designs, artifact control, instruments, instrument control and more. The entire handbook is free and includes a printable version of the various sections.
INTRODUCTION TO CALIBRATION
This basic tutorial, "Instrument System Models and Calibration," covers basic calibration terms and techniques. By the time users have completed the free, self-directed tutorial, they should be able to explain the model of a basic instrument system; calculate the relationship between input and output for a complete system; explain and identify the main instrument system errors; explain the principles of calibration; and explain primary and secondary standards. The tutorial can either be downloaded directly or printed.
CALIBRATING VIRTUAL INSTRUMENTS
This free, downloadable PDF whitepaper, "Using Calibration to Improve Measurement Accuracy," from National Instruments addresses such questions as: How do you determine the accuracy of your virtual instrument? And, how can you maintain that accuracy? In addition, it covers other topics, such as the difference between absolute and relative accuracy; internal versus external calibration; and component versus system calibration. It also covers many options for maintaining your system's calibration. | <urn:uuid:c70e12c2-78c0-406a-88c3-d504f53d76f7> | {
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This disorder, known also as the gapes, is the most common ailment of poultry and all domestic birds.
What would you do if they got the gapes, and no one would feed them chopped onions?
Well indeed I would be that myself, only the half o' them young chickens goin' off with the gapes.
A clean-cut wound that gapes wide is most desired by all parties.
The shell is ventricose, is closed or gapes slightly posteriorly, and has prominent subcentral umbones and an external ligament.
I have the habit of approaching all things with a feeling of innocence which gapes.
He must not look at his wife when she sneezes or gapes or eats.
White terriers suffer most from distemper; white chickens from the gapes.
She's tender-hearted as a lamb, and'll nuss a chicken with the gapes for half a day.
No sooner is he in than he gapes out of the window open-mouthed at Miss S——.
early 13c., from an unrecorded Old English word or else from Old Norse gapa "to open the mouth, gape," common West Germanic (cf. Middle Dutch, Dutch gapen, German gaffen "to gape, stare," Swedish gapa, Danish gabe), from PIE *ghai- (see gap). Related: Gaped; gaping. As a noun, from 1530s. | <urn:uuid:17987cec-2980-4463-a6e3-c1f92da69b8a> | {
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Beijing, China (AP) - An expedition searching for a rare Yangtze River dolphin ended Wednesday without a single sighting and with the team's leader saying one of the world's oldest species was effectively extinct.
The white dolphin known as baiji, shy and nearly blind, dates back some 20 million years. Its disappearance is believed to be the first time in a half-century, since hunting killed off the Caribbean monk seal, that a large aquatic mammal has been driven to extinction.
A few baiji may still exist in their native Yangtze habitat in eastern China but not in sufficient numbers to breed and ward off extinction, said August Pfluger, the Swiss co-leader of the joint Chinese-foreign expedition.
"We have to accept the fact that the Baiji is functionally extinct. We lost the race," Pfluger said in a statement released by the expedition. "It is a tragedy, a loss not only for China, but for the entire world. We are all incredibly sad."
Overfishing and shipping traffic, whose engines interfere with the sonar the baiji uses to navigate and feed, are likely the main reasons for the mammal's declining numbers, Pfluger said. Though the Yangtze is polluted, water samples taken by the expedition every 30 miles did not show high concentrations of toxic substances, the statement said.
For nearly six weeks, Pfluger's team of 30 scientists scoured a 1,000-mile heavily trafficked stretch of the Yangtze, where the baiji once thrived. The expedition's two boats, equipped with high-tech binoculars and underwater microphones, trailed each other an hour apart without radio contact so that a sighting by one vessel would not prejudice the other.
Around 400 baiji were believed to be living in the Yangtze in the 1980s. The last full-fledged search, in 1997, yielded 13 confirmed sightings, and a fisherman claimed to have seen a baiji in 2004, Pfluger said in an earlier interview.
At least 20 to 25 baiji would now be needed to give the species a chance to survive, the group's statement said, citing Wang Ding, a hydrobiologist and China's foremost campaigner for the baiji.
Pfluger, an economist by training who later went to work for an environmental group, was a member of the 1997 expedition and recalls the excitement of seeing a baiji cavorting in the waters near Dongting Lake.
"It marked me," he said in an interview Monday. He went on to set up the baiji.org Foundation to save the dolphin.
That goal having evaporated, Pfluger said his foundation would turn to teaching sustainable fishing practices and trying to save other freshwater dolphins. The expedition also surveyed one of those dwindling species, the Yangtze finless porpoise, finding less than 400 of them.
"The situation of the finless porpoise is just like that of the baiji 20 years ago," Wang, the Chinese scientist, said in the statement. "Their numbers are declining at an alarming rate. If we do not act soon they will become a second baiji."
Pfluger and an occasional online diary kept by expedition members traced a dispiriting situation, as day after day team members engaged in a fruitless search for the baiji.
"At first the atmosphere was 'Let's go. Let's go save this damn species,' " Pfluger said. "As the weeks went on we got more desperate and had to motivate each other."
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The Gaza—Egypt border is the 12 km long border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt. Along the border exists a buffer zone with the Philadelphia Route, which is about 14 km long. The main border crossing is at Rafah. Another border crossing is the Israeli-controlled Kerem Shalom border crossing on the south-east point of Gaza, where it borders Israel and Egypt.
In 1979, Israel and Egypt signed a peace treaty that returned the Sinai Peninsula, which borders the Gaza Strip, to Egyptian control. As part of that treaty, a 100-meter-wide strip of land known as the Philadelphia Route was established as a buffer zone between Gaza and Egypt. The Philadelphia Route is a patrol road that runs along the border. Until 2000, the Israel Defense Forces(IDF) used a 20-40 meter wide buffer zone along the Gaza/Egypt border with a 2.5 to 3 meters high concrete wall topped with barbed wire.
Israel built a barrier and a 200–300 meter buffer zone in the Philadelphia route during the Palestinian uprisings of the early 2000s. It was made mostly of corrugated sheet metal, with stretches of concrete topped with barbed wire. The construction of the buffer zone required the demolition of entire blocks of houses at the main entrance to Rafah's central thoroughfare, as well as in the Al-Brazil block, Tel al Sultan and "Block O".
|Blockade of the
|Viva Palestina "Lifeline 3"|
Since 2001, the IDF has routinely demolished Palestinian houses in Rafah, to create a buffer zone. In 2002, the IDF destroyed hundreds of houses in Rafah, needed for expansion of the buffer zone and the building of an eight meter high and 1.6 kilometers long metal wall along the border. The wall also extends two meters underground. The wall is built some eighty to ninety meters from the border, which doubled the width of the patrol corridor. After the metal wall was completed in early 2003, the demoltions continued and were even increased dramatically. According to Human Rights Watch, the wall was built far inside the demolished area to create a new starting point for justifying further demolitions.
2004 expansion, Operation Rainbow
After the death on 12 May 2004 of 5 Israeli soldiers who were operating in the buffer zone, the Government approved on 13 May a plan to further expand the buffer zone, which would require the demolition of hundreds of homes. The Israeli military recommended demolishing all homes within three hundred meters of its positions, or about four hundred meters from the border. The plan elicited strong international criticism.
On 14 May, a large IDF force entered the "Brazil block" of Rafah and in a heavy fighting, as reported by UNWRA, 12 Palestinians were killed and 52 injured. Israeli forces began demolishing houses in the Qishta neighborhood. and destroyed scores of houses. Around midnight the same day, the Israeli High Court of Justice issued an interim order, temporarily barring the IDF from demolishing homes in the refugee camp, if the action was not part of "a regular military operation". Nevertheless, the IDF continued the destruction of homes until 15 May 5:00 a.m. because of "immediate military necessity, a risk to soldiers, or a hindrance to a military operation", raising the number of destroyed houses to just over 100.
On 16 May, the High Court ruled that the IDF may destroy homes according to their needs; the IDF had pledged that it would refrain from unnecessarily demolishing houses. The next day, Israel started "Operation Rainbow".
On 18 May, the Israel government declared that the plan to widen a buffer zone along the Egyptian border was cancelled, while the same day the army massively invaded Rafah and continued its large-scale destruction. On 19 May 2004, the United Nations Security Council condemned the killing of Palestinian civilians and the demolition of homes.
Between 1 April 2003 and 30 April 2004, 106 were houses demolished in Rafah. According to HRW, the IDF’s justifications for the destruction were doubtful and rather consistent with the goal of having a wide and empty border area to facilitate long-term control over the Gaza Strip.
An army plan to dig a moat along the border was dropped in 2005 after it was rejected by the Attorney General, because it required the destruction of 3,000 more homes in Rafah. Instead, the IDF started the building of a 7–9 meters high (about 20–30 feet) concrete wall along the border in a 60-100 meter (about 200–300 feet) wide security strip, equipped with electronic sensors and underground concrete barriers to prevent tunneling.
2009 Egyptian steel wall
In December 2009, Egypt started with help from the US, the building of an Egypt–Gaza barrier along the Gaza border, consisting of a steel wall.
Rafah Border Crossing
The Rafah Border Crossing lies on the international border between Egypt and the Gaza Strip that was recognized by the 1979 Israel–Egypt Peace Treaty and confirmed during the 1982 Israeli withdrawal from the Sinai Peninsula.
The crossing was managed by the Israel Airports Authority until Israel evacuated Gaza on 11 September 2005 as part of Israel's unilateral disengagement plan. It subsequently became the task of the European Union Border Assistance Mission Rafah (EUBAM) to monitor the crossing.
In 2005 when Israel decided to pull out of the Gaza Strip, Israel and Egypt reached an agreement regarding the border, based on the principles of the 1979 peace treaty. The agreement specified that 750 Egyptian border guards would be deployed along the length of the border, and both Egypt and Israel pledged to work together to stem terrorism, arms smuggling, and other illegal cross-border activities. In September 2005, following Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, control of the Philadelphia route was handed over to the Palestinian National Authority. Under an agreement reached in November 2005, EUBAM was responsible for monitoring the Rafah Border Crossing. From November 2005 until July 2007, the Rafah Crossing was jointly controlled by Egypt and the Palestinian Authority, with the European Union monitoring Palestinian compliance on the Gaza side.
The crossing reopened with EUBAM monitors on 25 November 2005, and operated daily until 25 June 2006 (except for one day), when the crossing was closed after Palestinians attacked the Kerem Shalom crossing point and captured an Israeli soldier. The crossing was infrequently reopened after this attack.
In June 2007 the Rafah Crossing was closed by the Egyptian authorities after the Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip. Due to the lack of security the EU monitors pulled out of the region, and Egypt agreed with Israel to shut down the Rafah Crossing. During the Battle of Gaza, 6,000 Palestinians took refuge from the fighting across the Egyptian border. They were stranded on the Egyptian side of Rafah after Hamas took power and were prevented by Hamas from returning to the Gaza Strip. Israeli and Egyptian diplomats tried to convince Hamas to allow these Palestinians to peacefully use the Kerem Shalom crossing to return home. However, on 5 July 2007, according to Israeli officials, Hamas refused to allow the crossing to be used and threatened to attack the crossing with mortars and gunfire, even at the cost of killing thousands of Palestinians.
On 22 January 2008 after Israel imposed a total closure on all crossings to the Gaza Strip, a group of Hamas demonstrators attempted to force open the door of the Rafah Crossing. They were beaten back by Egyptian police and gunfire erupted. That same night Hamas militants set off 15 explosive charges, demolishing a 200-metre length of the metal border wall. After the resulting Breach of the Gaza-Egypt border, many thousands of Palestinians, with estimates ranging from 200,000 to 700,000, crossed into Egypt to buy goods. Palestinians were seen purchasing food, fuel, cigarettes, shoes, furniture, car parts, and generators.
The border was closed again by Egypt with Hamas's cooperation, except for travelers returning home, on 3 February 2008. At this time, many of the Palestinians who had been stranded on the Egyptian side of the border following the Battle of Gaza are believed to have taken the opportunity to return to the Gaza Strip.
On 1 June 2010, in the midst of international uproar following Israel's attack on a relief boat, Egypt announced it was opening the border crossing.
On May 28, 2011, the Rafah border was opened for Palestinians to cross into Egypt. Most travel restrictions were dropped, though men between the ages of 18 to 40 entering Egypt must apply for visas and others need travel permits. Soon after the revolution, Egypt’s foreign minister, Nabil el-Araby, opened discussions with Hamas aimed at easing the travel restrictions and improving relations between the two. Even though passenger restrictions were loosened, the shipment into Gaza of goods remains blocked. In the first five hours after the opening, 340 people crossed into Egypt.
However in mid-June 2011 the crossing was closed for several days and after that only a few hundred were allowed to cross each day compared with 'thousands' who applied to cross each day. Egypt reportedly agreed to allow a minimum of 500 people to cross each day.
On 5 July 2013, in the wake of Islamist attacks on security forces in the Sinai following the overthrow of Mohamed Morsi, the border crossing was closed for several days by the Egyptian Army. It was later reopened for four hours each day. After the August 14th clashes, the border crossing was closed 'indefinitely'.
- Shen, Nina (2008-01-25). "Gaza: The Basics. Some history and background on the Gaza Strip". Slate.com. Retrieved 2011-05-28.
- Razing Rafah — Mass Home Demolitions in the Gaza Strip, pp. 27-28 and 52-66 (PDF text version) on , Summary:. The report on refworld:. Human Rights Watch (HRW), October 2004
- We Are No Longer Able to See the Sun. Andrew Rubin, Al Ahram Weekly, 7 July 2007
- High Court to renew debate on IDF house demolitions in Rafah. Haaretz, 14 May 2004
- Supplementary Appeal for Rafah. UNWRA, May 2004
- Razing Rafah, par. Map 5 : IDF Operations in Rafah May 2004, Box 3 — Destruction in Rafah: Shifting Justifications. HRW, October 2004
- Court rejects petition to prevent further Rafah demolitions. Haaretz, 16 May 2004. On web.archive.org/
The three-member High Court panel said that the IDF was entitled to carry out such demolitions along the Philadelphi route for security reasons, "according to operational needs" or if the military determined that soldiers' lives were in danger.
- Rafah residents flee their homes. Maariv, 16 May 2004. On web.archive.org/
- Demolitions in Gaza to end: Israel tells US. AFP, 20 May 2004
- PCHR, Uprooting Palestinian Trees And Leveling Agricultural Land – The tenth Report on Israeli Land Sweeping and Demolition of Palestinian Buildings and Facilities in the Gaza Strip 1 April 2003 – 30 April 2004 On
- Army building new Gaza barrier. Ynet, 14 May 2005
- Israel changes anti-smuggling tactics. Associated Press/USA Today, 2 March 2005
- The Agreement on Movement and Access One Year On (PDF). United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. November 2006.
- Katz, Yaakov. "Hamas threats keep crossing closed." Jerusalem Post. 5 July 2007. 7 July 2007.
- "At Gaza border with Egypt, masses make reverse exodus into Sinai". Haaretz. 2008-01-25.
- "UN fails to agree on Gaza statement". Radio Netherlands Worldwide. 2008-01-25.[dead link]
- "Militants blow up Rafah barrier". World News Australia. 2008-01-24. Retrieved 2008-01-24.[dead link]
- "Egypt blocks Palestinian 'exodus' in Gaza". AsiaNews. 2008-01-24. Retrieved 2008-01-24.
- Kershner, Isabel (2008-02-04). "Egyptian Troops Seal Gaza Border". New York Times.
- Abu, Khaled. "Egypt closes Rafah border | Jerusalem Post". Fr.jpost.com. Retrieved 2011-05-28.
- Kershner, Isabel (2008-02-04). "New York Times: Israeli Defense Minister to Stay in Olmert Coalition". Israel: Nytimes.com. Retrieved 2011-05-28.
- From Kevin Flower, CNN (2011-05-28). "Egypt reopens border with Gaza - CNN.com". Edition.cnn.com. Retrieved 2011-05-28.
- Kirkpatrick, David D. (2011-05-28). "Egypt Reopens Border With Gaza". The New York Times.
- 28 May 2011, 07.12PM IST,AP (2011-05-28). "Egypt permanently opens Gaza border crossing - The Economic Times". Economictimes.indiatimes.com. Retrieved 2011-05-28.
- Rafah crossing reopened after 4 days of Hamas-Egypt rift. Xinhua, 8 June 2011
- "Rafah crossing closed after Egypt violence - Middle East". Al Jazeera English. Retrieved 2014-08-10. | <urn:uuid:551268b3-8b2e-4434-8a1f-64d4df953b9a> | {
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Presidential $1 Coin Lesson Plans
Do you know that we have a collection of FREE lesson plans based on the Presidential $1 Coin Program?
The Presidential $1 Coin Lesson Plans are now available on the United States Mint H.I.P. Pocket Change™ Web site for use in your classroom! Take a look at the lesson plans created specifically to celebrate the Presidential $1 Coins:
- A Day as President (K and 1)
- Power of the People (2 and 3)
- Presidential Gallery (4 through 6)
- History in the Making (7 and 8)
- They Were Born Where? (9 and 10)
- Give Me Liberty (11 and 12)
Make a "Connection"
Find out more about each of the Presidential $1 Coins and their presidents in the "The Coins Are Coming" section. Unlike presidents before him, Jackson did not come from a well-to-do family or have a strong formal education. And tha's part of what made him so popular with voters.
He also used his veto power to take command instead of relying on Congress to set the natio's course. Jackson vetoed a dozen bills, more than the first six presidents put together.
Introduce your class to the duties of the Federal government and the responsibilities of each branch of government with the "Representing Our Nation" lesson plan. Then have students test their knowledge of the three branches of the Federal government by playing "Branches of Power". | <urn:uuid:537307ad-60a2-4c73-998e-b60b545328a9> | {
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5 Remarkable Health Benefits of Amylase – Dr. Amylase is one of the most important digestive enzymes that helps break down and digest food. Find out what else it does for our health. Amylase has the responsibility of helping your body what is the function of digestive enzymes amylase carbohydrates into simple sugars while protease breaks down protein and lipase is in charge of fat break down. Why should you care about amylase?
The role of digestive enzymes is to act as catalysts in speeding up specific, life-preserving chemical reactions in the body. Essentially, digestive enzymes assist in breaking down larger molecules into more easily absorbed particles that the body can use to survive and thrive. Without proper levels of amylase and other digestive enzymes, it really is impossible to have your health be at its best. What are some of the ways that amylase can benefit your health? Well, aside from the most key and central function to properly digest carbohydrates, it also holds a lot of other valuable health benefits that will probably surprise you. Your mouth is the place where both the mechanical and chemical breakdown of your food occurs through the combined use of your teeth, jaws and saliva. Amylases are vital to your digestive process because they’re needed to process any starches in your diet, which are a main source from which people derive glucose, the primary sugar molecule the body uses for energy. It’s key that you combine your body’s natural amylase-producing ability with your natural ability to chew. Because if food is not properly broken down in the mouth, then your body has more work to do in order to digest and extract nutrients and energy from whatever you eat.
By chewing thoroughly, you give the amylase more time to process any carbs that you have consumed, and the more time amylase has to work the better and quicker your overall digestion will be. In addition, cells in your pancreas make another form of amylase called pancreatic amylase, which passes through a duct to reach your small intestine. Pancreatic amylase completes the digestion of carbohydrates. I’m sure you know that food not only provides your body with nutrients, but it also provides it with the energy it needs to keep you going on a daily basis. Foods that are high in starch include breads, grains, cereals, pasta, rice, beans, corn, potatoes and peas. If it wasn’t for amylase, your body wouldn’t be able to use foods like these so efficiently to fuel you. 110 type 2 diabetes patients compared to healthy individuals of the same age and sex. The research showed that for the diabetic subjects wherever blood sugar levels were higher, serum amylase activity was found to be significantly lower. This finding was reflective of pancreas malfunction and speaks to the importance of a healthy pancreas producing healthy amounts of amylase.
The Gonzalez regimen, developed by Dr. The regimen is aimed at detoxifying the body, correcting nervous system imbalances that might lead to impaired general health and supporting natural immune processes. The pancreatic enzymes are believed to be the primary agents within the regimen thought to have direct anticancer effects. Enzymes are also a key aspect of the Kelley metabolic protocol to fight cancer, developed by Dr.
Kelley, and famous embryologist John Beard before him, believed that in order to beat cancer you don’t create a new method of defense that fails to mimic the human body. Both of these treatments are controversial, but some conventional and well-respected cancer treatment centers even agree that patients suffering from cancer, especially pancreatic cancer, can benefit greatly from pancreatic enzymes. Having an insufficient amount of pancreatic enzymes is very common among people with pancreatic cancer, and when the pancreas does not produce enough enzymes to break down food, pancreatic enzyme products are needed. Doctors sometimes prescribe digestive enzymes, including pancreatic enzymes, to patients who have conditions that cause poor absorption. Cancer itself and conventional cancer treatment are also known to interfere with production and flow of digestive enzymes and insulin, which is why patients should utilize natural approaches as well. Research is showing that amylase can be a very helpful and accurate marker of stress levels.
One study looked at the whether or not the salivary enzyme alpha-amylase could indicate stress-reactive bodily changes. Results indicated that salivary alpha-amylase is sensitive to psychosocial stress and may be a very helpful additional parameter for the measurement list the enzymes involved in protein digestion stress in humans. All about amylase – Dr. OK, we now know what amylase can do, but what is it exactly?
By definition, it’s the primary starch-digesting enzyme secreted in the body. The amylase secreted by the salivary glands kicks off the the enzymatic digestion of starches in the mouth as food is chewed and mixed with saliva. It might be surprising, but enzymes and enzyme activity structure biology and clinical significance’s true that the breakdown of larger, more complex starches into simpler sugars actually starts in your mouth with simple chewing. This is why chewing food thoroughly is truly key to good digestion and optimal overall health. Salivary amylase released in the mouth is the first digestive enzyme to assist in breaking down food into its component molecules, and that process continues after food enters the stomach. The acid also has the effect of neutralizing the salivary amylase, allowing gastric amylase to take over.
The bicarbonate changes the acidity of the chyme from acid to alkaline, which has the effect of not only allowing the enzymes to degrade food, but also bacteria not capable of surviving in the acid environment of the stomach to break it down further. At this point, if you don’t have a deficit of digestive enzymes, then most of the work is done. However, for many people digestive enzyme supplementation is needed and helps this whole process take place as it should. Testing can be conducted to measure the level of amylase as well as other enzymes in your blood. Amylase level testing can be done with a blood or urine test. For a urine test, it’s likely a two-hour or 24-hour sampling. For a blood test, blood is taken from a vein in your arm.
There is more work involved with collecting your urine over a period of time, but there are also no risks, pain or side effects associated with collecting urine samples. If you don’t like needles then the urine test can be a good option. Typically, there are only low levels of amylase found in the urine or blood. However, if the pancreas or salivary glands become damaged or blocked then more amylase is often released into the bloodstream and urine. When it comes to blood, amylase levels rise for only a short time. In the urine, amylase may remain high for several days.
Why would a doctor ever test your amylase levels? If you’re preparing to have your amylase levels tested then you should not consume any alcohol for at least 24 hours prior to testing. If you’re having a blood test then do not eat or drink anything except water for at least two hours before biology form 4 chapter 4 5 enzymes. For a 24-hour urine test, make sure that you drink enough fluids during the test to prevent dehydration and to ensure that you collect enough samples. There are a lot of medications that can affect amylase test results so prior to testing be sure to let your doctor know about any medications or supplements.
Increases in the level of lipase may signal the worsening of these diseases. A lipase test along with an amylase test can help monitor treatment effectiveness and outcomes. Testing results are usually available within importance of tertiary structure in enzymes hours. Normal value ranges can vary slightly among different laboratories. For a urine test, the normal range is typically 2. Low amylase levels are also something to be concerned about. | <urn:uuid:c3be78fa-5d9e-42f1-99bc-f33d13a81b8e> | {
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Sociology Degree - The Study of People and Society
Fascinated by how human groups function? Then a sociology degree may be for you.
Sociology is the systematic study of the development, interaction, and behavior of organized human groups. Sociologists study a wide variety of subjects as the field of sociology is broad and diverse. Indeed, in UW’s department we research and teach social movements, social stratification, crime, religion, the evolution of social behavior, politics, globalization, immigration, and health.
Today's sociologists use an assortment of methods of social investigation, including observation, surveys, statistical analysis, and controlled experiments to examine the many characteristics of societies, both large and small.
Sociological concepts, theory, and methods and provide powerful insights into the social processes that shape our lives, the problems we face, and the possibilities we can envision in contemporary society. The ability to identify, describe, and understand these processes – a capability which C.W. Mills called the "sociological imagination" – is a valuable tool for understanding and navigating an ever changing and increasingly complex world.
A degree in Sociology prepares our students for a broad range of career options as well as graduate and professional studies. For example, some of our former students currently work in state and federal government departments/centers, find employment as research analysts, or pursue various careers in public health, Additionally, many of our graduate students move on to PhD programs and successful academic careers.
- Undergraduate Major, including our Foundation Courses (Sociological Principles, Sociological Theory, and Sociological Research Methods) as well as courses in core areas of sociology: Society and inequality; Social Organization and Processes; Social Institutions; Individual and Society; and Global Comparative Change.
- Undergraduate Minor, including Sociological Principles and 15 additional hours of Sociology course work (9 of which must be at the 3000-level or higher).
- Graduate M.A., focusing on a general degree or an emphasis in Crime, Law, and Deviance; Statistics and Quantitative Research; or Environment and Natural Resource | <urn:uuid:d4fef1f2-a2d5-4ff3-9fa1-415fc726fa07> | {
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Image of an astronaut and the Lunar Rover.
Click on image for full size
Aris Multimedia Entertainment, Inc 1994.
It was not long after the first space satellites were launched that we
succeeded in getting a human being into space. These first astronauts
and cosmonauts (the Russian word for astronaut) were test pilots who were
very familiar with flying in fast and dangerous planes! The first human
being to travel into space was Yuri Gagarin (USSR, 1961), followed a month
later by the US astronaut Alan Shepard.
Once we found out that humans could travel in space, a "space race"
quickly developed between the United States and the Soviet Union. The United States
main interest was to land on the moon. The Soviet Union was more interested in
setting endurance records and doing scientific research.
Russia, the United States, and 14 other countries are now working together on the International Space Station project.
For a brief history of the United States and Soviet Union human spaceflight programs, click
Discover more about human spaceflight through the links below!
Shop Windows to the Universe Science Store!
Our online store
includes issues of NESTA's quarterly journal, The Earth Scientist
, full of classroom activities on different topics in Earth and space science, as well as books
on science education!
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Despite adverse weather conditions, the orbiter Columbia was launched July 1, 1997 at 1:02 CDT. This begins a 16-day mission. The STS-94 is the reflight of the STS-83 mission. The original mission was...more
The Space Shuttle Discovery lifted off from Kennedy Space Center at 2:19 p.m. EST, October 29th. The sky was clear and the weather was great as Discovery took 8 1/2 minutes to reach orbit for the Unitied...more
This is Administrator Goldin's address about NASA's 40th anniversary: "Forty years ago, in 1958, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration was created with the boldest and most noble of missions:...more
The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) was one of the most important exploration tools of the past two decades, and will continue to serve as a great resource well into the new millennium. The HST is credited...more
Driven by a recent surge in space research, the Apollo program hoped to add to the accomplishments of the Lunar Orbiter and Surveyor missions of the late 1960's. Apollo 11 was the first mission to succeed...more
Apollo 12 survived a lightning strike during its launch on Nov. 14, 1969, and arrived at the Moon three days later. Astronauts Charles Conrad and Alan Bean descended to the surface, while Richard Gordon...more | <urn:uuid:c9cc0d71-8416-4fb6-b882-5e7438a73159> | {
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If you’ve ever filled out a form on the web, you’ve probably had to retype those distorted letters to prove that you are in fact a human being and not a program written to send spam. This process, known as "CAPTCHA" (an acronym for "Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart"), was first introduced by Yahoo.com in 2000 and is now used 60 million times per day. From the perspective of someone filling out the form, it is at best a necessary evil. Now, however, a team at Carnegie Mellon has developed a program dubbed reCAPTCHA that uses the CAPTCHA process and the millions of people filling out web forms to help digitize books that will ultimately be made available for free by the Internet Archive.
The process is explained fully on the reCAPTCHA web site, but read on for the gist of it. reCAPTCHA gathers scanned images from books the Internet Archive project is attempting to digitize and supplies them to participating web sites. When users of those sites fill out forms, they will be asked to retype two words that appear in the image. When the user correctly enters these words, he or she will have contributed to the accurate digitization of books while submitting the form they originally intended.
The AHA is in the process of adding the reCAPTCHA program to all of its web forms (see it in action on The Next Generation of History Teachers comment page), and the technical staff of the association enthusiastically endorses its use elsewhere. | <urn:uuid:ce70ca19-1fa7-4ff3-b777-de1800251430> | {
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