Miscellaneous
Here comes the bus
When Andy Didorosi opened the newspaper in January and discovered that Detroit had axed plans to build a light rail system, he was deeply disappointed. He’d been hoping the new railway would rejuvenate his city, which has suffered decay, poverty, crime and joblessness since the decline of the Read More...
Knock on Wood
Trees grow slowly, but growing trees for a living requires -constant maintenance—controlled burns, pruning, thinning, harvesting, planting. Most tree farmers stop at that, but Chuck Leavell takes it further. On Charlane Plantation, his 2,200-acre tree farm about 20 miles southeast of Macon, Read More...
Energy for all
It sounds almost too simple: Install solar panels in remote homes and villages, and thereby improve the lives of residents. Solar power allows people to read at night, watch TV and heat clinics and schools. “A big change for a little effort,” says Robert Freling, director of the Solar Electric Read More...
The economy shrinks and life gets better
Imagine a world where less money is spent on defense, a world with fewer weapons and bombs to fall into the wrong hands. Would you feel safer? I know some people believe guns buy safety. But more guns, a lot of guns, don’t make society safer. So when less money is spent on military stuff, I Read More...
Rise and dance
"I am over how long it seems to take anyone to ever respond to rape. I am over Facebook taking weeks to take down rape pages. I am over the hundreds of thousands of women in Congo still waiting for the rapes to end and the rapists to be held accountable. I am over the thousands Read More...
A small act of rebellion
Janisse Ray calls them revolutionaries: the seed savers, thousands of Americans who plant historic and endangered seeds in their gardens or on their farms and eat the results. In The Seed Underground (published by Chelsea Green), she explains why this small act of rebellion against the monoculture Read More...
December 21. Happy birthday to you. Yes, really!
Happy birthday! Yes, today is a birthday for all of us. Today humanity is transitioning into a new era. Today is the date that the Mayans marked as the end of their calendar centuries ago. They knew that today would be a new beginning for our world. Right at this moment, around the world many Read More...
The best of 2012
We hope you look back on a wonderful year! It has been a very special year for us. In 2012, Ode changed her name. She is now The Intelligent Optimist. Ode was always about open-minded optimists and pioneers of the possible looking for solutions.Ode was a song of praise, a tribute to the people Read More...
Warrior of the human spirit
"Let’s see ourselves as ‘warriors of the human spirit,’” says Margaret Wheatley, who has just published So Far From Home, a book about “how we ended up in a world that nobody wants.” (See an excerpt on page 52.) She sees perseverance as the way that these warriors get through. “I Read More...
Ode to the Treehotel
To call it a tree house would be almost insulting to Sweden’s Treehotel. The Lapland lodging opened its doors—or, rather, dropped its ladders—in 2010. Since then, thousands of guests have taken in the Lule River valley views from its treetop windows. The Treehotel has five different rooms; Read More...