Home-based business zoning.
These are the restrictions for starting a home-based business in Austin:
From the City of Austin:
The home occupation must be conducted entirely within a dwelling unit which is the bona fide residence of the practitioners, or entirely within only one accessory garage building (not to include a carport).
No person other than a family member who resides in the dwelling unit should participate in the home occupation on the premises.
The residential character of the lot and the dwelling unit must be maintained. Neither the interior nor the exterior of the dwelling should be structurally altered so as to require compliance with nonresidential construction codes to accommodate the home occupation.
No additional buildings shall be added on the property to accommodate the home occupation.
The home occupation should not generate customer related vehicular traffic in excess of three vehicles per 24 hour day in the residential neighborhood.
No direct selling of merchandise is allowed to occur on the premises.
No equipment or materials associated with the home occupation can be displayed or stored where visible from anywhere outside the premises.
The occupation must not produce external noise, vibration, smoke, dust, odor, heat, glare, fumes, electrical interference or waste run-off outside the dwelling unit or in the property surrounding the dwelling unit.
No vehicle used in connection with the home occupation which requires a commercial driver's license to operate is allowed to be parked on the premises or on any street adjacent to the residentially zoned property.
The home occupation is not permitted to be advertised by any signs on the premises, nor shall the street address of the home occupation be advertised through signs, billboards, television, radio or newspapers.
No animal hospitals, animal breeding, clinics, hospitals, contractors' yards, dancing schools, junk yards, lodginghouse residential uses, massage parlors, restaurants, rental outlets or vehicle repair shops are permitted as home occupations.
-------------------------------------------------------------
These are really obnoxious. I don't really understand the logic of these. No direct sales from your home? What the fuck? If I'm an artist with a studio/shed in my backyard, why on earth shouldn't I be able to sell my stuff out of my living room? The traffic stipulation is extremely restrictive. And why not dancing schools, rental outlets or vehicle repair shops? Those would be great and reasonable home based small businesses. Blah, this makes me want to vote libertarian. Or lodginghouses, restaurants, I mean honestly, where do these guys get off? What do they want people to do with their property, sit on it and pay higher taxes? What if some people want to get a supplementary income using their house? What business is it of the city's? If it doesn't impose unreasonable burdens on city infrastructure, they can go screw. Sometimes it seems like government exists to protect the interests of the monied and boring.
16.9.07
Austin as Industrial District
From reading a book on the massive cooperative federation of Italy, La Lega, I've been thinking about a few factors that allow such an organization to develop, such a large network of cooperatives, and wondering what they might mean in America.
Two factors I've been considering are the presence of a major working class movement created by radical consciousness that encourages support for radical organizations; and loyalty to a an artisanly tradition more easily grafted into a cooperative model than, say, a mass production tradition.
This presents a dilemma. America lacks a strong radical working class consciousness, and has since McCarthyism really. We also destroy craft traditions regularly in favor of mass production tied to global supply chains.
I wonder if anything in central Texas might correspond to these cultural factors, how necessary they might be. Austin has an identity based on transgression of established authority, which authors have connected to the populist undercurrent of Texas culture. This populism is very shaky, very strong but very ambiguous, and generally bulldozed over. However, it might be possible to build upon it, especially through institutions as innocuous as cooperatives (which make sense in both conservative and liberal cultural frameworks). After all, cooperatives weren't created after radical consciousness in Italy, but alongside it, reciprocally. The institutions gave partisans practical experience that proved the viability of alternative models in the day-to-day.
In terms of an artisanly tradition, the closest we've got are a mix of respect for the arts in general and ideological support of independent business. This doesn't necessarily create the levels of skill necessary to do this, but it's possible. We do have a computer sector that's stable and growing, and it might be possible to develop it into a cooperative sector, tied to larger production units. We also have a growing sustainable tech business, and this too offers possibilities, very good possibilities in fact.
All in all though, it's difficult thing to consider, especially if we reject the role of American industry as primarily the coordination of global supply chains and consumption of their products.
From reading a book on the massive cooperative federation of Italy, La Lega, I've been thinking about a few factors that allow such an organization to develop, such a large network of cooperatives, and wondering what they might mean in America.
Two factors I've been considering are the presence of a major working class movement created by radical consciousness that encourages support for radical organizations; and loyalty to a an artisanly tradition more easily grafted into a cooperative model than, say, a mass production tradition.
This presents a dilemma. America lacks a strong radical working class consciousness, and has since McCarthyism really. We also destroy craft traditions regularly in favor of mass production tied to global supply chains.
I wonder if anything in central Texas might correspond to these cultural factors, how necessary they might be. Austin has an identity based on transgression of established authority, which authors have connected to the populist undercurrent of Texas culture. This populism is very shaky, very strong but very ambiguous, and generally bulldozed over. However, it might be possible to build upon it, especially through institutions as innocuous as cooperatives (which make sense in both conservative and liberal cultural frameworks). After all, cooperatives weren't created after radical consciousness in Italy, but alongside it, reciprocally. The institutions gave partisans practical experience that proved the viability of alternative models in the day-to-day.
In terms of an artisanly tradition, the closest we've got are a mix of respect for the arts in general and ideological support of independent business. This doesn't necessarily create the levels of skill necessary to do this, but it's possible. We do have a computer sector that's stable and growing, and it might be possible to develop it into a cooperative sector, tied to larger production units. We also have a growing sustainable tech business, and this too offers possibilities, very good possibilities in fact.
All in all though, it's difficult thing to consider, especially if we reject the role of American industry as primarily the coordination of global supply chains and consumption of their products.
20.5.07
Real Commons.
We invoke the idea of a commons for a variety of communitarian projects and institutions. Libraries, parks, transportation infrastructure, etc. Yet a real commons is a bit different. A real commons exists as a sort of limit space to allow the survival of a small population on a minimal income. It is devoted to the desperate, to holy mendicants, misanthropes, people undergoing temporary difficulty, people who need a place to run, people looking to save a little money.
Our commons don't allow this. They don't even allow homeless to sleep in a park without abuse.
A real commons, if we choose to construct it, would function essentially as a park, except it would allow for basic life activities to function. The cultivation of food, the provision of shelter.
For instance, we could imagine a large park, with space devoted to uses by the community. But the larger part of the space, with some physical separation to allow some basic privacy, would allow habitation. Community garden plots for instance, community orchards. A few well cleaned public bathrooms and shower stalls, probably constructed with composting toilets and (recycling) solar heated showers using some purified rainwater. Stalls with sturdy locks monitored regularly. A communal, open-air kitchen, with sturdy and cheap equipment. Areas and facilities for washing clothes, again very cheaply. Free drinking water. A regular bus stop. Regular visits from a city therapist to help find people who could benefit from programs for the mentally ill or addicted. A few guards (elected? chosen?) from the general populace. Educational opportunities. Access to savings and microsavings accounts (hell, even small mutual funds, why not?).
For habitation purposes, open space for tents and cots. And the chief thing- allowing small residences to be built, very small, of no more than one room per person, with fairly strict size and construction requirements. For instance, no building with a foundation. Maybe require they be straw-built or adobe, something to minimize impact and prevent abuse.
Residents can live there as long as they want for free, but they are charged with certain duties, namely the stewardship of the park as a whole.
Some measure of self-governance. Police must treat residents as any other citizen.
Basically, take the scene of the government-run camp in the Grapes of Wrath as a model.
We invoke the idea of a commons for a variety of communitarian projects and institutions. Libraries, parks, transportation infrastructure, etc. Yet a real commons is a bit different. A real commons exists as a sort of limit space to allow the survival of a small population on a minimal income. It is devoted to the desperate, to holy mendicants, misanthropes, people undergoing temporary difficulty, people who need a place to run, people looking to save a little money.
Our commons don't allow this. They don't even allow homeless to sleep in a park without abuse.
A real commons, if we choose to construct it, would function essentially as a park, except it would allow for basic life activities to function. The cultivation of food, the provision of shelter.
For instance, we could imagine a large park, with space devoted to uses by the community. But the larger part of the space, with some physical separation to allow some basic privacy, would allow habitation. Community garden plots for instance, community orchards. A few well cleaned public bathrooms and shower stalls, probably constructed with composting toilets and (recycling) solar heated showers using some purified rainwater. Stalls with sturdy locks monitored regularly. A communal, open-air kitchen, with sturdy and cheap equipment. Areas and facilities for washing clothes, again very cheaply. Free drinking water. A regular bus stop. Regular visits from a city therapist to help find people who could benefit from programs for the mentally ill or addicted. A few guards (elected? chosen?) from the general populace. Educational opportunities. Access to savings and microsavings accounts (hell, even small mutual funds, why not?).
For habitation purposes, open space for tents and cots. And the chief thing- allowing small residences to be built, very small, of no more than one room per person, with fairly strict size and construction requirements. For instance, no building with a foundation. Maybe require they be straw-built or adobe, something to minimize impact and prevent abuse.
Residents can live there as long as they want for free, but they are charged with certain duties, namely the stewardship of the park as a whole.
Some measure of self-governance. Police must treat residents as any other citizen.
Basically, take the scene of the government-run camp in the Grapes of Wrath as a model.
Austin Learning Cooperative.
There are a variety of free schools in America with greater and lesser institutionalization. The Albany Free School has existed for decades. There are several Krishnamurti schools, hundreds of alternative education organizations, etc. The Santa Cruz Free Skool has existed for two years and demonstrates the vitality of the concept.
A free school is essentially a decentralized learning community based around ideals of communitarian self-sufficiency and an open, unaccredited learning process. It orients learning away from hierarchy, the institutional confines of a classroom, etc.
Austin doesn't currently have one. Given the penchant Austinites show for learning and self-motivated skill development, it would provide a good ground for such an organization.
We have to begin by asking how "informal" such an organization should be, and this allows us to decide how best to structure it.
Generally, free schools are very informal, based upon a maximization of free effort, with no money or pay exchanging hands.
However, they also tend to be confined to a certain lifestyle that might be called countercultural or alternative. There's nothing wrong with this, but it might be more interesting to put a bit more design into the process for Austin and come up with something a little firmer, a little more established.
I'm thinking the best model would be neither an open anarchistic skill-share nor a school by another name, but a simple civic organization, a club or service organization. That means some regularization of methods and process, but a very open principle for content.
Some initial thoughts:
*Have several anchoring institutions. For instance, Monkeywrench Books and the Rhizome Collective make good starters. Yellow Bike Collective. We should also add in whatever nonprofits or civic groups that show some interest in the organization. This implies one type of leadership body, namely a council of delegates from sponsoring organizations who offer both light institutional support (namely offer regular classes and shared communication to the community) and light responsibility (to make sure the thing lasts); and who receive the benefits of shared resources and advertising.
*What would course facilitators receive? In general, some sort of membership, a feeling of identity in the organization. Points for a resume. Whatever pay arrangements they develop with students. Free labor for projects that are turned into courses.
*Perhaps this could be integrated with the Austin Time Exchange.
*Some focus areas- craft and construction skills; gardening, farming, landscaping; liberal arts and sciences; book clubs and discussion groups; cooperative and business education and support; automotive and bike repair and maintenance; art; child-rearing; language, spanish, ESL, foreign languages; civic groups.
*Models: study circles and folk schools; free schools; Time Banks; Aristotle's Peripatetic; cooking; machining; labor organizing; local politics, policies, and economic issues; computers, programming; nature and ecology; pet care; etc.
*Maybe eventually some city sponsorship? Establish ties to CreateAustin early on, but don't ask for anything until it demonstrates some success, after a year or two.
*Name, Greater Austin Learning Coop? It'd be best to use the term "coop" or "cooperative" in the name, if only to spread the meme. It would be best to avoid using the word "free" in the title, just because you want people to assume the possibility of payment. It's "free" in the sense of Linux. But you want people to be able to barter a bit, though it'd be nice to encourage it as a gift economy. So the Time Exchange would be a great way to do this practically- facilitate a course, get an hour.
*connect with libraries. LIBRARIES LIBRARIES LIBRARIES.
*focus not just on the countercultural angle, and not just on the cheapness. You want to focus on the benefit to "producers", and the idea of forming community around shared skills and knowledge, sharing strength. Hence a focus on the basic model of a club.
*associate with GB? the leftwing of GB? fun fun.
*How much of daily life can be rendered autonomous from capital and the State? How much time can be taken back, how much knowledge can be released, how much capital rebuilt?
There are a variety of free schools in America with greater and lesser institutionalization. The Albany Free School has existed for decades. There are several Krishnamurti schools, hundreds of alternative education organizations, etc. The Santa Cruz Free Skool has existed for two years and demonstrates the vitality of the concept.
A free school is essentially a decentralized learning community based around ideals of communitarian self-sufficiency and an open, unaccredited learning process. It orients learning away from hierarchy, the institutional confines of a classroom, etc.
Austin doesn't currently have one. Given the penchant Austinites show for learning and self-motivated skill development, it would provide a good ground for such an organization.
We have to begin by asking how "informal" such an organization should be, and this allows us to decide how best to structure it.
Generally, free schools are very informal, based upon a maximization of free effort, with no money or pay exchanging hands.
However, they also tend to be confined to a certain lifestyle that might be called countercultural or alternative. There's nothing wrong with this, but it might be more interesting to put a bit more design into the process for Austin and come up with something a little firmer, a little more established.
I'm thinking the best model would be neither an open anarchistic skill-share nor a school by another name, but a simple civic organization, a club or service organization. That means some regularization of methods and process, but a very open principle for content.
Some initial thoughts:
*Have several anchoring institutions. For instance, Monkeywrench Books and the Rhizome Collective make good starters. Yellow Bike Collective. We should also add in whatever nonprofits or civic groups that show some interest in the organization. This implies one type of leadership body, namely a council of delegates from sponsoring organizations who offer both light institutional support (namely offer regular classes and shared communication to the community) and light responsibility (to make sure the thing lasts); and who receive the benefits of shared resources and advertising.
*What would course facilitators receive? In general, some sort of membership, a feeling of identity in the organization. Points for a resume. Whatever pay arrangements they develop with students. Free labor for projects that are turned into courses.
*Perhaps this could be integrated with the Austin Time Exchange.
*Some focus areas- craft and construction skills; gardening, farming, landscaping; liberal arts and sciences; book clubs and discussion groups; cooperative and business education and support; automotive and bike repair and maintenance; art; child-rearing; language, spanish, ESL, foreign languages; civic groups.
*Models: study circles and folk schools; free schools; Time Banks; Aristotle's Peripatetic; cooking; machining; labor organizing; local politics, policies, and economic issues; computers, programming; nature and ecology; pet care; etc.
*Maybe eventually some city sponsorship? Establish ties to CreateAustin early on, but don't ask for anything until it demonstrates some success, after a year or two.
*Name, Greater Austin Learning Coop? It'd be best to use the term "coop" or "cooperative" in the name, if only to spread the meme. It would be best to avoid using the word "free" in the title, just because you want people to assume the possibility of payment. It's "free" in the sense of Linux. But you want people to be able to barter a bit, though it'd be nice to encourage it as a gift economy. So the Time Exchange would be a great way to do this practically- facilitate a course, get an hour.
*connect with libraries. LIBRARIES LIBRARIES LIBRARIES.
*focus not just on the countercultural angle, and not just on the cheapness. You want to focus on the benefit to "producers", and the idea of forming community around shared skills and knowledge, sharing strength. Hence a focus on the basic model of a club.
*associate with GB? the leftwing of GB? fun fun.
*How much of daily life can be rendered autonomous from capital and the State? How much time can be taken back, how much knowledge can be released, how much capital rebuilt?
The Austin Peripatetic Society.
Proposal: The creation of a club devoted to regular spirited strolls around sections of town, for intelligent discussion mixed with liberal drinking. Model is Aristotle's Peripatetic school. Once a week, for no less than an hour and no more than three hours. The size of any group no less than three and no more than ten.
Materials: pen and paper, audio recorder, camera.
Themes and key terms: situationism, derive, guerrilla gardening, nomadism. Etc.
*get an impression of the city from open consideration of it in quiet moments, in a range or zone.
Proposal: The creation of a club devoted to regular spirited strolls around sections of town, for intelligent discussion mixed with liberal drinking. Model is Aristotle's Peripatetic school. Once a week, for no less than an hour and no more than three hours. The size of any group no less than three and no more than ten.
Materials: pen and paper, audio recorder, camera.
Themes and key terms: situationism, derive, guerrilla gardening, nomadism. Etc.
*get an impression of the city from open consideration of it in quiet moments, in a range or zone.
Modification.
I have contributed very little to this blog, because I don't end up with a lot to say or convenient access to typing it up. I'm going to switch gears a little and expand it to include rough drafts of Austin-oriented projects I might try and develop. I give a lot of thought to that, so it should contribute to volume. I'm thinking readership is next to nil anyway, so there you go, now it's a thought journal as well, for anything tied to civic life.
I have contributed very little to this blog, because I don't end up with a lot to say or convenient access to typing it up. I'm going to switch gears a little and expand it to include rough drafts of Austin-oriented projects I might try and develop. I give a lot of thought to that, so it should contribute to volume. I'm thinking readership is next to nil anyway, so there you go, now it's a thought journal as well, for anything tied to civic life.
3.3.07
Gentrification.
We need to think differently about gentrification if we want to combat it.
Spaces that are currently gentrifying have been spaces segregated by racist laws and customs and development. They have preserved these spaces as weak communities unable to mount continuous political resistance adequate to the task of liberation. We should not keep such spaces.
But we should not wash their members away, to be composed as an even more abused population, turned into the chaff of a global professional economy.
We need only do the following:
*keep the rates of change slow, so that communities have time to adjust and recompose gently
*provide mechanisms for communities to healthfully integrate new people moving in instead of being disrupted and displaced by them. Gentrification has become a battle between groups, when a respectful hybridity or mutually beneficial dialog is far preferable
This means that we do not need to "stop gentrification." We need to slow it down, and channel it into positive communal experience.
To do the latter, many simple methods are possible:
*encouraging new members of a community to network with established residents through neighborhood associations, community action groups, and civic and spiritual groups.
*making sure that economic growth benefits neighborhood people by promoting/requiring some portion of decent jobs to go to local people, and building small business capital and education for local people
*building an understanding in people that they are joining the lives of others, and that they must build respect and dialog with them. for instance, provision of incentives to frequent local small businesses and businesses that hire neighborhood people, instead of simply maintaining or recreating their habits and ignoring their actual communities.
To do the former, any array of options are viable, ranging from community organizing to more intensive housing in established areas.
We need to think differently about gentrification if we want to combat it.
Spaces that are currently gentrifying have been spaces segregated by racist laws and customs and development. They have preserved these spaces as weak communities unable to mount continuous political resistance adequate to the task of liberation. We should not keep such spaces.
But we should not wash their members away, to be composed as an even more abused population, turned into the chaff of a global professional economy.
We need only do the following:
*keep the rates of change slow, so that communities have time to adjust and recompose gently
*provide mechanisms for communities to healthfully integrate new people moving in instead of being disrupted and displaced by them. Gentrification has become a battle between groups, when a respectful hybridity or mutually beneficial dialog is far preferable
This means that we do not need to "stop gentrification." We need to slow it down, and channel it into positive communal experience.
To do the latter, many simple methods are possible:
*encouraging new members of a community to network with established residents through neighborhood associations, community action groups, and civic and spiritual groups.
*making sure that economic growth benefits neighborhood people by promoting/requiring some portion of decent jobs to go to local people, and building small business capital and education for local people
*building an understanding in people that they are joining the lives of others, and that they must build respect and dialog with them. for instance, provision of incentives to frequent local small businesses and businesses that hire neighborhood people, instead of simply maintaining or recreating their habits and ignoring their actual communities.
To do the former, any array of options are viable, ranging from community organizing to more intensive housing in established areas.
Garden of Eden.
Perhaps not, but the Austin parks department maintains a community orchard in the Southeast Metro park. Twenty trees I hear, full of fruit, open for any to pick and eat from.
Maybe they will someday number 100. Maybe they will someday range across the city.
A world overflowing with life is the world we must build to battle against the death that rules unchecked so constantly.
I'll look for pictures, and links about this and also community orchard projects in other cities, to be listed below:
Philly Orchard Project
Perhaps not, but the Austin parks department maintains a community orchard in the Southeast Metro park. Twenty trees I hear, full of fruit, open for any to pick and eat from.
Maybe they will someday number 100. Maybe they will someday range across the city.
A world overflowing with life is the world we must build to battle against the death that rules unchecked so constantly.
I'll look for pictures, and links about this and also community orchard projects in other cities, to be listed below:
Philly Orchard Project
Parks,
We need parks and wild spaces to give us silence in the world, and reverence for the world's reveries in which we are invited to partake so long as we listen and sing with it, not "above" it, not screaming to ourselves.
In the wilds and in the country and in the pockets of wild and country within the city, man remembers the artifice in his arrogance, the pettiness of his grandest ideas and visions and ambitions. And in that remembrance, in the purity of that clear moment of understanding, we see the egality of our brothers and sisters living in this world. We understand that before the grandeur of the flowing world any act of Power is foolish, moving but weakly against the concrete infinities of spaces. The space for this understanding is open to all, at every moment, and offers each and all its naked flesh to caress with reverence. The majesty of the moving instant weaves any to another, and all may behold it. Wild spaces give us the strength to laugh at Power, and shame it into appropriate humility.
We need these free spaces to teach us the foolishness of borders and their provisional character, that any tree or stream carves and recarves a property line surer than any geometer, but that this property is not a question of rights but of attention and intensity. Parks show us the separation between will and understanding, and they allow us the peace and freedom to sense the integration of the two.
We need parks and wild spaces to give us silence in the world, and reverence for the world's reveries in which we are invited to partake so long as we listen and sing with it, not "above" it, not screaming to ourselves.
In the wilds and in the country and in the pockets of wild and country within the city, man remembers the artifice in his arrogance, the pettiness of his grandest ideas and visions and ambitions. And in that remembrance, in the purity of that clear moment of understanding, we see the egality of our brothers and sisters living in this world. We understand that before the grandeur of the flowing world any act of Power is foolish, moving but weakly against the concrete infinities of spaces. The space for this understanding is open to all, at every moment, and offers each and all its naked flesh to caress with reverence. The majesty of the moving instant weaves any to another, and all may behold it. Wild spaces give us the strength to laugh at Power, and shame it into appropriate humility.
We need these free spaces to teach us the foolishness of borders and their provisional character, that any tree or stream carves and recarves a property line surer than any geometer, but that this property is not a question of rights but of attention and intensity. Parks show us the separation between will and understanding, and they allow us the peace and freedom to sense the integration of the two.
Driving through north central austin.
Driving through a city the infinities of space that open before you become indistinct, a blur waving over action. There is an artistry of movement that is lost with a timid conservatism, but is absolutely obliterated with haste, speed.
Every yard past a small universe pregnant with meaning, an ecology opening up to those who wonder at the world and see in its actions mystery or beauty. To think as a child passing life through a small yard and smal house full of webs of force and transitions, flows of life and death. To think then as an army of children, a mob of them, each living out in this little pocket of focused intensity. When do we forget to think and feel as such?
When do we abandon understanding of this sort, intimacy with the world of this sort, in favor of something colder and simpler and falser, plainly falser? The child studying the behaviors of birds of the movement of wind through leaves, the little webs of life surrounding an old tree, even the boards rotting and breathing slowly in a house or the emotional bonds and tensions of a family, this child knows the world truer. We simply have lacked a world for it until we began to speak the name "ecology." We have lacked a way to express the limited, focused infinity opening in all directions of any space, and we still lack a metaphysics that allows this proposition of ecology to express itself fully.
Propositions are dependent upon their metaphysical milieu says Whitehead, that which allos them to exist and take on meaning, and we lack this understanding that might bring out the full breadth of this concept. Except in poetry and art and cultivating, but they have been forced to margins and held there. But enough of that.
These spaces of infinity, they are not simply individual affairs, but they are affairs requiring a stillness, a quiet and an attentiveness that we can no longer maintain if we act in the world as though it were a horror to be conquered and made livable.
We live in fear, the all-embracing fear of what may occur if for an instant we hold back out speech, hold back our guns and machines and cars and even our wills and desires and plans, and listen to what speaks unbidden. What moves through the world like a wind, what will we encounter when we allow the life-world to flow through us rather than force our Vision upon it? Will we hear it screaming in pain or laughing in easy and unconscionable forgiveness, pleasure at both our folly and guilt for that folly? Like waves of ether spilling from the sun will the sound dwarf us so absolutely that our minds shatter and recompose as the souls of angels?
Driving through a city the infinities of space that open before you become indistinct, a blur waving over action. There is an artistry of movement that is lost with a timid conservatism, but is absolutely obliterated with haste, speed.
Every yard past a small universe pregnant with meaning, an ecology opening up to those who wonder at the world and see in its actions mystery or beauty. To think as a child passing life through a small yard and smal house full of webs of force and transitions, flows of life and death. To think then as an army of children, a mob of them, each living out in this little pocket of focused intensity. When do we forget to think and feel as such?
When do we abandon understanding of this sort, intimacy with the world of this sort, in favor of something colder and simpler and falser, plainly falser? The child studying the behaviors of birds of the movement of wind through leaves, the little webs of life surrounding an old tree, even the boards rotting and breathing slowly in a house or the emotional bonds and tensions of a family, this child knows the world truer. We simply have lacked a world for it until we began to speak the name "ecology." We have lacked a way to express the limited, focused infinity opening in all directions of any space, and we still lack a metaphysics that allows this proposition of ecology to express itself fully.
Propositions are dependent upon their metaphysical milieu says Whitehead, that which allos them to exist and take on meaning, and we lack this understanding that might bring out the full breadth of this concept. Except in poetry and art and cultivating, but they have been forced to margins and held there. But enough of that.
These spaces of infinity, they are not simply individual affairs, but they are affairs requiring a stillness, a quiet and an attentiveness that we can no longer maintain if we act in the world as though it were a horror to be conquered and made livable.
We live in fear, the all-embracing fear of what may occur if for an instant we hold back out speech, hold back our guns and machines and cars and even our wills and desires and plans, and listen to what speaks unbidden. What moves through the world like a wind, what will we encounter when we allow the life-world to flow through us rather than force our Vision upon it? Will we hear it screaming in pain or laughing in easy and unconscionable forgiveness, pleasure at both our folly and guilt for that folly? Like waves of ether spilling from the sun will the sound dwarf us so absolutely that our minds shatter and recompose as the souls of angels?
29.10.06
People's Republic of Travis County.
This is apparently a common slander against Austin and its liberalism in the rest of Texas. I've decided that it makes an excellent theme for this weblog, as I happen to be moving in this zone right now and consider myself an unreconstructable leftist.
I'm not representing Austin or "real Austinites", I just want to comment from how things look to me, here and now.
This weblog will be devoted to a few broad topics:
* some local progressive matters from my perspective
* local progressive/radical infrastructure
* tools and argument people might want to use in the region
* notes for radical history of the south
A caveat though: I don't know what progressive means when I use it.
There are a variety of ideas and values brought up when people think of progressive/left/radical/whatever politics. I have found tht I share some of them but definitely not all.
When I think of "left," what I really mean is what seems to be good to me. What seems to be rooted in love for your neighbor, in the pursuit of dignity and freedom for all. I think of the struggle of men and women across time to be given the right to live and think and feel as they saw fit, not at the mercy of any tyrant or boss, not in fear of any authority.
When I think of the left, I think of that tendency in mankind that drives us to ennoble all people and the world, to live with quiet majesty and grace.
So I'm not just going to plop out party lines here. I want to say from the beginning, I'm not talking about firm and fixed principles and partisan argument. I'm talking about the feeling that wells up in us when we treat the world and our fellow man and woman with reverence, trust, respect, and love.
I think that in America, some elements identified with the "left" have striven to do this most passionately and ferociously, from the birth of unions to Civil Rights and beyond.
So I will list instances, examples, and these will show what I'm trying to call "good" in our society. Not the whole good, not the entire good, but a portion of it that links up with the rest, and whose basic principles are found at the heart of reverent, loving, and free life.
This is apparently a common slander against Austin and its liberalism in the rest of Texas. I've decided that it makes an excellent theme for this weblog, as I happen to be moving in this zone right now and consider myself an unreconstructable leftist.
I'm not representing Austin or "real Austinites", I just want to comment from how things look to me, here and now.
This weblog will be devoted to a few broad topics:
* some local progressive matters from my perspective
* local progressive/radical infrastructure
* tools and argument people might want to use in the region
* notes for radical history of the south
A caveat though: I don't know what progressive means when I use it.
There are a variety of ideas and values brought up when people think of progressive/left/radical/whatever politics. I have found tht I share some of them but definitely not all.
When I think of "left," what I really mean is what seems to be good to me. What seems to be rooted in love for your neighbor, in the pursuit of dignity and freedom for all. I think of the struggle of men and women across time to be given the right to live and think and feel as they saw fit, not at the mercy of any tyrant or boss, not in fear of any authority.
When I think of the left, I think of that tendency in mankind that drives us to ennoble all people and the world, to live with quiet majesty and grace.
So I'm not just going to plop out party lines here. I want to say from the beginning, I'm not talking about firm and fixed principles and partisan argument. I'm talking about the feeling that wells up in us when we treat the world and our fellow man and woman with reverence, trust, respect, and love.
I think that in America, some elements identified with the "left" have striven to do this most passionately and ferociously, from the birth of unions to Civil Rights and beyond.
So I will list instances, examples, and these will show what I'm trying to call "good" in our society. Not the whole good, not the entire good, but a portion of it that links up with the rest, and whose basic principles are found at the heart of reverent, loving, and free life.
3.7.06
Sous les pav, Edwards Aquifer:
The Edwards Aquifer is a major resource for the area, and the focal point of much political debate.
An aquifer is a bunch of underground water in porous rock. The Edwards Aquifer churns out the water for Barton Springs. If there's too much development over it, the pollution seeping in may make Barton Springs unsafe for swimming.
Aquifers are important and impressive.
A resource page on the Edwards Aquifer.
The Edwards Aquifer is a major resource for the area, and the focal point of much political debate.
An aquifer is a bunch of underground water in porous rock. The Edwards Aquifer churns out the water for Barton Springs. If there's too much development over it, the pollution seeping in may make Barton Springs unsafe for swimming.
Aquifers are important and impressive.
A resource page on the Edwards Aquifer.
14.6.06
Rideshares.
Given the cost of gas and other means of transportation, rideshares allow the opportunity to save costs on long-distance travel. Several services are linked below, evaluate each on its own merits. (NOTE: Several allow you to specify what conditions you'd like, for instance all women in the car, etc.)
http://www.erideshare.com/
http://www.ridecheck.com/ridecheck/
http://www.rideboard.com/
http://www.shareyourride.net/
https://www.nuride.com/nuride/main/main.jsp
http://www.rideshareonline.com/
http://www.rideshare.us/
http://kindrideshare.net/rideshare.html
http://rideshare.meetup.com/
Given the cost of gas and other means of transportation, rideshares allow the opportunity to save costs on long-distance travel. Several services are linked below, evaluate each on its own merits. (NOTE: Several allow you to specify what conditions you'd like, for instance all women in the car, etc.)
http://www.erideshare.com/
http://www.ridecheck.com/ridecheck/
http://www.rideboard.com/
http://www.shareyourride.net/
https://www.nuride.com/nuride/main/m
http://www.rideshareonline.com/
http://www.rideshare.us/
http://kindrideshare.net/rideshare.h
http://rideshare.meetup.com/
The Austin Public Library has 22 branches, all of which offer wireless. If you just need a place to read and write for a bit without worrying about cost, the library is a relaxed, comfortable social space.
Locations and branch hours
For a library card, be sure and bring some proof of residence (mail, lease, drivers' license, etc.) After being a public library member in good standing, you can request a card that will allow you to check out books from the UT library directly (along with other libraries throughout Texas). This allows you to wave the $40 fee for courtesy patrons at the UT library and gives you access to their vast collection.
Locations and branch hours
For a library card, be sure and bring some proof of residence (mail, lease, drivers' license, etc.) After being a public library member in good standing, you can request a card that will allow you to check out books from the UT library directly (along with other libraries throughout Texas). This allows you to wave the $40 fee for courtesy patrons at the UT library and gives you access to their vast collection.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)