Douglas Rushkoff on President Obama: When there’s a big blackout in New York, especially during the summer, some people take it as a “cue” to start looting. It’s not that the blackout itself makes it significantly to break down store fronts; it’s not that the police are so very busy with the blackout. The lights going out is a cue to behave differently – to release the hidden potential for vandalism and long-repressed rage. Likewise, the election of a black man to the presidency is a cue that something has changed. As my friend, Ari Wallach explained to me on …
The Province of British Columbia runs an amazing Aboriginal Youth Internship progra. The program takes young ABoriginal people (under 30) and places them in a 12 month program featuring nine months of working within the provincial government and three months of working with Aboriginal organizations and governments. The chief architect and steward of this program is Sasha Hobbs, who is sitting next to me in a fog bound Vancouver harbour. She is working with another friend of mine, the amazing Priscilla Sabbas, and together they are working with 25 amazing young people in their second year of …
Delayed at the Vancouver Harbour by a beautiful fog bank this morning. Turning to my feed readers, here’s what friends have been noticing this week. The Mars Lander Phoenix bids farewell via Metafilter The New York Times I want to read. Rob Paterson on why the current market crises may not be a blip Dustin Rivers, who always writes illuminating posts on the deep history of my region, is appearing on a panel about First Nations – South Asian relations in the Vancouver area. Jeremy Hiebert muses about Manufactuared Landscapes. Jon Husband, from one of his periodic trips to …
To Be of Use By Marge Piercy The people I love the best jump into work head first without dallying in the shallows and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight. They seem to become natives of that element, the black sleek heads of seals bouncing like half-submerged balls. I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart, who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience, who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward, who do what has to be done, again and again. I want to be with people who …
I’ve had a Toshiba laptop for a could of months now running a 64 bit version of Vista. Loved it until last week, when it suddenly started crashing and freezing up for no reason. Restore doesn’t work. All the fixes I’ve tried have only staved off the annoyance, but it still keeps happening. I have tio hard reboot several times a day. They must have called it Vista because you get to gaze out your window so much while it crashes and reboots. Sucks. I’ve finally gone off Microsoft. The OS was the last …