Al Shaw

May 13

“I stare at it, trying to imagine this African port—a minor entrepôt on the Red Sea—as it will look 10,000 years from now, after the next Ice Age: a lens of concrete, steel, and glass crushed between geological strata. A future archaeologist exploring Africa’s Rift Valley will stumble across a jackpot here; his core sample will reveal shards of all we once dreamed we owned.” Stowaway – Out Of Eden Walk

May 7

“the gay-marriage campaign provides a case study in conformism, a searing insight into how soft authoritarianism and peer pressure are applied in the modern age” Gay marriage: a case study in conformism | Brendan O’Neill | spiked

Apr 24

“You have to analyse the team, how they will play, how the players move, where do they run to, how do they play in attack,’’ said Heynckes. “I did that. I analysed that. I had a PowerPoint presentation so I could see all the runs Barcelona do.” Bayern Munich v Barcelona: Jupp Heynckes revels in Champions League triumph - Telegraph

Apr 5

“But whereas the institutional model was associated with similar family structures for rich and poor alike, the soulmate/capstone model has thus far only really been stabilizing for the upper and upper middle classes. For the most vulnerable Americans, poor African-Americans and then whites, the new model never had a chance to work: The ’70s-era combination of sudden sexual freedom and economic stagnation — and if you accept the Charles Murray thesis, perverse welfare policies — more or less demolished traditional family structures in a generation, helping to create the underclass as we know it today.” Culture, Class and the Decline of Marriage - NYTimes.com

“Over the last four decades, many Americans have moved away from identifying with an “institutional” model of marriage, which seeks to integrate sex, parenthood, economic cooperation, and emotional intimacy in a permanent union. This model has been overwritten by the “soul mate” model, which sees marriage as primarily a couple-centered vehicle for personal growth, emotional intimacy, and shared consumption that depends for its survival on the happiness of both spouses. Thus where marriage used to serve as the gateway to responsible adulthood, it has come to be increasingly seen as a capstone of sorts that signals couples have arrived, both financially and emotionally—or are on the cusp of arriving.” Culture, Class and the Decline of Marriage - NYTimes.com

Apr 2

“To put this in the idiom of Augustine, Aquinas, and Westminster, sin is an offense against God because it is the thwarting of God’s desire that humanity enjoy God or find its rest or communion in God. The injury to God’s honor that is effected by sin is a matter of the absence of humanity from full communion with its Creator. Thus, rightly understood, God’s honor is not a barrier to humanity’s reconciliation with God—as though God were an aristocrat whose pride was offended. As such, honor is the origin of God’s free act to provide humanity with a path to renewed communion. God’s honor demands not that someone pay for thwarting God’s intentions but that God’s intentions for humanity not be thwarted.” The Economy of Salvation : The Other Journal

Mar 18

c4ss:

Printing a bicycle with a 3D printer

Mar 12

New Environmental Website Launched

I’ve been writing content for a new environmental site that has been launched. Could you take a look, and share with your network? My articles are under the “environment” tab, but there’s lots of other great content as well!

http://ecopedia.com/

Mar 9

What Millennials Want

Mar 4

“

Gandhiji talked about swaraj; he talked about economic decentralisation. I would urge us to ensure that six basic primary needs are met from resources within 100 miles around us. I call it the “100 mile principle”. If food, shelter, clothing, primary education, primary healthcare and primary banking are locally produced and consumed, we will have the growth of a new holistic economy, that the world will sit up and take note of. …

Catching up with western economic models will turn us into incompetent followers, not leaders.

” Women, work and peace | The Elders

“Poverty is not God-given. It is a moral collapse of our society.” Women, work and peace | The Elders

The Repentant Environmentalist: Part 2

Feb 28

“Shell has invested more than $4.5 billion in leases and equipment and spent several years on an intensive lobbying campaign to persuade federal officials that it could drill safely in the unforgiving waters of the Arctic Ocean. It now acknowledges that the venture has been much more difficult than it anticipated.” Shell Will Pause Arctic Drilling in 2013 After Ship Accidents - NYTimes.com

Feb 24

Covert NHS privatisation must be resisted, says Green Party

Feb 17

“

Our goal is not to assume leadership of existing institutions, but rather to render them irrelevant. We don’t want to take over the state or change its policies. We want to render its laws unenforceable. We don’t want to take over corporations and make them more “socially responsible.” We want to build a counter-economy of open-source information, neighborhood garage manufacturing, Permaculture, encrypted currency and mutual banks, leaving the corporations to die on the vine along with the state.

We do not hope to reform the existing order. We intend to serve as its grave-diggers.

” Kevin Carson, Why Import Evgeny Morozov When Tom Franks and Andy Keens are Out of Work?? (via c4ss)

Al Shaw

Links, quotes, images and the occasional unoriginal thought.

Printing a bicycle with a 3D printer

New Environmental Website Launched

The Repentant Environmentalist: Part 2

Covert NHS privatisation must be resisted, says Green Party