Groundswell

Here is another nugget from one of my current favorite Dad-blogs – Fathers who Feel:

We’re all addicts for happiness, and for formulas to attain more of it. Sometimes being a parent looks like a big board game designed to demonstrate what a silly quest that is. The point here isn’t that there isn’t a lot of crazy joy on the journey. It’s just that nailing it down and making it repeatable is beyond elusive. Not that my little brain actually registers that and gives up trying.

Do be sure to wander over to his blog and check out the rest of this post, and some of his other writing…

I read an interview recently in which someone said “The brain is wired to connect with other people.” Now, the fact that we are social beings, that we crave the company of others and create our identity at least in part through our interaction with others is the sort of thing that is they teach in Sociology 101.

However, this line stuck out to me in part because of its context and in part because of its diction.

The interview was part of a series of interviews with leading progressive media makers, thinkers and activists and had a decidedly “new media” tone with an emphasis on new technology and social networks. In this context this idea takes on new contours than simply saying “we are social beings.” In addition, this context makes the speakers words – her way of saying this – particularly poignant. We are not just social beings, we are “wired” to “connect.”
Read the rest of this entry »

“People live in a community by virtue of the things they have in common; and communication is the way in which they come to possess things in common.”

John Dewey, Democracy and Education

I just stumbled upon a great post over at Grist.org reflecting on Martin Luther King Jr. in terms of our food culture and food system. In many ways the post reminded me of some of the work I had done a few years ago, exploring the overlaps between Dr. King and conservation and community service for the Student Conservation Association (see those here and here). I agree with Tom Philpot, the author of the post, that a community garden is a great place to celebrate MLK day.

Here is an excerpt from the post:

“[There is an] emerging backlash against industrial food — a movement toward farmers markets, natural-foods supermarkets like Whole Foods, and other sources of fresh, unprocessed fare. But here, too, African Americans were largely marginalized. In cities across the country, “food deserts” persist: areas where almost no fresh food (much less local or organic fare) is available, forcing residents to either travel great distances to supermarkets or rely on overpriced processed fare from corner stores. Read the rest of this entry »

Is anyone else really sick of hearing about Obama’s first 100 days? Cable and network news pundits repeat the phrase like a mantra, meant to justify their incessant jabber. News websites and politics blogs have big banners across their site pointing people to their “First 100 Days” section. Conversations around the water cooler count out the days, and discuss what has been accomplished, or not.

As best as I can tell the whole 100 days phenomenon is little more than a constructed timeline, designed and implemented in large part by the media to keep people coming back for more. After record ratings, web hits, and sales during the news-heavy election season, the media needs something to lure people back. In this way, the rhetoric of the first 100 days has simply and slickly replaced the rhetoric of horserace politics that was featured there before.

Instead of routing you to their “Election Center,” websites point you to their “100 Days Page.” Instead of counting down to November 4th, they are counting down to April 30th. But wait, do weekends count? If not then then we are counting down until June 2nd. But wait, are we counting holidays?

And that’s the thing – 100 days is absolutely arbitrary. Read the rest of this entry »

This great image is from Stella Marrs.
If you like it, check them out at http://www.stellamarrs.com.

See some more Stella Marrs images after the break… Read the rest of this entry »

“People do awful things to each other. But it’s worse in places where everybody is kept in the dark. Information is light. Information, in itself, about anything, is light.”

~Veteran photographer, George Guthrie, a character in the Tom Stoppard play Night and Day (thanks to James Warren’s recent article in the Atlantic for pointing me to this quote.)

Part two in a two part series about the intersection of pragmatism and rhetoric in Barack Obama’s politics. If you have not read part one, you can find it here.

I left the first part of this discussion with this passage from Barack Obama’s inaugural address:

“For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness.  We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus – and non-believers.  We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth; and because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation, and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace.”

In this passage we get a glimpse of one more vital overlap between Obama and pragmatism – the emphasis on language. Since the 2004 Democratic National Convention Obama has been deeply  identified with his skill as an orator. Indeed, on the campaign his skill in this area was one of the first things to be used against him by his opponents. He was described as being all words, and no action – all rhetoric and no experience (which was ironic at least in part because so much of his rhetoric was about the power and importance of his life experiences).

By now it is clear that Obama understood, much better than his opponents and his critics, the connection between language and action. As he stood with his hand on the bible being sworn in as the 44th president, he understood that we don’t just speak a language, but are shaped by it as well. Richard Rorty is a modern pragmatist who has written extensively about our ability “to actualize hitherto undreamt-of possibilities by putting new linguistic and other practices into play, and erecting new social constructs.” Which is a fancy way of saying we can change the world by changing the way we speak (and think) about that world. Read the rest of this entry »

Part one, in a two part series exploring the intersection of rhetoric and pragmatism in the politics of Barack Obama.

A lot of people watched the Obama inauguration speech waiting for what I found myself calling “the Kennedy moment.” They listened intently for that one line, that marvelous sound bite, that piece of undeniable wisdom, that defining sentence that helps us define ourselves just a little bit better in this troubled time. Obama’s best speeches have done this to great effect.

In the weeks since the inauguration there has not been much agreement on which, if any, one phrase settled in the minds of the nation as the sum of the entire speech. It’s likely that those who did find what they were looking for in his speech, found it in different places, identifying with various pieces of what was a complex and wide-ranging address.

For me, the line that stood out in Obama’s speech was not aspirational or inspirational. It was not  a call to serve or a call to act. At best, it was a clarification – but an important one. One our nation has needed to hear and one that, for me, indicated volumes about how Obama will approach his work as president. Read the rest of this entry »

A while back I did a few posts on guerrilla gardening and guerrilla harvesting that included terms like “seed bomb” (a ball of dirt with seeds in it that one lobs into empty lots in urban areas). At the time, while reviewing links and articles about these topic I stumbled on two odd projects that combine guns and seeds in unexpected ways.

From the Plant the Piece website.

The first was a project called “Plant the Piece” in which the artist created “Seed Guns” made out of “red clay, dry organic compost, and a mixture of annual-perennial species of wildflowers native and naturalized to any area, they can grow when left directly on the surface of the ground.” From the description of the project:

In 2004, the Richmond, Virginia homicide total reached 101. That same year, the traveling art installation, Plant The Piece, memorialized each murder victim by creating a “Gun”. As venues became available, ten original installations containing “Guns” were erected and the public was able to view an unfortunate statistic in an extraordinary light. The exhibit was inspired by the techniques and philosophies of Japanese radical gardener Masanobu Fukuoka. Fukuoka said, “The ultimate goal of farming is not the growing of crops, but the cultivation and perfection of human beings.” Each installation was a unique reflection of it’s host venue and audience. The traveling exhibit was enormously successful as it tackled a most sensitive matter that had no apparent solution. Read the rest of this entry »