New Clear Vision

There’s No Such Thing as a Corporate Courtesy

by Mary Sojourner

“You can’t put a price on sensory experiences. They are so invaluable and so total.” — Hyatt Regency Scottsdale spokeswoman, Arizona Republic, Business, May 31, 2007

Totally. The wordsmith read the article on Hyatt’s plan to use soundtracks in their lobby, bars, restaurants, and spas. Five compilations are available on their website for download. One can download fifteen songs for $22. The first artist named was Thievery Corporation. I did not make that up.

The article pointed out that some properties were also “dabbling in branding tools….” Bend over and pull down your pants, tourist. We gotcha. (more…)

Blinded by the Light of an Electoral ‘Reality Show’

by Randall Amster

Coming up next on ‘The Oval Office’: sparks fly as the final two contestants go head-to-head on live TV, while a dramatic surprise will soon be revealed that could change everything — and YOU get to make the call on who wins the grand prize and who gets voted off the show. Stay tuned…

One can almost hear the narrator’s voiceover as the news is reported and the debate is joined. Presidential politics, and media-age elections in general, more closely resemble an illusory ‘reality show’ than any substantive engagement with the critical issues of the day. If the Association of National Advertisers could select Barack Obama as ‘Marketer of the Year’ for 2008, then perhaps this year will bring another level of media acknowledgment. Joe Biden for an Emmy, anyone? (more…)

Exploring the Roots of Urban Agriculture in Mexico 

by Devon G. Peña

Every now and then a photograph really speaks more than a thousand words. The accompanying 1865 photograph shows two fruit and vegetable vendors in Mexico City. Judging from the architecture in the background, the photo was most likely taken inside the historic core, perhaps close to the Zócalo.

A lot of commentary has been made about this photo. One thread of comments emphasizes the perceived poor condition of the ambulantes (mobile street vendors). How one can surmise this seems difficult but one comment posted recently to Facebook argues that the photograph demonstrates “The poor condition of the vendors, which can still be seen in the streets of Mexico City today.”

However, even by today’s standards, these vendors actually look fairly well dressed and healthy. These lamentations about the urban poor strike me as betraying a modernist urban sensibility and class bias. If anything, given the source of the comments on Facebook, they illustrate a widespread failure, common to what I can only characterize as petit-bourgeois intellectuals, to understand that for many people street vending is as much a way to earn an income as it is a social and community-building activity — a way of life even. (more…)

Population Bombs, Consumptive Violence, and Environmental Justice 

by Devon G. Peña

I have long detested the work of Paul and Anne Ehrlich. I was an undergraduate at the University of Texas in Austin when I was first introduced to the Ehrlichs’ infamous book, The Population Bomb, which was first published in 1968 and reprinted countless times before being “updated” and reissued in 2009 as The Population Bomb Revisited. It always struck me that the topic became a mini-industry and the authors made a pretty profit from pandering to the crowd that invests so much in the sentiment: “Oh my! There are way too many little brown people on the planet. What are we to do?”

The Bomb was required reading in a demography and population class I took as a sophomore in 1974. There are passages in this book that made me cringe then and continue to remind me that much of what is written by the privileged Stanford scientists displays a complete lack of understanding of colonial history, capitalism, patriarchal domination, and the political ecology of environmental degradation. It seems to me that the Ehrlichs do not much like humanity, or at least not brown people. In one of the more oft-cited passages they display a discernible contempt for humanity that is probably derived from an inability to situate events in historical and political context and to respect or at least perceive cultural differences for what they are, i.e., examples of human variability to adaptation: (more…)

An Example of Selflessness for Society to Embrace

by Pat LaMarche 

I met Bill because — well frankly — because he fit the bill. He was a recovering alcoholic who had been homeless off and on for a decade, maybe longer. Bill was a former broadcast professional turned Wall Street tycoon who shattered his own existence with addiction. He eventually cleaned up his act so entirely that he landed a job in one of the shelters he’d gone to for protection when he couldn’t protect himself. He counseled others — drawing from his own experiences — and encouraged them to live a better more productive life.

I’m fortunate to be a people person. I love being with all sorts of people and I believe everyone is equal in measure while admittedly not equal in opportunity. But Bill had it all. Looking into his face the very first time we met I was first struck by his good looks: looks that had weathered into a different but still striking kind of handsome. He was witty and smart and compassionate and I knew instantly why he had been recommended to serve on a panel to dispel society’s misconceptions about the poor. Bill wasn’t going to lie to anyone about anything. He’d stopped lying to others maybe the same moment that he’d stopped lying to himself. (more…)

Is a Successful Ecological Civilization Possible?

by Evaggelos Vallianatos

In ancient times people believed in many gods and worshipped the natural world and the Earth. Now our world is primarily a world where most people believe in one god and consider nature a mine for the extraction of “resources.”

Such a dramatic shift from a sacred natural polytheism to a business monotheism does not bode well for human survival.

Of all modern ecological calamities, global warming suffices to bring to an end life on earth. Climate change, the usual name for global warming, is a result of the heavy human footprint on the natural world. This affliction, the human addiction to coal, oil, and gas, is deleterious to human health and to long-term survival.

Unless we slow down and stop dumping into the atmosphere countless thousands of tons of CO2 and other greenhouse gases, our children and grandchildren will surely curse us. (more…)

Social Awakening Depends on a Balance of Activism

by Jan Lundberg

Our tall ship inches toward Copenhagen where it will dock near Christiania, the semi-autonomous village in the Christianshavn quarter. Apart from the job of getting the engineless ship into port where we deliver 8,000 bottles of French wine, there is much for an ecological and social activist to reflect upon.

Sometimes when Nature’s energy is high on the sea, with a fury, or when we are in the tender embrace of the water, air and sun that calms and becalms us, we get a slightly new perspective on our place on the planet. I should not have to add: that place is not about money or other narrow goals.

That this crew is a tight community is food for thought. Besides the imperative of cooperation for survival, it is simply easier and more natural to operate within a collective. Yet, in that situation one still finds oneself in serious personal contemplation on one’s intentions, dreams, and grappling with vexing questions about modern living. (more…)