Tag: ideal
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Community: Government
I think that most people have a pretty clear idea of what the government element of community is. We can all imagine city hall as a place where meetings of the community leaders meet and make laws and where members of the community may appeal for changes which they feel should be made. The more…
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Think Globally; Act Locally
I think that the idea of “think globally, act locally” (TGAL) points us in the wrong direction. If I base my local actions on what is best for everyone globally it leads to uninformed decisions because I have a very limited knowledge or control over the global repercussions of my actions. No matter how much…
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Buildingblocks of Community
As I think about the components of an effective community I thought it would be valuable to list what I think are the essential parts of an effective community. I will try to define them just enough here to make it clear what I am thinking. If anyone finds anything I have missed, or a…
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Inherently Unequal
My whole family is getting over being sick (here’s a story about that) and as I reflected on the experience I was thinking how nice it would have been to have the kinds of beds they had 150 years ago (pre-industrial age) where you would clean a mattress after someone threw up on it by…
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Uncivil War
Today is the anniversary of the official surrender at Appomatox that ended the Civil War in 1865. That random tidbit struck home to me as I was reading The Passing of the Armies by Joshua Chamberlain (who officially received the arms and flags of the Confederate army in surrender). I had not realized until I…
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Buying Local
There is nothing completely new in the premise of Scott’s Buying Local Saves? I’m fairly sure that I have heard stories almost exactly like this one: . . . Kelly Cobb’s effort to make a suit of clothes using only resources available within a 100-mile radius of Philadelphia. ‘The suit took a team of 20…
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Ideal Politics
Now that election day is over – here are some things I would like to see (ideally) in politics: Two candidates running against each other who canvas together, advertise together, and publicly seek to achieve 100% voting in the area covered by the office they are seeking. I could just imagine two candidates who have…
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For Sale: Senate Seat
Election season is upon us and that means I get to be entertained by campaign politics, which seems like regular politics on steroids. As I was looking at some of the close races being covered by the New York Times I stumbled upon one little blurb in one senate race that needs to be discussed.…