In the months following the release of An Inconvenient Truth, I began to focus on why our democracy has been so slow to deal with the climate crisis. The unwillingness to solve this problem is not only the result of a lack of political will, but it has also been caused by the emergence of a new political environment dangerously hostile to reason, knowledge, and facts. In the long-term, this poses a threat to the very basis of American democracy: the ability of a well-informed citizenry to use the rule of reason to hold government accountable. This Assault on Reason is the focus of my new book. When George Bush launched his preemptive war in Iraq, more than 70% of Americans believed Saddam Hussein was linked to the terrorists who caused 9-11. After the 2004 election, when asked what stuck in their minds about the campaign, voters in Ohio named two ads playing to the fears of terrorism paid for by the Bush Campaign. One pattern that has held true since 2001 is that this White House is less interested in openness and truth than any previous administration. We are facing so many long-term challenges, from the climate crisis and the war in Iraq to health care and social welfare. To solve these problems and move forward we need to reverse the damage done to our democracy. We have little time to waste. My goal in The Assault on Reason is to explore why our public forum now welcomes the enemies of reason. More importantly, the book focuses on what we can do together, individually and collectively, to restore the rule of reason to our democracy.

For years I enjoyed the far-out Whole Earth Magazine. It combined simple living, futurism, technology and world consciousness that was quirky, informative and friendly. Alas, it is struggling to publish these days. [addendum: apparently, they've officially given up the ghost. see World Changing]

So, in an effort to continue the tradition, I offer the D.I.Y. Whole Earth experience. I have found websites from some of it’s past authors and editors, and together in my newsreader, I have a fresh Whole Earth experience.

I invite others who discover sites they think should be included to comment below and I’ll update the list periodically.

Kevin Kelly’s Cool Tools

Howard Rheingold’s Smartmobs

Bruce Sterling’s Beyond the Beyond

Change This

Viridian Design Movement

WorldChanging: Another World is Here

New additions:

Well Member’s blogs

Makezine blog

Utne magazine

Oolsi: You are free!

And of course, I should plug The Well the W.hole E.arth ‘L.ectronic L.ibrary. I’ve not participated in it because it requires a subscription, but I’ve looked at their porch and it looks fun.

Please consider the material on these sites interesting and not necessarily endorsed. These are out-there thinkers. Who knows what they are going to come up with. I just find it stimulating to pay attention to people who have unique visions of the world we live in. Viva la Whole Earth Magazine.

Technorati Tags: wholeearth

It helps you minimize annoying distractions that add cruft to your day by causing a modal shift.

I’ll leave the definition up to you given the context of the quote.

So this is your new word of the day. See if you can find an opportunity to use it in a sentence. And report your experiences.

This is what’s called a lifehack. A trick to better handle the perplexities of our lives.

Another one, is from a friend. Many months ago, I was at a banquet and I needed to remember something but didn’t have pencil and paper. My friend told me to associate what I needed to remember with an object. He handed me a sugar packet and said that whenever I felt the packet in my pocket, I’d remember that thing. It worked.

I need hacks. And lots of them. As I’ve continued to wade through Getting Things Done, I’ve discovered that I keep my mind like a disorganized closet. It is so full of stuff, that I can never find something when I need it. I’ve been learning to clean it out by doing a brain dump of everything that’s on my mind and to find hacks like these to take the load off of the stuff that I have to keep in my mind.

If you’d like to learn more about Lifehacks, the following links will do you good.

Danny O’briens Notcon conference video talking about Life hacks

43folders.com Where I first discovered the Lifehacks movement and Getting Things Done

Lifehacker.com

Interview with Danny O’Brien, father of “life hacks”

Wikipedia entry for Lifehacks

del.icio.us tags for lifehacks (I subscribe to the RSS feed for this)

What tricks do you use to get through this information saturated world we live in?

Technorati Tags: GettingThingsDone, lifehacks

While inside the airport, I had been using my laptop on their free wifi. Knowing I needed to find a tire store, I opened my laptop to see if I could still access the internet out in the parking lot. Sure enough I was and before you could say “flat” I had found a Costco tire store and a map.

Once we got to Costco, we went inside to get some hotdogs for the family while I went to the tire department. Lo and behold, it was going to take over an hour to fix the tire. I knew that there was a Les Schwaub nearby, but this time I didn’t have wifi to find the number. Out comes the cell phone which has access to the internet to access the yellow pages. Within moments, I was on the phone with Les Schwaub and learned that they would be able to fix the tire in less time.

Now, I probably would have found a tire store regardless. But I wouldn’t have found Costco without the laptop and wifi. And while Les Schwaub was down the street from Costco, I saved a trip there to find out if they had the time for us. Otherwise, I would have packed up the family, and driven over there, potentially to discover that they were booked up.

The future belongs to the technologists. The people who have and learn how to use the information and communications technologies available to us.

Technorati Tags: culture

I have had fantasies about myself as a gardener. I went through this simple living phase where I thought we’d live off the land… have a garden, chickens, drink goat’s milk. Then babies kept coming and coming, and I had to work, and then my wife had to work, and the next thing we knew our entire 1 acre property was a giant unfinished project.

Now, here we are in Idaho, looking forward to a new house with less property and our own lawn. It will be nice to start over and hopefully have some success with a small garden and a nice lawn.

But I’ve been given an assignment at the church that is proving to be fulfilling. I’ve been tasked with watering the lawn. To some of you this may seem insignificant. But our lawn in Soap Lake degenerated rather quickly due to neglect. Since I’m at the church office throughout the week, there is no excuse for inattention. So it is my project. I intend to be proud of the green. To reclaim my fantasy of being a green thumb. Who knows… I might work myself up to flowers and weeding.

Ten ways to organize and simplify your life

Google Moon On the anniversary of the first manned moon landing on July 20th, 1969, Google releases Google Moon, a map of NASA photos and Google style points showing all the moon landings.

Wapipedia A mobile phone site that access the online encyclopedia Wikipedia

The Word Gospel blues band that performed at this year’s Bonnaroo music festival. Download the mp3′s of the concert here.

Without God

Call Him By His Name

I Shall Not Be Moved

Jam

Untitled

Band Intros

At The Cross

Waiting On My Wings

Technorati Tags: email, lifehacks, music

Technorati Tags: emergingchurch