Worth a Look: Popular Science Better than WIRED

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Popular Science Wipes the Floor with WIRED Magazine

Latest issue highlights:

Internet in the Ether (airwaves abandned by TV could beam high-speed Internet everywhere)

Out of Thin Air (a little oxygen is all a zinc-air battery needs to become a powerhouse

RENOVATING AMERICA (specifics across transportation, water, power, telecom, and sewage.

Phi Beta Iota: Our first web editor was Dr. Eric Theise, Internet Editor for WIRED Magazine back when Kevin Kelly was in charge, and it rocked then.  No more.  WIRED has been trashed by advertising, gloss, and a loss of focus.  Popular Science is now “the one.”

Worth a Look: Nature Ethics & EcoFeminism

Cultural Intelligence, Earth Intelligence, Worth A Look
Amazon Page

“Nature Ethics provides a comprehensive and fair-minded account of the contrasting positions, particularly with respect to animals, between ecofeminist nature ethics and the celebrated holistic views of Theodore Roosevelt, Aldo Leopold, Holmes Rolston III, and Warwick Fox. Anyone interested in women's studies, animal advocacy, hunting, vegetarianism, or environmental ethics will find this impressive book helpful and challenging.”

Amazon Page

How are the unjustified dominations of women and other humans connected to the unjustified domination of animals and nonhuman nature? What are the characteristics of oppressive conceptual frameworks and systems of unjustified domination? How does an ecofeminist perspective help one understand issues of environmental and social justice? In this important new work Karen J. Warren answers these and other questions from a Western perspective. Warren looks at the variety of positions in ecofeminism, the distinctive nature of ecofeminist philosophy, ecofeminism as an ecological position, and other aspects of the movement to reveal its significance to both understanding and creatively changing patriarchal (and other) systems of unjustified domination.

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This is a comprehensive and important discussion of three main myths of creation, destruction, and domination. Ruether ( Mary: The Feminine Face of the Church , Westminster/John Knox Pr., 1977) shows how these patriarchal stories still permeate the culture and social structure of the Western world today. She eloquently critiques these values from an ecological and feminist point of view, exploring how male domination of women and of nature are interconnected. Arguing that these values must be changed, she develops potential ways for healing ourselves and our planet from within existing religious traditions. This work is useful for special collections in religion, woman's studies, and ecology. It assumes some relevant knowledge on the part of the reader but is highly relevant for this specialized audience.

“Cry of the Earth, Cry of the Poor” represents Leonardo Boff's most systematic effort to date to link the spirit of liberation theology with the urgent challenge of ecology. Focusing on the threatened Amazon of his native Brazil, Boff traces the ties that bind the fate of the rain forests with the fate of the Indians and the poor of the land. In this book, readers will find the keys to a new, liberating faith.

Worth a Look: Water Footprint

12 Water, Earth Intelligence, True Cost, Worth A Look

Waterfootprint Network Manual
http://www.waterfootprint.org/downloads/WaterFootprintManual2009.pdf

A PILOT IN CORPORATE WATER FOOTPRINT ACCOUNTING AND IMPACT ASSESSMENT:
THE WATER FOOTPRINT OF A SUGAR-CONTAINING CARBONATED BEVERAGE
http://www.waterfootprint.org/Reports/Report39-WaterFootprintCarbonatedBeverage.pdf

THE WATER FOOTPRINT OF SWEETENERS AND BIO-ETHANOL FROM SUGAR CANE,
SUGAR BEET AND MAIZE
http://www.waterfootprint.org/Reports/Report38-WaterFootprint-sweeteners-ethanol.pdf

Homepage: http://www.waterfootprint.org

Worth a Look: InSTEDD Emergency Support to Emergencies, Diseases, and Disasters

Gift Intelligence, Peace Intelligence, Worth A Look

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Our Mission

InSTEDD's mission is to harness the power of technology to improve collaboration for global health and humanitarian action. We are an innovation lab for tools designed to strengthen networks, build community resilience and improve early detection and response to major health-related events and natural or human-caused disasters. We grapple daily with the challenges of finding new approaches and new designs:  a simple, reliable way to bring it all together — the people, the tools and the data — and create the kinds of information flow that we know will save lives.  We think that with new, free and open-source technologies we can help humanitarian and public health organizations around the world work together more effectively in crises. We aim to reduce mortality, accelerate recovery and help prepare communities to face the unexpected with confidence in their own resilience.

Worth a Look: UNICEF RapidSMS

Methods & Process, Technologies, Tools, Worth A Look

UNICEF Innovation RapidSMS

RapidSMS is UNICEF's open source platform for data collection, logistics coordination and communication allowing any mobile phone to interact with the web.

About UNICEF

UNICEF is on the ground in over 150 countries and territories to help children survive and thrive, from early childhood through adolescence. The world's largest provider of vaccines for developing countries, UNICEF supports child health and nutrition, good water and sanitation, quality basic education for all boys and girls, and the protection of children from violence, exploitation, and AIDS. UNICEF is funded entirely by the voluntary contributions of individuals, businesses, foundations and governments.

Worth a Look: “Our Revolting Elites” & Dumb Public

Cultural Intelligence, Worth A Look
Full Op-Ed Online

Phi Beta Iota: This is the section that got our attention:

The information revolution, he said, has not raised the level of public intelligence. It is no secret, he continued, “that the public knows less about public affairs than it used to know. Millions of Americans cannot begin to tell you what is in the Bill of Rights, what Congress does, what the Constitution says about the powers of the presidency, how the party system emerged or how it operates. A sizeable majority, according to a recent survey, believe that Israel is an Arab nation.”

Our Revolting Elites

by J. R. Nyquist

Weekly Column Published: 1.15.2010

In 1995 Christopher Lasch came out with The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy. The introduction was titled “The Democratic Malaise” and included chapters like “Does Democracy Deserve to Survive?” and “The Lost Art of Argument.” The threat to our civilization, said Lasch, does not come from the masses. The threat comes from the elite.

. . . . . . .

According to Lasch, there are far worse problems facing America than racism: “the crisis of competence; the spread of apathy and a suffocating cynicism; the moral paralysis of those who value ‘openness' above all.”   . . .

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