Link Loving 26.11.11

• We are the 99.9% – the Occupy slogan aims too low. Paul Krugman.
• Are you a comic sans criminal?
• Restorative justice in schools and community choirs singing in care homes – another wonderful episode of Woman’s Hour.
• Illinois to store CO2 beneath the surface. Dave Levitan.
• Mitt Romney’s hair. Who knew it could be so interesting? Michael Barbaro and Ashley Parker.
• Is the American black church the answer to liberal prayers to find a voice on morality? Lisa Miller.
• Your Square Mile – the best hyperlocal resource I’ve seen. Fantastic.
• A Romanian mayor has begun a hunger strike to protest cuts in heating subsidies imposed under a government austerity drive, reawakening memories of the harsh final years of communism.
• The nicest place on the internet. Amazing.

This Year’s News

This extract from a powerful article by Stephen Elliot.

“There is a shooting in Norway. A troubled but popular singer dies. The U.S. economy implodes. Unemployment rises. Economies in other countries collapse. The earth cracks open on an island and then in another country and another country and another country. Floods wash away an entire town. A dictator is overthrown and another and another and another. A terrorist is assassinated. A dictator goes into hiding. He is found. He is killed. Everywhere, the earth is dry and when it rains, it is never enough. Children are starving. Their parents are starving. Women and their bodies and their right to make choices about their bodies are increasingly under attack. A starlet who never had a chance continues to spiral out of control. Real housewives act messy all over the place. A celebrity who is famous for being famous for making a sex tape gets married on television. Less than three months later, she divorces her made for television husband. An innovator dies and his life is bared for examination. A teenage girl’s sex tape goes viral and worse yet, people watch. Politicians start their campaigns and race each other to the bottom. The world moves at such a bewildering pace these days. Everything demands our attention. There is hardly time to breathe. Or think. Or feel.

I want to care about all of it, the atrocious and the admirable and the awesome and the absurd. I don’t want to feel numb.”

Economists Stand With Occupy

Good Food Costs More Than You Think

Ella Fitzgerald – Dedicated To You

Sometimes, this is exactly what I need.

Link Loving 25.11.11

• It’s time for development NGOs to talk about drugs. Jonathan Glennie.
• What happened to Spain’s missing 3.7 million votes? Ter Garcia.
• Weaving the world together: mass migration in the internet age is changing the way that people do business. The Economist.
• Philanthropy only goes so far – the Global Fund on Aids, TB and Malaria will not make any grants in the next two years because of the recession. David Jones.
• A fracking win for the people who live along the Delaware river. Bryan Farrell.
• London Bike Kitchen sounds fantastic.
• The corporate welfare state. George Monbiot on socialism for the 1%.
• What car salesmen can teach environmentalists. Tess Croner.

People Who Want To Feel Important

“Half of the harm that is done in this world
Is due to people who want to feel important.
They don’t mean to do harm – but the harm does not interest them.
Or they do not see it, or they justify it
Because they are absorbed in the endless struggle
To think well of themselves.”

– T.S. Eliot (h/t Tim Holmes and Rich Hawkins)

An Open Letter To The Occupiers From A Veteran Troublemaker

This is a post by Jim Wallis which I am going to re-publish in full because it is brilliant. Original here.

An Open Letter To The Occupiers From A Veteran Troublemaker

You have awakened the sleeping giant, too long dormant, but ever present, deep in the American democratic spirit. You have given voice and space to the unspoken feelings of countless others about something that has gone terribly wrong in our society. And you have sparked a flame from the embers of both frustration and hope that have been building, steadily, in the hearts of so many of us for quite some time.

Throughout history, often it has been left to the youth of a society to do that, and you boldly have stepped into the role of the emerging generation, which sometimes means saying and doing what others only think. You have articulated, loudly and clearly, the internal monologue of a nation.

Some of you have told me that you expected only to foment a short-lived protest and that you were as surprised by this “movement” as anyone else. Try to listen and learn from those whose feelings and participation you are evoking by encouraging more reflection than certainty.

While there are some among us who may misunderstand your motives and message, know that you are an inspiration to many more.

One of you told me in New York City last week, “This is not a protest, but a think tank.” Another of your compatriots wanted me to understand that you are trying to build something in Liberty Square that you aspire to create for our global village — a more cooperative society.

Most telling to me was the answer to the first question I asked of the first person I talked to at the Wall Street demonstrations. I inquired of one of the non-leaders who helped lead the first days of Occupation what most drew him to get involved in the demonstration, and he replied, “I want to have children someday, and this is becoming a world not good for children.”

My 13- and 8-year-old boys came to mind when I heard his answer, and I felt thankful. It is precisely those deepest, most authentic feelings and motivations that should preoccupy you, rather than how best to form and communicate superficial political rhetoric.

You are raising very basic questions about an economy that has become increasingly unfair, unstable, unsustainable, and unhappy for a growing number of people. Those same questions are being asked by many others at the bottom, the middle, and even some at the top of the economic pecking order.

Link Loving 24.11.11

• Youth engagement – token presence or true participation? Caroline Howe.
• People wouldn’t care if 70% of brands ceased to exist. HAVAS Media.

Link Loving 23.11.11

• The world without Facebook mapped. (Densely populated areas with few registered accounts.)
• ‘Pinkwashing’ in Jerusalem. Sarah Schulman.
• Google stops working on their ‘Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal’ project as part of the latest ‘spring clean’. Catherine Smith.
• Why to support the ‘Great Strike’ on November 30th. Owen Jones.
• Go and meet Christopher Soghoian. He’s fascinating.
• Why does climate change scepticism persist? A historian’s perspective. Naomi Oreskes.
• The limitations of history books. Our beloved Howard Zinn.