Chomsky – US prevents Arab world democracy
From the New Significance – looks ok as a source.
NOAM CHOMSKY: The U.S. and its allies will do anything they can to prevent authentic democracy in the Arab world. The reason is very simple. Across the region, an overwhelming majority of the population regards the United States as the main threat to their interests. In fact, opposition to U.S. policy is so high that a considerable majority think the region would be more secure if Iran had nuclear weapons. In Egypt, the most important country, that’s 80 percent. Similar figures elsewhere. There are some in the region who regard Iran as a threat—about 10 percent. Well, plainly, the U.S. and its allies are not going to want governments which are responsive to the will of the people. If that happens, not only will the U.S. not control the region, but it will be thrown out. So that’s obviously an intolerable result.
Worth listening to
I love listening to podcasts. But only some! I have a selection I keep, and they are of value to me as they come from a list in Google reader I have pruned and added to over many years. Then from Google reader I select about one-in-100 podcasts that arrive. I listen to these on on the iPhone and delete most of those once I’ve listened. Then a few remain and I save them… I’ve put a few on the blog, and there are some below in this post.
I can’t even remember them exactly, but I’ll summarise these in this post. In each case I’d like to discuss them, to recall them for things I’m writing and so on.
This one is relevant because she is the co-creator of Imago – the method that informs a lot of my work.
The Pelagian Controversy – In Our Time
Simply here because I see such a parallel with the main controversies in psychotherapy today. We have the same debates in secular language.
Leo Bensemann_ A Fantastic Art Venture – Nine to noon
Love anything about The Group. And of course these people were around even while I was at the university here in Christchurch.
Peter Sunde _ file-sharing and micropayments
? Must listen again.
Playing Favorites with David Vann – Kim Hill
? Must listen again.
Share an Idea
It is impressive really how these things spring up post earthquake.
I would love to find a way to use a Wisdom Council and Sodiodrama as part of the process.
Get involved in shaping the future of our Central City. Start now by giving us your ideas on space, market, life and move – or check out all the other ways to share.
Harville Hendrix video
This is inspiring. It takes two to mess up a relationship, but only one to fix it.
Elevated
Hmmm…. ???
Elevated Garden City | rebuilding our beloved Christchurch for the 21st century:
Elevated Garden City – the idea The opportunity The earthquakes are an opportunity to create something special in Christchurch. Imagine a garden city where we took the Manhattan rooftop garden to whole new level. Given that most people in the CBD will not want to live and work in high rises, then this new set of low rise buildings give Christchurch the opportunity to build an elevated garden/walkway space that could become one of the world’s iconic cities.
Principles from the New Urbanism Website
THE PRINCIPLES OF NEW URBANISM
The principles of New Urbanism can be applied increasingly to projects at the full range of scales from a single building to an entire community.
1. Walkability
-Most things within a 10-minute walk of home and work
-Pedestrian friendly street design (buildings close to street; porches, windows & doors; tree-lined streets; on street parking; hidden parking lots; garages in rear lane; narrow, slow speed streets)
-Pedestrian streets free of cars in special cases
2. Connectivity
-Interconnected street grid network disperses traffic & eases walking
-A hierarchy of narrow streets, boulevards, and alleys
-High quality pedestrian network and public realm makes walking pleasurable
3. Mixed-Use & Diversity
-A mix of shops, offices, apartments, and homes on site. Mixed-use within neighborhoods, within blocks, and within buildings
-Diversity of people – of ages, income levels, cultures, and races
4. Mixed Housing
A range of types, sizes and prices in closer proximity
5. Quality Architecture & Urban Design
Emphasis on beauty, aesthetics, human comfort, and creating a sense of place; Special placement of civic uses and sites within community. Human scale architecture & beautiful surroundings nourish the human spirit
6. Traditional Neighborhood Structure
-Discernable center and edge
-Public space at center
-Importance of quality public realm; public open space designed as civic art
-Contains a range of uses and densities within 10-minute walk
-Transect planning: Highest densities at town center; progressively less dense towards the edge. The transect is an analytical system that conceptualizes mutually reinforcing elements, creating a series of specific natural habitats and/or urban lifestyle settings. The Transect integrates environmental methodology for habitat assessment with zoning methodology for community design. The professional boundary between the natural and man-made disappears, enabling environmentalists to assess the design of the human habitat and the urbanists to support the viability of nature. This urban-to-rural transect hierarchy has appropriate building and street types for each area along the continuum.
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More information on the transect
7. Increased Density
-More buildings, residences, shops, and services closer together for ease of walking, to enable a more efficient use of services and resources, and to create a more convenient, enjoyable place to live.
-New Urbanism design principles are applied at the full range of densities from small towns, to large cities
8. Smart Transportation
-A network of high-quality trains connecting cities, towns, and neighborhoods together
-Pedestrian-friendly design that encourages a greater use of bicycles, rollerblades, scooters, and walking as daily transportation
9. Sustainability
-Minimal environmental impact of development and its operations
-Eco-friendly technologies, respect for ecology and value of natural systems
-Energy efficiency
-Less use of finite fuels
-More local production
-More walking, less driving
10. Quality of Life
Taken together these add up to a high quality of life well worth living, and create places that enrich, uplift, and inspire the human spirit.
New Urbanism
Very good that this New Urbanism movement exists. ready made for the Christchurch earthquake recovery and rise up.
New Urbanism – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
New Urbanism is an urban design movement, which promotes walkable neighborhoods that contain a range of housing and job types. It arose in the United States in the early 1980s, and has gradually continued to reform many aspects of real estate development, urban planning, and municipal land-use strategies.
New Urbanism is strongly influenced by urban design standards that were prominent until the meteoric rise of the automobile in the mid-20th Century; it encompasses principles such as traditional neighborhood design (TND) and transit-oriented development (TOD).[1] It is also closely related to Regionalism, Environmentalism and the broader concept of smart growth. The movement also includes a more pedestrian-oriented variant known as New Pedestrianism, which has its origins in a 1929 planned community in Radburn, New Jersey.[2]
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Market Street, downtown Celebration, Florida
The organizing body for New Urbanism is the Congress for the New Urbanism, founded in 1993. Its foundational text is the Charter of the New Urbanism, which says:
We advocate the restructuring of public policy and development practices to support the following principles: neighborhoods should be diverse in use and population; communities should be designed for the pedestrian and transit as well as the car; cities and towns should be shaped by physically defined and universally accessible public spaces and community institutions; urban places should be framed by architecture and landscape design that celebrate local history, climate, ecology, and building practice.[3]
New Urbanists support regional planning for open space, context-appropriate architecture and planning, and the balanced development of jobs and housing. They believe their strategies can reduce traffic congestion, increase the supply of affordable housing, and rein in suburban sprawl. The Charter of the New Urbanism also covers issues such as historic preservation, safe streets, green building, and the re-development of brownfield land.
Bob Dylan & the welspring of creativity
And Neil Young comments on the same idea:
the world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated
(excerpt, East Coker V, Four Quartets)
Home is where one starts from. As we grow older
the world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated
Of dead and living. Not the intense moment
Isolated, with no before and after,
But a lifetime burning in every moment
And not the lifetime of one man only
But of old stones that cannot be deciphered.
There is a time for the evening under starlight,
A time for the evening under lamplight
(The evening with the photograph album).
Love is most nearly itself
When here and now cease to matter.
Old men ought to be explorers
Here or there does not matter
We must be still and still moving
Into another intensity
For a further union, a deeper communion
Through the dark cold and the empty desolation,
The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters
Of the petrel and the porpoise. In my end is my beginning.
The whole Four Quartets follow
Continue reading “the world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated”