Saturday, January 17, 2004

Posted here Saturday, January 17, 2004 at 7:51:20 PM     from Kieran Healy Social Engineering in the 1790s A choice bit from Juliet Barker’s gigantic Wordsworth: A Life. Tom Wedgwood was a committed philanthropist and Godwinian. Anxious to do his part for the furtherance of mankind, he had, in correspondence with Godwin, determined to devote a portion of his wealth to the education of a genius … Wedgwood had come up with a scheme. The child was to be protected from contact with bad example and from sensory overload by never being allowed to go out of doors or leave its apartment. The nursery was to be painted grey, with only a couple of vivid coloured objects to excite its senses of sight and touch. It was to be surrounded by hard objects to continually ‘irritate [its] palms’ … A superintendent [would] ensure that the child connected all its chief pleasures with rational objects and acquired a habit of ‘earnest thought’. Wordsworth, to his credit, was not impressed by this plan. ********

Good view of Romanian negative dependency on Globalization Posted here Saturday, January 17, 2004 at 7:23:22 PM     Here is a very simple documentary from Romania on how international markets work, as seen from a local perspective. Scroll down to "inverted pyramid" http://www.aworldconnected.org/article.php/579.html ********

Meat production Posted here Saturday, January 17, 2004 at 7:12:02 PM     Realities Cattle Futures? By MICHAEL POLLAN Published: January 11, 2004 t's hard to say whether an American hamburger was appreciably less safe to eat the day after a Holstein cow tested positive for bovine spongiform encephalopathy in Washington State last month than it was the day before, but it had sure gotten less appetizing. The news cracked open a door on the industrial kitchen where America's meat is prepared, and what we glimpsed on the other side was enough to send even the heartiest diner to the vegetarian entree or the fish special. ********

The mainstream as the future, not just status quo. mini essay. Posted here Saturday, January 17, 2004 at 7:09:29 PM     There is not a main stream status quo, for which Bush for example may be representative. The rpoblem is, the mainstream model is omnivorous, and will project itself into the future as a totall meahnical techincal financial rewards world. new technologies, such as urban cleaning and water generation, can be combined in a total package of new towns that are perfect amchines for living, including being corporate owned, and a constant draw on your credit card the price of living there. This model of rationalized everything can create a future as far out as we can see. Is there an alternative? ********