http://taikod.tigblog.org/ What's on the minds of young leaders from around the globe? en-us http://taikod.tigblog.org/post/40659 Happy Planet Index (HPI) is an innovative new measure that shows the ecological efficiency with which human well-being is delivered. The Index doesn’t reveal the ‘happiest’ country in the world. It shows the relative efficiency with which nations convert the planet’s natural resources into long and happy lives for their citizens. The nations that top the Index aren’t the happiest places in the world, but the nations that score well show that achieving, long, happy lives without over-stretching the planet’s resources is possible.

On the map, I'm really glad to see how well Latin America and Southeast Asia scored. Having lived and worked in both places, I can certainly attest to their being super-efficient at converting material goods to human well-being.
]]> Wed, 12 Jul 2006 14:48:00 EDT http://taikod.tigblog.org/post/40659 49.8833333 -97.166666749.8833333-97.1666667 http://taikod.tigblog.org/post/38513 Brokeback Bharat" is a spoof trailer using images from Bollywood to campaign against section 377 of the Penal code that criminalizes homosexuality in India. It has some great scenes. Bonus points to anyone who knows what TV shows or movies they are from...]]> Sat, 13 May 2006 19:39:00 EDT http://taikod.tigblog.org/post/38513 49.8833333 -97.166666749.8833333-97.1666667 http://taikod.tigblog.org/post/37362 Hornby Island, BC in Canada put a webcam in a bald eagle's nest. Since then, there has been an EXPLOSION of viewers - now up to 2 million per day - watching the eagles and waiting for the eggs to hatch.

I find it pretty relaxing to watch. Now we just need to put a microphone up there for next year...]]> Thu, 06 Apr 2006 15:09:00 EDT http://taikod.tigblog.org/post/37362 49.8833333 -97.166666749.8833333-97.1666667 http://taikod.tigblog.org/post/34441
I was very sad this morning to hear from friends in South Africa that Dave MacDevette died on Friday while rock climbing near his home in Cape Town. Dave was founder and president of Empowerment for African Sustainable Development (EASD).

I first met Dave through my boss at IISD. They had worked together in Fiji 15 years or so ago. When I met him, he was doing a lot on African environmental information systems and state of the environment reporting. He and his wife Monika had a house in Nairobi and were both doing contracts with UNEP. I stayed with them there for a few days on my way back from a GKP meeting in Ethiopia and lent Dave a hand at a meeting at UNEP on developing a capacity building strategy. We had a great time talking about life, the universe and everything while having a drink on his deck and watching the monkeys in the trees.

One of the things I always admired about Dave was his commitment to young people - both his own sons and other young South Africans. When he moved back to Cape Town more full time a few years ago, he was very excited about being able to surf and climb with his sons. And he was excited about raising funds through EASD to support the ideas and research of all of the motivated young people he kept meeting in S Africa. It was through Dave that IISD was able to find first Chris Higgo and later Steve Vosloo to work with us on the Information Society and Sustainable Development project.

Dave will be very missed. ]]> Mon, 23 Jan 2006 17:15:00 EST http://taikod.tigblog.org/post/34441 49.8833333 -97.166666749.8833333-97.1666667 http://taikod.tigblog.org/post/33064 Tue, 13 Dec 2005 12:12:00 EST http://taikod.tigblog.org/post/33064 49.8833333 -97.166666749.8833333-97.1666667 http://taikod.tigblog.org/post/30697 Smurfs dying is more shocking to Europeans than real shots of African child soldiers? What have TV news and movies done to our senses of reality and horror?]]> Thu, 13 Oct 2005 14:13:00 EDT http://taikod.tigblog.org/post/30697 49.8833333 -97.166666749.8833333-97.1666667 http://taikod.tigblog.org/post/29485
Simon Angelo was born on August 27, 2005 at 5:47 AM(at 41w1d). He weighed 8 lbs, 2 oz when he was born and was just under 21" long. He's been an absolute joy - super mellow so far about everything. I'm really looking forward to having the next year off from work to get to know him and watch him grow up and discover everything.

Labour and delivery was a bit of a long haul with complications popping up off and on over a couple of days. Our midwife and the hospital medical team worked incredibly well together through all of it. There is a part of me which is amazed that I made it (until the emergency surgery at the end) without any drugs whatsoever. It's incredible the degree to which skilled coaching can help you to manage pain and your perceptions of it. And (of course) a special thanks to Linda for being such an amazing partner in all ways.

In the spirit of TakingITGlobal, I also wanted to note how truly global the whole birth was... Our midwife (from Winnipeg) was trained in Wales. The second midwife (originally from Ghana) also trained in London (her aunt, also a nurse at the hospital, was previously a midwife in Ghana). The charge nurse (who helped with labour coaching) was from Zimbabwe. The emergency team that took over was led by a Chinese ob/gyn. In the meantime, my parents from the US and Linda's dad (from Egypt), and his partner were all waiting anxiously in the waiting room.

It's amazing how much babies can pull the world together....

More pictures and details on the birth can be accessed through Simon's Web page. Please sign the Guest Book while you're there!]]> Wed, 07 Sep 2005 10:58:00 EDT http://taikod.tigblog.org/post/29485 49.8833333 -97.166666749.8833333-97.1666667 http://taikod.tigblog.org/post/28191 assassination of Brother Roger, the 90-year old founder of the Taize Community in France. He harbored Jewish refugees during the Nazi occupation of France during World War II, then built the ecumenical Taize Community with a mission to reconcile all denominations of Christians and promote dialogue and peace. A mentally ill woman slit his throat with a knife during an ecumencial prayer service Tuesday night in front of approximately 2500 (mostly young) people.

Part of what hit me so hard about this was that on Tuesday, I was just looking at the Taize site for music to download and play on my computer during labour (whenever this baby decides to be born). I hadn't looked at the site in a few years, so I don't know why I ended up there on Tuesday. When I was a grad student in Oxford, I used to get up early a few mornings per week and go to the Anglican church for sunrise Taize services. They were always so quiet and peaceful with everyone singing along to the short repetitive prayers in many different languages. Growing up Catholic, I always loved the ones in Latin (e.g. Nada Te Turbe). Most of all, though, I've always been impressed with the Taize spirit of creativity, generosity and compassion.

It's sad to lose a man who has given so much to make that a reality....

]]> Thu, 18 Aug 2005 12:08:00 EDT http://taikod.tigblog.org/post/28191 49.8833333 -97.166666749.8833333-97.1666667 http://taikod.tigblog.org/post/28031
From the BBC...]]> Tue, 16 Aug 2005 13:53:00 EDT http://taikod.tigblog.org/post/28031 49.8833333 -97.166666749.8833333-97.1666667 http://taikod.tigblog.org/post/27729
The $14.5b energy bill was pushed forward by the President and Congress bemoaning US oil dependence. They came up with a whole new raft of incentives to produce oil, natural gas and coal domestically to meet rising energy demands. Along the way, they also made polite statements about the need to reduce energy demand, but the funding put into this side of the equation was pitiful in comparison to the supply side of things.

Now, this week, the US Congress passes a MASSIVE $286b highway transportation bill.

Now, call me crazy, but if you spend $286b in six years on expanding the highway system and $14.5b in ten years on developing new sources of domestic energy - doesn't it seem like at the end of the day all you end up with is a package of incentives that keeps Americans spending the majority of their lives in their cars? There are a lot of studies coming out that indicate that more roads = more traffic - countering Bush's claims that better highways will save lives and will REDUCE gas use since people will not be idling in traffic for so long.

Couldn't we spend tax dollars a BIT more wisely and invest them in transit projects instead of highways??? Perhaps change some land use planning practices so people can live closer to where they work? Get folks out of their cars and onto bikes so they don't continue to die at an increasing rate of obesity-related diseases?

I really wish US lawmakers had just taken the summer off, gone to cottages somewhere and READ current studies and research rather than passing bills which buy short-term economic (and political) gains at the expense of the long-term quality of life of the American people and neighbours around the world.
]]> Fri, 12 Aug 2005 16:05:00 EDT http://taikod.tigblog.org/post/27729 49.8833333 -97.166666749.8833333-97.1666667 http://taikod.tigblog.org/post/27675 news to watch... According to US lawyers in the Maher Arar case, foreign citizens passing through American airports have almost no rights. The U.S. government is interpreting its powers in such a way that passengers never intending to enter the U.S. connecting to international flights at U.S. airports must prove they are no threat and could be allowed to enter the country. If passengers are deemed to be inadmissible, they have no constitutional rights even if later taken to an American prison. The interpretation means travellers can be detained without charge, denied the right to consult a lawyer, and even refused necessities such as food and sleep.

Seems like a serious infringement on universal human rights if you ask me... If you can, please consider boycotting US-routed flights to protest this policy. ]]> Thu, 11 Aug 2005 14:10:00 EDT http://taikod.tigblog.org/post/27675 49.8833333 -97.166666749.8833333-97.1666667 http://taikod.tigblog.org/post/27554 Thumper. It's hard to believe that this baby is due in 11 days. It kind of feels like I've been pregnant FOREVER. But, for those of you who still can't picture it, I've posted recent photos over there and everything...

In order to keep my TIG blog relatively clean, once the baby is born, I'll be posting baby pictures and stuff on the other site - although I'll post at least the birth announcement here for y'all as well.

Have a great week!
]]> Tue, 09 Aug 2005 09:35:00 EDT http://taikod.tigblog.org/post/27554 49.8833333 -97.166666749.8833333-97.1666667 http://taikod.tigblog.org/post/26315 West Nile Virus (WNV) (spread by mosquitoes) in dead birds. Last time it was about spraying to kill nuisance mosquitoes that made it unpleasant to be outside.

In order to understand this whole kerfuffle, there are a few things you have to understand:

* Winnipeg has nasty mosquitoes most summers. The city is at the junction of two rivers on flat land that used to be the bottom of an old glacial lake thousands of years ago. The soils have a lot of clay and hold water like crazy. It is prone to flooding and prior to the last 100 years, used to have a ton of wetlands on it. When it gets wet and hot (30C+) in the summer like this year, it's like a mosquito Club Med. A week or so ago trap counts in one part of the city were 3,392. The traps do not attract WNV-carrying mosquitos, which are monitored using a different system by the province.

* Over the last few years, Winnipeg has come up with a new mosquito control policy which includes a strong belief in Integrated Pest Management. This means that the City Entymologist and crews try to use biological controls and very targetted treatments to try to keep mosquito populations under control. This year, they even tried putting minnows and dragonfly larvae around the city to help eat the mosquito larvae. They also use a more complex formula to decide when they have to spray for adult mosquitos. Rather than just spraying once there were more than 100 bugs in a light trap on any given night, they now take things like soil moisture and the life cycle of the mosquitos into account (or 25 for 3 consecutive nights, which is what happened last summer after our new mayor came in and the old entymologist quit).

* Winnipeg is the only major city in Canada that sprays for adult mosquitos using Malathion - a nasty chemical which can cause damage to the nervous system and is toxic to fish, honeybees, and aquatic insects -- but which Health Canada swears is safe if professionals apply it according to the specified directions. Winnipeg's mosquito policy allows residents to register their objection to Malathion and to NOT have it sprayed within 100m of their home. The crews basically plug those addresses into a computer on the trucks and the fogging stops until they get to the end of the buffer zone (go GIS/GPS!!!). My entire neighbourhood has not been sprayed in a few years because so many residents registered for buffer zones (random note: there was some controversy over how activists strategically asked homeowners to register - it only took something like 15% of ths houses to register in order to make spraying impossible in the whole neighbourhood. Some people felt this was rather undemocratic).

* The City's mosquito policy can be overridden if the Province decides that there is a public health reason. West Nile Virus has been declared such a public health emergency - although the information distributed by the province goes out of its way to state "Most people who are bitten by an infected mosquito do not become ill and for those who do, the symptoms are usually mild. In some cases, the virus causes serious illness and sometimes death." In 2003, there were 142 cases of WNV identified; of these 35 were serious, including two deaths. After finding increasing evidence of WNV carrying mosquitos this summer, the province has ordered that Winnipeg has to spray the entire city and that buffer zones are null and void. This means that Wolseley will be sprayed this year.

* West Nile Virus is here in North America for good. There is no evidence from anywhere in the world that you can eradicate it. You can just manage it from year to year.

So what does this all add up to? A serious confusion in my head as to the risks of West Nile Virus vs. Malathion spraying. Both are nasty and can be passed from mother to unborn child. At the end of the day, though, I tend to come down against the spraying in my neighbourhood. Why?

* I can count at least 100 dragonflies zipping around my backyard at the moment eating mosquitos and making me happy. Tomorrow morning, most of the dragonflies will be dead from the Malathion. Goodbye beautiful creatures; goodbye front line of defense for the next batch of mosquitoes that hatch.

* The province has produced no proof that there is a massive infestation of WNV-carrying mosquitos in my neighbourhood. I tend to think that the government owes me data at least before spraying toxic chemicals on my home. Tell me really what my odds are of catching WNV if I am standing in my backyard with (and without) mosquito spray on at different times of the day. I suspect my odds of dying from WNV even if I were standing naked in the yard at dusk are lower than my risk of being killed in a car accident.

* I have an organic garden in my backyard. It's nice to be able to grow your own food and to be able to trust that it is safe. Once they spray out there, I will not feel safe being in contact with my plants (weeding, etc) and will have to take extra precautions washing my lettuce, tomatoes, peas, beans, etc etc to make sure that the chemicals which have settled on them have washed off.

* West Nile Virus is here to stay. At some point, we're going to have to accept it as a new part of our ecosystem - not an emergency crisis. Educate people, yes. But also accept that there will be some deaths and some serious illnesses. Is the province planning on
spraying Malathion over the whole city every year for the next 100 years? That's hardly what I'd call a risk management plan. Or even vaguely cost effective.

I don't know... it's just going to be sad sitting inside the house tonight with all of the windows closed waiting for the trucks to rumble by. It's also going to be sad if the city starts arresting protestors in the street again. I totally understand where they are coming from. But, in arguing with the city to develop the new policy, we all missed the boat and forgot about the Province's ability to unilaterally undo all of our hard-worked for agreements. It's just hard for the average citizen to keep up with and to understand the technical information in enough depth to be able to present viable alternatives to the Province for managing WNV as a public health situation - which is what is really needed now.
]]> Tue, 19 Jul 2005 16:37:00 EDT http://taikod.tigblog.org/post/26315 49.8833333 -97.166666749.8833333-97.1666667 http://taikod.tigblog.org/post/26076 Catie Curtis in concert. I saw her play a couple of times on Saturday at the Winnipeg Folk Festival.

Besides the fact that she bears an eerie resemblance to my friend Alyson Slator (who lived in Boston for a few years, where perhaps she was cloned), I also liked her music.

And she told a great story about how her Massachusetts marriage license got her into Canada when she realized at the border that she had forgotten her passport at home before starting this tour. As she put it, we had same-sex marriage to thank for her making it to the city for the Folk Festival. There you have it... ]]> Wed, 13 Jul 2005 17:47:00 EDT http://taikod.tigblog.org/post/26076 49.8833333 -97.166666749.8833333-97.1666667 http://taikod.tigblog.org/post/25675 Illinois Homeland Security Market Development Bureau. Sigh. You knew it was only a matter of time until some city/state tried to capitalize on the economic potential of all of this. According to an article in the Chicago Tribune, "state leaders are optimistic they can make Illinois a national center for security specialists by offering a range of financial incentives and grants for consulting, manufacturing and technology companies supplying defense devices and security advice."

I guess the thing that made me most queasy was the bit about "food security". They did a sruvey of 30 companies and noted that, "Despite the fact that 80 percent of the businesses appeared to have an individual with responsibility for food security, not one operation had a food security plan designed to limit problems relating to terrorism."

Sigh... and here I thought that food security was about making sure that all people on the planet - no matter their income - have access to healthy and nutritious food. Silly me.
]]> Wed, 29 Jun 2005 13:58:00 EDT http://taikod.tigblog.org/post/25675 49.8833333 -97.166666749.8833333-97.1666667 http://taikod.tigblog.org/post/25659 watch online for a good chunk of the day today.]]> Tue, 28 Jun 2005 11:32:00 EDT http://taikod.tigblog.org/post/25659 49.8833333 -97.166666749.8833333-97.1666667 http://taikod.tigblog.org/post/25542
So, the intervening 15 weeks of prepping for a small, early baby by c-section and worrying about spontaneously bleeding to death are now being replaced by the sudden realization that I now have 8 weeks (give or take) to mentally readjust, read, and get ready to do this the old fashioned way. Yikes!!! I truly am a whimp when it comes to pain. And I'm having a hard time imagining how much bigger it's possible for me to get in the meantime. I already feel like a house on stilts. I'm just hoping I can switch back to the midwife I started with back at the beginning now that I'm low risk again.

In the meantime, "Thumper" is perfecting combination punches, kicks and rolls. The nurse had a hard time getting the ultrasound photos since it kept moving so much. I think the funniest part was watching on the ultrasound monitor as the nurse poked my stomach and the baby kicked her right back. It's a fun game for the whole family. ]]> Fri, 24 Jun 2005 11:58:00 EDT http://taikod.tigblog.org/post/25542 49.8833333 -97.166666749.8833333-97.1666667 http://taikod.tigblog.org/post/25428
A Moral Transaction
Bill Moyers
June 20, 2005

Bill Moyers is a broadcast journalist and former host the PBS program NOW With Bill Moyers. Moyers also serves as president of the Schumann Center for Media and Democracy, which gives financial support to TomPaine.com. This essay will appear in The Washington Post tomorrow, June 21, 2005.

I must be the luckiest man in television for having been a part of the public broadcasting community for over half my life. I was present at the creation. As a 30-year-old White House policy assistant in 1964, I attended the first meeting at the Office of Education to discuss the potential of “educational television,” which in turn led to the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967. When I left the White House that year to become publisher of Newsday, I did fund-raising chores for Channel Thirteen in New York and appeared on its local newscasts. Then in 1971, through a series of serendipitous events, I came to public television as the correspondent and anchor for a new weekly series called This Week.

Now, a quarter of a century and countless broadcasts later—from "Creativity" and "A Walk Through The Twentieth Century" to "Six Great Ideas With Mortimer Adler" and "Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth," from "Amazing Grace" and "All Our Children" to "The Language of Life" and "Fooling With Words," from "The Secret Government" and "The Wisdom of Faith" to "Genesis," "America’s First River," "Becoming American," "On Our Own Terms," "Close to Home," "Trading Democracy" and "Now with Bill Moyers" —I am mindful of what William Temple meant when he said that a person whose life is given to a purpose big enough “to claim the allegiance of all his faculties and rich enough to exercise them is the nearest approach in human experience to the realization of eternity.” Public television has provided me such moments, as well as colleagues and kindred spirits who have inspired and nurtured my aspirations—among them Fred Rogers and Big Bird, Fred Wiseman and Ken Burns, Robert McNeil and David Fanning, Julia Child and Alastair Cooke. I am of course just one fish in the ocean of public television. This is a big, sprawling, polymorphic community: in our best days an extended family; in our worst days, a dysfunctional one. Right now, however, we’re facing some hard choices. Competitive forces are razing the landscape around us and turf wars are breaking out the way they once did between sheepherders and cattlemen. Funds for new programming are hard to come by. And fevered agents of an angry ideology wage war on all things public, including public broadcasting.

All this tumult swirls around a public television community that if not divided is certainly not wholly united in sympathy and aspiration. That’s nothing new. In the first speech I made to the Friends of Channel Thirteen back in 1969, I found myself recalling how George Washington had described the new United States of America created by the Constitutional Convention: “It was for a long time doubtful whether we were to survive as an independent republic, or decline...into insignificant and withered fragments of empire.” The same could be said of public television. From the womb, we seemed offspring of the Hatfields and McCoys.

There is no unanimity now over how public television should respond to the rapid changes occurring in telecommunications; there are differences among us over governance; we don’t see eye to eye on the mission and role of PBS, station representation in the decision-making process, the responsibilities of membership, the balance between local and national, or the question of back-end rights; we can’t even agree on what constitutes core programming. Anyone who proposes solutions for public television winds up with critics on all points of the compass. Perhaps it’s the nature of things; a creative community is no respecter of conformity. But I know that the ultimate measure of any system, any society, or any institution is not how it acts in moments of comfort and convenience but how it responds to challenge and controversy.

The best thing we have going for us is a strong and consistent constituency. Millions of Americans look to us as the best alternative to commercial broadcasting, and even when we let them down, they seem to keep the faith and grant us a second chance. Deep down, the public harbors an intuitive understanding that for all the flaws of public television; our fundamental assumptions come down on their side, and on the side of democracy.

What are those assumptions?

• That public television is an open classroom for people who believe in lifelong learning
  
• That the medium can dignify life instead of debase it
  
• That it can help us to see more clearly, understand more deeply, and laugh more joyously
  
• That human creativity and this incredible technology can provide us with a fuller awareness of the wonder and the variety of the arts and sciences, of scholarship and craftsmanship and innovation, of politics and government and economics and religion and all those mutual endeavors that shape our consciousness
  
• That commercial broadcasting, having made its peace with “the little lies and fantasies that are the by-products of the merchandising process,” is too firmly fixed within the rules of the economic game to rise more than occasionally above the lowest common denominator
  
• That Americans are citizens and not just consumers; in the words of the educator Herbert Kohl, “if we do not provide time for the consideration of people and events in depth, we may end up training another generation of TV adults who know what kind of toilet paper to buy, who know how to argue and humiliate others, but who are thoroughly incapable of discussing, much less dealing with, the major social and economic problems that are tearing America apart.”
  

Those of us who helped launch public broadcasting were not disdainful of commercial television. We ourselves tuned to it for news, diversion and amusement. We knew that it helped to keep the economy dynamic through the satisfaction or creation of appetites. We are a capitalist society, after all. The market is a cornucopia of goods and services, and television programs are part of that market. There is always something to sell, and television can sell. But public television was meant to do what the market will not do. From the outset we believed there should be one channel not only free of commercials but from commercial values; a channel that does not represent an economic exploitation of life; whose purpose is not to please as many consumers as possible, in order to get as much advertising as possible, in order to sell as many products as possible; one channel—at least one—whose success is measured not by the numbers who watch but by the imprint left on those who do.

I keep on my desk a report delivered a few years ago by Gale Metzger of Statistical Research. It found that:

• When people look for a program on science or the arts, or a program their children can watch, they look first to public television.
  
• We rated higher with people who want to understand issues that are important to society.
  
• Two-thirds of the people see our news and public affairs as a mixture of political persuasions—they think we are fair.
  
• As for the charge of elitism, public television rated about the same with people who have a high school education or less as with people who have college degree or higher.
  
• Most important, two out of three people said it would make a difference to their lives if public television did not exist.
  

During the bicentennial of the Constitution in 1987 my associates and I produced a series about the significance of the Constitution in contemporary life. Several members of the Supreme Court participated as well as legal scholars, historians, philosophers and regular citizens whose defense of their First Amendment Rights had taken them all the way to the highest court in the land. Among the letters we received was one from a housewife in Utah:

I have never written a letter like this before. I am a full-time wife and mother of four children under seven years and I am entirely busy with the ordinary things of family life. However, I want to thank you very much for "In Search of the Constitution." As a result of this series, I am awakened to a deep appreciation of many ideals vital to our democracy. I am much moved by the experience of listening at the feet of thoughtful citizens, justices and philosophers of substance. All these are people with whom I will never converse on my own, and I am grateful to you for having brought these conversations within my sphere. I am aware that I lack eloquence to express the measure of my heart’s gratitude. I can say, however, that these programs are a landmark among my life’s experiences. Among all the things I must teach my children, a healthy interest in understanding the Constitution now ranks very prominently. Thank you.

After all these years, I am convinced that public television could yet be the core curriculum of the American experience. E.D. Hirsch in Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs To Know lamented that our schools no longer are teaching young people the essential ingredients of a general education. “To grasp the words on a page,” he said, “we have to know a lot of information that isn’t on the page.” He called this knowledge “cultural literacy,” and described it as “that network of information all competent readers possess.” It’s what enables us to read a book or an article with an adequate level of comprehension, getting the point, grasping the implications, reaching conclusions: our common information. Some people criticized Hirsch on grounds that teaching the traditional literature culture means teaching elitist information. That is an illusion, he says; literature culture is the most democratic culture in our land; it excludes nobody; it cuts across generations and social groups and classes; it’s what every American needs to know, not only because knowing it is a good thing but also because other people know it too.

This was the Founders’ idea of an informed citizenry: that people in a democracy can be entrusted to decide all-important matters for themselves because they can communicate and deliberate with one another. “Economic issues can be discussed in public. The moral dilemmas of new medical knowledge can be weighed. The broad implications of technological change can become subjects of informed public disclosure,” writes Hirsch. We might even begin to understand how—and for whom—politics really works. A few years ago, we produced a special on money and politics. We showed how private money continues to drive public policy and how our campaigns have become auctions instead of elections. As the broadcast came to a close, we put on the screen the 800 number of a non-partisan group called Project Vote Smart. When you call the number, they send you a printout showing the campaign donors to every representative in Congress. In response to that one broadcast, almost 30,000 Americans got up from their chairs and couches, went over to their phones and dialed the number!

But informing citizens is not all we’re about.

Americans are assaulted on every front today by what the scholar Cleanth Brooks called “the bastard muses”:

• propaganda, which pleads, sometimes unscrupulously, for a special cause at the expense of the total truth
  
• sentimentaliy, which works up emotional responses unwarranted by and in excess of the occasion
  
• pornography, which focuses on one powerful drive at the expense of the total human personality.
  

About that time, Newsweek reported on “the appalling accretion” of violent entertainment that “permeates Americans’ life—an unprecedented flood of mass-produced and mass-consumed carnage masquerading as amusement and threatening to erode the psychological and moral boundary between real life and make-believe.”

How do we counter it? Not with censorship, which is always counterproductive in a democracy, but with an alternative strategy of affirmation. Public broadcasting is part of that strategy. We are free to regard human beings as more than mere appetites and America as more than an economic machine. Leo Strauss once wrote, “Liberal education is liberation from vulgarity.” He reminded us that the Greek word for vulgarity is apeirokalia , the lack of experience in things beautiful. A liberal education supplies us with that experience and nurtures the moral imagination. I believe a liberal education is what we’re about. Performing arts, good conversation, history, travel, nature, critical documentaries, public affairs, children’s programs—at their best, they open us to other lives and other realms of knowing.

The ancient Israelites had a word for it: hochma , the science of the heart. Intelligence, feeling and perception combine to inform your own story, to draw others into a shared narrative, and to make of our experience here together a victory of the deepest moral feeling of sympathy, understanding and affection. This is the moral imagination that opens us to the reality of other people’s lives. When Lear cried out on the heath to Gloucester, “You see how this world goes,” Gloucester, who was blind, answered, “I see it feelingly.” When we succeed at this kind of programming, the public square is a little less polluted, a little less vulgar and our common habitat a little more hospitable. That is why we must keep trying our best. There are people waiting to give us an hour of their life —time they never get back—provided we give them something of value in return. This makes of our mission a moral transaction. Henry Thoreau got it right: “To affect the quality of the day, is the highest of the arts.”
]]> Tue, 21 Jun 2005 13:52:00 EDT http://taikod.tigblog.org/post/25428 49.8833333 -97.166666749.8833333-97.1666667 http://taikod.tigblog.org/post/25424
For good or bad, there are an awful lot of students there with far too much free time on their hands - leading to interesting incidents like the recent arrest of a student for calling a police officer's horse gay.

You've got to have a mighty good spidey-sense after multiple beers to pick that sort of thing up ;-)

]]> Tue, 21 Jun 2005 12:00:00 EDT http://taikod.tigblog.org/post/25424 49.8833333 -97.166666749.8833333-97.1666667 http://taikod.tigblog.org/post/25233
Many thanks to Rev. Tristan Emmanuel for the inspiration. He seems like a great candidate for a first client...

]]> Mon, 13 Jun 2005 11:26:00 EDT http://taikod.tigblog.org/post/25233 49.8833333 -97.166666749.8833333-97.1666667 http://taikod.tigblog.org/post/25187 Nunavut rethinks polar bear quotas as numbers drop."

Basically, in January, the Territorial government increased the number of polar bears which could be commercially hunted by 28%. This was based in large part on the traditional knowledge of Inuit hunters and communities who said they had noticed more bears around... hence there must be more bears out there to hunt. Suffice it to say that this doesn't jive with the international science on polar bear decline due to climate change. Gut instinct tells me that the reason more polar bears are near Inuit settlements is precisely because their habitat is under stress so they are foraging more frequently in inhabited areas. Seeing more polar bears doesn't necessarily mean there ARE more polar bears.

So, today the government has decided to hack the polar bear quota in half from what it announced in January. Needless to say the Inuit communities are not happy - both at the economic loss this will mean and at the seeming disregard for their knowledge contributions to the earlier management plan.

But, it's tough... everyone really wants co-management with the Inuit communities to work. And everyone really wants to find a way to incorporate traditional knowledge into environmental management plans. Inuit observations on climate change were one of the real catalysts for the government of Canada to actually take the issue seriously a few years ago. But how do you incorporate traditional knowledge into management plans when the climate is changing... meaning that the interpretation of observations has to change?]]> Thu, 09 Jun 2005 16:56:00 EDT http://taikod.tigblog.org/post/25187 49.8833333 -97.166666749.8833333-97.1666667 http://taikod.tigblog.org/post/25180 flooding there?

Place names are often historical records of prominent features. Yet, somehow, we now feel we can ignore them and build houses anywhere. I don't know... maybe it is a spin-off of the stupid BS names we're giving new towns and development these days. I feel like screaming every time I see an "Oak Corners" or "Forest Glen" on a site that used to be a farm field, has had no trees for 100 years, and now has a couple of sticks in the ground in front of $200,000 homes. Grrrr.... Names really oughta mean something.]]> Thu, 09 Jun 2005 10:30:00 EDT http://taikod.tigblog.org/post/25180 49.8833333 -97.166666749.8833333-97.1666667 http://taikod.tigblog.org/post/25102 Foundation for Global Community for its Flash video.... Word to the wombat. All is One.]]> Mon, 06 Jun 2005 10:21:00 EDT http://taikod.tigblog.org/post/25102 49.8833333 -97.166666749.8833333-97.1666667 http://taikod.tigblog.org/post/25020 Die Die SUVs Please Die".

Bonus points for the paragraph-long sentences that are just begging to be read out loud.]]> Wed, 01 Jun 2005 16:23:00 EDT http://taikod.tigblog.org/post/25020 49.8833333 -97.166666749.8833333-97.1666667 http://taikod.tigblog.org/post/24910 Konrad von Moltke, passed away last week from lung cancer. He was by far one of the most briliant people I've ever met. Yet somehow, despite the fat that he was so LARGE both physically (almost 7 feet tall) and intellectually (PhD in medieval history, undergrad in mathematics)... he never made others feel small. He always listened to everyone and explained concepts in ways that helped people to understand.

We will miss him. If you get a chance, read some of his working papers on international investment and SD.... Keep the ideas alive. ]]> Fri, 27 May 2005 11:09:00 EDT http://taikod.tigblog.org/post/24910 49.8833333 -97.166666749.8833333-97.1666667