Robert Paterson's Weblog

Gutenberg, Galileo and Luther - Portents of our own Time?

I wrote this for a book back in Feb 2005 - I think what I said then is even more relevant today than then - do you too?

Back to the Future - Going Home!

We are going back to the end of the Middle Ages. We journey back to the beginning of the time that gave birth to our own culture. We go back to Europe of the early 16^th century. We go back to the beginning of our own pattern. A great cultural system is in terminal decay and a new cultural system is being born.

Like now, this is a turbulent time. War has been constant. Plague has killed 25% of the people. A new world had just been discovered that is going to pump money into Europe and will pull adventurers away. Islam has just been driven out of Europe. There has been a tidal wave of social and religious unrest that has been crushed utterly by an invincible combination of a universal church and by Kings that are gaining in power.

More powerful than the sword of the King is the power of the media. 

The pulpit is the mass media. It is the only source of information for the mass of people. Literacy is confined to the Church. Books are rare and very expensive. They are written in Latin or Greek. Knowledge is locked up. Not only does the church control the processes of communication but it has a tight control on message as well. Its two main messages are that salvation is only possible if you give the church your total obedience and much of your worldly wealth. The other message is that God himself has appointed the temporal rulers over you. 

Then on October 31^st 1517 Martin Luther nails his 95 theses to the door of a church in Wittenberg. At the heart of these theses was a big idea. That people did not need an institution between them and God. 

A hundred years later, in 1633, the Inquisition convicts Galileo of heresy.  His crime was to use evidence to refute the dogma that the earth was the centre of the universe. 

These are powerful ideas. But when faced with all this power against them, to spread they needed a viral vector. With all this power lined up behind the establishment, open war would have been suicide. Only a virus could get though the immune system of the time.

The viral vector began humbly in Frankfurt, in 1455 at the Frankfurt Book Fair, 

In that year, Johann Gutenberg sells the first copies of his mass-produced German Language Bible.  He sells them for 300 florins each. This was the equivalent of approximately three years' wages for an average clerk. However it was significantly cheaper compared to a handwritten Bible, which could take a single monk 20 years to transcribe. The viral vector was out and the ideas that it carried could not be stopped! The lock on communications was broken. 

Who would have known then that a priest with a big idea, a man with a telescope and a man with a new communication tool would come together to shake the world?  

Who would have known then that the vast power of the universal church and of the divinely empowered monarchs would be soon challenged and be overthrown? Who would have known then that science would be born? Who would have known then that the individual would soon have greater power to communicate than the church or the King?

Can we see our own predicament in this light today? Is this not our pattern too? 

Is not our great problem that the great institutions of our time, government, healthcare, education, arts and entertainment, even business, no longer serve us but only themselves? 

Is not their organizational doctrine based on a dogma of control? Have they not divorced their world-view from observable reality? Is not this split from the laws of nature their dogma? Are they not prepared to fight to the death to preserve this dogma? Do we not see the entertainment industry as an Inquisition? Do we not see the IP industry as the agent of the controllers and not of the creative?

Is not the new “big idea” of our time to disintermediate the institutional middleman and to enable direct relationships? Are supermarkets eternal? Do we need factory universities to learn? Is our health dependent on a doctor? Is the news what we see on TV? 

Is this idea of going direct, the same for us as Luther’s big idea that man could talk directly to God?  Is not the new doctrine for organizations based on the observable working laws and designs of nature the same as Galileo’s observations?

Is not the enabling vector, a new type of communication device that is so simple and so inexpensive that it will give voice and hence power back to individuals and to their communities?  Did not the printing press give men back their voice in the 16th century? Was not pamphletting the blogging of their time? Was not a consequence of printing, mass literacy? Did the use of this new media topple the power of the old media system? Did it not change politics? Did it not push Alchemy aside and give birth to science? Why would we expect less of Social Software?

Are we not standing at the beginning of a new reformation? Has the wheel of history turned full circle?

True Health - Part 3 - The Rules of the New World#2 - The revolution of our time

This post is written in July of 2011 - The Murdoch New Empire, the Police in the UK and the Tories in the UK are being rocked.

I think that we are living through a period where the Network is destroying the Hierarchical power of the establishment.

We can see now that this revolution began in the Arab world but now, this July, we are seeing that the Network is a real threat to the most powerful in the west as well.

I think that history will show that power is shifting from the Machine Institution to the Network.

This will be a real revolution unlike 1917 that merely replaced one top down regime for another. 

This is more like 10,000 years ago when a new food system changed everything about how humans lived and their place in the world. 

I think that the forces that will take us there are now in motion. Not the least that millions of people have been cast out by the old system. That many of these millions are well educated and have the personal power to act. These are the kind of people that drove the French and the American Revolutions that in their own day also cast down the old power system.

They are likely people just like you my dear readers. We are the immigrants in the brand new world that we will make for ourselves  - not in a new place but in a new "Space" that we create ourselves.

Without knowing it, you have just left Ellis Island and you are in this strange New World.

How strange this all is. 

Fortunately the pioneers have been here for some time and this post will show you what the new rules are and how best to get around in this new place and to realize its potential. 

In essence - people here in the New New World - or New World#2 - live the lives of the Hunter Gatherers - they live lives much like all hominids and Humans have lived for millions of years. But with a difference, now we know how all of this works. We know the science and we have tools that empower us to be this old way anew.

So let's wander around NW#2 and see how they live and work. Let's see the models they use. 

And by the way - all of this exists for real today - just in a very small and scattered form. It just needs organization to come to life.

Home and Work - Home is that old fashioned Home where we all live and work.

For in NW#2 we mainly work from home for ourselves or in tribal groups - some partners are next door but some are the other side of the world. 

We don't just do one thing either - the bigger cash generating deals are like a hunter bringing home an elk and get paid in cash by the larger system. But we do a lot of gathering for no money. We trade services with each other - I do some work on your site, you give me veggies. We offer up our place for rent and move in with our sister who lives down the road and we split the money.  

We don't just sell services either. With our network of 3D printers and jigs we can make almost anything locally. Hey we even make cars using the Wiki Car Company - an open source design for cars that uses a series of chassis's that we then adapt to create unique one off cars. For less cost than a mega car plant - we don't have their fixed costs.

More than 50% of the things we need - we make locally. All are built using Open Source designs.

The result is that there is work here for all. 

What were hobbies become "Livings". Your weaving, your knitting, your soap making, your talent for music or knowledge of astronomy, your mechanical genius, your coding, your cooking, your green thumb, your strong back, your relationship with children - your real skills - the real you.

No one gets super rich but all can be very comfortable and secure. Secure because no outsider can take away your living. For we are so interconnected. The gap between producer and consumer has been closed. We are always both.

Our children grow up in the middle of all of this. They see what their parents do to make a Living. They participate early too - either to help the family or to play their own role. Many children have their own Living. The gap between helpless child hood and being a participant is tiny. 

For the kids too are not shunted off into a world separate from life called school or youth.

Nor are our babies and infants given away to strangers. In our physical community we help each other a lot with the little kids. We spend very little money on daycare or nannies. We have family close, we have other families in the same boat - we have a good system. The kids also have access to tremendous resources from all over the world. They have lots of mums and dads - as kids always used to have. There are lots of Eyes on the Street in our place.

Our teachers are very different too. They are not "professionals". They are largely us.

Our older kids meet in study groups and use materials from the web. If they have a question that they cannot solve themselves - they can access the local learning network for advice. This local Network extends all over the world. Our kids can talk to the best teachers in the world and they do. 

We used to pay a lot of money to educate our kids for not very good results. We now pay a fraction of this and our kids have learned to learn and they mix with really talented people. They don't need a piece of paper to show what they have learned. They have a reputation that has been earned.

Food

So where did all the teachers go? Where did all the people with non jobs go?

In the old country almost no one did any work to get or prepare food. In the NW#2 food and energy is where most of the work is done. Everybody contributes here. In 2000, less than 5% of people worked to produce food and most of them were no more than slaves.

Now 85% of us participate in one way or another in food and energy.

About 30% of the food we eat is grown locally - and we are in Montreal. There are gardens on roofs - front yards - back yards in public spaces. Small animals too - chickens are everywhere and there are goats and sheep in town.

Nearly everyone spends time on growing and preparing food - we grow a lot on our own or in local groups in the community and we also help out in the country.

The rail service to the surrounding farm land is working well again and 50% of our food comes in from the direct hinterland. Many also go out there and help work for food. We help with the cultivating and harvest - for the Community Ag Model that we use, integrates the customer into the producer. That way we we keep the costs down for all. No immigrant slaves here - we belong to farm groups as helper/consumers. CSA on steroids.

Consequently, we pay very little money for food. But food growers do well. We all benefit from the Network Effect.

Farming itself is very different too. We also work WITH nature and not against her. She does more and more of the work as a result.

Farms tend to be small - about 100 acres and worked by a family and by the neigbours.

Those growing veggies mainly use Permaculture that needs no external inputs and that has yields that rise every year and where the work also falls. In many of these mini farms, the main work of the year is harvest.

Almost no machines are required. Almost no external inputs and certainly no agri chemicals.

Those with animals use a pasture system made famous by Polyface farms where grass and woodland provide the base and we rotate animals on the grass thus building up the base year by year.

In our food system, vitality grows every year. The natural capital increases and our need for external energy reduces.

We used to have no time and so had to pay cash for everything - now we have time we don't need as much cash. THIS is the central big idea in New World#2.

Like Open Source Software we trade goods and services a lot for no money - we do have an exchange now - so the Ledger can be converted into currency of needed. This was how the old country store used to operate. 

Energy/Travel - You cannot replace oil as a convenient source of energy - but oil is very expensive in the New World#2. So how do we still have a great life? We have redesigned how we live to reduce the need for oil.

This is why the home and the local community has become the centre. We had to go far away every day to work and school and to get anything. Now most of those routine trips in the car are not essential any more. The need to drive everywhere has been designed out of the system.

Some of us do go to face to face distant meetings now and then - it is always vital to meet face to face. But these occasions tend to be rare and are often largely social - the point is to bond again.

When we travel we mainly take some time and we tend to stay with each other or rent a place from a person. Co Working places are ubiquitous. Few have offices that are exclusively theirs except at home. Why would you pay to have an office all for yourself?

The Global Co Working Network also allows you to have an office in any town, city our country. 

Energy/Climate

Heat in the winter up north and cooling in the summer in the south demand significant energy. Here design has helped too.

Much of the sunbelt, short of water and boiling hot has lost much of its population. Those that remain have gone back to building design that fits this climate. Adobe is common again. Even here permaculture works and, as was tested in the desert in Israel, is able to produce food and this practice is gaining ground on the desert itself.

Here up north in Montreal, the typical co-housing of Montreal East was designed with winter in mind. With neighbours alongside and above and below, heating demand has been reduced further by insulation.

Community heat and stoves using waste fibre are common.

Large scale and long Distance Energy

The truck is no longer the centre of the system. Most things are made locally - much is recycled locally - even steel. We trade things we can't grow or make.

As back in time - water is the way that really heavy goods are carried. The seaboards and river and canal systems are the new/old highways for heavy goods. 

We have time now so we too use the trains and ships. 

Health

Big Industrial food no longer makes sense with very expensive oil. In the old country we used to spend a fortune on health. But now we eat so much better, we are so much more active, so much less stressed, we are naturally mainly very healthy and fit.

Grains depend on factory farms, serfs or slaves. Oil is too expensive and no one wants to be a slave anymore. So very little grain is grown anymore. We eat meat, that is grass fed, veggies fruit and nuts. This was and is our ideal diet.

So Big Pharma has little place here either. We are all working hard at breeding better animals and seeds that fit our local enviroment.  We share this knowledge around the world. Big Ag has no place in this vast cooperative effort - for if we fail here, we starve. The IP issue has gone away for the system that could enforce it has collapsed.

Most research now uses an Open Source Model - for we all benefit.

So what about the  Medical professionals?

Of course, if you have an accident, we use the Dr's. Specialists operate all over the world too. Even a small community hospital can have a world class surgeon operate - for she is in her community and telemedicine is the norm now.

But there are not that many doctors - and the ones we have are oustanding. But we don't need a lot of them, because so few of us are ill. 

The frontline healthcare system is now run by Health Facilitors who help us in groups work out how to get control of our health back. We pay them to keep us healthy. Health is all about matching our lives to our design.

Media

We get our news and information from each other. The old highly centralized media system was show to be what is was a shill for ther old system. They were largely made irrelevant as their role was exposed. And then their costs brought them down.

Most people have a voice now. A profound shift in human consciousness.

There is still an entertainment business but it is more of an aggregator. We don't need as much distraction as we used to. With a more full real life, we need to depend less on a fantasy life.

So how did we get here?

No social engineering brought this about. Much of the pioneer work was done in the 1990's. But it will be desparation that takes us here. Cities that can go no lower such as Detroit are along the path now. 

We will get here because the people who were cleared by the landlords will have no choice. We have to eat. We have to have work. We have to raise our kids. We have to have our health. In the old world all of these things are provided by the institutions. They are shutting us out. We either cannot afford them - such as healthcare or what they offer - such as public school - is rotten.

So we will do what we have to and create an alternative world alongside the old world.

In this new world, by using the network effect and open systems we will dramatically undercut the sunk costs and rigidities of the old world. We will drive them out of existence.

This weekend as I write this - we can see this process in action. The Bastille has been stormed. It's early days but we can feel our power and sense the weakness of the regime.

BUT they will not go quietly and the attacks we see on local food systems and the massive effort to protect IP in things such as seeds is a sign of their fear.

In my next post - The Inquisition and how to defeat it.

The Paleo Attackers - The Power of the Legacy - But they will lose

Here is Dick Fosbury winning the gold in 1968. His new method - the Fosbury Flop - was a transforming approach that allowed high jumpers to enter a new world of height. Every jumper uses it now. 

You would have thought that all athletes and coaches in 1968 would have rushed to learn how to do this after his stunning victory. Actually not. 

Four years later, in Munich, only 28 of the 40 competitors used Fosbury's technique. By 1980, thirteen of the sixteen Olympic finalists used it. Of the 36 Olympic medalists in the event from 1972 through 2000, 34 used "the Flop". Today it is the most popular high jumping technique in modern high jumping.

Why did it take so long for the Flop to be adopted?

The Power of the Legacy.

All the elite jumpers had trained their whole lives to use the straddle. Their bodies had been attuned to this and their bodies could not re-learn a radical new approach.

Even more challenging, all the elite coaches who had made their careers on teaching the straddle could not give up their legitimacy. After all, what did they know about the straddle - their reputation was invested in the old system.

So they attacked it - they used fear - "you will break your neck!" They used derision. They used their influence on the system. 

This is where we are with "Paleo" and the new health revolution based on fitting our lives and diet to what we are evolved to do.

The new way of eating - fitting what we eat to our evolution works. Even they have to show that. 

On the U.S. News and World Report rankings Paleo diet page, more than 3,000 people said the diet had worked for them, while 80 said it did not. Compare that to the No. 1-ranked diet, Weight Watchers, in which 1,883 people said the diet worked for them and nearly 800 people said it did not. (link)

But the experts rated Paleo the least effective of all diets! Why?

While Keith Ayoob, associate professor of pediatrics at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, N.Y., said he has "no problem with people eating plenty of lean protein and fresh fruits and vegetables," he did have a problem with the lack of whole grains and low-fat dairy.

"I can't recommend a diet that advocates exclusion of whole foods groups, and foods like low-fat yogurt and milk and beans and whole grains," Ayoob said. "As for dairy, a lifetime of no dairy and you're really risking osteoporosis and low bone density. Paleo man didn't have to worry -- he'd be dead by age 40, but the rest of us would like to hang out for considerably longer and have strength while we do."

So here is the Bull:

• Calcium and bone density - so our ancestors had to milk what animal to get milk. A wild auroch? It is laughable that a so-called scientist could think that milk is our primary source of good bone health. The facts are that milk and wheat leach calcium. That bone density is also a matter of activity and load and our ancestors were very active. And that we get our calcium the same way the cows do - by eating green plants. As it is large parts of ther world such as South East Asia still never drink milk and are allergic to it.
• So our ancestors ate whole grains? That would have involved farming and a settled way of life - this just did not happen until recently. As migrants with no modern grains how would harvest them. How would you store them? Why would you even try? And when we did settle and farm, we lost a foot in mean height and started to get all the diseases of modern civilization. What about our teeth! Grains not only have high sugar levels but Lectins that inflame our gut, joints and other parts of our system. The science is in folks, grains carry a lot of health risks
• Oh and we ate beans too - All modern beans have been bred in the last 7,000 years. Before then most were poisonous. They still are if eaten raw and over time. For they too carry lectins and other chemicals that affect our system
• And the final canard - we were all dead by 40 - A complete falsification of how mortality works. Infant mortality was high and because babies had to be carried. In thus context, infanticide was common. But if you were then not bitten by a snake, killed in an accident, killed in war, had an infection, you would live well into your 80's AND be healthy and an active contributor until your death. This is what has been the case with all traditional people even in our own time. Traditional people age well and naturally at a level of fitness in their 40's

I am excited by these attacks - they mean that "They" know they are in trouble.

They have to do this and look ridiculous because they have made their reputation by telling you that fat makes you fat. That whole grains and dairy are central to a healthy diet. Many of them are paid by the people who make these food. You paid them to tell you how to eat better. They sold books, got reserach grants and chairs all based on the old ideas - that are wrong.

The history of science is full of these stories. The establishment held up germ theory for years because they held that infection was spread by smells - The Misama Theory - millions died as a result. In the pre anesthesia era, the best surgeons were the fastest. So they told the public that suffering pain was good for us. Look at Galileo - the Church only finally approved him in 1992!

Why do I feel good about this attack - Because of the sequence of how a new paradigm wins. For as Gandhi said:

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. 

We are in stage 2/3 - all in only 10 years.

The last laugh will be on them. They are the Spanish Inquisition

They have to fight but they will have to lose too.

What I think is really at stake if CPB and Pub Media is Defunded

On the surface the attack on Pub Media is based on the idea that the state should not be in the broadcasting business and that this is especially true if the broadcaster is aligned to one point of view.

There is a point to this. Imagine my fellow Pub Media fans if Fox was to now get government funding - you too might go nuts!

But I think that the reason for this attack now is deeper than that.

And I think that the attack is based on the most human of responses. When something new and true and so dangerous arrives on the scene - we laugh at it. But as the new and the true and so the threat to the status quo gets its feet, the power people in the status quo get an insight. 

They can tell at a cellular level that this new thing could be their doom. And their response?

Please let me explain what I think that THEY see and why THEY have started the Inquisition to root out Pub Media.

In the last 5 years, Public Radio and Public TV have started to find a new role for themselves and it is this new role that scares THEM.

This role of course is a Public Service Media organization that gives people who have no voice a voice in the issues that concern them.

CPB is funding a number of experiments that are having results in this key area of informing more than the news cycle and giving people a say. None of this is done in commercial media.

For instance NPR is running a project called Argo - that has picked a number of issues that mean a lot to us the public and created nodes that roll up into a national network - so for instance WBUR in Boston is hosting a local/national conversation about health and healthcare. Or KPBS in San Diego is convening a discussion about the issues of being a military base Town. Or KPCC in southern CA is doing this on Immigration. 

All of this is largely web based - so the stations are also learning how to expand their horizon beyond the "air" and broadcasting.

There are 12 stations involved and the point is to find out how best to do this - to become a rich centre of information outside the news cycle that can be both local and a national resource. Where the public can find the best information and the best conversation about things that concern them. AND SO be truly informed and SO have a real say.

The new is full of music labels complaining. Not only about piracy but of the tight grip just a few large outlets have on what gets played and the costs of getting air. Well guess which media outlet gives the Indie labels the best opportunity for air at the least cost? NPR Music! Here is how the Hollywood Reporter ran this story.  This idea came directly out of the work done back in 2005/6 by all the stations to find a starting point for offering the music audience a place based on their taste and their time rather than simply playing what the station wanted. The music audience and the musician's interests are well served here. Both sides win. This does not happen on commercial media where the interests of the station those that own it rule.

CPB has also backed TV stations like KETC in St Louis who have been exploring how to put the public onto TV and how to offer the public a safe place to have the conversations that are otherwise impossible in America today.

Now known as the Nine Network for Public Media, KETC has a media school, the Nine Academy,  that is turning out hundreds of citizen videographers,. Giving the people the tools to have a voice of their own. 

In 2009 KETC hosted a national project involving more than 30 markets worst hit by the housing crisis to learn how each local TV and Radio stations could work together to offer people help that they could trust. In each market the stations worked to bring together w ide ranges of resources into local networks of trusted help. This is all but impossible for a commercial station. 

In 2010 KETC has been experimenting in how to host a year long "Conversation" about an explosive topic that normally collapses into rhetoric - Immigration. Most of the content is local and much of it made by grads of KETC's school. KETC is learning how to offer people a civil place to hod string views and how to switch the power from the station to the people. Impossible for a commercial station. 

This year KETC is co managing a project that will also be nation and is highly controversial - On how we might improve our schools. 

What THEY fear the most is that this kind of new role for Public Radio and TV may end up with 

• You being better informed - you will have escaped the sound bite world and in music the play list that THEY want
• You will be better engaged - because you will have the real opportunity to have your voice heard and you will have learned the skills to do this well 
• You and your local community will have more power to change things

THIS is what THEY fear.

We may feel that we could and should have made more progress - but THEY can see it.

They care not about Morning Edition, Car Talk or Masterpiece Theatre.

They do care that you may become more informed and more empowered. Public Media is on track to pull this of and so must be stopped. 

I don't see this as a Left or Right Issue. It is do you want to be part of the solution or be passive?

And who are THEY? Follow the money.

Saying Cows eat Grass is reason not to get hired in Iowa

This is what we are up against!

Amplify’d from www.utne.com

Cows eat grass. You wouldn’t think it’s a big deal to state this, but at Iowa State University a highly qualified job applicant who had the temerity to voice this simple biological fact was ejected from consideration for a post leading a sustainable agriculture program, The Chronicle of Higher Education reports:

Well, it sure did. Ricardo Salvador is a well-respected sustainable agriculture expert and a former professor at Iowa State—and a natural, many observers thought, to lead the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture as its new director. A finalist for the position, however, he didn’t get the post even when the top candidate turned it down. Apparently, his cow comment came back to haunt him:

The remark that may have sunk Mr. Salvador’s candidacy came 37 minutes into his on-campus presentation. While discussing a research project in New York State, he mentioned meat being “produced in the natural way that meat should be produced, which is on land suitable for grasses and perennial crops.”

If this were a TV game show, a loud buzzer would have gone off and Mr. Salvador would have been escorted from the stage that very moment. Because apparently he was supposed to say that cows should eat corn. Even if that’s not natural or sustainable, it’s simply how things are done in Iowa, a state built on big agriculture:

Corn allows cows to get fatter faster and be ready for slaughter sooner. But there are downsides, including the fact that cows have trouble digesting corn and must be fed antibiotics to prevent them from becoming ill. What’s more, the beef from corn-fed cows tends to have more fat.

The danger of the truth is so great that the Chronicle couldn’t even get Wendy Wintersteen, the dean of Iowa State’s agriculture school, to go anywhere near it. When asked whether cows evolved to eat grass, she replied, “I don’t have an opinion on that statement.” Read more at www.utne.com

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/bmjim

via Amplify.com

"Food Safety" The Weapon of Big Ag - Vermont hits back

"Food Safety" is being used by Big Ag and their friends to cull the Food Revolution. Here Vermont takes a stand as should we all. On PEI the Mass Egg folks tried to use the same gambit. Of course the real food safety issue lies in the process of mass concentration and factory methods.

We have to be very careful not to be bamboozled here.

Amplify’d from healthfreedoms.org

In the face of the recent passing by the senate of the ‘food safety’ bill H.R.2751, previously S. 510, that will put the FDA in control of the nations food supply,Vermont citizens have made a declaration that the agency and government have no right to determine or restrict the food choices of the People of Vermont. “The Vermont Resolution for Food Sovereignty” was brought forth by the Vermont Coalition for Food Sovereignty, it makes a statement to the United States government and the FDA that all citizens who want to protect their freedom of food should stand behind.

 

The Vermont Resolution for Food Sovereignty WHEREAS All people are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, and among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; and WHEREAS Food is human sustenance and is the fundamental prerequisite to life; and WHEREAS The basis of human sustenance rests on the ability of all people to save seed, grow, process, consume and exchange food and farm products; and WHEREAS We the People of Vermont, have an obligation to protect these rights as is the Common and Natural Law; and in recognition of the State’s proud agricultural heritage; and the necessity of agricultural, ecological and economic diversity and sustainability to a free and healthy Society; THEREFORE, Be it resolved, that We The People, stand on our rights under the 10th Amendment to the US Constitution and reject such Federal decrees, statutes, regulations or corporate practices that threaten our basic human right to save seed, grow, process, consume and exchange food and farm products within the State of Vermont; and, Be it further resolved, that We The People, shall resist any and all infringements upon these rights, from whatever sources that are contrary to the rights of the People of the State of Vermont.

 

This Resolution is a clear and timely reminder of our rights as humans on this Earth and citizens of a country that was to be based on the freedom to live full, prosperous lives. We live in a Democracy? When you do a simple search of the bill that this resolution stands against, the top links are to articles talking about what a devious and dangerous act it is, ‘a snake hissing in the grass’. The people spoke out heavily against S.510 so fervently that the passing was done in an underhanded, undemocratic way. Pushed through in a late night proceeding right before Christmas and hidden in a spending bill (http://healthfreedoms.org/2010/12/21/republicans-democrats-collude-to-pass-food-safety-bill/), it was forced to passing by those in office in order that they may gain more power.

 

On the Coalition’s site, http://vermontfoodsovereignty.net/, they call for preemptive action to protect the small farms of Vermont. The determined and protective mindset is nothing new to the state which has made other respectable decisions that have preserved the beauty of their land and health of its people. Vermont tops the 2010 results of Americas health ranking, something that can be attributed to ideals that keep its capital of Montpeiler the only one in the U.S. without a McDonalds.

 

Vermont’s strengths include its number one position for all health determinants combined which includes ranking in the top 10 states for a high rate of high school graduation, a low violent crime rate, a low percentage of children in poverty, high per capita public health funding, a low rate of uninsured population and ready availability of primary care physicians. Vermont’s two challenges are low immunization coverage with 89.8 percent of children ages 19 to 35 months receiving recommended immunizations and a high prevalence of binge drinking at 17.3 percent of the population. (http://www.americashealthrankings.org/measure/2010/overall.aspx) Read more at healthfreedoms.org

 

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Inquisition - More On Blackboard from Dave

I feel so helpless - More from Dave

Blackboard patent - The sky, my friends, is falling.

By admin on net neutrality

I read two not so cheery blog posts this morning that indicate that things are now actually starting to get seriously bad. Michael Feldstein is telling us about another patent pending for blackboard and i got this blog post dropped into a comment from my second post on blackboard.

So, it seems that blackboard is also trying to patent ““Content and portal systems and associated methods.” This would pretty much mean anything on the internet that’s associated with anything. Anyone who believes that their system is going to escape and all they have to do is wait around for the LMS industry to implode should really go over to michael’s blog and read his post.

How? This can’t happen. I’ll call my… well. It seems that that option isn’t looking so good either. A quick look at the shareholders of blackboard includes some rediculously heavy hitters, including the Carlyle Group. It would seem that blackboard has shareholders at THE highest level (check out political affiliations for the Carlyle group on that wikipedia page). I firmly stated during our rundown on this on Sunday night that i did not believe that there was any kind of conspiracy between DOPA, Net Neutrality and the Blackboard filing… I am here to say i’m no longer convinced.

If the next blackboard patent gives them rights over “content and portal systems and associated products” and DOPA cancels the personal voice and expression were talking about kids having in our classrooms and the ’series of tubes’ (net neutrality thingy) makes it so that we have to pay for using bandwidth, essentially allowing the tube owners to turn on and off the taps according to how much big money you have… what, I ask you, is left?

Do we take our ball and go home? start a new net?

Michael was saying $1 to 2$ million dollars to fight the court case. Is that real money to the Carlyle Group? (not to mention the other shareholders in Blackboard).

If I wanted to control everything that was happening on the internet this is exactly what i’d do.
That’s not to say there is a conspiracy, just that if i was going to get a group of pals over to have a conspiracy and my conspiracy wanted to shut down free expression and voice on the internet… I’d probably do it this way.

• I’d say “let’s stop the online predators”.
• I’d say “lets lock down the websites that are violating legal patents”.
• I’d say “people are essentially stealing bandwidth right now, lets put a tap on that hose”.

The price of silence

Pastor Niemoller on being passive in the face of evil

They came for the Communists, and I didn't object - For I wasn't a Communist;
They came for the Socialists, and I didn't object - For I wasn't a Socialist;
They came for the labor leaders, and I didn't object - For I wasn't a labor leader;
They came for the Jews, and I didn't object - For I wasn't a Jew;
Then they came for me - And there was no one left to object.

The social web has stopped being a hobby and is now seen for what it can be - the force that can overturn the Matrix. So now the threat is seen to be real, all the forces of the Matrix are being marshalled to turn back the tide. Net Neutrality, DOPA and now Blackboard. This is only the beginning.

Time to get real folks - everything is at stake

Inqusition - Stephen Downes - Blackboard

As expected, Stephen weighs in too.

As stated on the Academic Commons website, the move has raised concerns that action may also be taken against open source projects Moodle and Sakai. As Alfred Essa observes, "By filing a patent infringement lawsuit against Desire2Learn Blackboard has at the same time fired a shot across the bow of open source projects such as Moodle, Sakai, and .LRN, which are slowly emerging as disruptive innovations in the elearning space. In the long run Blackboard knows it can't win on product quality or innovation. Therefore, it will exploit patents as its WMD."

And he adds, in my view correctly, "What is Blackboard's diabolical strategy to crush open source? I don't believe they will directly go after the open source projects. They don't need to. Blackboard just needs to create enough FUD among lawyers, whose entire frame of reference is built around litigation avoidance, so that new institutions interested in adopting an open source solution just won't go there." .....

Martin Langhoff writes on a Moodle forum (stupid login required, sorry), "After a quick check on the ATutor forums, and seeing there was no discussion about the patents, I've gotten in touch with Greg Gay -- he says: "If you are looking for evidence of LMS type apps prior to 1999, here's a study we did early that year. We'll be in contact with the patent office in Canada, to make sure no patent is issued here. We're onboard on this too." and I think that study is good stuff and having them on board is great. Some more prior art has been posted at Seb Schmoller's site about a Learning to Teach Online Course he and others developed in 1997 or 1998....

Some people see the positive in the move. Alex Reid ponders, "Perhaps Blackboard's patent is the evil impetus to move us away from a "course-based system" of 'online courses:' the bad idea that they want to claim as their fundamental intellectual property." As Scott Wilson suggests, "I hope we can use this as an opportunity...perhaps Tony Karrer is correct and that we are at the point of technology disruption, and we'll see the LMS displaced by simpler technologies with different non-functional characteristics (following the typical technology pattern)."