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| Archived blog - January 2005 |
Monday 31 January 2005 Freecycle - changing the world one gift at a time If you've not heard about Freecycle, it is described as, 'The worldwide Freecycle™ Network is made up of many individual groups across the globe. It's a grassroots movement of people who are giving (& getting) stuff for free in their own towns. Each local group is run by a local volunteer moderator (them's good people). Membership is free.' As they say, the great thing is, it's
free. They're not charging you to join, so you can just have a look and see
if it's for you. Freecycle started in Tucson in May 2003 and at the time of
writing has 814,249 members in groups all over the world. It works on a
series of Yahoo groups. You sign up to the group in your area and either
post items you no longer need or search for something you want. It's as
simple as that. In the UK there are now 38 groups, check out the UK
groups on the group list.
After being less than complimentary to the Bloggies™ (trade-marked remember!) on Saturday, I've just noticed that one of the few
Blogs I subscribe to is actually nominated for an award. World Changing is a great site,
with submissions from writers all over the world. If you don't know it, I
would recommend a look. |
Saturday 29 January 2005 Bloggies™ 2005 I have to say I'm not really a big fan of awards ceremonies of any sort, but the nominations have come out for the Bloggies 2005. If it is your sort of thing, the hype says: The Bloggies™ are a set of 30 publicly-chosen awards given to weblog writers and those related to weblogs. This is the fifth ceremony, with previous winners listed on their respective sites: 2001, 2002, 2003, and 2004. Everyone's invited to take part in the awarding process, so read below to find out how you can nominate and vote for your favourite blogs! They've even trade-marked the word Bloggies, that sounds like someone whose taking themselves a bit too seriously. Mmm .....I wonder if I could Trade-Mark the word Trade-mark ™? There must be money in that .... Meeting of Climate Change Sceptics 'Here is the truth about global warming: it is an anti-capitalist agenda, a Machiavellian political plot and a convenient rumour started by bungling Japanese pineapple farmers. It is a front for paranoia about immigration, an incitement to civil war, and the reason that the world's attention was distracted from the risk of a tsunami. And it hasn't killed as many people as Hitler or Stalin.' No this isn't me, you won't be surprised to hear, it's an extract from an article in The Guardian about the first UK conference of climate change sceptics. It did lead me to find the following interesting graphic! Bangladesh 122,273,476 I doubt if it's got any better in the
last 9 years either! Have a great weekend and stay safe.
Wildberry |
Thursday 27 January 2005 Fahrenheit 911 - on UK television If you're in the UK, Michael
Moore's film about the Bush administration pre and post September 11th, Fahrenheit 911, is being shown
on Channel 4 tonight at 9.00pm. Although I think Michael Moore does tend to
build his part a little, there is no one else out there with such a high
profile making films like this. It's certainly worth watching. Michael Moore will be doing a live web chat
at 11.30pm GMT (6.30pm ET in the USA) go to the Channel 4 site. If you
haven't looked at Michael Moore's website, it's worth a look, and there are some good links to recommended
books etc. If you're interested in Erica have a look at her CDs on CD Baby. Take care. Wildberry
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Tuesday 25 January 2005 Climate change: now we have a deadline! 'Hey Martha, Martha' .... ‘he’s off talking about climate change again' .... 'I know' .... 'he doesn't talk about anything else!’. Up to now we've known that climate change is a problem, and we've known that if we carry on pumping CO2 into the atmosphere it’s going to get worse. But how much worse, how soon? These questions have been answered in a report by the International Climate Change Taskforce. They have said that in their opinion a temperature increase of two degrees, above pre-industrial levels, will start a process that will be unstoppable. More importantly they say our current position is about 0.8 degrees above pre-industrial levels and we could, if we carry-on the way we’re going, reach that two degree point in about ten years! In
other words, we’re nearly half-way there! We, you and me, just going about
our business, not wanting to harm anyone and all the other folks like us,
have taken this planet nearly halfway from lovely clean virgin world, to a
machine set on self destruction and once we reach that point there would be
nothing we can do about it. There will be no going back, we could all go and live in caves and eat
berries, and it’ll still happen, it would be too late! Scottish deputy Communities Minister Johann Lamont said: 'Councils have acted
promptly to make provision for the long-term development of Glasgow
International Airport.' 'The airport is vital for Scotland's economic growth
and this alteration will ensure that land is available for future expansion
in the coming decades.' Apparently approximately 95% of passengers travel to
the airport by car and warnings have been issued that the M8 motorway will
not be able to cope with the predicted increase in traffic. |
Prompted by this
Sunday’s edition of The Food Programme on BBC Radio 4 (you can listen
again online), I want to focus
some light on the co-operatives in the UK and the USA. The locations of Co-operative Group stores can be found on their website. My experience in the USA I’m afraid is restricted to a very few stores in Northern California and Oregon, please check those out, any other reviews or links would be really appreciated. Also if you’re outside the UK or USA, I’d love to hear from you, why not be the first contributor from outside the UK/USA! For Co-op America stores see here. Here are some links for small local co-ops. Calverts Press Workers Co-op - Printers - South London. UK
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| Friday 21 January 2005 Lets look on the bright side  After
getting all depressed yesterday, I'm trying to cheer myself up today by only
looking at good news and lets be honest there's not much more cheerful than
the thought of your annual vacation, holiday, whatever you call it.
I was talking a couple of weeks ago about environmentally responsible holidays, and as now is holiday booking time, I thought you might appreciate a few links. If you can't find something there you fancy, you could just holiday locally. I used to work with someone who lived in Norwich and went on holiday with their family to the beach at Cromer, about 30 miles away! They made sure they never went there at other times so it stayed special. They said to me, 'the great thing is if we forget anything we can go home in an hour to get it!'. Not one damn dime day - Buy nothing day! Yesterday on Whole Wheat Radio, Esther Golton was talking about 'Not one damn dime day' in the USA and I with others was sceptical, not because I don't agree with the sentiment, but I thought 'oh, what's the point, nothing will change'. Esther made the point that, it maybe idealistic and OK, the majority of people aren't going to be aware of it. But if we drop our principles just because it's difficult, then what do we have left. Well nothing is the answer, she was right and I was wrong! I'm putting it down to post inauguration blues! Apologies Esther! 'The intent of the Buy Nothing Day movement is to provide a period of respite and a pause for reflection from the rigors of the consumption economy, which is the main thing that dominates the media and perhaps a few too many of our daily life choices and aspirations.' I can't argue with that, put it in your diary now and let us appreciate the idealists out there, because without them what do we have! Have a great weekend and keep safe. Wildberry
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I’ve recently seen
that websites have been set up selling bracelets enabling the wearers to
proclaim publicly, the party
they voted for. I naively thought that these were passionate Americans angry
or proud of the election result. But when you visit the ‘Count
me red’ and
‘Count
me blue’ sites, it is obvious these are exactly the same site with a couple of minor
changes and checking the IP addresses they run from the same server! These
are not passionate supporters of anybody, except maybe the US dollar (they
probably did vote for George, but hey why let principles get
in the way of a profit!). These are just old fashioned American capitalists, who are too lazy to
come up with two different site designs. Maybe as it's another four years before Americans can do anything about it, we ought to focus on one thing we can change and get a white bracelet from the 'Make Poverty History' site. Let's all hope Jnr. can get through the next four years without hashing it up anymore than he has already. Be careful out there,
Wildberry. |
Tuesday 18 January 2005 Spanner Films - watch on-line McLibel: Two worlds collide, Drowned out & Baked Alaska
Franny then introduced another of her
films 'Drowned Out' about the plight of those living in Jalsindhi in central
India. The valley in which they lived and farmed was being flooded by the
waters from the giant Narmada dam. The film is a
The Airbus A380 was unveiled yesterday.
This new super-jumbo will include bars, showers, a library, gym and even a
casino. So now not only is it acceptable to burn nearly six gallons of fuel per mile,
to carry passengers around the world, we are happy to carry all this other
crap as well! Tell that to the people who's homes are flooded this
winter! BBC News
Link.
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| Monday 17 January 2005 Podcasting, yes again! I can
hear the collective groan from here, yes it's podcasting again! Well as I was about to say. Podcasting
could well be one of those subjects about which too much has been said
before most people know about it, and here am I adding to it. But I feel
there's a lot more to come yet. As an article in a Sunday paper tells me,
the BBC no less, have already put their small toe in the water and found it
warm. They put the fairly high-brow arts history programme 'In
our time' out as an MP3 and got more than 100,000! downloads. This is
from an audience that you wouldn't have thought to be 'early-adopters', so
who knows what will happen when they start putting out shows that appeal to
the iPod carrying audience out there. So as I say I think there will be a
few more column inches to come, once the popular press get on to the podcast
'revolution'! Don't let me give you the wrong impression, it's not all
rubbish; there are some real gems, it's just you have to sort through so
much dross to find them. It seems that although global warming is effecting the
whole planet, the effect on the poles has been more significant. There have been
extremes of temperature experienced at the poles again this year. Russian
scientists have reported temperatures 8 to 9oC higher than
normal. A wet spring and a warm summer in Alaska have been followed by by
temperatures plummeting to -46oF (-43oc) in Fairbanks
yesterday. Sheila Watt-Cloutier the chair of the Inuit Circumpolar
Conference, which represents 155,000 Inuit said in The
Guardian yesterday 'Climate change is a matter of survival for humanity
as a whole. It is the most pressing global issue we face today. Protect the
Arctic and we will save the planet'. A couple of people have asked me about subscribing to an RSS feed. Being a bit technically challenged, to cut a long story short, I couldn't find an easy way of doing this. So I have set up a mirror site with Bloglines, if you want to subscribe go here. In the process I've had to re-arrange this site a little, so if you come across any dead or incorrect links, please let me know. Keep smiling - Wildberry. |
| Friday 14 January 2005 A Politician we can be proud of!  It's not very
often in this cynical world that you look at a politician on TV and think
that guy is really doing good (with the obvious exception of Nelson
Mandela). But this week we've seen Gordon Brown (Yes, a British politician), airing his proposals to relieve the debt in Africa and they are big ideas. I had the feeling that this could be one of those moments in history when something really significant is about to change, I really hope so. Global Dimming?
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Wednesday 12 January 2005 Make a difference! 
The launch of the 'Make Poverty
History' campaign seems to have received less publicity than it might
because of the terrible events in the Indian Ocean. But this doesn't make it
any less important. 100 organisations have joined together to highlight
global poverty and the 'unprecedented' opportunity we have to make a
difference in 2005. The group sums up their aims in nine words ... There's no point me
harping on about this, it's better if you go to the site and look for
yourselves. www.makepovertyhistory.org , the good thing about it, there are a host
of things you can do which take very little time and no cost. If all you do
is send and email or wear a white band to show you care. |
Tuesday 11 January 2005 A lesson Learned I learnt a good lesson on Saturday, I’ve recently finished reading George Orwell’s ‘Down and out in Paris and London’. I hadn’t read any Orwell for about 15 years, it’s a great book and gives a fascinating insight into the plight of the extremely low paid and homeless during the early 1930’s. If you haven't read it, it's an eye opener! Orwell concludes the book by saying, ‘ …… one or two things I have definitely learned by being hard up. I shall never again think that all tramps are drunken scoundrels, nor expect a beggar to be grateful when I give him a penny, nor be surprised if men out of work lack energy, nor subscribe to the Salvation Army, nor pawn my clothes, nor refuse a handbill, nor enjoy a meal at a smart restaurant. That is a beginning.’ I
don't mean to paint myself as a paragon of virtue, but a few days later, I was sitting in a coffee shop in
London and a guy, who looked homeless, came up to me and asked for a light
for his cigarette. Now this isn't an unusual event in London and I hope in
the past I wouldn't have been rude when this happened. But I probably would have have tried to get rid of him as soon as possible. On this
occasion, I really did have Orwell's words ringing in my ears and I got
talking to the guy, he'd obviously had a couple of beers already (at 10am).
But he was a nice guy, so I bought him a coffee and after a while, he
went on his way. I'm not expecting, nor do I deserve any credit, for
treating him as I would another human being. But I felt a bit better that
I'd given him the benefit of the doubt and I hope he felt a bit better if
only for the coffee, and a friendly chat.
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| Monday 10 January 2005 Christians & North Korean Hairstyles
Jerry Springer the
Opera was shown on BBC2 television on Saturday evening. I didn't watch all
of it, but certainly more than half and I enjoyed it. I can see how
some people would find it offensive, but we do all have the ability to turn
the TV off!. In the UK, Christian groups, most of whom hadn't yet seen the show
where 'outraged' and 'offended', that the BBC, a public service
broadcaster, was airing this show (that a large number of the viewing public, 1.7 million as it happens, would want to watch). Groups
complained to the BBC, before they had seen the show, about the content. Then one group 'Christian Voice', published on their website the home addresses of BBC
executives and urged their members to picket outside the executive's homes.
Now this is where I start to have a problem, when I was young, I was
taught the word 'Christian' meant tolerant, kind and fair (see the entry
from the Oxford English Dictionary above). Now how would these stories be connected? Mmmm!
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Friday 7 January 2005 Apologies & 'Statues of Shame' I must start with an apology, I've been going through the site updating some links and I've added the page on Places to Eat, the process of which has made me notice quite how much there is to do. I imagine visitors (isn't it strange, the word 'visitors', as though this is a real place & visitors are trouping in and out!), anyway, where was I. Oh yes, so I can imagine visitors coming in and saying, 'what the hell's he doing launching a site in this appalling state of repair, with loads of missing links!', in an irritated tone. Sorry if you do think that, it's just well I was so fed up with talking about the site and doing loads of work, with nothing actually to show for it. So if that is you apologies, I'll try to better in the future!  I heard a really
interesting article on BBC Radio 4 the other day. There is a building in
'The Strand' in London, which is now the Zimbabwean Embassy, you'll notice
it, because it's the one with the almost constant protests outside! Anyway,
this building used to be the office of the British Medical Association, when
it was built in 1907-8, a young Jacob Epstein (shown) was commissioned to
create a sculpture frieze around the building. When it was unveiled it was
controversial as it featured 18 quite explicit nudes. A quote from the
London Evening Standard of the day, said "A FORM OF STATUARY, WHICH NO CAREFUL FATHER WOULD WISH HIS
DAUGHTER OR NO DISCRIMINATING YOUNG MAN, HIS FIANCÉE, TO SEE", fantastic
isn't it! Anyway the B.M.A. weathered out the storm. But when the South
Rhodesian government, as it was then, took over the building, under the
protest of the frieze being unsafe they mutilated it (there's no other word
it)! Now an artist Neal White,
is campaigning to have the frieze restored and I for one wish him every
success. I've been searching the web for a photograph of the frieze, either
before or after the damage, but no luck so far.What do you think of the white font on green colour scheme? Someone, said the other day that they found it hard on the eyes! I don't really have any problems, what do you think? Take care, Wildberry. |
| Thursday 6 January 2005 Flying, Responsible Tourism & Edie Carey After my blog entry on Friday 31st, a good friend David Lobley emailed to say, he agreed with the problems of flying regarding the pollution etc, but suggested that the benefits of flying to areas of the developing world exceeded the disadvantages. I agree that tourism is an important source of income to many areas, as the recent reports from Thailand and Indonesia have emphasised. But the problem is, we have made these areas dependant on tourism, by our profligate flying. I think that there will be a time where the world realizes that this cannot continue to fly in this way and these people, now dependant on our tourist spending, are going to be cut adrift. I hope that some mechanism is put in place to help them adjust and find other means of income. I would suggest that if you are going to fly, then it's better to go to where your spending may do some good, than to an overcrowded beach resort. Dave sent an excerpt from www.responsibletravel.com, as follows: "Responsible travel
is a new way of travelling for those who've had enough of mass
tourism. Responsible travel is very much about respecting and benefiting
local people and the environment – but it's far, far more than
that. I was writing on Tuesday about Edie Carey's great music and I forgot the link to her website at www.ediecarey.com. |
| Tuesday 4 January 2005 Your recommendations wanted & iPod confessions I would really appreciate your help, recently I’ve really got fed up with businesses happy to take their customers’ money without respecting their customers, without looking after their staff, while ripping off the third world and dumping on the environment. I decided I wanted to do something about it, hence setting up this website. Instead of dumping on the bad guys, I thought it would be better to promote the good guys out there. Here I am busily writing about all I know, but if some of you out there could take the time to drop me a line with details of your favourite store, deli, café, or record shop, but only the cream of the crop please, with your help maybe we could include everywhere from Talkeetna to ..… Timbuktu! It'd be great to get some of the bad guys to re-think their ideas! Who knows what's possible! As I mentioned before I've joined the much hyped iPod 'revolution' and before you all shout out I know it's just like a fancy Walkman and I was a bit sceptical, but it is great to have all that music with you. I can come clean to say, I can't think of any other piece of technology I've bought that I'm just as taken with it since the day I bought it and you have to think it really must get up Microsoft's nose them doing sooo well!! I've been listening to Edie Carey's - Come close: the live (photo) album, it's great well worth a listen, she has a great voice. I'd like to track down another album, but I can't get them here in the UK, unless you know different? |
| Monday 3 January 2005 Happy & Peaceful New Year Lets hope that the coming year is more peaceful than the last, but then to be honest that won't be too hard. But I'm really trying not to start the new year on a downer, so on to brighter things. Now I'm going to admit something that up till now, I would have only kept as a closely guarded secret, but I have spent the last two days alphabetizing and cataloguing my CDs. I didn't mean to do it I really didn't, but with my recent purchase of an iPod (more about that at a later date), I ended up going through huge piles of CDs trying to workout what to download and not being able to to remember where I put that copy of 'Ladies of the canyon', that dates me doesn't it! So I went for it and I feel now I've come clean about it, I'm not so embarrassed. The amazing thing is we have three copies of 'Hounds of Love' by Kate Bush, now it's a good album, I think you'll agree, but three copies! There you go, the benefits of CD cataloguing, it's my excuse and I'm sticking to it. Happy New Year everyone and let's hope it'll be a peaceful one! |
On
a more enjoyable note I've been listening to a great album by American
singer songwriter 
According to 
In
another story on the 
A
couple of years ago I went to a showing of the film
about the 
heartbreaking
portrayal showing scenes of farmers who have lost everything and have been betrayed by the government that had committed to resettle them to
good farm land. Franny follows 
Trying
to keep this brief,
as I understand it, all the particles of muck that we've put up into the atmosphere
over the last 200 or so years have caused a shading effect. This shading is much more significant than was
previously thought. Climatologists now think that they have significantly
underestimated the effects of global warming, due to the shading effect of
global dimming. 
