The Perambulator

Music and Video

Do the Black Bottom

Black Bottom Collective

Spirituality

Namaste in my own words: I honor and respect the unique and beautiful person that you are. I see the love in me reflecting through you and I feel the love in you reflecting through me.

Crafts

Help your kids buid a newspaper hut.

Literature

Review of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

Food

Bananas are dying, killed by a fungus called Panama Disease, and it turns bananas brick-red and inedible.

In recent weeks, the rice and cooking-oil shelves in my upstate New York supermarket have been stripped clean.

I love these articles, Monsanto’s strategy backfires and Monsanto’s Mooving out of the Marketplace.

Health

Asthma inhalers double in price overnight. Thank you big pharma. We love being a captive market.

Mad pride goes mainstream.

Free Sitting Online Yoga includes 19 easy to follow exercises (asanas) that help stretch your hands, wrists, arms, upper back, hips, low back and feet. Each exercise includes a video in a Flash format and breathing and posture directions.

History

Helen Hunt Jackson, activist for native rights in the 1800s. Friend, neighbor, and classmate of Emily Dickenson.

Mikmaq Nora Bernard. “Nora and her siblings were not so lucky, they were incarcerated there, which experience later inspired her to take on the powers that be and demand redress. When she got her project for justice underway in the 1980s, she labored at it with tenacious dedication, nothing could derail her from realizing her dream. The formation of the Shubenacadie Indian Residential School Association was soon a reality.”

Videos that provide insight into the forces of world history.

Ethnography

Peyote eaters: A description of a Tonkawa peyote meeting held in 1902

Canada

“Product of Canada” doesn’t actually mean the food is from around here. All it means, legally speaking, is that at least 51% percent of its production costs were spent in Canada.

Computer and Internet

Every web application should handle four main message types: information, successful operation, warning and error. Each message type should be presented in a different color and different icon. I use this on my website now.

Building a website from scratch? Here is a template for your admin section.

Master the linux bash command.

Openbox is a highly configurable, next generation window manager with extensive standards support.

Remind is a calendar and reminder program for Linux and most UNIX Systems. Not too pretty, has a steep learning curve, but is the most versatile calendar program around.

Global street map application. Open source and collaborative.

Economy

“Delves deep into the myriad ways that major national banks screw poor people . . . a sobering reminder of how important it is to be smart about where we put our money.” The blurb says myriad ways but trailer only covers overdraft fees.  So is Ralph trying to say there should be no consequence for irresponsible spending? Dude! Don’t spend more money than you have!!! I had an overdraft fee once. I promptly went to the bank, apologized, they forgave the fee, and I opened a savings account linked to my checking. Yes, I had to reduce my spending again to have the savings account. That inconvenience was more than made up for by the satisfaction of being responsible.

MCMINNVILLE, Tenn. - High gas prices have driven a Warren County farmer and his sons to hitch a tractor rake to a pair of mules to gather hay from their fields. T.R. Raymond bought Dolly and Molly at the Dixon mule sale last year. Son Danny Raymond trained them and also modified the tractor rake so the mules could pull it.

Energy

Major financial houses are developing ways to let office building owners upgrade to high energy efficiency savings with virtually zero upfront expenses. The costs (for new energy-saving furnaces, windows, insulation) are automatically paid through subsequent energy savings. All that’s missing now is a parallel plan for homeowners.

World’s largest tidal turbine.

Ecology

Canadian youth isolates microbe that digests plastic bags.

Rights

Let Me Stand Alone: The Journals of Rachel Corrie by Rachel Corrie (W.W. Norton, 2008) Review of new book about murdered activist Rachel Corrie.

Proposal for a multi-lateral trade agreement of strict enforcement of intellectual property rights related to Internet activity and trade in information-based goods hiding behind the issue of false trademarks. If adopted, a treaty of this form would impose a strong, top-down enforcement regime, with new cooperation requirements upon internet service providers, including perfunctionary disclosure of customer information.

This is the 1980s equivalent of the government being given the legal authority to seize cassette recorders if they were used in recording a song off of the radio. Under this legislation, downloading even a single mp3 file unauthorized by the copyright owner will give the federal government the power to take your computer. There is no way that the federal government can enforce this. In fact, it is insane that the U.S. House of Representatives is more concerned about keeping the record and movie industry happy by passing this legislation than they are with real issues. Incredibly, this bill was passed by a vote of 410-11. Two of the dissenting voters included Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul.

Elected officials, religious leaders, community organizations and civil libertarians have joined a rising chorus here of Arizonans condemning the blatantly racist grandstanding of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

Chronology and article about Lakota nation and their attempt to exercise their sovereignity by growing hemp.

Local News

Homeless man stabbed 20 times, dies. I knew Daniel fairly well. He didn’t deserve to die.

Beauty