Mary Oliver

Every day
     I see or hear
          something
               that more or less

kills me
     with delight,
          that leaves me
               like a needle

in the haystack
     of light.
          It was what I was born for -
               to look, to listen,

to lose myself
     inside this soft world -
          to instruct myself
               over and over

in joy,
     and acclamation.
          Nor am I talking
               about the exceptional,

the fearful, the dreadful,
     the very extravagant -
          but of the ordinary,
               the common, the very drab,

the daily presentations.
     Oh, good scholar,
          I say to myself,
               how can you help

but grow wise
     with such teachings
          as these -
               the untrimmable light

of the world,
     the ocean's shine,
          the prayers that are made
               out of grass?

That means poles and other junk.

Philips has invented suspended street lighting —no streetlight poles.

Where does our humanity begin?

The USA is in 25th place among best countries to be a mom.

What will a teacher say?

“Though they can be as opinionated as the adults that surround them, most children are more willing to open up to new ideas, to be fascinated by conflicting information, to make an attempt to learn a new skill or be beguiled by a new concept. They are quick to dispense hugs and they love to share.”

Stephen Talbot points out:

“There is one high promontory within the sprawling panorama of life on earth that does indeed afford a perspective upon the whole…

“…where the living creature not only acts out its own significant existence, but is capable of contemplating this existence along with that of all other living things.

“…where life’s own power of survey blossoms and reaches its fullest fruition: the understanding consciousness of man.”

Show me wild new ways

In 2006, Li and his colleagues began working on a hydraulic hybrid vehicle.

They were in the process of developing an energy storage system for that purpose when they realized that their idea was better suited to grid-scale energy storage.

And on the other hand….

Specifically, he teaches them that the food and bathroom waste they produce every day can be transformed by a biogas digester into fuel to clean and cook plus a compost to fertilize crops.

http://www.resilientcommunities.com/dont-throw-away-your-wealth/

One flame in a room.

There once were 10s of 1000s in old rural China; so simple, so common, but now?

These are the areas with population density over 10 people per square kilometer.

The blue sphere is all the water in the oceans, seas, ice caps, lakes and rivers as well as groundwater, atmospheric water, and even the water in you, your dog, and your tomato plant. 

The USDA isn’t seeing the problem.

Walter wrote, “We need many smaller processing facilities.”

A network of nano-scale facilities will give us all better food security.

“I’ve known rich people, and why not, since I’m one of them. The majority would rather douse their dicks with lighter fluid, strike a match, and dance around singing Disco Inferno than pay one more cent in taxes to Uncle Sugar.” —Stephen King

Her house in the background, she commutes to the school bus :::wut::: 

Americans walk less than the citizens of any other industrialized nation.

We are a nutty nationhood: 

In the United States hundreds of engineers make careers out of studying traffic.

Entire freeway systems like L.A.’s have been hardwired with sensors connecting to computer banks that aggregate vehicle flow, monitor bottlenecks, explain congestion in complicated algorithms.

Yet cars spend just 5 percent of their lives in motion… !

…and until recently there was only one individual in the country devoting his academic career to studying parking lots and street meters: Donald Shoup.

Michael Hudson: 

Suppose you were alive back in 1945 and were told about all the new technology that would be invented between then and now: the computers and internet, mobile phones and other consumer electronics, faster and cheaper air travel, super trains and even outer space exploration, higher gas mileage on the ground, plastics, medical breakthroughs and science in general.

You would have imagined what nearly all futurists expected: that we would be living in a life of leisure society by this time. Rising productivity would raise wages and living standards, enabling people to work shorter hours under more relaxed and less pressured workplace conditions.

Why hasn’t this occurred in recent years? In light of the enormous productivity gains since the end of World War II – and especially since 1980 – why isn’t everyone rich and enjoying the leisure economy that was promised?

If the 99% is not getting the fruits of higher productivity, who is? Where has it gone?

Jon Taplin: 

99% of musicians, writers, actors are just “working the land”. They don’t need to get rich, they just want the honor of getting paid for their work.

Levon Helm and Garth Hudson made a good living ($150,000 a year) off royalties from The Band’s eight recordings in the 60′s and 70′s up until 2001 when the Big Pirate sites like Limewire and (in 2003) Pirate Bay really got going.

And then the record royalties came to a halt.