Michael Lind is Policy Director of New America’s Economic Growth Program. He is a co-founder of the New America Foundation, along with Ted Halstead and Sherle Schwenninger, and was the first New America fellow. With Ted Halstead he is co-author of The Radical Center: The Future of American Politics (Doubleday). Author of many award winning books across politics, political, journalism, history, and poetry and literature for children, he has recently become focused on Populism, and may well be the single best voice for populism in America today.
Jon's bio is under the photo. He is one of the originals, including a book co-edited with Mitch Ratcliffe (a co-founder of Earth Intelligence Network), Extreme Democracy (Lulu.com, 2004). Below is his latest update.
Irons in the fire:
Plutopia Productions projects are on fire… including the Plutopia 2011 event during SXSW and the Plutopia News Network that Scoop Sweeney and I will be launching within the next month. Scoop and I are also producing events on the side, like last Friday’s “From Jerusalem to Cordoba” performance by Catherine Braslavsky and Joseph Rowe. Scoop and I, like our Plutopia Productions colleagues, see event production — creating compelling experiences — as an art form. We expect to produce at least one event per quarter, either as part of Plutopia Productions or onw our own, in addition to our work on the content site, which will include podcasts and god nose whatever other media.
I’m partnering with other web developers in creating Teahouse Media, a web consulting and development cooperative. Web development is my day job, and I pursue it with relish… an avid builder of information environments and systems. As in the past, I’m focused on open source platforms, primarily Drupal and WordPress.
With a loose group journalists and other thinkers and doers, I’ve been exploring the future of journalism and the emergence of digital news applications; set to moderate a panel on the subject at SXSW Interactive.
Trying to get my head aorund the future of the Internet. I gave a talk on the subject at a recent meeting of the Central Texas World Future Society, and will give another similar talk at Link Coworking at noon on January 8.
In that context, I’ve also been tracking the Wikileaks controversies, thinking to convene a public forum on the subject via EFF-Austin. Is Julian Assange shouting “fire” in a crowded theatre? Or is he a contemporary Daniel Ellsberg variation? Also thinking about transparency; working as an organizer (with the LBJ School) of the Texas Government 2.0 Camp, which will be January 28-29.
A practicing Buddhist, I’m looking into the Gurdjieff work, a different system of thinking, but similar in its cultivation of mindfulness. True mindfulness is easy to conceive but hard hard hard to achieve.
I’ve signed up to be a reviewer for the City of Austin’s Grant for Technology Opportunities, which awards money to community technology projects. I’ve always had an interest in community technology, and that’s revived somewhat as I note that there’s still a digital divide, and it’s even more significant as so much more of what we do in our daily lives requires access to technologies and networks. Also interseted in digital literacy; not long ago Howard Rheingold and I were discussing his next book, which will be on that subject.
The world is incredibly screwed up at the moment; I feel an obligation to get into an active an visible advocacy for the things I think are important… a humane progressive agenda, a positive and transformative cultural agenda, depolarizing politics and an end to the cultural cold war in the U.S. and beyond, commitment to the ideal of sustainability, acknowledgement of and response to the problem of global warming, etc. Can a web developer do all that much? I’m with the army here… we should all try to be all that we can be…
Michael Vlahos is Professor of Strategy at the United States Naval War College. His is the author of Fighting Identity: Sacred War and World Change, an analysis of how war — as sacred ritual — shapes collective identity: And what it means in culture to be human. His career includes service in the Navy, the CIA, Johns Hopkins SAIS, and the State Department. An historian-anthropologist of war, he focuses on the relationships between civilizations, and the creative syncretism that is at the heart of change in history. He appears and posts on Huffington, the National Journal, and the John Batchelor Radio program (WABC).
Phi Beta Iota: America is divided into Nine Nations culturally and geographically, 50 States that comprise the United STATES of America, many now considering nullification and some considering secession, and two parties that shut out one third or more of the electorate and electoral candidates. Sadly, Americans agree on 80% of the issues but spend all of their time in conflict on the 20% that are ideologically rooted, while also refusing to see that the only thing America needs to get back on track is Electoral Reform–restoring the integrity of the connection between citizens, their taxes, and how their government spends those taxes. Below, from Marcus Aurelius, is a “strong signal” representing anger in the heartland.
Signs Northbound on I-5 near Chehalis, WA (88 miles south of Seattle )
Howard Zinn, an author, teacher and political activist whose leftist “A People's History of the United States” became a million-selling alternative to mainstream texts and a favorite of such celebrities as Bruce Springsteen and Ben Affleck, died Wednesday. He was 87.
Zinn died of a heart attack in Santa Monica, Calif., daughter Myla Kabat-Zinn said. The historian was a resident of Auburndale, Mass.
Published in 1980 with little promotion and a first printing of 5,000, “A People's History” was — fittingly — a people's best-seller, attracting a wide audience through word of mouth and reaching 1 million sales in 2003. Although Zinn was writing for a general readership, his book was taught in high schools and colleges throughout the country, and numerous companion editions were published, including “Voices of a People's History,” a volume for young people and a graphic novel
Phi Peta Iota: Click on the photo for the full story. We take exception to the labeling of Howard Zinn as “left wing.” He was neither left nor right, he was honest, and that is not something one can say about either of the two political parties that exclude half the eligible voters from the process and that loot the treasury on behalf of special interests. It is truly a terrible indictment of society when truth-tellers are labeled in any manner
Fedor Dostoevsky: A man who lies to himself, and believes his own lies, becomes unable to recognize truth, either in himself or in anyone else.
Phi Beta Iota: We are deeply inpressed by this individual, who crosses harnesses Collective Intelligence to achieve Commercial Value in both Cultural and Earth contexts. His idea is infinitely scalable, infinitely valuable, and applicable to every single product and service on the planet, ultimately to included planned giving at the item level.
