All posts by Augustus

Meadows classics and newbooks from Shuman & Lovins

Just got an email from our friends at Chelsea Green Publishing – the leading publisher of sustainable living books since 1985.  Normally, a sale email moves quickly to my trash folder.  I scrolled quickly down through the email.  I was interested to see what they included in their 35% off for the month of January on the Bestsellers of 2011 on Sale.

Local Dollars, Local SenseBefore I reached the list of sale items.  I saw an announcement for an upcoming March 2012 book:  Local Dollars, Local Sense: How to Shift Your Money from Wall Street to Main Street and Achieve Real Prosperity by Michael H. Shuman, We had met Shuman a decade ago at a Sustainable Economics conference at Ramapo College that had been organized by Ramapo Professor Trent Schroyer.  Shuman was one of the featured speakers.  We were impressed by his common sense approach to creating prosperity by keeping money in your local economy.  At the time, we immediately bought his first book Going Local: Creating Self-Reliant Communities in a Global AgeContinue reading Meadows classics and newbooks from Shuman & Lovins

Book shopping for a compassionate Valentines Day!

For the latest in Valentine’s Day gifts, try a vintage piece of jewelry from our family company Wilderside Ltd.’s newest enterprise.  Book listings are below.  Click “more”

[etsy-include=WildersideJewelry;14593092] Continue reading Book shopping for a compassionate Valentines Day!

MLK explains to the Corporate Press the Historical Necessity for Civil Disobedience in 1965 video

Martin Luther King Jr. on NBC’s Meet the Press in 1965

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAtsAwGreyE]

IW: The questioning of Dr. King by the corporate press is reminiscent of the same questions that they ask the Occupy movement today.

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On March 28, 1965, Martin Luther King, Jr. appeared on NBC’s Meet The Press.

One week after leading his historic five-day march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, King said that the demonstration was necessary not just to help push the Voting Rights Bill through, but to draw attention to the humiliating conditions in Alabama such as police brutality and racially-motivated murder.

Saving Our Skins: Camus’ Neither Victims nor Executioners

The Power of Nonviolence Writings by Advocates of PeaceThe eleventh chapter of The Power of Nonviolence: Writings by Advocates of Peace contains Albert Camus‘ 1946 essay Neither Victims nor Executioners. This week we discuss the second part of the essay, Saving Our Skins. Camus wrote this 16-page essay as World War II had just ended, and it seemed as if the Soviet Union and the United States were dragging the planet into the horrors of a third world war. Eleven years later, he would win the Nobel prize for literature. This week we discuss the second part of the essay.

The title of this section comes from the conclusion of the first section that we must refuse to either to kill or be killed.  This launches the discussion of the accusations that Camus is living in a Utopia because so-called political reality calls for murder. He finds the ease with which his accusers call for murder is “a freak of the times” where the accusers are disassociated from the actuality of what they are calling for.  Camus describes how the whole culture is disassociated from reality:

We make love by telephone, we work not on matter but on machines, and we kill and are killed by proxy. We gain in cleanliness, but lose in understanding.

This poetically describes the evil of our current world where we execute innocent children by drones operated by someone half way across the globe.  Continue reading Saving Our Skins: Camus’ Neither Victims nor Executioners

Something Good Has Begun: Peace Song 12/23

The call for peace is so strong and clear in Cat Stevens Peace Train, it makes me want to just jump on board.  This video was filmed during the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize concert for Muhammad Yunus, the founder of the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, which does micro-lending to the poor.  This model for overcoming poverty has been copied around the world.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7iLPnDCQ1g]

Continue reading Something Good Has Begun: Peace Song 12/23

Albert Camus’ Neither Victims nor Executioners: Century of Fear

The Power of Nonviolence Writings by Advocates of PeaceThe eleventh chapter of The Power of Nonviolence: Writings by Advocates of Peace contains  Albert Camus‘ 1946 essay Neither Victims nor Executioners.  Camus wrote this 16-page essay as World War II had just ended, and it seemed as if the Soviet Union and the United States were dragging the planet into the horrors of a third world war.  Eleven years later, he would win the Nobel prize for literature.  There is so much to discuss in this essay I will being reviewing it in parts.

Camus begins the essay by naming the 20th century in relation to recent centuries.  He labels the 20th century: the century of fear. Though he does not blame science directly for the atmosphere of fear, he sees the technology it invented as a tool of fear.  The more recent film Bowling for Columbine by Michael Moore echoes this same diagnosis in that the United States in particular has adopted a a culture of fear. Continue reading Albert Camus’ Neither Victims nor Executioners: Century of Fear

It’s for your own Good: Peace Song for 12/17

Flowers are Red by Harry Chapin is the Peace Song of the Day for December 17th. You can find this song on his album “Livingroom Suite”   Duchess Susanna & I bonded over our fondness for this album while we were dating.

Administrators from Riverhead Schools to Gracie Mansion need to understand that creativity and leadership need to be encouraged, not punished. Chapin would often introduce the song by explaining how the inspiration came from a report card that his secretary’s son brought home.  The teacher wrote that:

Your son is marching to the beat of a different drummer, but don’t worry we will soon have him joining the parade by the end of the term.

 

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeJJOjb7fj4]

Continue reading It’s for your own Good: Peace Song for 12/17