“If you watch advertisements, or cruise the supermarket shelves, you can’t fail to notice that everything is anti-bacterial now, as if common household bacteria have suddenly become as exotic and deadly as Ebola. “It’s a great marketing coup, but potentially a dangerous one. In our enthusiasm for all things anti-bacterial… Read on
“Sadly, children’s passion for thinking often ends when they encounter a world that seeks to educate them for conformity and obedience only.” —bell hooks “Modern schools and universities push students into habits of depersonalized learning, alienation from nature and sexuality, obedience to hierarchy, fear of authority, self-objectification, and chilling competitiveness…. Read on
“Creating Learning Communities: Freeing Education to Create a Sustainable Cooperative Society” (Anna Jahns, Pathways to Family Wellness magazine) “[T]he system of education our children are being indoctrinated into today is fundamentally the same as it was 100 years ago, when it was designed to prepare factory workers for an industrial culture oriented toward manufacturing… Read on
I’m not sure why I opened What to Expect the Toddler Years (Eisenberg/Murkoff/Hathaway, 1994/1996). Morbid curiosity I guess. The books in this series are notorious for maintaining the status quo, but they do so in a typically non-invasive way, especially if you go into it wary-eyed. Early in my pregnancy,… Read on
I am surrounded by two primary views on whether or not to vote. (More accurately, I am surrounded by one primary view, one opposing view, and then a lot of people who don’t feel as strongly. I simplify, to not get too convoluted and tomey.) 1.) Vote. You must vote…. Read on
Kurt Vonnegut has some good models/theories on communal living. “This is a lonesome society that’s been fragmented by the factory system. People have to move from here to there as jobs move, as prosperity leaves one area and appears somewhere else. People don’t live in communities permanently anymore. But they… Read on
A friend of mine sometimes refers to a person or an institution as having a “contrarian spirit.” He generally means it in a positive way, but it can of course have negative connotations too. Personally, I’ve never been crazy about the label “contrarian” or anything resembling it. To me, being… Read on
“In the opening paragraphs of his classic Soil and Civilization, Edwards Hyams decries how modern misapplication of science has caused humans to ‘begin working across or against the grain of life.’ Hyams notes how science, when it becomes master rather than servant, displaces the age-old natural wisdom that has maintained… Read on
This morning we ate at a standard-American family restaurant. It was pretty bad, and left me feeling gross and vaguely gut-sick. My kid barely ate his food, and I couldn’t blame him; it tasted like chemicals. I know I am especially sensitive, but I am reminded just how processed and… Read on
“In spite of all the talk and study about our next years, and all the silent ponderings about what lies within them for our sons [sic], it seems plain to us that many things are wrong in the present ones which can be, must be changed. Our texture of belief has great holes… Read on