News & commentary on sustainability, activism, urban planning, politics, and our world.
As the angry riots continue to rage on in England, on this side of the pond we are trying to understand why this is happening. It is difficult to comprehend the many factors that have contributed to these violent uprisings after the murder of a 29 year old black man named Mark Duggan. These destructive incidents have been called everything from a class war and egregious opportunistic theft, to the beginning of a popular revolution.
The law is the usual boundary point when it comes to matters of inclusion and exclusion as far as race is concerned. In the Balkans, they utilized a variety of legislative and political measures to stabilize rhetoric that was, at whatever cause, somehow deemed acceptable at times of war. Hate speech bans are in place in both Serbia and Croatia. The situation has begun to normalize and various political measures are underway, including return measures, on both sides, to differing degrees.
My favorite way to celebrate the embarrassment of riches that is California’s seasonal produce is to take a trip to our local farmer’s market. It is a weekly ritual that we enjoy as one of life’s simple pleasures; the outing provides social opportunities to interact with my neighbors, and it is also much more fun than just an ordinary grocery shopping chore.
More people in the United States are using food stamps now than ever before in the history of our nation — 41.8 million Americans are currently getting food aid. The Department of Agriculture just released updated national participation numbers for food assistance programs, which show that the amount of food stamp recipients has jumped 18% from last year, and has increased 1.4% just since June. Although this ignoble new record is not really so very surprising; our nation’s dire economic situation has caused the number of families in need of food assistance to set new records for each of the last 20 months straight.
This is a totally cool project my mom ran across on StumbleUpon and shared with me. It’s a film project in which the film is made up of the work of thousands of filmmakers all over the world (every country in the world) using material from the same day, October 10, 2010. Even this short trailer above includes the work of 90 individuals and organizations. Cool, and beautiful work.
