What if our economy was not built on competition? Nobel Prize winner Elinor Ostrom talks about her work on cooperation in economics. She is the first woman to receive the prize. Her Ph.D. is in political science, not economics (though she minored in economics, collaborates with many economists, and considers herself a political economist). But what makes this award particularly special is that her work is about cooperation, while standard economics focuses on competition. Ostrom’s seminal book, Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action, was published in 1990. But her research on common property goes back to the early 1960s, when she wrote her dissertation on groundwater in California. In 1973 she and her husband, Vincent Ostrom, founded the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis at Indiana University. In the intervening years, the Workshop has produced hundreds of studies of the conditions in which communities self-organize to solve common problems. Ostrom currently serves as professor of political science at Indiana University and senior research director of the Workshop. Fran Korten, YES! Magazine’s publisher, spent 20 years with the Ford Foundation making grants to support community management of water and forests in Southeast Asia and […]
Leaked Plans by Republican National Committee Show Intent to Aggressively Capitalize on Fears of ‘Socialism’ Under Obama to Raise Money for GOP in 2010 Election Cycle; Meanwhile, Group Led by Ex-VP Cheney’s Daughter Comes Under Fire for Web Ad That Attacks Patriotism of Justice Department Lawyers Handling Terrorism Cases. Having lost control of both the White House and the Congress – and under mounting pressure from the Far Right – the Republican Party has been caught plotting to launch an aggressive campaign of stoking fears of the country moving toward ‘socialism under President Obama and the majority Democrats in Congress to raise money for the upcoming midterm election cycle. At the same time, a conservative group with ties to former Vice President Dick Cheney’s daughter Liz has come under fire for launching a blistering Web ad that questions the patriotism of seven Justice Department lawyers assigned to handle the cases of terrorism suspects – branding the unnamed attorneys ‘the al-Qaida 7³ and mocking the DOJ as the ‘Department of Jihad. These two developments have prompted fierce accusations by liberals – and even some former Bush administration attorneys – that the GOP is stooping to outright fearmongering reminiscent […]
WASHINGTON — As Virginia Thomas tells it in her soft-spoken, Midwestern cadence, the story of her involvement in the ‘tea party’ movement is the tale of an average citizen in action. ‘I am an ordinary citizen from Omaha, Neb., who just may have the chance to preserve liberty along with you and other people like you,’ she said at a recent panel discussion with tea party leaders in Washington. Thomas went on to count herself among those energized into action by President Obama’s ‘hard-left agenda.’ But Thomas is no ordinary activist. She is the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, and she has launched a tea-party-linked group that could test the traditional notions of political impartiality for the court. In January, Virginia Thomas created Liberty Central Inc., a nonprofit lobbying group whose website will organize activism around a set of conservative ‘core principles,’ she said. The group plans to issue score cards for Congress members and be involved in the November election, although Thomas would not specify how. She said it would accept donations from various sources — including corporations — as allowed under campaign finance rules recently loosened by the Supreme Court. […]
As sex abuse scandals rock the Vatican, the results of an investigation into a rich, ultra-conservative and secretive Roman Catholic order founded by a priest accused of pedophilia and incest are due to be filed in Rome tomorrow. The sordid story of the Legion of Christ, whose late founder, the Rev. Marcial Maciel Degollado, was a close ally of Pope John Paul II before being forcibly retired by the Vatican in 2006, is a microcosm of the crisis currently enveloping the church. At stake is whether Pope Benedict XVI will decide to take over the Legion and install new leaders from the outside or allow it to continue with its same hierarchy. Five bishops from five countries are expected to submit their reports about the Legion Monday. The controversy over the Legion, which is now barred or severely restricted from operating in six U.S. dioceses, is especially awkward for Benedict because he wants to have John Paul, a staunch defender of the order, canonized. ‘Maciel was a sexual criminal of epic proportions who gained the trust of John Paul II and created a movement that is as close to a cult as anything we’ve seen in […]
They’ve read about malaria, or mass rape, or AIDS orphans, and they want to make a difference. Should they call the White House? Write a check? Howl in hopeless despair? There’s never a perfect answer, but here’s one ingenious approach: Throw a party! Let’s back up. In 2004, a Colorado woman named Torkin Wakefield, a Peace Corps veteran with a lifetime of experience in aid work, was temporarily living in Uganda. Her daughter, Devin Hibbard, then just out of graduate school, came to visit, and they strolled together through a slum in Kampala, the capital. They stumbled upon a woman named Millie Akena making jewelry beads out of trash paper outside her mud-walled home. They bought a few necklaces from Millie, for about 75 cents each. Over the next few days, mother and daughter received many compliments on the necklaces – especially when they explained where the beads came from. Jewelry from garbage! Hmm. A gleam in their eyes, Torkin and Devin returned to the slum, asked Millie to gather her friends and bought up more than 225 necklaces. American friends loved the beads. So Torkin and Devin, with their friend Ginny Jordan, formed […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
