Robert Paterson's Weblog

Why are libraries under attack?

It was bad when the State of Ohio had a go at their library system - but now Philadelphia plan to shut all the libraries in the city!

The current stalemate in Harrisburg over the two requests for legislation to help the City's budget will cause 53 Library facilities to close at the end of the day Friday, October 2nd unless this legislation is passed.  At stake are over 700 jobs, loss of access to information and resources including 800 public computers for Philadelphians and no place to go after school for over 80,00 students.

 With almost 7 million visits annually and 22 million hits to its website, the Free Library is the most heavily used of all institutions in the city.  As the largest provider of internet access in a City where 41% of homes lack web connection, the Library provides the essential link to information, jobs and resources found only on line.

Why?

I wonder if the system fears libraries as a resource and as a trusted space for the people?

A Great Divide - Are we living in an evolutionary event for humans? Part 1

I have been wondering what is the difference between people who get the deep meaning of social media and those who don't. I am now wondering as I see the profound failure of all of us to fix our great underlying systemic problems whether, the failure for many to "get" social media is in fact a sign of a wider problem of "World View"?

I wonder also if there is an evolutionary shift underway? A shift between a "Kinetic" world view and an "Energetic" world view? Is the divide merely a cultural one or might there be a physiological difference?

Are there in reality, two species of humans now walking the Earth? Is there a Homo Noeticus?

There is at least no doubt that we are having problems solving massive problems right now. What makes the problems worse are that the very assumptions used in creating the problems are being offered without question as the solutions. At some point, we will all see that we are stuck.

Our world is controlled by the Kinetic POV. Over the last 50 years, a mass of evidence has been gathered to show the Energetic underpinnings of all these systems. But a Kinetic Person cannot "see" the alternative. It cannot exist for their reality. They cannot be argued. So we remain stuck - for now!

I say for now because I see hope in an ever larger pool of people who naturally "see" their world using a larger overlay of perspective that is Energetic and Social. They cross all racial and class barriers. They are often separated from their own family and even spouses as their connection to the wider perspective of energy expands. They know each other the moment they make contact - even online. They cling to each other for support and protection for they know that they are the "Other" that the Kinetics fear the most.

If the Kinetic world cannot fix our problems. Problems that extend into our impact upon the planet itself. Problems that carry our doom as a species with them - energy, food, global extinctions and climate change - then maybe our only chance for a descent versus a collapse will be that there enough people with an energetic world view to lend a hand.

So what makes a person more Energetic - able to see the connections and to feel and project energy? What is it that offers this gift?

I am starting to think that the answer is more than merely cultural - something that can be learned. I am beginning to think that the answer may be physiological and so may then be an evolutionary response.

Jill Bolte Taylor suffered a stroke and discovered a new reality when her "Kinetic" brain was lost to her and she could only access her "Energetic Brain".

With access only to her right brain- she found that she inhabited ONLY an energetic world - where she was dissolved into the universe.

When she recovered access to her Kinetic brain, she found that she could now move between one and the other.

I think the answer is that those who are more energetic have a wider pathway between the two hemispheres of the brain and can travel back and forth as Jill Bolte Taylor can now.

How does this pathway open up and why was it closed.

Julian Jaynes in his masterpiece, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, made the case that prior to "civilization" and very importantly, the common use of the written word, that humans had full access to both hemispheres of the brain. Hence we could hear the voice of the Gods - our connection to the larger group's and locale's energy. Writing and reading demand massive use of the left hemisphere. Over time, as literacy became the norm, we narrowed the pathway. In the 20th century, it must have all but have been closed off. 

We know that many critical aspects of our neural development depend on Use it or Lose it. Any 2 year old can learn any language with no effort. But an 8 year old will really struggle to learn a second - there is a window. This window idea extends to the physical. For instance, if you blindfold a cat for the first year of life, it will never see. The brain connections for sight have to be used during a critical time or they can never be made.

These gains or losses do not have to be experienced directly by the child. For instance any 3 year old will draw using the vanishing point as a perspective. But a 14th century master artist had such a problem with "seeing" the world this way that he had to have a tool to help him.  So, just as a border collie will have herding built in or a Labrador a fondness for water, we seem to be able to pass on some kinds of skills and behaviors.

Changes that affect a lot of people, can happen very quickly. In 1970, there were almost no fat people anywhere. Now there is an epidemic of  obesity. How can this be? Obviously it has some thing to do with our life style and food but what happens to us as people? We cannot have a genetic shift in such a short time. The genes must be there. But why some fat and some not? Why do obese people have obese kids? What can happen is that the on/off switches that control which genes express or not can be inherited. So the parents that have the fat gene expressed can pass this on. We pass on the dashboard.

What I am saying is that events can change our wiring. When the wiring is changed, we can pas on the new wiring to our kids. 

What I would like to do in my next post is to describe my own experience in "waking up. It was almost as traumatic as Jill Bolte Taylor's. Something happened to me. 

I would also like to hear what happened to you too. Have you always been awake? Can you recall an event or a series of events, or maybe something about your early life that created the conditions by which you too woke up?

Universities will meet their version of Craigslist!

Newspapers were struck a death blow by Craigslist - We all know that story. But what was it like when Craisglist just got started and we did not know that was going to happen? What will it be like when a new "Craigslist" enters a new sector with all the potential to disrupt?

Well today I read 4 articles that lead me to believe that Universities - as we know them - are DEAD! The Death Star has arrived and in the end - there can be no defence.

Article 1 - The NYT - 25% of kids are unemployed - this includes most graduates who also have large student loans. If they get jobs it is in the McJob world. It will take years for this to change - see my post below - meanwhile the debt has to be paid and the summer jobs are not there. But if you don't have a degree - there is no employment that will pay enough to raise a middle class family - so there is a paradox

Article 2 - Why University costs are so high and so impossible to cut - basically the President has no power over the faculty - like the print union at the paper - the faculty have a lock on how work is done and how they are paid and will not give this up.

Article 3 (Via John Robb) A story on a new way of getting a degree on your own at your own pace for $99 a course at Straightline. A real degree using all the same material with better access to teaching - all at your onw pace and time - all at home.

Article 4 the link (John Robb) to Straighterline - a very neat idea

Here why I say DEATH. If universities cannot change their costs. If unemployment for the young lasts a decade and the only way of paying is debt - then the "smart" kids and parents will find "smart" alternatives. Straighterline is maybe the Craigslist challenge.

It's all about the economics - isn't it?

What do you think? More after the Jump from the article by Kevin Carey

Unemployment is permanent and structural - Need for a Reivention

Why am I making such a deal about unemployment? Because it is the main driver for people losing their homes now. There is no remediation if a person has no income.

There are are millions of Americans in the pipeline - who have lost their jobs or who will - who will inevitably lose their homes.

But what about the "Recovery" will they not get their jobs back? Have a look at this chart form the Department of Labor and think more about will the jobs come back in time?

The first thing we see is that the wait to find a new job is now very long indeed. It is in fact "off the chart".

Now look at this chart - what I think it shows is that over the last 60 years that has been a collapse in manufacturing jobs that is systemic and long term. What is happening today is the final curtain for the idea that a person with a high school education can support themselves - that is 75% of the population in America!

This chart tells us that we are back to end of the last depression before the  war made such a difference to manufacturing. It shows us that we have been in a long term systemic decline since 1980. It shows us that there is no quick or easy fix.

On a related note the Unemployment Benefit Trust Fund will run out of funds in the early part of 2010 - so those that are relying onunemployment to keep them in their house will lose that too - unless there is the politcal will to boost the fund in a major way.

So what does this mean?

I don't think that there is a simple rebound in the near future. Traditionally, the jobs come back - but we can see here that they cannot. Yes there may be Service Jobs but no one can own a house on that.

I don't see any way around having to Reinvent the Economy. Find out how to return to a high employment and local focus. Easier said than done right? But there are a lot of people who have a vested interest in finding out the answers. Many of them are already reinventing local food etc. My bet is that if we open our eyes - we see see the real "Green Shoots" and they will be where people who will not give up are trying things that are radically new.

Amidst the Hype - Signs of a Breakdown

So the reduction in the GDP number is less than was feared - Hooray! What is going on with our media? The headlines are as boosterish as they were as we went into this crisis. Every glimmer of a green shoot is heralded as a breakthrough.

I am working in the 32 worst hit states in the US and I can tell you from looking at them every day - times for people are getting worse. A Katrinaesque America is emerging but there are no headlines. You have to search to find it. For now.....

The largest county in Alabama - includes Birmingham - is literally falling apart:(NYT)

In every part of Jefferson County — Alabama’s most populous county and its main economic engine — government managers have been scrambling to prepare for Saturday, when two-thirds of county employees eligible for layoffs — up to 1,400 — will be lost in an effort to stave off financial ruin.

Basically all government services are stopped - even burial!

There is a pattern here. The most corrupt and the most inept and the most politically divided states and cities are the first to fall - unable to cope with the complexities of the collapse in tax revenue.

Jefferson County, which includes Birmingham, could be compared to a person who has lost his job, watched his retirement investments evaporate and is stuck with a house that is worth less than what he owes the bank. Some of the county’s woes stem from the financial crisis that has pounded so many communities: its sales and property tax revenues are down by $40 million, and it borrowed billions in a sewer bond boondoggle that is the municipal equivalent of a subprime mortgage, using failed exotic bond deals and swaps concocted by investment bankers.

But the county has additional troubles: the sewer project was riddled with corruption, and in January a court ruled that a tax the county relied on for more than a quarter of its general fund was illegal because the Legislature repealed it in 1999.

State lawmakers could easily fix that problem by re-enacting the tax, but deliberations have dragged on even as the county has halted road maintenance, delayed opening a courthouse, announced plans to close half its customer service locations and asked department heads to submit the names of those who would be laid off on Saturday.

As I learn more about California, Michigan, New York and New Jersey - I wonder. The fabric of where people live is unraveling.

Post Consumerism?

Being middle aged, chubby, bearded and male has had one big advantage. I have joined a club of similar types who have all found some success in the old world but who now profoundly reject it. But this group are more than misanthropes - most of them are very perceptive as well. Here is a gem that came in this morning:

Except for embellished versions of goods and services that were available up to the late 1980s there's nothing any longer to motivate the modest status aspirations of the masses -- which up until then were kept sweet and pacific. Unless they rotate their kitchen, bathroom and garden make-overs faster than ever which, maybe, a quarter of the population may still be able to do in the coming years, there's fat little else to acquire -- to be able to say "I've arrived!" -- "Here I am. I've joined the middle-classes now".

Consumerism as we've known it in the Western world has gone for good now.

It is going to take at least another generation or two before politicians realize this (if indeed they'll have a meaningful role at all in future times -- we'll probably be run by the civil servants, just like the Chinese). Meanwhile, where is status to be found if it's not in the goods we buy?

Well, I'll tell you. Status is to be found by means of much more ancient attributes than merely possessing gewgaws. It will be by skill, ability, integrity and reputation within the many specialized niches which are now so characteristic of this increasingly complex world.

It's going to require a totally new attitude to education. Instead of education being about "expanding one's mind" as those romantic pseudo-intellectuals have been telling us -- and has held sway -- for the past 50 years, it's going to have to be by educating children to levels of specific skills that enable them to get a job in this new complicated world.

Once they have a job and have some status in society then, by all means, it's highly desirable for them expand their minds if they want to. And the best way to do that is for the state to get out of education as fast as possible and let parents' aspirations decide what sorts of schools they want their children to go to.

This itself would take two or three generations before it works its way round to actually upgrading the formative culture within the majority of homes, but why should adults not be given the freedom to choose quality -- as it emerges sooner or later in everything else they buy? What makes education so different from choosing a dentist or hairdresser or buying a flat-screen TV?

How will this play out?

Foreclosures and unemployment are still rising.

Goldman, JP Morgan Chase and now B of A announce massive profits.

CIT and other lenders struggle with bankruptcy.

The Financial Sector gets more concentrated in fewer hands

The "stimulus" has not reached main street

Many of the jobs are not coming back.

Wall Street think that this is good news.

How does this feel to you? Is this progress or what?

Here is what the Wall Street Journal thinks - it will surprise you - via Arianna Huffington

Afghanistan - Steven Pressfield's Advice - TRIBES!

As our Afghan campaign enters a new phase and as casualties rise, it is surely worth thinking again about what might be success and so what should we do. A first step of course is to understand what we are up against. Here is Steven Pressfield offering his perspective in the concluding (5 of 5) videos on this very topic - It's all about understanding the Tribal Mind.

The state is losing it - As with the financial crisis - the Experts missed this

More shootings and killings in Vancouver this week.

Two people are dead, two others injured and one home is riddled with bullets following a wave of shooting incidents in Metro Vancouver Tuesday night.

In the second fatal shooting of the night, about an hour later, Vancouver police found a man in his 20s slumped over the steering wheel of his car in East Vancouver.

Surrey RCMP also handled two shooting incidents on Tuesday evening, but neither resulted in fatalities.

This violence in BC is directly linked to what is going on in Mexico. The gangs are sorting out who is going to run North America!

Mexico is under siege. The US and Canada are not immune from this trend.

Since the beginning of 2009 more than 1,000 people have been killed in drug violence. In 2008 6,290 people were killed, double the 2007 death toll.

Since 1993 the City has been known for the violent deaths of hundreds of women - ‘las muertas de Juárez’ (The dead women of Juárez). According to Amnesty International , since February 2005 more than 370 bodies have been found, and over 400 women were still missing. Most of the cases remain unsolved.

In the next three weeks the Mexican Government is sending up to 5,000 new troops and federal police to the country’s most violent city, Ciudad Juárez , where law and order is on the brink of collapse

Until recently the state had control of the key aspects of society - it controlled the use of deadly force and it controlled the money via its taxation powers.

Now gangs have better weapons and are not afraid to use them. (USA Today) Maybe more importantly, they have the money and will become the new "banking" system.

The financial crisis will accelerate the rise of the financial and muscle power of the gangs. Of course the "Experts" missed all of this as they did the collapse of the financial system.

In Italy the Mafia has become the only Bank in town. (Washington Post)

As banks stop lending amid the global financial crisis, the likes of Mauro are increasingly becoming the face of Italian finance.

"It's a fantastic time for the Mafia. They have the cash," said Antonio Roccuzzo, the author of several books on organized crime. "The Mafia has enormous liquidity. It may be the only Italian 'company' without any cash problem."

At a time when businesses most need loans as they struggle with falling sales, rising debt and impending bankruptcy, banks have tightened their lending to them.

Italian banks, which for years had been widely criticized for lending sparingly to small and medium-size businesses, now have "absolutely closed the purse strings," said Gian Maria Fara, the president of Eurispes, a private research institute.

Many experts say organized crime is already the biggest business in Italy. Now, Fara said, the untaxed underground economy is growing even larger. "Certainly I am worried," he said. "The banking system doesn't work, and the private one that is operating is often managed by organized crime."

The reality is that who controls the money and the violence controls the people - more and more  gangs have more money, better weapons and more will to use both than governments. As the financial crisis gets worse, their relative power will increase.

The answer is not longer sentences.

We have to start to see the root causes of their power - that our policies have made drugs so valuable and that our society has made taking drugs so much a part of how life works.

The clock is ticking. There may already be no way back for Mexico. What is our response?

Drugs - Cash - The risk to the state

Watch CBS Videos Online Here is this weekend's 60 Minutes piece on how the Cartel's are taking over Mexico. The power of the gangs is spreading to the US.

Last week Canada introduced tougher penalties for gangs in reaction to an escalation of gang murders in Vancouver and other cities in Canada.

The war continues to go badly in Afghanistan.

What is going on? I think that what is going on is that the drug trade delivers so much cash that those who are in it can buy whatever they want. They buy politicians and police. They buy weapons. They can intimidate anyone. Would you give evidence? And so they buy control.

They threaten the state - any state.

As we are seeing in Mexico and Afghanistan, we are losing against this power.

So what to do?

How could we make the trade less valuable? Ironically, the more we attack it, the more valuable it becomes.

In 1933, Roosevelt repealed prohibition. The Mob lost a huge amount of power.

What if we bought all the production in Afghanistan? What if we treated drugs like alcohol?

Would this not take most of the money away from gangs and give it back to the state?

Could this be worse that what we face now?