If they had made economics lessons this fun in school, I might have enjoyed it a lot more.
I found this while linking up the musicians featured on the JEM compilation CD Artists for Change. Emma's Revolution are among the artists on that CD, and whether or not that was the case, this would still be a funny video, cutting down the "logic" of the Tea Party movement.
Ed Lucas | Wednesday, September 1, 2010 at 9:33AM in Jubilee Living, Simple Living, Spirituality, Transportation In the time after September 11, 2001, I was beginning to understand myself as part of a larger world. Rather than go to sleep the next day, I was beginning an awakening. At the age of 27, nearly 28 then, I was on time with having my worldview radically revised.
One thing was certain: the tragic day crippled my industry, as the planes were grounded and then everyone was scared. Working like I did in the entertainment industry in San Diego, often serving up dance band shows to conventioneers and tourist attractions like Sea World, I was not ready to have the national airline scene shut down. The effects, by the early part of 2002, was that there wasn't much money to live on. That was the first time I found myself needing to drive less.
Fastforward a bit and in 2004-5 I was aware of peak oil and its implications. I was showing the peak oil DVD, The End of Suburbia. Still driving exclusively, but rather less. I began picking my trips more carefully, or weighing if I needed to drive at all. Chronic unemployment helped tame my driving too, as did a variety of jobs (when they did happen) that were behind-the-wheel and allowed me some quick errands without use of my own vehicle.
I began keeping closer tabs on my personal mileage with the close of 2006, when my truck had coincidentally rolled 200,006 miles as I parked it before New Years festivities. In the time since, I've watched how my mileage has fallen year by year. First, during 2007 it was 6,161 miles. In 2008 it was 3,688. And then in 2009 it was a remarkable 1,546!
I also kept a tab on my oil changes. One interval spanned from about June 2008 to April 2010, and I had gone only about 4,000 miles in that time!
I chalk it up to rejection of the perceived need to drive. Secondly, I let my errands pile up till there is a good amount to do. I combine trips almost obsessively. I also started biking in 2008, the first regular use of a bike since my teen years, and since I got my first car in 1993. Other reductions in mileage are due to some carpooling with my wife or coworkers or friends from church. I have dabbled in bus and trolley rides, but much of what I need to do now is on my bike.
What I found in 2009--the first full year of biking--was that I had more or less reduced my life to a 4-5 mile radius. Church, work, bike shop, restaurants, doctors and dentists all fell within that radius. In the same year I found myself in many more face to face relationships that were very life giving and sustaining. I found that my life has so far been richest in the period when I chose to forgo the thing that almost is a birthright in my country. Contrary to expectation, I felt liberated, healthy, connected, revitalized. I felt like I was better seated in my world. It was quite something.
Had a conversation today with David Harper from LandInCommon.org. He understands why land must be held in new structures legally as we work on a sustainable, One Earth economy. It's also why JEM works with the San Diego Community Land Trust. Take land out of private speculation and a lot changes!
Okay, we didn't research every darned page before we picked a server/host company for this site. We were duly impressed with the feature set and ease of use that our new host, Squarespace, offers. They do hosting a bit differently. But today I was looking around their company pages and it seems they are, at least according to the literature, in line with some of the aims of our organization. It seems our website is wind powered. Nice. You can see by that last link that they are giving it a noble try at being green.
I have always wondered what trade off is made in the paper vs. digital publishing realms. Does the massive amount of electricity required to keep all these computers on (I'm thinking worldwide here) really amount somehow to less of a footprint than the paper and chemicals and distribution required by paper publishing? I guess it is an act of faith to move one direction or the other. Of course, for a small organization like JEM, the reach of the web is far greater and more efficient for communication, especially of ideas that are always subject to development and change. If our business was to convey historical information, maybe print would be suitable. But we want to move faster than that.
It is hard to say how long our party with the fossil fuels will last. Richard Heinberg has been a voice cautioning that there is less time than is generally projected. For now, while everything is humming pretty nicely, organizations like JEM, with a message of how to willfully change habits, how to embrace a lifestyle of moderation and concern for a larger picture of reality, must use such a great tool to help people make the shift to where we need to go. At least in our case, our message is helped along by a strong breeze somewhere in New York. Maybe the answer really is blowing in the wind?
Permalink | 1 Comment | Print Article | Share Article | Email Article | tagged ed lucas, energy, faith decision, new media, old media, personal transformation This video temporarily leaves the chronology established in the audio podcasts, about components of a new economy.
JEM is in a big place in its history as it plunges headlong into the Web. Leaving the static HTML page behind, we're now going for the whole Facebook, Twitter, blog, podcast and kitchen sink package to help move our message. So, in order to get ready, we're trying out our new toys and newfound means to spread the word.
All this is in flux right now. You will hear Ed give a reference to the site at jubilee4justice.org, which of course is our long standing site, but one that has been retired now that we are here at jubilee-economics.org. Bookmark that address folks. This is our new home! But bear with us. We're still hanging the pictures and picking the curtains.
When the dust settles, we hope to be a go-to site on the web, featuring not only a description of what jubilee/indigenous/people's economics has been, but how it manifests in the world today, and why it is an alternative that is vital and important in this time of old structures showing their true colors. We hope to have writers contributing from various places nationally and internationally.
Permalink | Post a Comment | Print Article | Share Article | Email Article | tagged facebook, interactivity, jem website, social media, twitter Hello people in JEM land. The JEM online juggernaut is underway! Today we secured a new domain name where we will call home, jubilee-economics.org, as well as getting new hosting and total CMS (content management system) on SquareSpace.com. This means that the development going on in Wordpress will be essentially abandoned in favor of a comprehensive package that Squarespace offers. Yes, it means redoing a lot of stuff, but it is so vastly flexible and powerful that that might actually make it a nicer project to work on.
Today was a big day for us. Not only did Lee and I get the two major things listed above out of the way, but we twiddled with making our first video podcast (episode 5 in our podcast feed, alongside the other audio 'casts), using our excitement about this new web presence as our topic. And, just this weekend, I got JEM happening on Facebook, and a while ago, we got Twitter going too, and soon, within the new hosting environment, they will all play together in one glorious online sandbox.
I'm jazzed.
Permalink | Post a Comment | Print Article | Share Article | Email Article | tagged ed lucas, facebook, jem website, social media, video This show looks at how we can see the Market and the macroeconomic picture as a functional religion. That is, how it takes on deity-like qualities, and is supported by figures akin to high priests, and has with it a narrative mythology of progress, ultimate worth, sin, and so on.
The material in this show is drawn from a talk that Lee Van Ham gave at Point Loma Nazarene University, a PDF of which can be viewed here.
Download the August 2010 newsletter here. PDF format.
Features:
Note: This archived version is slightly different from the bulk mailed paper version in order to fix a couple web address changes that happened just as the newsletter went to press. Sorry for the confusion, but you're here now and that's what counts!
