Humanize the Earth!

Discovering our power to make good things happen

Please join us for a three-day event of, by and for the Omidyar.net community and friends — to build our capacity to make good things happen.

What: Discovering Our Power to Make Good Things Happen
When: July 29-31, 2005
Where: Carleton Hotel, Oak Park (Chicago), IL, USA

Who We Are: Omidyar.net is a new, growing online community. We believe every individual has the power to make a difference. We exist for one single purpose: So that more and more people discover their own power to make good things happen. If you have not joined this community yet, you can go to http://www.omidyar.net/home and check it out.*

You’re Invited: This conference is for Omidyar.net members, friends and other curious do-gooders to come together, make connections, have fun, do as much good work as each and every one of us can… and then go home, more connected, energized and capable of doing more and more of whatever we call good in the world. Come join a good party getting better! …and bring your good friends, too!:

If you are reading this invitation, it is because someone thought you might be interested in joining this work. Please join us to make good things happen!

• What kind of good things are happening because of the work you are doing in the world?
• What do you need to do in order for more good things to happen as a result of the work you really want to do?
• What skills, resources, gifts and connections do you have to share?
• What would happen if you could grow and get and share?

Come to Oak Park, Chicago and find out!

Be Prepared: We are opening this space for meeting, for learning, for connecting, for acting, and for good. We don’t know what is going to happen. We are imposing no limits, no agendas — only the charge to come and learn and contribute as much as you can. Be prepared to be surprised by the results!

Agenda: Any issue of real importance to you can be added to the agenda. It will be discussed and addressed to the greatest extent possible. All of the key points and next steps will be captured and offered online, so that more good people can be invited into more and more good action.

Spirit: We invite your presence, onsite and/OR online. Please pass this invitation on to others you see leading and doing good work. We need you to add your spirit to the many many connections that are happening now. Online or onsite, please bring the stories of your progress, your skills and insights, and your passion for what can happen next. Be ready to make more good things happen.

Format: This gathering is the product of many actions and connections. This space is an invitation to make more of them, and more of us, flow more together, to the good. The format will be a rich mix of personal storytelling and powerful self-organization, informed directly by the practices of Appreciative Inquiry and Open Space Technology. The participants will be smart, caring, creative and connected leaders, organizers, activists and instigators. Beyond this, the space will be wide open for us to make good things happen.

Registration and Payment: details here

We are looking forward to meeting and working with you in July, to make good things happen!

TedErnst, GerryGleason, MichaelHerman, MichaelMaranda, LukeMartin, others from co-conveners page, who have pledged to show up, bring friends and add spirit.

(*) The best way to engage with this growing socially active network is to go online and join the omidyar.net community. Omidyar.net is the Virtual Roof under which much of the planning, coordinating and follow-on work occur. If you can’t join us onsite and want to convene a local version of this simultaneously, please contact us so that we can help you post your discussion notes and next steps into the main conference online workspace. One way or another, we’ll all go forward together!

Aerial photos of the Hub Housing Cooperative and surroundings

Thanks to Payton, here are some aerial, photos from the City of Chicago:

21st St - 27th St

22nd Pl - 25th Pl

About 3 blocks by 3 blocks, can see how much greenspace is provided by Marshall and 24th Blvds and the schools directly west and south of us. (left)

Sacramento – Marshall

Hub

Getting blurry, but pretty tight shot of our building. The other side of that north/south roof on the west side will be my ceiling. (left)

Categories: Hub, Housing, Cooperative, Chicago

hitchhiking, revolution, awakening and gratitude

Via mousemusings : The Hitchhikers Guide to the Revolution

People tell me it is really dangerous picking up hitchhikers. But I find it is a way I keep my instincts alive. I train myself to know what is dangerous and what is not. I used to be really good at knowing. I got caught up in the corporate world and lost much of my instincts. That happens when you are told everyday that you know nothing and you should not speak, and they work you so hard you can’t feel anything anymore. A couple of years ago the whole thing came apart. I lost my job, my house, my family and my community. I was really disoriented. I lost my place in the world. I lived in my truck. I had to travel a lot to have work and so I started picking up hitchhikers again. At first it was just women. Because I am a woman and I wanted to be safe. But later I got better at reading people. Also “magical” things begin happening.

This is but one excerpt from a long essay about hitchhiking, war, and revolution. Please go read it.

It brings up a lot in me. For starters, there’s the romanticism of the road, being free and outside “the system.” And I’m inside the system. Yes, I’m working for change and ultimately for non-violent revolution. The romanticism makes me feel that I’m not doing enough, that I’m too comfortable, working for the government, owning my own home, living a pretty “secure” life, if such is possible in today’s world.

Then, there’s the fear. Do I have any instincts left? If everything collapsed today would I be able to make the transition to something new? Something less secure? More free?

As much as I find that my meaning in life is about humanizing the earth, I find I have a really hard time relating with people a lot of the time. Humanizing the earth for me right now is about humanizing myself and humanizing those I come in contact with. And I have my moments of coherence. And my long interludes of floating along with the stream, content to stay asleep, to not confront the fear, to not make friends with my internal enemy.

So thank you Cyndy and Ellen for this possiblity of my awakening for this brief moment.

peace,
ted

Categories: personal

WINE makes Linux run Windoze programs?

A while back I mentioned buying some old Win98 laptops for use in Africa. I’d really like to get rid of windoze altogether, but I have the fichasplus program that only runs on windoze. Is WINE my solution? Can anyone help me get it running? Of course, this also means getting Linux running first. Help? Will this work?

Public Policy that kills

Escapable Logic quotes eduction writer John Taylor Gatto:

With less than thirty hours of combined training and experience, a hundred million people are allowed access to vehicular weapons more lethal than pistols or rifles. Turned loose without a teacher, so to speak. Why does our government make such presumptions of competence, placing nearly unqualified trust in drivers . . . ?

Yes, I’m taking this quote out of context. Gatto’s critique is of the state school system, but mine is of the vehicular weapons that cause over 40,000 fatalities per year in the US alone. That figure continues to astound me. Why do we accept it? Imagine 40,000 airline deaths per year, or 40,000 rail traffic deaths per year, or 40,000 terrorist attack deaths (leaving aside the Iraq war for a moment, okay?). Astounding, isn’t it?

Categories: transportation

Human Peace Sign Budapest

Humanist Movement organized 2000 people in Budapest on 2nd aniversary of start of Iraq war. Last year there were 720 people.

Categories: Humanist Movement, peace

Humanist Movement at omidyar.net

I’ve started a group for the Humanist Movement at omidyar.net. You don’t have to sign in to read, but to post, you’ll have to create a free account. It’s fast and easy to sign up so don’t let that stop you. Of course, if you don’t want to do that, feel free to leave comments here. It’s a lot easier for me to add more content when people ask me questions or make comments on what’s been written so far, so please check it out and jump right in. Thanks!

Categories: Humanist Movement, o.net

I am in top 1% on earth in terms of income

Thanks to Colby, I found the Global Rich List which shows that I am among the richest 1% of people on earth. Kinda puts things into perspective, doesn’t it? Where do you fit on the list?

Categories: money

BlogMap

Not sure I like it, but at the bottom of my sidebar on the right, you will find my brand new BlogMap, found via Andrew. Since I’m moving soon and don’t want to have to worry about updating it, I put in my address at the Hub Housing Cooperative as of April 17th. It uses a pretty broad definition of “near,” all the way out to the Western suburbs and the North Shore. The micro$oft maps technology also seems clunky to me. But still, it’s a new toy and I’ll leave it there for a while. Let me know if you find it useful or interesting or if you don’t. Thanks.

Images are powerful

Dilley and Human iterations we talking about the banning of this ad in Europe, but I thought that it is interesting just as an image.
Not being a religious scholar, I couldn’t remember clearly what the Da Vinci original looked like so I went seaching for it. Then I found Reflections, Reflections also talking about the ad and also showing the original from artchive.com

I’m facinated by the power of these two images for many people. What happens with us when we cannot transform images in our mind, when we suffer from the images becoming stuck, and on the contrary, what happens when we learn to become flexible with images in our mind. What power to overcome suffering!