I’m reading Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson and it’s totally engroosing. In the middle of the dozen or so stories that swirl around between the covers of the book are gems of writing like these: Randy spent plenty of time chasing and carrying out impromptu experiements on dust devils while walking to and from school, to the point of getting bounced of the grille of a shreiking Buick once when he chased a roughly shopping-cart-sized one into the street in an attempt to climb into the centre of it. He knew they were both fragile and tenacious. You could just stomp …
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How not to run a democracy. This article, sarcastically titled Grassroots Democracy in Iraq, American Style tells the story of a local leader in a Baghdad neighbourhood who, despite his gut instincts, decided to stand for local office in a new local council. The military convened the council, supervised the elections and gave the orders – representatives would not be paid, but would receive US military assistance in making local improvements. The first job was to do a detailed assessment of the neighbourhood’s needs. The five member council undertook the assignment diligently and in nine days produced a thick report …
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Thanks to both Dave Pollard and Jim McGee, I spent some considerable time musing over Donella Meadows’ paper on “Places to Intervene in a System.” The paper takes a systems theory approach to identifying leverage points for creating change. In her language, the ten places, in increasing order of scale are as follows: 9. Numbers (subsidies, taxes, standards). 8. Material stocks and flows. 7. Regulating negative feedback loops. 6. Driving positive feedback loops. 5. Information flows. 4. The rules of the system (incentives, punishment, constraints). 3. The power of self-organization. 2. The goals of the system. 1. The mindset or …
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Flattered to have been listed today as one of Dave Pollard’s favourite Canadian blogs. Thanks Dave. Now go read his stuff…it’s great.
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One of the tenets of tae kwon do is “Indomitable Spirit” The practice of a martial art makes use of that spirit to sustain survival under life threatening circumstances. Indomitable spirit marks the small and almost forgotten community of Brainerd, Kansas on the American Great Plains. Offering an almost ethnographic example of indomitable spirit in the life of a community, Time, Place and Memory on the Prairie Plains looks at how a small settlement has sustained itself through waves of change. Although most of the town’s landmarks have long since been abandoned or demolished, they exist as powerfully in the …