Humanize the Earth!

book story

So my friend Dave is also known as Mr. Bike. And he’s just out recently with the second edition of the fabulous book, Urban Bikers’ Tricks and Tips. Sadly, I say it’s fabulous not because I own a copy, but because my friend, former roommate and shareholder/member at the Hub Housing Cooperative with me, John Stoner, has a copy and I’ve read parts of it. So anyway, I was talking with Dave last week and I asked him how it would be best for him if I wanted to buy his book. Should I buy it through his website or from the publisher or what? He said the best is to buy it from any bookstore, that way, it shows demand to the store and maybe they will buy more than one copy.

So I went into my local independent bookstore in downtown Chicago, Brent Books at Franklin and Washington. Last July I went in there when they had a 50% off sign in the window. The sale was only for that month. It’s still there. That’s a bit worrying. And in July they let me order books they didn’t have, no problem. This time, they suggested I order from Amazon, even though the publisher is here in Chicago. When I didn’t jump at that excellent suggestion they said if I wanted to prepay, including a shipping charge, they could order it for me. So that’s what I did. Hopefully it’ll come in soon.

bad link fixed

A train ride across Michigan

A train ride across Michigan MouseMusings, who comments: “Late or not, a departure on Amtrak feels to me as if we are beginning to arrive.”

I love this line: “Trains are wonderful for moving large quantities of people or goods. But they are most perfect as metaphors.”

and “I said something about how we’re not taking advantage of the economy of scale that predominates the operation of a rail system, i.e. the more full trains you have, the better the return on your tax dollars.”

and in one of the comments: The sooner we recognize that passanger (sic) rail is a public service, not a business and that it will never turn a profit, the better off we’ll be.

My thoughts: Streetlights don’t turn a profit. Nor do public parks. Or police or fire service. Public schools don’t turn a profit either. Public transit, like passenger rail service, needs to be funded by the public to make our communities strong. All of these are part of The Commons, owned by us all to benefit us all. Today we also subsidize highways and the aviation system, I suppose figuring both are good for the economy. That may be, but it’s time for equal treatment to be given to the public rails and buses. In Chicago we’ve got it pretty good with buses and trains, at least compared to many other American cities.

And my dream is still that we’d subsidize local transit even further, to the point where it’s free. Imagine how many people would ride the el and the bus if it were free? So many that we’d be able to provide much better bus service on less-congested roads, I’d bet. So many that full lanes on street could be given over to bicycles. More people would bike, knowing that if they get tired or aren’t prepared for the weather, they could always get on a fast, frequent bus for free. Boarding buses and trains would be quicker without have to wait in line to pay, also cheaper for the transit agencies not to have to provide that payment infrastructure.

Amtrak will never be free, but the more people are used to getting around collectively, efficiently, convienently and predictibaly, the more will be willing to travel by intercity trains, and the more trains can be added.

Bonus for this post from the Albany New York Times Union via Rick Harnish: New York state is working on incremental improvements for Amtrak that include more tracks and sidings, and collaboration among the 3 companies that currently each own part of the trackage and operate trains on the Albany/New York City route. This won’t decrease travel times much on the schedule, but it will vastly improve on-time performance, a critcal step for Amtrak’s credibility. After that, funding for high-speed rail will be quite a bit easier.

dream of Michigan

Drempt of a last-minute invitation to Traverse City from friends of mine in Ohio. Not sure how I got there, but the trip was appropriately long, have a feeling now of following some specific directions to get there. They were already there, Amy, Timi, Cabot, Catherine, Allison and more I can’t remember at the moment, in a beautiful spot on the beach, sunny with waves coming in. There was a house of some sort on that beach. Only remember one room. Sitting there with Cabot and others. Told him how much I’d missed him and cried. He cried too. On the wall was a map of either the Grand Traverse Bay or Michigan as a whole o rLake Michigan or some other spot related only to dreamworld. It had been created on a wiki, which I knew because the instructions were there that any spot added by an anon IP weren’t to be included on the final product unless vetted by someone. The spots were all listed with their non-chrisitan historical significance.

a civilized game

I can’t say that I’ve ever seen a cricket match. But I just read this at Wikipedia:

Test cricket is played between two teams over five days, with three two-hour sessions per day. (Sessions are usually interspersed with a 40-minute break for lunch and 20-minute break for afternoon tea.)

Five days. Breaks for lunch and tea. Amazing. Not so civilized are the matches where one team outscores the other by hundreds of runs. On the other hand, sometimes they come down to a difference of only one. Can someone who understands cricket explain it to someone like me from a non-cricket playing land?

dream last night

on highway, couple gets on and ride next to me, they’re talking about sunshine today and heat/humidity

she’s worried about the onions in her garden frying up - he’s more optomistic, saying it’s not so hot, only in the 70s

notice, that we’re all talking with each other on the highway, but not in the same vehicle - not in vehicles at all

the motion is more like motorcycles (no pedaling motions which is odd in retrospect), but the sound is very much like bicycles (silent)

what a dream!

Building Communities Worth Having

You are invited to Building Communities Worth Having, an Open Space Conference, February 3-5 in Portland Oregon. I’m one of the co-convenors along with Brandon Saunders, Mark Dilley, John Abbe and others, and Michael Herman is facilitating. I’m glad to be along for the ride with them. If you’re anywhere involved in “The Movement” (place-based, cyber-space and/or face-to-face) for building a better world, we’d be glad to have you join us!

It’s being co-sponsored by IBESI, OSDL, ICANNWiki, SocialText
ATLASSIAN

edited to add additional sponsor

circle of friends update

As I wrote last week about the circle of friends event coming up on Jan 17th, most of your reading this won’t be attending, but it’s really exciting to me, so I’m writing about it anyway. It’s the first of hopefully monthly gatherings of the TantraNova community, designed for people who’ve been taking classes or individual sessions with Freddie and Elsbeth. Simone and I are co-facilitating an hour and a half of open space. This marks a shift, away from us being simply students and Freddie and Elsbeth being simply teachers, into us all being human beings with ourselves to share, questions to ask, etc.

Simone and I met tonight to plan how we want to split the facilitation role and it feels really great to be working with someone of similar mind and heart about what this gathering needs and what we can give to this community in terms of opening space for each one to give of her/himself.

Can you tell I’m excited!

Debbie and Gerry

My friends Debbie and Gerry have non-blogs. They don’t write often, but when they do, it’s generally worth reading.

This post is part of my ongoing links series, slowly replacing the blogroll in the sidebar.