Building Sustainable, Local, Equitable, Economies
Icelandic Winds
Iceland is a land of ghosts and ghouls, sea monsters, and an earth that howls. It is an island of volcanoes and fjords, endless flat petrified lava fields, green valleys, black, white, and grey mountains, outdoor swimming pools, and salted fish. It is also a land of housing shortages and inflation that make life difficult for ordinary Icelanders and immigrants recruited to work in the burgeoning tourist industry. A dear friend whose time in Iceland intersected with ours picked us up at the airport. We viewed the burning volcano from a safe distance and then visited the Blue Lagoon, sitting...
People’s Living History of Northern Ireland
To understand the so-called Troubles of Northern Irleland one must remove the veils of religion, ethnicity, and even nationalism, and begin with economy, which means learning about the unique properties of the flax plant and the geography of the North Channel. The Political Geography of Northern Ireland Then and Now. To begin to understand Northern Ireland I needed to stare at some maps. I found one of Ireland before 1920 divided into four provinces. Ulster, the most northern province, was itself divided into nine counties. I then looked at a current, partitioned map. Northern Ireland is...
A Good Tourist in Oslo?
Every adventure should include a messenger who provides the lesson of your visit. Oslo is on a hill. From the central train station, it climbs steadily. Four miles up is Frogner Park— a grand stretch of green. Advancing to the pinnacle, we passed a mass of bronze, iron, and granite, naked, ordinary, people across the age span, with distinctive Nordic features. Gustav Vigeland (1869–1943), is the sculptor responsible for the statues depicting several thousand figures. Vigeland Park struck me as unusual in three ways: 1. A single artist was given a claim to fill the entire park with their...
Dutch Bicycle Culture
While we were in Groningen, Prime Minister Mark Rutte, head of the recently defeated Neo-Liberal WD, (a political party for free markets, social freedoms like euthanasia and same-sex marriage, the EU, and support for Ukraine) became NATO’s Secretary General. The New York Times and every other international media story on Rutte noted that he biked to work. Most included a photograph of him leaving town on his bicycle. I didn’t do a thorough check, but I’m willing to bet; in The Netherlands, Marke Rutte's bicycle habits were never news. Almost everyone bikes here. I It was fascinating to...
Third International Conference on Environmental Peace Building, The Hague, The Netherlands, June, 2024
I attended the Third International Conference on Environmental Peace Building, in The Hague, The Netherlands, in June 2024. I will keep adding to this post until I finish making a narrative from my notes. My commentary in italics Session 7: Accountability, Peace and Justice (Advances in Making States and Corporations Accountable for Environmental War Crimes) Overarching points: The Environment should no longer be the silent victim of war. War in one nation affects the environment everywhere. Environmental war crime definition: mass destruction of flora and fauna, poisoning of...
To Theorize and Dance in Brussels
Brussels on eve of EU & parliamentary elections. Thoughts on organizing from Marx’s time to today during this right-wing ascendancy
Confessions of a post-Impressionist in France
“The more I read, the more I acquire, the more certain I am that I know nothing.” 17th Century French Philosopher, Voltaire In France I acquired impressions. Impressions of Cormeilles, Normandie, France There are three Cormeilles in France. Our Cormeilles— the one where we spent the month of May 2024, is a thousand-year-old town of 1,150 people, that few in or out of France, are aware of. Some tourists happen on it, while taking a blue...
Five Questions about the Economy and Politics of Tirana, Albania
"I accepted the story I heard on foreign media: that the [1997] Albanian civil war could be explained not by the collapse of a flawed financial system but by longstanding animosities between ethnic groups... its plan could be disrupted only by outside factors — like the backwardness of our community norms — and never beset by its own contradictions." Lea Ypi Free: Coming of Age at the End of History, p300. Five Questions about the Economy and Politics of Tirana Albania On our last morning in Tirana, we crossed Skanderbeg Square and turned down a street jammed with cars, scooters, bikes,...
Mr. Blinken came to Albania
U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken came to Tirana, Albania. He did not stay long. Not long enough for a state dinner. He would eat in Munich, his next stop. The Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama chastised him for this diplomatic slight. While Blinken was in Tirana he met with his people at the Pyramid built by Enver Hoxha’s daughter in 1988 to honor him, repurposed after the fall of his regime in 1991, to be a tourist and commercial hub. You can climb to the top for a 360 view of the city. Around the pyramid are cute box-shaped buildings the size of rooms in bright colors, some askew so...
Scruja, North Macedonia. To The Lake: A Journey for Peace, during a time of War.
I read To The Lake: A Journey of War and Peace by Kapka Kassabova, about her roots trip circling two ancient lakes that border Albania, North Macedonia, and Greece. Kassabova rejects the nationalisms that poison the region while celebrating the magnetism of a Lake that draws her to her ancestors. Lake Ohrid is the oldest lake in Europe, it has species of fish and plants found nowhere else, I decided we should go to the lake. I picked a town that seemed like the easiest bus route from our home this month: Tirana, Albania. Scruja, just over the border in North Macedonia, is the most northern...