The Only Way Out is In

Strategic Planning

OK, so true to the original purpose of this blog, I will be posting stuff related to my studies. It may get a bit dry, but I think it is still interesting. Too bad if its not, because I’m going to post it anyway.

I will likely be posting some very similar stuff, so I am not sure how that is going to look. I am thinking to put everything in new posts as I go. The other option would be to edit in similar stuff so it is all together. I may do that too, not sure.

At any rate, check out this strategic planning stuff. I am wanting to keep these particular plans due to their unique, timely, and relevant material.

From Transition US: http://transitionus.org/our-story

Our Story

Our vision is that every community in the United States has engaged its collective creativity to unleash an extraordinary and historic transition to a future beyond fossil fuels; a future that is more vibrant, abundant and resilient; one that is ultimately preferable to the present.

Mission

Transition US is a resource and catalyst for building resilient communities across the United States that are able to withstand severe energy, climate or economic shocks while creating a better quality of life in the process. We will accomplish our mission by inspiring, encouraging, supporting, networking and training individuals and their communities as they consider, adopt, adapt, and implement the Transition approach to community empowerment and change.

The Transition approach is based on four key assumptions:

1. That life with dramatically lower energy consumption is inevitable, and that it’s better to plan for it than to be taken by surprise.
2. That our communities currently lack resilience.
3. That we have to act collectively, and we have to act now to build community resilience and prepare for life without fossil fuels.
4. That by unleashing the collective genius of our communities it is possible to design new ways of living that are more nourishing, fulfilling and ecologically sustainable.

Strategic Action Goals

1. To raise awareness of the need to work together to build resilience in the face of fossil fuel depletion, climate change and economic crises.
2. To support the emergence and growth of Transition Initiatives and leaders in all regions of the United States.
3. To mirror the diversity of the United States in Transition Initiatives by supporting Initiatives’ efforts to include all major cultural and demographic segments of their local communities.
4. To support the continued development and delivery of high quality education, training and consulting in support of the advancement of the Transition Movement in the United States.
5. To achieve financial sustainability for Transition US and Transition Initiatives in the United States.

History

The Transition movement emerged from the work of Permaculture educator, Rob Hopkins, and his students at the Kinsale Further Education College in Ireland. In early 2005 they created the Kinsale Energy Descent Action Plan, which was later adopted as policy by the Town Council. It was the first strategic community planning document of its kind, and went beyond the issues of energy supply, to look at across-the-board creative adaptations in the realms of food, farming, education, economy, health, and much more.

After moving back to the UK to complete his doctorate, Rob decided to take the Peak Oil preparation process beyond the classroom and into the community. He started Transition Towns Totnes in early 2006, and it took off like a rocket. It has since spread virally across the world as groups in other communities quickly copied the model and initiated the Transition process in their own locale.

The Transition Network was established in the UK in late 2006, to support the rapid international growth of the movement. In 2007, increasing high levels of interest in the States led to the launch of Transition US. We were established as a national support network, in partnership with the Transition Network so that we could take on the role of providing co-ordination, support and training to Transition Initiatives as they emerged across the States. The process of “officiating” Transition Initiatives in the States was also handed over to Transition US.

In December 2008, Transition US invited the UK founders of Transition Training, Naresh Giangrande and Sophy Banks, over to the States to give a series of training courses and talks. All courses were sold out events. One of these was the inaugural 4-day “Train the Trainers” course, in which we selected and trained a team of 21 people who are now facilitating 2-day “Training for Transition” courses around the country.

In January 2008 we received initial funding from Post Carbon Institute supplemented by a donation from a private investor. This has enabled Transition US to become a non-profit, open an office, hire staff, and develop a new website. Ultimately our funds will be used to continue our core function of acting as a catalyst for the Transition Movement here in the States.

Structure

Transition US is modeled on the Transition Network, visually represented by the image on the left. It is based on a living cell, a biological system, in keeping with the organic emergence of the Transition movement.

Various scales of initiative emerge organically (black circles in the center) at scales that feel most appropriate to them, guided by the Purpose and Principles of Transition. Regional groups may network together creating “hubs” of Transition Initiatives that work to common purpose.

In the diagram Transition US is represented by the white encircling ring that surrounds the individual initiatives and hubs. It functions like a cell membrane, enshrining the Purpose and Principles common to the wider Transition Movement and acts as a catalyst to keep the circle expanding as the number of initiatives it contains grows.

Transition US facilitates smooth and efficient networking between the various levels of initiatives and hubs, as well as between different interest groups, for example enabling various food, energy or economics groups to communicate, share good practice and organize national events. It also enables networking by geographical area, by culture and by size of project.

The role of Transition US is to continually review and collaboratively refine what Transition means, enabling the maximum amount of networking between Transition Initiatives and external partners and collaborators (represented by the white circles outside the encircling ring). The circles inside the outer ring represent emerging new strands to Transition, for example, Transition Consulting / Transition Local Government / Transition Universities

From La Boca Center for Sustainability:

http://www.labocacenter.org/Planning/StrategicPlan.aspx

See also: http://www.labocacenter.org/Projects/PermacultureDesign/PlanOverview.aspx

Vision - a global perspective:

A world where cultural and biological diversity are sustained and enhanced, communication between individuals and nations is non-violent, pollution is minimal and waste is transformed; where the needs of people are met without compromising future generations or the integrity of ecosystems.

Mission:

Our mission is to develop, demonstrate, and teach sustainable agricultural practices that improve quality of life, local production, and environmental stewardship.

From the Executive Director, Chester Anderson

The basis of a local food system is the capacity to grow crops that store easily and consistently produce from one year to the next. I call these foundational crops. Our challenge at La Boca is to grow foundational crops with minimal imports and costs while concurrently growing the soil. Foundational crops traditionally found in the 4-Corners Region include grass, grains, beans, squash and the animals that convert grass to meat and milk. At La Boca will also grow non-traditional crops to supplement food production and experiment with development of other varieties that could become foundational crops.To rebuild local agricultural systems requires attention to redeveloping and developing traditional technologies, traditional knowledge, modern technologies, and current knowledge. At La Boca, we are developing an integrated, sustainable farm with instructors, tools and curriculum necessary to teach and train farm managers and rebuild that knowledge base that is critical to rebuilding local agriculture. We are also exposing hundreds of children, teachers and community members to sustainable farming as well as creating a model that can be used throughout the world to rebuild local food production. Development of LBCS over the last 5 years has been accomplished on a thread of a budget. When we started we had land, water, some infrastructure and the mission of developing a working, integrated, sustainable farm, to serve as a hub for research and education. We have learned a great deal over the last 5 years and with the staff that we currently have we are poised to start teaching. What is needed is an infusion of capitol. We have the talent and knowledge to spend the capitol wisely and with this infusion we can begin the process of disseminating the knowledge and capacity that is necessary to grow food locally and in large enough quantities to contribute substantially to the regional population – the very foundation of a local food system. As Woody Tasch says in his book Slow Money – If we want to restore and preserve soil fertility, if we want to preserve and restore small and midsize farms and promote organic agriculture, if we want to diversify and decentralize our food supply and revitalize local communities, if we want to preserve biodiversity , if we want to remediate polluted and depleted aquifers, if we want to promote human health and childhood nutrition – if we want these and many other related benefits, or even if we merely wish to defensively invest a portion of our assets in a food-system safety net, then we are going to have to figure out how to deploy capital appropriately, in new ways, and in meaningful quantities for the long run. Over the last 5 years I came to understand that I had to get into the thick of farming myself, to get my hands into every aspect in one way or another, to get a feel for how each component of the farm worked. I also had to learn how to do business, how to run a non-profit, manage employees and subcontractors, to stay sane, to not micromanage and to let others try and fail and learn and thus build the depth of knowledge necessary to make La Boca resilient and not dependent on any one person for its success. This strategic plan outlines the history and background of LBCS, our current status and the components required to continue development and operation of LBCS. We have 2 major areas of focus: education and sustainable farming and under those 2 areas we have the strategic goals of development of staff, instructors, physical and administrative infrastructure and funding. The instructors are our farmers and the core of LBCS. They are integrated in this way to provide real-time, real-life instruction in sustainable agriculture. Ultimately support sustainability as defined by La Boca: the ability of people to meet their needs without compromising the needs of future generations or planetary ecosystems; leading to sustained or enhanced bio-diversity and minimal and transformed pollution and waste.

Premises:

The increasing costs of oil and natural gas will make it prohibitive to continue with the current, global scale of agriculture Regional, intensive agriculture will become more and more critical for our food source and will depend on a larger number of trained, knowledgeable and skilled farm managers We need to be proactive in the training of these farm managers

Goals:

Short Term (1-5 years)

·        Operate seasonal internship program

·        Develop accredited apprenticeship program curriculum

·        Produce a diverse variety of vegetables using innovative sustainable agricultural practices.

·        Develop and execute a successful 20 share Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program

·        Breed pigs and expand pork markets

·        Build and develop infrastructure for rotational grazing with cattle, sheep and chickens

·        Facilitate seasonal field trips with Durango Nature Studies, Open Sky, Fort Lewis College and other educational entities.

·        Host a variety of educational workshops including butcher, blacksmith, horse shoeing, timber-framing and gardening.

·        Develop and execute an effective fund-raising plan to carry out all farm operations, wages, and capital improvements (via grants, events, product marketing, membership, donations)  

Intermediate (5-10)

·        Train 10 to 20 apprentices each year on how to manage and operate a sustainable, integrated farm.

·        Increase acreage and production to include fruit such as apples, stone fruit and berries

·        Expand CSA operations to 50-100 shares

·        Obtain financial viability with above projects

 

Long-term (10+ years)

·        Develop, demonstrate and teach others a replicable model of sustainable agriculture, educational and living practices. (i.e. consulting services)

·        To enhance and support a vibrant sustainable local economy

·        Enjoy a life that is community-supported, environmentally sound and economically productive.

·        To last 10+ years without burn out

 

Barefoot Artists

 

 

 

This internationally celebrated artist works to bring the transformative power of art to impoverished and war-torn communities around the world to foster community empowerment, improve the physical environment, promote economic development and preserve indigenous art and culture. (http://bioneers.org/lily-yeh)

http://www.barefootartists.org/

http://www.barefootartists.org/Lilys_Warrior_Angel_11_2.pdf

vaccinations

(NaturalNews) http://www.naturalnews.com/031820_vaccinations_babies.html

by Neil Z. Miller

Earlier this month (March 2011), Japanese authorities ordered doctors to stop using pneumococcal and Hib vaccines because four children died after receiving the shots. However, the real news was never reported: more than 2,000 babies died in the United States after receiving vaccines for these very same diseases, yet authorities refuse to warn parents and halt production. A safety review is vital to determine whether a recall of the dangerous shots may be necessary to protect additional American babies from disability and death.

According to Paul Offit, media spokesperson for the vaccine industry, “the Japanese Ministry of Health was foolish to suspend the Hib and pneumococcal programs.” Offit thinks the deaths were probably caused by SIDS, or underlying conditions, or another cause – anything except the vaccines. Often, children get sick and die by chance.

William Schaffner, chairman of the department of medicine at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, believes, like Offit, that the deaths are “most likely…a coincidence.” In a twist of irony, it may also be a coincidence that Schaffner receives money from vaccine manufacturers – whose stock prices traded lower after the announcement by Japan – for consulting and speaking about vaccines. Offit and Schaffner have never seen the dead children, nor have autopsies been conducted, so their assessments regarding the true cause of death are not based on science.

According to Shelly Burgess, an FDA spokesperson, the FDA and CDC “have not detected new safety concerns or unusual reporting patterns.” That’s odd, because the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), jointly operated by the FDA and CDC, has received more than 59,000 reports of adverse reactions to pneumococcal and Hib vaccines during the past several years. More than half of these cases – 30,094 – required hospitalization, with 2,169 deaths. About 95 percent of these deaths were in children under three years of age.

In the last five years, from 2006 through 2010, 17,595 people in the U.S. reported adverse reactions to pneumococcal and Hib vaccines; 464 of these people died after receiving their shots. It should also be noted that these numbers only represent “official” reports to VAERS. The former head of the FDA, David Kessler, has estimated that for every official report of an adverse drug reaction, about 100 other people are also hurt but fail to make a report.

In Japan, most vaccines are not required, so the mad, coercive tactics used by American vaccine officials to vaccinate all U.S. children and adults is not universal. In fact, Japanese infants are only expected to receive polio and DTaP vaccines. Pneumococcal and Hib vaccines were recently added to the Japanese schedule but are optional. Compare that to the more crowded, dangerous, and lucrative U.S. infant vaccine schedule: babies are expected to receive several doses of polio, DTaP, hepatitis B, pneumococcal, Hib, rotavirus, and influenza vaccines.

In summary, four Japanese children died after receiving vaccines and the Japanese Ministry of Health immediately halted the vaccine program. U.S. health officials declared this action “foolish” even though it is likely to save additional babies from harm. In the United States, thousands of people died after receiving vaccines for the very same diseases but authorities don’t give a damn. U.S. vaccine authorities believe that children are expendable, a guaranteed, targeted market to be used for commercial benefit. Disability and death of U.S. citizens after receiving mandated vaccines is merely treated as the cost of doing business.

What has this got to do with the “Pentagon lecturing on vaccine designed to disconnect human soul from spirituality?”

 

Mushroom Death Suit

by JacobSloan

a la http://www.disinfo.com/2011/07/mushroom-death-suit/

Someday the lifeless bodies of all of us may be laid into the cold earth zipped snugly in the outfit at right. Artist Jae Rhim Lee designed her mushroom burial suit to address how we part with the dead — “By trying to preserve the body we poison the living.” The garment is embedded with spores of toxin-cleaning, flesh-eating mushrooms that will consume the corpse wearing it, leaving the earth cleansed and renewed as we make our exit:

The first prototype of the Infinity Burial Suit is a body suit embroidered with thread infused with mushroom spores. The embroidery pattern resembles the dendritic growth of mushroom mycelium. The Suit is accompanied by an Alternative Embalming Fluid, a liquid spore slurry, and Decompiculture Makeup, a two-part makeup consisting of a mixture of dry mineral makeup and dried mushroom spores and a separate liquid culture medium. Combining the two parts and applying them to the body activates the mushroom spores to develop and grow

 

 

The Top 10 Things Leaders Should Hear From Their Teammates

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

via: http://www.terrystarbucker.com/2011/07/03/the-top-10-things-leaders-should-hear-from-their-teammates/

All leaders need to get good and consistent verbal feedback from their teammates, but there are what I consider to be the “Golden 10″ pieces of feedback that we really need to be getting to ratify our effectiveness (and our approach to greatness).

Let’s count ‘em down, from the bottom to the top:

10.   “I don’t know, but I’ll find out” - When they trust that you won’t jump down their throats for not knowing an answer.

9.    “I made a mistake”  – When you know you’ve hired teammates that are harder on themselves than you could ever be on them, and trust that you know that nobody’s perfect.

8.    “Can you help me with something?”  – When they feel comfortable enough to ask you to teach them, and not just tell them.

7.    “I’m frustrated and we need to talk”  – When they’ve concluded that the best way to express these kind of emotions is privately, and not in public.

6.    “I have this fantastic idea, do you have a second” – When you know they haven’t stopped dreaming, and feel that no idea is too wild or stupid.

5.    “I look forward to our next team meeting” – When they really see the value of getting the team together and keeping everyone on the same page.

The Rest Here

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If You Love Peace, Become a “Blue Republican” (Just for a Year)

Interesting idea: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robin-koerner/blue-republican_b_886650.html?page=2

I am aware that the main objection to Ron Paul from the left concerns his belief that private charities and individuals are more effective in maintaining social welfare than the government. To this I ask one question. Do you believe so much in the effectiveness of our current centralized delivery of social welfare that it is worth the war making and the abrogation of civil rights supported by both Bush and Obama’s administrations? Moreover, while Ron Paul would look to transition out of the huge federally run welfare programs in the long-run, that’s not where he wants to start: his immediate fight would be to bring our forces back to the USA and to re-implement the Bill of Rights.

Koerner hit it right on here. This is one of my main concerns with Ron Paul. Another huge and far reaching concern is that he would deregulate like there is no tomorrow, which will end in an ugly corporate rule. I don’t see how he is all that different in the end. I see the same results as any other candidate, just a different road to get there.

Or am I mistaken?

~~~

 Related Links

 http://peoplesworld.org/why-progressives-should-not-support-ron-paul/?commentStart=40

http://fitnessfortheoccasion.wordpress.com/2007/06/26/why-ron-paul-is-a-corporate-candidate/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Center for Plain Language

By CALVIN WOODWARD, Associated Press – Thu May 19, 6:47 am ET

via http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110519/ap_on_re_us/us_no_more_gobbledygook

WASHINGTON – The federal government is rolling out a new official language of sorts: plain English.

That’s right: Pursuant to regulations promulgated thereunder and commencing in accordance with a statute signed herein by President Barack Obama, the government shall be precluded from writing the pompous gibberish heretofore evidenced, to the extent practicable.

That sentence contains 11 new language no-nos.

Obama signed the Plain Writing Act last fall after decades of effort by a cadre of passionate grammarians in the civil service to jettison the jargon.

It takes full effect in October, when federal agencies must start writing plainly in all new or substantially revised documents produced for the public. The government will still be allowed to write nonsensically to itself.

Ahead then, if the law works, is a culture change for an enterprise that turns out reams of confusing benefit forms, tangled rules and foggy pronouncements. Not to mention a Pentagon brownie recipe that went on for 26 pages about “regulations promulgated thereunder,” “flow rates of thermoplastics by extrusion plastometer” and a commandment that ingredients “shall be examined organoleptically.”

That means look at, smell, touch or taste.

By July, each agency must have a senior official overseeing plain writing, a section of its website devoted to the effort and employee training under way.

“It is important to emphasize that agencies should communicate with the public in a way that is clear, simple, meaningful and jargon-free,” says Cass Sunstein, a White House information and regulation administrator who gave guidance to federal agencies in April on how to implement the law.

Bad writing by the government, he says, discourages people from applying for benefits they should get, makes federal rules hard to follow and wastes money because of all the time spent fixing mistakes and explaining things to a baffled populace.

But can clarity and good grammar be legislated?

Full Article

___

Online:

Federal plain language guidelines: http://www.plainlanguage.gov/howto/guidelines/bigdoc/fullbigdoc.pdf

Center for Plain Language: http://centerforplainlanguage.org

we’ve got to think seriously of third-party candidates, third formations, third parties.

We all are likely familiar with the popular dissatisfaction with Big Government of the right-wing tea party movement. I have been watching for some time, and with great interest, the left coming to the same point:

“We have got to attempt to tell the truth, and that truth is painful,” he says. “It is a truth that is against the thick lies of the mainstream. In telling that truth we become so maladjusted to the prevailing injustice that the Democratic Party, more and more, is not just milquetoast and spineless, as it was before, but thoroughly complicitous with some of the worst things in the American empire. I don’t think in good conscience I could tell anybody to vote for Obama. If it turns out in the end that we have a crypto-fascist movement and the only thing standing between us and fascism is Barack Obama, then we have to put our foot on the brake. But we’ve got to think seriously of third-party candidates, third formations, third parties. (http://www.truthdig.com/report/print/the_obama_deception_why_cornel_west_went_ballistic_20110516/)

The mainstream Republican/Democrat, Left-Wing/Right-Wing Hegelian Dialectic, that we are all too familiar with, will soon find some interesting competition.

It would appear that the populace on both sides are beginning to wake up and see the corruption in Big Government. It looks like each side has many of the same issues with Big Government. It will be interesting to see if the two sides of this awakening populace will be able to work together to address these issues in a productive and effective manner.

What thinkest ye?

What is Gross National Happiness?

The Four Pillars of GNH

• the promotion of equitable and sustainable socio-economic development
• the preservation and promotion of cultural values
• the conservation of the natural environment, and
• the establishment of good governance.

from http://www.gnhusa.org/

http://www.gnhusa.org/what-is-gnh/

The Morphogenetic Universe

In 1981 Rupert Sheldrake outraged the scientific establishment with his hypothesis of morphic resonance. A morphogenetic field is a hypothetical biological field that contains the information necessary to shape the exact form of a living thing. A presentation at the Biology of Transformation Conference in 2007.

Perceptual Diversity?

What in the hell is Perceptual Diversity, and why is Polyphasic Consciousness Necessary for Global Survival?

Read all about it here: http://www.izilwane.org/assets/docs/PerceptualDiversity.pdf

“development will continue to destroy perceptual diversity because it exports the dominant cognitive process of ‘developed’ nations, i.e. monophasic consciousness. Destroying perceptual diversity, in turn, leads to the destruction of cultural diversity and biocomplexity.”

” . . . perceptual diversity, the whole, and the synergistic interrelationship between parts.”

“A growing number of psychologists and anthropologists have become interested in the value of perceptual diversity, seeing the use of multiple perceptual processes as positive rather than pathological.”

“According to Walsh, Western culture is monophasic, that is, its worldview is derived from a single state: the waking state. Walsh adds that in the Western world there is a need to ‘reduce this cultural myopia and to shift society, psychology and other disciplines from monophasic to polyphasic perspectives.’”

” . . . transrational states of consciousness are statistically normal.”

~~~

Why Polyphasic Consciousness is Necessary for Global Survival:

. . . when a culture restrains perceptual diversity, that same culture reduces human adaptability, which, in turn, leads to human beings living unsustainably. Unsustainable lifestyles result in ecological destruction, including destruction of biodiversity (or biocomplexity). In a feedback loop, degraded environments offer fewer choices to human beings for adaptability, and a downward spiral commences. If, indeed, perceptual diversity promotes human adaptability and indirectly promotes healthy environments, then perceptual diversity has a practical application in everyday life. Yet the value of perceptual diversity is not acknowledged by international development experts, who insist that only a monophasic worldview is valid. In fact, one of the steps to development is for a culture to jettison its perceptual diversity in favor of a specialized approach based on the scientific method and economic progress. The scientific method only acknowledges monophasic consciousness. The method is a specialized system that focuses on studying small and distinctive parts in isolation, which results in fragmented knowledge.

And:

. . . Systems theory emerged in the mid-twentieth century and takes a different approach from that of
the scientific method.

By contrast, the systems approach attempts to view the world in terms of irreducibly
integrated systems. It focuses attention on the whole, as well as on the complex
interrelationships among its constituent parts. This way of seeing is not an alternative,
but a complement, to the specialized way. It is more all-embracing and comprehensive, incorporating the specialized perspective as one aspect of a general conception (Lazlo and
Krippner 1998:54).

Furthermore, systems theory posits that when studying only the parts of something, one may be missing the value of the whole.

Structurally, a system is a divisible whole, but functionally it is an indivisible unity with
emergent properties. An emergent property is marked by the appearance of novel
characteristics exhibited on the level of the whole ensemble, but not by the components in
isolation.

There are two important aspects of emergent properties: First, they are lost when the
system breaks down to its components—the property of life, for example, does not
inhere in organs once they are removed from the body. Second, when a component is
removed from the whole, that component itself will lose its emergent properties—a hand
severed from the body, cannot write, nor can a severed eye see.

The notion of emergent properties leads to the concept of synergy, suggesting that, as we
say in everyday language, the system is more than the sum of its parts….(Lazlo and
Krippner 1998:53).

In the same way, I see monophasic consciousness as one part of perceptual diversity—the part based on waking, rational thought and the scientific method. But the entire system of consciousness is far more complex and, in breaking it down and valuing only one of its parts, waking rational consciousness, one loses the value of the whole. I propose that in disavowing polyphasic consciousness (perceptual diversity), we may be losing the emergent properties of polyphasic consciousness. Coming from developed, Western cultures, which highly value monophasic
consciousness and the scientific method, we may not even be aware of what we are losing. And it is altered states of consciousness, which speak through symbols and intuition, such as dreaming,
imagining, and meditating, that often allow us to grasp the whole in a way that the scientific method can never provide.

~~~

“Many of these perceptual processes are transrational, altered state of consciousness (meditation, trance, dreams,
imagination) and are not considered valid processes for accessing knowledge by science (which is based primarily upon quantification, reductionism, and the experimental method).”

More examples of perceptual processes that are transrational, altered states of consciousness not considered valid processes for accessing knowledge by science:

rich fantasy lives, intuition, emotion,

Five different categories of induction into altered states of consciousness:

(1) reduction of external stimulation and/or motor activity

(2) increase of external stimulation and/or motor activity and/or emotion

(3) increased alertness or mental awareness

(4) decreased alertness or mental awareness

(5) the presence of somatopsychological factors

Read all about it here:

http://www.izilwane.org/assets/docs/PerceptualDiversity.pdf

Storyboard: Inside the Battle to Define Mental Illness

Stick a fork in it: In the long term, the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders is done for.

That’s according to Gary Greenberg, a practicing psychotherapist and author of “Inside the Battle to Define Mental Illness,” a feature story in Wired magazine’s January issue about the controversy surrounding the upcoming fifth edition of the DSM, which has been called psychiatry’s bible.

The DSM has been the definitive almanac of psychiatric disease for decades. But the effort to update the book has highlighted the challenge of categorizing slippery, subjective mental states with the same certainty as, say, high blood pressure.

In this edition of the Storyboard podcast, Greenberg and Wired senior editor Bill Wasik join regular host Adam Rogers for a mind-bending conversation about the drama behind the DSM-V and the quest to name our pain.

click to listen

The Birth of the Labor Movement

The Birth of the Labor Movemen – http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/turningpoints/tp-030/

Wisconsin’s workers and reformers made significant contributions to the history of labor in the United States, helping to enact legislation such as workers’ compensation and unemployment insurance that served as models for similar laws in other states. The study of labor history itself also began in Wisconsin when University of Wisconsin economist John R. Commons set out to document the history of work and labor in America at the turn of the twentieth century. Commons and his associates also joined labor leaders, the business community, and politicians to bring about some of Wisconsin’s groundbreaking social policies.

The evolution of Wisconsin’s… more…

Softainability

From the blog @ http://www.transcendbodywork.com/Blog… A quick tip on the Body Economy of sustainable comfort + tribute to the person I feel most greatly influenced my awareness of economy of motion: Bruce Lee. Thanks Bruce for teaching to be water.

Punk Rock Permaculture e-zine

About Punk Rock Permaculture e-zine

via http://punkrockpermaculture.com/about/

…the greatest change we need to make is from consumption to production, even if on a small scale, in our own gardens.

If only 10% of us do this, there is enough for everyone.

Hence the futility of revolutionaries who have no gardens, who depend on the very system they attack, and who produce words and bullets, not food and shelter.”  - – Bill Mollison

Hey all you permies in the blogosphere my name is Evan Schoepke (@gaiapunk) , I’m 25, I live in wonderful Olympia WA, and I’m the lead editor of punk rock permaculture e-zine.

I have a passionate love for permaculture, street art, guerrilla gardening, cooking veggie food, folk punk, harmonica wailin’, and riding bikes with friends.  In the Spring of 09′ before I graduated from Evergreen State College I received my permaculture design certification under the instruction of the lovable Scott Pittman of U.S. Permaculture Institute.  During the spring and summer of 2010 I did a 3 month Advanced Permaculture Design Internship with Ethan Roland of Appleseed Permaculture and Gaia University.  Currently, I’m the US correspondent with Permaculture Magazine and a affiliate producer with Permaculture.tv . Gaia Punk Designs is a full service permaculture design co-op I’m working on with some close friends in Olympia.

In Olympia I also work locally with Terra Commons, Ecocity Olympia, the Cascadia Guerrilla Gardening Brigade, and the Raccoon arts collective on community projects.

My intention for this e-zine is that it will act as link between the personal and communal showcasing examples of all the beneficial work  being done for the earth around the world.  This is a e-zine about a regenerative culture full of resistance and  inspiring creativity.  Anyone is welcome to become a syndicated submitter and add relevant posts, articles, art, stories, and multi media to this blog just email thejulianeffect@gmail.com with the subject:

“Punk Rock Permaculture”

Mindfulness Mediation Can Change Brain Structure

via: http://technoccult.net/archives/2011/02/06/study-mindfulness-mediation-can-change-brain-structure/

Meditation by oddsock

Yet another study on the effects of meditation on the brain, this one focused on mindfulness meditation:

Participating in an 8-week mindfulness meditation program appears to make measurable changes in brain regions associated with memory, sense of self, empathy and stress. In a study that will appear in the January 30 issue of Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging, a team led by Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) researchers report the results of their study, the first to document meditation-produced changes over time in the brain’s grey matter.

“Although the practice of meditation is associated with a sense of peacefulness and physical relaxation, practitioners have long claimed that meditation also provides cognitive and psychological benefits that persist throughout the day,” says Sara Lazar, PhD, of the MGH Psychiatric Neuroimaging Research Program, the study’s senior author. “This study demonstrates that changes in brain structure may underlie some of these reported improvements and that people are not just feeling better because they are spending time relaxing.”

PhysOrg: Mindfulness meditation training changes brain structure in 8 weeks

(via Boing Boing)

However, this study had a VERY small sample size: just 16 participants.

Previous coverage of meditation.

Photo by Odd Stock

Harm Reduction Guide To Coming Off Psychiatric Drugs & Withdrawal

The Icarus Project and Freedom Center’s 40-page guide gathers the best information we’ve come across and the most valuable lessons we’ve learned about reducing and coming off psychiatric medication. Includes info on mood stabilizers, anti-psychotics, anti-depressants, anti-anxiety drugs, risks, benefits, wellness tools, withdrawal, detailed Resource section, information for people staying on their medications, and much more. A ‘harm reduction’ approach means not being pro- or anti-medication, but supporting people to make their own decisions balancing the risks and benefits involved. Written by Will Hall, with a 14-member health professional Advisory board providing research assistance and 24 other collaborators involved in developing and editing. The guide has photographs and art throughout, and a beautiful original cover painting by Ashley McNamara. Download a .pdf to read or a ‘zine version to print and fold into a booklet (instructions included). Published copies also available through orders(at)theicarusproject(dot)net.

Click for downloads

Campus Icarus

Campus Icarus groups consist of students who see a need on their campus to organize a community committed to expanding the dialogue around student mental health, providing peer support alternatives to school counseling center services, developing activist campaigns, creating art, and engaging in nontraditional academic exploration of “psy”-subjects.

Click for Student Organizing Materials

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. . . In the logic of our modern world, whether it’s in the farmer’s field or in the high school classroom, diversity is inefficient and hard to manage. Powerful people figured out awhile time ago that it’s a lot easier to control things if everyone’s eating the same foods, listening to the same music, reading the same books, watching the same TV shows, and speaking the same language. This is what we call the monocult, and while everyone is supposedly more and more connected by this new “global culture,” we’re more and more isolated from each other. Things feel more and more empty, and so many of us end up lonely and rootless, wondering why everything feels so wrong . . .

. . . We believe that people do not belong in grids and boxes of rootless lonely monocultures. Humans are adaptable creatures, and while a lot of people learn to adapt, some of us can’t handle the modern world no matter how many psych drugs or years of school or behavior modification programs we’ve been put through. Any realistic model of mental health has to begin by accepting that there is no standard model for a mind and that none of us are single units designed for convenience and efficiency. No matter how alienated you are by the world around you, no matter how out of step or depressed and disconnected you might feel: you are not alone. Your life is supported by the lives of countless other beings, from the microbes in your eyelashes to the men who paved your street. The world is so much more complicated and beautiful than it appears on the surface.

There are so many of us out here who feel the world with thin skin and heavy hearts, who get called crazy because we’re too full of fire and pain, who know that other worlds exist and aren’t comfortable in this version of reality. We’ve been busting up out of sidewalks and blooming all kind of misfit flowers for as long as people have been walking on this Earth. So many of us have access to secret layers of consciousness — you could think of us like dandelion roots that gather minerals from hidden layers of the soil that other plants don’t reach. If we’re lucky we share them with everyone on the surface – because we feel things stronger than the other people around us, a lot of us have visions about how things could be different, why they need to be different, and it’s painful to keep them silent. Sometimes we get called sick and sometimes we get called sacred, but no matter how they name us we are a vital part of making this planet whole.

from the Local Group organizing manual

Icarus Project

The Icarus Project envisions a new culture and language that resonates with our actual experiences of ‘mental illness’ rather than trying to fit our lives into a conventional framework.

We are a network of people living with and/or affected by experiences that are commonly diagnosed and labeled as psychiatric conditions. We believe these experiences are mad gifts needing cultivation and care, rather than diseases or disorders. By joining together as individuals and as a community, the intertwined threads of madness, creativity, and collaboration can inspire hope and transformation in an oppressive and damaged world. Participation in The Icarus Project helps us overcome alienation and tap into the true potential that lies between brilliance and madness.

The Icarus Project is a collaborative, participatory adventure fueled by inspiration and mutual aid. We bring the Icarus vision to reality through an Icarus national staff collective and a grassroots network of autonomous local support groups and Campus Icarus groups across the US and beyond.

To read more about our mission, vision, and work, check out the full text of our mission statement. We’re non-profit and donation driven; please consider making a donation if you can, even $10 helps keep us going.

Asylum Squad

http://asylumsquadsidestory.blogspot.com/

http://www.asylumsquad.com/index.php

 

Externalized Costs

via wise geek http://www.wisegeek.com/what-are-externalized-costs.htm

Externalized costs are negative impacts associated with economic transactions which concern people outside of those transactions, meaning that neither the buyer nor the seller bears the brunt of the costs. One well-known example of an externalized cost is factory pollution, which can have a negative influence on the surrounding community. Many activists have raised concerns about externalized costs, suggesting that some economic systems may need to be reformed in order to address them, and some consumers have joined in the chorus asking for reform of the way people and companies do business.

Anything which has an impact on someone outside of a transaction is known as an externality. Externalities can be good or bad, and they are incredibly varied. As a general rule, people use the term “externalized costs” to describe externalities which are negative, while “externalized benefits” are externalities which are good. Often, externalities are negative and positive simultaneously, which can create quite a tangled web of issues.

Examples of externalized costs beyond pollution include: resource depletion, climate change, and health problems, among many other things. Some externalized costs are a bit difficult to control; resource depletion, for example, can be challenging to combat when a company sees a demand for a product and wants to meet it, and pollution is an unfortunate side-effect of most industrialized production, even in relatively “clean” factories. Others may be deliberate on the part of the parent company, as is the case with companies which do not provide benefits to their employees, relying on society at large to support their employees.

The environment is often a victim of externalized costs. In the case of externalized costs like health problems caused through pollution or use of various products, individuals or groups can choose to pursue justice from the company which sold the product, or people who bought it, and most legal systems provide avenues of redress in these situations. However, the environment is a silent entity, making it challenging to bring suit on behalf of the environment.

Many countries have agencies in place to protect the environment, and many of these agencies work to reduce the impact of externalized costs on the environment, in the interests of protecting living individuals and future residents of the Earth. Growing consumer awareness of externalized costs has also led to increased pressure on many companies to reform their business practices so that they will generate fewer costs and more benefits.

There is a war going on in this country!