Recycled Electrons

July 2005    #58  
 

Thanks to:
- The "Linkster"
- Center for Neighborhood Technology
- Pat Hudson
- David Sunfellow
- Sherill Baldwin
- Ed Groves
            and others!
 

 

Search the last 12 issues of Recycled Electrons here.
For the first 48 issues, click here

 

What Makes a Place Great?
from Terry Link and Yes! Magazine
http://www.yesmagazine.org/

 

Center for Neighborhood Technology
June update

 

http://www.leavemychildalone.org/

 

Find What You Love 
(Steve Jobs Commencement Address 6/12/05)
-from David Sunfellow

http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html

 

 

Sustainability Related Projects in the Lansing Area
here's a quick list of sustainability/livability-related websites and projects in the area...  Please help me expand this list!
(click it)

 

from Pat Hudson

http://www.grist.org/news/muck/2005/06/09/little-gore/index.html?source=weekly

"...the coming paradigm shift toward clean technologies is an industrial movement that will dwarf even the digital revolution in terms of economic potential and historical meaning."

--Sergey Brin, Google cofounder

 

More Simple Words of Wisdom
from Kay Palinsky

I believe there is a lifestyle that most people expect:

1. Nurturing the young.
2. Educating them to be employable, able to sustain themselves and eventually others.
3. Physical development including health giving nutrition and activity.
4. Cultural involvement, i.e. travel, arts, social interaction, religion and values formation.
5. Preparation for marriage and family life.
6. Emergency assistance; i.e. financial and medical

I believe these to be the basic expectations of people. Each category has many variations which people may facilitate on their own but society can cooperate in providing an awareness of the basic flow of life and provide or  encourage the institutions or areas that enable the expectations to be fulfilled. I believe our committee can motivate regions to evaluate the ways that the flow of life occurs locally and between communities. Is there a safe, esthetically rich and  harmonious arrangement of the institutions?  Are they accessible? Is there community cohesiveness? Does it translate to common area enhancement?

 

 

"If someone is not receiving what they are asking for, it is not because there is a shortage of resources; it can only be that the person holding the desire is out of alignment with their own request. There is no shortage. There is no lack. There is no competition for resources. There is only the allowing or the disallowing of that which you are asking for."

-Abraham

"This is, plain and simply, one of the most powerful books I have ever read. One's entire life can change because of what is found here. And all given with such love! This book is a Life Treasure."

-- Neale Donald Walsch, author, Conversations with God

 

 

 

Create a healthy, livable, and sustainable region...

Just a quick reminder that the July Sustainable Community dialogue at Urban Options will be on the 2nd Saturday due to the holiday (10 - noon). John Sarver will share some exercises on listening and questioning skills from his experiences as a mediator. *

More at www.re-news.net/process/dialogue 

*Hungry to bring a snack in July or August? Please e-mail me.

 

 

http://www.freewayblogger.com/

Sherill Baldwin

 

 

Bill Moyers' speech to the National Conference for Media Reform

from Ed Groves

 

 

Support Lansing's Parks and River Trail
read Jessica Yorko's letter to the editor

 

"Good Morning Beautiful Business" 
by Judy Wicks

Note:  Judy Wick's Twenty-Fourth Annual E. F. Schumacher Lecture "Good Morning
Beautiful Business" is now in print.  Edited by Hildegarde Hannum, the
lecture may be read on-line at www.smallisbeautiful.org or ordered in
pamphlet form by sending $5 to the E. F. Schumacher Society, 140 Jug End
Road, Great Barrington, MA 01230.

The lecture is a powerful call for including the word "local" in the
definition of socially responsible businesses. It takes a deep commitment to
a particular place and substantial effort to weave together all the threads
of that place--people, land, and community--to create new economies that can
counteract the devastating effects of the global economy. Judy Wicks is by
example and intent, a leader in building these new economies.

Business is about relationships with all the people we work with and buy
from and sell to. My business is the way I express my love for the world,
and that is what makes it a thing of beauty.

Today much of what I care about--nature and animals, community, family
farms, family businesses, indigenous cultures, the character of our towns
and cities, even our children's future--is being threatened by corporate
globalization. In order to protect all that I care deeply about, I needed to
step out of my own company, out of the White Dog Cafe, and start to work
together with other businesses to build an alternative to corporate
globalization. I started my journey with the simple premise that a
sustainable "global" economy must be comprised of sustainable "local"
economies. Rather than a global economy controlled by large multinational
corporations, our movement envisions a global economy with a decentralized
network of local economies made up of what we call living enterprises:
small, independent, locally owned businesses of human scale. These living
enterprises create community wealth and vitality while working in harmony
with natural systems.

Many business schools teach students to leave their values at home when they
go to work. We teach our children the Golden Rule at home, but in the
workplace gold rules. I believe this has caused a lot of unhappiness because
most of our waking hours during our working years are spent in the
workplace, and when our values at work aren't aligned with our personal
values, we lead unsatisfied lives.

We also are faced with a political crisis in which multinational
corporations are increasingly dominating our lives--the food we eat, the
clothes we wear, the news we see and hear--and controlling our government.
Politicians and government administrators, who are frequently former CEOs
and lobbyists, often owe their jobs to the corporations that fund political
campaigns. The merger of corporate interests with government is defined as
fascism. We need to bring power and freedom back to "we the people." We can
do that by transforming our economy.

In the process of building local economies, many small businesses will be
created--businesses that grow, distribute, and process food, making
preserves, sauces, and soups from local  farm products, as well as
businesses that design and make clothing from locally grown fiber crops.
When a product is not available locally, consumers should buy in a way that
helps and supports the local community where the product, such as coffee or
chocolate, originated. It's important to know where your purchase comes
from, to know that through fair trade other communities in other parts of
the country or the world are the beneficiaries of the purchase.

We are taught that we're losers if we don't pay the lowest price as
consumers, earn the highest profit as business people, and make the highest
return as investors. We need a revolution in values so that we will value
life more than money and so that we can make decisions as consumers and
business owners and government leaders in our enlightened self-interest, at
the same time benefiting all of life.

Perhaps the greatest benefit of the local-living-economy movement is that by
creating self-reliance we are creating the foundations for world peace. If
all communities had food security, water security, and energy security, if
they appreciated diversity of culture rather than a monoculture, that would
be the foundation for world peace.

Here's a cool business in Williamston
http://www.wholisticlifeservices.com

 

 

Please send me your words of wisdom, thoughts, questions, and suggestions.

Thanks,

LeRoy

leroy@leroyharvey.net
www.leroyharvey.net