I knew when I emailed the editor of Matthew's House Project with a fairly strongly worded response to one of their recent articles that there was a good chance I'd be asked to write something as a follow-up. And that's exactly what happened. So a piece I wrote on identity and immigration is now available for reading over there.
On Friday 13th June it'd be great to see those of you within reach of North London at a little get together Iain Archer and I are putting on as part of the Breathing Space series. From 8pm at St. Luke's Church, West Holloway, Iain and his band will be hosting an evening of music featuring Julie McKee, Burning Codes and Foreign Slippers. Each artist will perform a selection of their songs, and then they'll all gather to chat about their music and perform a few "in the round."
We're quite excited about it, so I hope some reading this will be too. You can find more details on the Breathing Space website or at the event pages on last.fm, facebook or upcoming.
I may well have mentioned this here before, but living in the US I was frequently surprised by the number of people who, when hearing I was from europe confided in me their desire for the US to have good public transport. I wasn't just surprised because as a Brit I'd been trained to think of our public transport system as very poor (it looks a lot better to me now than it used to), but also because I kept wondering how something so many people wanted could still seem so far off.
There's a lot of ways to approach that question that I'm not going to go into here; deep discussions to be had about the nature of contemporary political discourse. But that recurring conversation kept coming back to me as I read Do Good Lives Have to Cost the Earth?.
Though the book's various authors touch on dark themes, and the potential for environmental and/or economic collapse is very real, it maintained the sense that those steps we can take to be more conscientious might also take us closer to the planet we would like to live in. In that, it reminds me quite a bit of Generous (on which more, later).
The book has its weaknesses. For the most part it's a volume for people who have access to the resources to make significant changes (whether simple or radical) in their lives, and a safety net to fall back on. But for those of us who are in that boat, it's a good and helpful read.
Whilst attending the ecampaigning forum I frequently had to dash off and find a quiet corner to make final tweaks to a site that was about to launch. Thankfully the wifi coverage at the conference was pretty good.
Late last night we pushed the button and that project—a total redesign of the Greenbelt website—was launched. We've been working on it for several months, and I'm very pleased with the result. You can see a few words Paul wrote about it on the site.
Taking a couple of days out of the hectic schedule which has kept me from updating anything around here for a while, I spent Thursday and Friday in Oxford for the 2008 ecampaigning forum. It was a great event, and a good time reconnecting with old friends and making new ones. I live blogged several sessions and written up some notes over in the other place, but wanted to post a pointer here because it's likely to be of interest to those who might normally avoid the tech overload on that blog.
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"At the 2005 Gleneagles summit, G8 countries committed to pledge an additional $50bn in aid by 2010. Three years on, this target now looks to be missed by as much as $30bn, said Oxfam, enough to save 5 million lives."
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Nick's article on Ecuador from the latest Red Pepper. "We need a vision of growing qualitatively not quantitively.”
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"work is under way on a government "information incubator" to encourage experiments with "mashups" and other innovative uses of government data"
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One World War II poster read: "When you ride ALONE you ride with Hitler! Join a Car-Sharing Club TODAY!"
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"I don't think it's cynical about human beings. I think that's why viewers were so committed and loyal, because the human beings that were traversing this rigged game were entirely worth the time spent following them."
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Steel salvaged from the World Trade Center site has been used to build a warship. Terribly symbolic, and terribly sad.
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For a while I held onto a belief that John McCain somewhat resembled his chosen persona. Then he decided that maybe torture was okay after all, and a whole lot more crept out of the woodwork along with that.
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A more positive review that the star rating lets on. We've seen Beth play quite a number of times over the past few months, and it's always worth the trip.
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Shedding useful light on how the statistics about "the surge" have been cooked. Shooting in the back of the head are sectarian, those in the front of the head are not. Hmmm...
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The disappearance of truly public spaces is a loss for us all, but is it most problematic for kids?
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Could be good.
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"Julius Baer had been pursuing court action against Wikileaks after the website published documents about the bank's offshore accounts."
Normally being in the office on a Saturday would seem a bad thing, but this weekend there is still enough novelty for it to be a little fun. This week, you see, Matt and I moved into an office space we're going to be sharing in Hoxton. There's still a lot of unpacking, arranging and decorating to be done, but so far it feels good to have a space outside the home for working. Pictures will come with time.
There's space here for one or two more people, and our hope is to find one person to share it on a full-time basis and keep one desk free for occasional visitors. So whether you need a space in east London to get a bit of work done, need a more permanent office space, or just feel like dropping by, get in touch.
(For a full-time person rent would be around £170 per month including bills and wifi. You'll need to provide your own furniture.)
