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Weatherization Barnraising

Saturday, April 10th

12:30-5:00 p.m.

Cambridge YWCA Emergency Family Shelter

3 Bigelow Street, Cambridge

Pitch in to help 10 homeless families who live at the shelter

Lower vast energy bills for the shelter so it can help the families more

Learn skills that can save you $$ at home

Fight climate change

Share food & celebrate after a job well done

No skills necessary – training on the job!!

Work includes:

• An easy and cheap way to fix old vinyl replacement windows so they easily close again

• Air-sealing an incredibly leaky attic

• Using caulk and sprayfoam to stop air leaks

• Saving water and electricity

• Installing programmable thermostats

• Masonry, plastering, and more

Sign up today by web, email or phone!!

www.heetma.com

heet.cambridge@gmail.com

617-491-6761

Organized by HEET (Home Energy Efficiency Team), a Cambridge-based

co-op that brings neighbors together to weatherize our homes

and take the energy future into our own hands.

Co-sponsored by Cambridge Energy Alliance

Continue reading Weatherization Barnraising: Cambridge, MA on April 10, 2010
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IED  n. ;  1. acronym for “improvised explosive device”, a term of derision for the perceived backward and amateurish way that the Islamic army rabble engages in combat  2. (post 2009) acronym for “improvised election deception” – a term named for the desperate, undemocratic, most likely illegal way Scott Brown won the MA Senate race in 2009 by having Tea Party people and their money flood into MA from outside the state making it appear MA people supported him, which is reminiscent of the border ruffians who stormed into Kansas from Missouri to disrupt democratic conventions in Kansas just prior to the Civil War in an episode that has been termed “Bleeding Kansas.”

Continue reading IED gets a second definition – by Larry Ely
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Or so I’ve been hearing listening to “debate” on healthcare insurance reform for the last seven hours. And so the right would have ya believe. As the roll call for the health insurance reform bill approaches,there are actual Congresspeople standing on the floor ranting about stalinism. Never mind that the damn bill doesn’t even include a public option. Meanwhile, the far left would have you believe that this pretense of reform is nothing but a major handout to private insurance companies–and neglects to mention the dozens of actual benefits the bill provides.

It wasn’t what anybody wanted. But to my mind, the first element in any definition of democracy is that no one gets what they want. You go in with a swagger, you bluff and deal, and when the rubbers hits the road, you grit your teeth, make the deal, and you hope you’ve helped people just a little bit. You don’t get what ya want, ever, but if ya try sometimes, then, yeah, maybe ya get what ya need.  Here and there, anyway.

This isn’t a bad bill.

Continue reading A Spectre is Haunting America… the Spectre of Communism

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Coming from the Financial Times, this seems to be quite an important, well, admission. Jeremy Rifkin lays out an interesting case that our civilization is on its deathbed, on life support, and that revolutions in both technology and consciousness are necessary for our resuscitation.

I think he fails to recognize — or at least include in his analysis — the paradigm shift that will define our species’ salvation, which is, in my opinion, a shift away from economic growth and towards a steady-state ecologically-grounded economy. The biosphere consciousness that he talks about will necessitate this. This is fundamentally incompatible with capitalism, and I wonder if his new book dances with this and this Financial Times article simply side-steps it.

What’s YOUR take?


Jeremy Rifkin (Financial Times)

Towards The Empathic Civilization. We Are On the Verge of a Shift to Biosphere Consciousness

The global economy has shattered. The fossil fuels that propelled an industrial revolution are running out and the infrastructure built with these energies is barely clinging to life. Worse, more than two centuries of rising carbon emissions now threaten us with catastrophic climate change.

Continue reading Towards The Empathic Civilization

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Everyone seems to know that the tea party “movement” had a rally on the steps of the capitol yesterday.  They got in the face of a few Congressmen and now every Beltway media outlet from the Washington Post to Meet the Press is talking about it.  But there was another protest in town yesterday.  Thousands of people showed up in front of the White House to tell Obama (and Congress) to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, to treat Palestinians fairly, and to generally end the US military empire.

MSNBC estimates that somewhere between 1,500 and 2,000 tea party people showed up at the capitol building.  Yet the low end of the estimates for the number of people who showed up at the peace demonstration (including myself) is about 2,500, and the high end is about 10,000.  Where’s our moment on Meet the Press?  Where’s our article in the New York Times?

Continue reading 1000s march on capitol against healthcare, on White House for peace. Guess which is covered more…
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The following is an important op-ed by David Brooks, from the NYT of March 19, 2010. He has posited that over the last forty years American society has become an indigestible stew from the  economic forces from the right and from the cultural freedom forces from the left that have caused us to be a society with tremendous social problems on historic time scales. I always find Brooks’ mentality a painfully odd juxtaposition of liberal and conservative elements, but nonetheless, he does have penetratingly clear systemic social intuitions that are worth scratching your head over. In the piece that follows he is at his best form in his stock-in-trade.  I think he has good grist for the mill for Greens, so I heartily recommend that folks read this and post replies.  We are still working out what we mean by our decentralism key value. Here’s hoping Brooks can provide food for thought in this domain.

Continue reading The Broken Society
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Tonight I sat down and watched the second half of the Northern Iowa-Kansas upset. Thrilling stuff. Reminded me again why I watch the tournament each year. What else could reduce a grown man to screaming and convulsing over two college teams that aren’t even Big East? Nothing like it.

Seven years ago I was watching the tournament when I heard the news. After all the strutting and swaggering at the joke that is the UN; after the Colin Powells and Dominique de Villepins had exited stage left; after our impotent howls in the press and in the streets, and after all the lies, the sewer-stream of filthy goddamned lies from the throne, the endless droning repetition of lies by CNN and The New York Times, after more bullshit than I’ve ever seen in my life–there was the President, live from the Oval Office, telling me that he’d just bombed Baghdad. I don’t remember what game I was watching. I know that I turned it off and walked outside, smoked a cigarette or two, and thought: we failed.

Continue reading “Gimme an `F’,” said Country Joe–“I want ya to start singin’!”

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I can only dream of the day when Radiohead’s Thom Yorke comes to Massachusetts for a Jill Stein / Green-Rainbow Party benefit concert, and breaks out three new songs for the occasion. I have a fond memory of Yorke during the 2000 presidential elections, holding up a “Let Ralph Debate” sign on the stage of Saturday Night Live at the end of the show when the whole cast mingles.

Well, part way to my dream, Yorke played a benefit concert last month for UK Green Party candidate Tony Juniper, Cambridge (be sure to also check out UK Green candidate Caroline Lucas who apparently has a better shot — in Brighton — at winning a seat in Parliament)

Check out Yorke’s stunning “The Daily Mail” and two more below the jump. If you want some background read this.

Continue reading A Green Party fundraiser to dream for
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Maine shows us the way, though with Clean Elections they’re playing with a different beast. I dare a single Massachusetts State Legislator who allowed Clean Elections to be destroyed without even going on the record to defend that move on Green Mass Group. I double dare you!

Maine Green Independent Party will run 18 candidates for state legislature in 2010

Posted March 18th, 2010 by Dave Schwab at Green Party Watch

AUGUSTA- On Monday, March 15th, the Green Independent Party of Maine turned in signatures to qualify 18 legislative candidates throughout the state, the second highest total in 12 years of holding official ballot status.

“We made legislative recruitment a top priority this year. With sweeping changes in electoral reform that came out of Augusta last year, we no longer need the governor’s race to keep party status. We turned our resources toward legislative seats, where we have better opportunity for success,” said Anna Trevorrow, Chair of the state Green Independent Party.

The party has nearly doubled its number of qualified candidates from 2008, and has expanded its geographic outreach. The Greens have qualified 15 candidates for State House and 3 for State Senate.

Continue reading Maine, Maine, show us the way!
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My name is Jim Henderson, and I have this week begun my independent campaign for Secretary of the Commonwealth.  Even though I have had the good fortunate to cross paths with some of you over the years, I would like to more formally introduce myself to this community, seek your questions and comments, and hopefully earn your consideration and support.

I hope to bring a fresh, and truly independent perspective to this campaign.  I am not a career politician, nor do I seek to be one.  I am an attorney with my own practice based in Stow, focusing primarily on business and transactional law, as well as tax and estate planning.  At the risk of patting myself on the back, my clients and friends consider fairness to all and integrity to be a couple of my noteworthy characteristics.

By why run for Secretary of the Commonwealth?  First, it’s a job I’d actually like to do.  Second, well, that’s what follows…

The Secretary is the chief information officer of Massachusetts.  I believe it is the Secretary’s job to make sure the people of Massachusetts have easy access to public information, so they can conduct business, evaluate candidates for office, learn who’s lobbying and influencing legislation.  The Secretary also oversees elections throughout the Commonwealth, and is in the best position to promote greater access to the ballot box and to the electoral process in general.  In short, the Secretary can help us all participate in our democracy.

Yet, we are in a time when more and more people feel frustrated with their government.  Too often we feel out of touch with our representatives and cannot understand why they are not more responsive to the concerns and challenges of the people.  And too often when election time comes, voters encounter hurdles to casting their ballot, or find themselves with few options to make any changes.

And after almost two decades in office, the current Secretary is too entrenched and unresponsive to deal with these problems.  A fresh perspective, and a willingness to try new ideas and approaches, is what the Commonwealth needs today.  I am the person who will bring that perspective and willingness to Beacon Hill.

Continue reading An Introduction: Jim Henderson for Secretary of the Commonwealth
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