If I was..

A historical figure= I’d be a pirate.
In pre-war Germany= I’d be a military strategist for the Western Front.
In colonial America= Would believe in Manifest Destiny.
A farmer= my farm would be the external manifestation of my soul.
Married= I’d be a good father.

I’m a dreamer..

Happiness theory

A philosophy of happiness. My dad´s response to my left me thinking hard about said happy and what that means. If we search for happiness like we do money, that is very significant. It seems it isn´t guaranteed by financial or material well-being, but your life situation has a big part to deal with it. If you say it´s entirely an inner state the discussion enters the field of self-help and spirituality. I´ve found a lot of truth in improving both areas, but it´s a lot to keep track of! Do you approach life with defined goals and morals, or just slow down and let life’s balance catch you? Over the summer I have been developing this philosophy. Thank you for reading and your comments. Please share url: http://eddiemill.wordpress.com/2009/08/13/happiness-theory/

Summer plans May 6-8: Tortuga Island, …

I’m finishing up the semester now at the School for Field Studies, Costa Rica, and looking ahead at a great summer.
See my final paper for the course, here: http://eddiemill.files.wordpress.com/dr-paper-1.doc

Summer plans

Paolo Coehlo: Ser como el rio que fluye

Hello,
Sorry for the long time without a post, the internet has been, *cough* inaccessible. Hopefully you will enjoy this today: some excerpts and ideas from Paolo Coehlo’s latest “Like a Flowing River.” I’ve been reading and rereading this over the last few weeks.
-Ed

The book is composed of short relations of Coehlo’s life, stories, moments and experiences. As one of the most famous authors in the world (he wrote The Alchemist) he has a good life view. A lot of his stories involve sudden realizations, human nature and vocation. And he is the best author at describing in words: hope : that I can imagine. As someone whose stories have been translated to 155 languages, it’s great to hear his perspective.

Echoing Green

Echoing Green is a social funding fellowship competition, that gives grand prize winners a chance to make their business a reality. See the website, and info at: http://www.echoinggreen.org/.

I just turned in the second phase of this application, competing with over 300 second round entrepreneurs to reach the final phase. If selected, I would be eligible for $90,000 over two years starting this September. This comes with business consulting and a life work. For me, this would mean the farm starts while I finish college.

*a big* update that makes this possible: just met with a partner, 10 years experience establishing and maintaining an organic farm. With a mind for the possible it’s…
Julio Valverdez: <mailto=”pezotevalverde@hotmail.com”
*he has single-handedly created the ANDAR farm, the most beautiful human ecosystem and preservation center I have ever seen.
*over the past years, he has been researching and designing a finca modela integral, which will be the start for an advising and model business.

This agency for organic farming can be a model. A connection and lifeline to preserve the small farmer way of life and earn a premium with global community and good will. The location, the grant, and the manager just moved into place. Echoing green would mean that we can start construction of a dream this fall.

Family, Community

A successful follow-through to the school year. Class high final grade in Development Econ, pretty sure I aced the Environmental Econ final, and Sustainable development finished nicely. Funnily, my Spanish literature class remains the only outlier, gave me a C+. Psh, I kinda cared… 3.5 not bad. Thanks to everyone that made it possible.

On the Oberlin front, trying to incite a riot with home friends. This mainly involves late night food runs, dance parties, and ultimate frisbee in the rain. Oberlin makes one appreciate the advantages of a small-town community, with local shops and local people. It’s exactly the feeling that’s missing from Boston University, where we subsist on large networks of acquaintances. It’s not without drawbacks, but I think that community is really worth working and fighting for. Our lives are a collective.

I’ll be returning to Boston to finish up some things Friday 12/26 and 27th, let me know if you are still around and are interested in a holiday meet-up. Mara and I will probably be hanging out with a car.

On the virtual front, my World of Warcraft character is so bomb. It will be a good distraction while prepping for Costa Rica (now on a 7-month planned trip February-August! More about this later).

-Eddie
http://eddiemill.wordpress.com/

Structure

Social business structure!

I’ve decided to go with a non-loss, non-dividend model for
accomplishing this revolution of mine. The idea started as being a
truck that would drive down a dirt road and pay farmers, and has since
developed substantially to being an empowerment service for farmers to
trade directly with supermarkets in the US. (See my former post if you
are a little rusty on cooperatives and trade:
http://eddiemill.wordpress.com/2008/11/17/idea)Being a social business
let’s me charge for advising, seed, and connection services while
allowing 100% of profit to be re-invested in the mission. It can then
be financed by development grant money or seed capital loans, and be
selfsustaining once established.

*Physical investments*
What will this center physically look like? Thinking Costa Rica to
start, in the fertile Limon provincial region. I actually met someone
in that area with land looking to give away– have some vision for the
terrain of it.

On this land will start a farm: not just as a model and visual, but
can also lead to the necessary processing for coffee, seed bank for
distribution, and best practice techniques to share and spread. I
could even imagine a small lab on the property to provide field
research for BU, Earth studrnts in the scientific benefits of ecologic
agriculture. Hopefully this model farm will be run by Julio, with 8
years experience.

Then there’s an office and conference center building. This will
probably be where I mainly work to start out, on all the
communications, certification paperwork, consulting, credit, and
classes for interested farmers. Potentially press, lobbying, and
market growth research here as well. Hire interns?

Finally, there will have to be some part ditribution and shipping
center to consolidate and scale deliveries of produce and coffee. What
part this will play is hopefully minor, more during the transition
role. As regional direct distribution systems develop and farmers are
selfsufficient, I want to get out of the way on this step and let them
do their own negotiations. This is possibly the biggest benefit of the
plan, assuming it is possible.

Other things I’m throwing around:
-farm school-type program to train a group of (women) farmers, give
them a plantation split!
-certification agency to run independent social label.
-Eco-tourism or student groups. This place will be beautiful.
-cattle and poultry- maybe some day..

Super excited to be able to vision this so well. Still looking for
others who are interested: if you can see it too, Leave me one!

-Eddie Miller
permalink: http://eddiemill.wordpress.com/2008/11/24/structure

The Crisis in Darfur

What is happening, and what can we do about it?

Just went to an incredible talk from a Darfur refugee- that means he was a Muslim in Western Sudan when government backed militias destroyed 50 villages in his valley and killed 21 members of his family. That was in 1983. From there, what do you do?

1. He fled to Egypt and organized. Wrote for 6 years to Arab and Muslim leaders, press, all to condone the killing. Nothing.
2. Contacted embassies in Egypt: large-scale internet distribution to amazing world response. Awareness hit international community.
3. Mentioned in US and UN circles, but no International backed action.
4. Now travelling around speaking, crying out for peacekeepers who would be welcomed by the darfuri people. But still no action has been taken.

The story ends on a sombering note: 15 years of genocide and murder and rape, until his people can no longer leave their villages for firewood. International complacency (follow the money…). African Union inefficiency and corruption.

But WHAT to do?

People have been trying to get our government to act. Maybe Obama will. The letters are all in…

International action would be best. UN declares genocide= moral obligation to act. Target=Ban Ki Moon secretary general.

International causes have to be stopped. Clog the vein that feeds government war. Locate and destry multinational streams of revenue. Lawsuit or…

Direct action from the people.
Set fire to the oil reserves they want. Shut down the gold mines and release international press. You clearly aren’t benefitting from the revenue, better without. If the trade becomes too dangerous, people will divest and the money will leave. The crisis burns itself out.

My thoughts on how to solve crisis: Any resistance effort has to be led by the affected, charged by a will to survive. Donations could flow much more efficiently through the internet into organizer’s hands than through government or international aid channels.

Any largescale peace effort would instantly give itself away: white people, white vans, white weapons drive the war underground. Instead it needs to be escalated vs. Silent millions.

*SO…*
This is where I must leave you, dear reader. I am not going to be the one to organize for the solution to Darfur. I do know that more visibility is a waste of effort, and untargeted begging is unclassy. What can one person who really cares DO?

Organize! The internet gives us unlimited power of knowledge. Find out what’s going on, look at solutions and then make a better one. People are dying, but every crisis has a best plan of attack. Go, click, thrive.

Amnesty International
BU coalition to save darfur

A New Hope for Darfur (in Water) speaker tomorrow:
Thursday, November 20th
7:00 PM
COM 101 (640 Commonwealth Avenue)

Hope and change must dominate our thoughts, or else we will be lost.
http://eddiemill.wordpress.com

-Eddie Miller
BU ‘10
eddiemill@gmail.com

Transition times

With the election of a new leader, we have the ability to think about our problems in an entirely new way.

As things stand, we’re on the cusp of Peak Everything. Nearly all of our essential natural resources are reaching their limits: oil, fresh water, soil, sea ice, consumer confidence. I reference you to the current unfolding disaster: economic meltdown, global warming, climate chaos, escalating energy and resource costs, looming shortages, endless war, biodiversity erosion, and deteriorating public health- which have been nicely externalized by a corporate elite and federal government for more than just 8 years. America has been a burden to the world on any of the above issues, a staunch opposition to progress and even scientific reality.

I’m now seeing tipping points. A critical mass of people talking about these truths, who are creating solutions, not mere band-aids and complaining, for our crisis. A strategic window of opportunity has opened to take back control over our institutions: to create millions of urban and rural green jobs; to transform our international agenda; and to make a smooth transition from fossil fuels, climate chaos, and resource wars to a renewable, peaceful, solar-based agriculture and economy. The mechanized, carbon-intense, wasteful, outdated economics of the first globalization is over. Time to prove that a new one can also be productive.

As organizers, it is absolutely our responsibility to encourage this transition. A new leader can bring peace and stability to this country. But without ideas and citizen pressure, the status quo will maintain apathetic in Washington. We can work with the government to suggest a new era for America. When America is on top of the important issues, the world benefits. These last few days have given me the audacity to hope that change might just come. What does that mean?

It’s been long overdue.

A couple bright ideas that will power our future:
America Needs a New Growth Strategy. It’s Getting Hot In Here, 11/11.
http://itsgettinghotinhere.org/2008/11/11/america-needs-a-new-growth-strategy/

Organic Transitions: Beyond the Gloom & Doom of Economic Depression, Climate Change, & Peak Oil. Organic Transitions Campaign.:
http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_15140.cfm

Organic Consumer’s Association: Organic Transitions campaign. http://www.organicconsumers.org/transitions.cfm

http://www.organicconsumers.org/transitions.cfm

Bioneers- humans and development

The bioneers experience has been unreal. In everything that a conference should be:

A couple big conclusions.

-Many day-to-day decisions are not based in environmental realities. A simple systems analysis shows humans have to face their impacts and begin talking about institution change and restoration.
-On the civil society systems analysis level, things look very sobering for humans. Human rights, food, culture and.waste issues abound. (Where are the solutions? We make them.)
-Who were great leaders before they were that?

And solutions:
-Collaborative business ownership shares responsibility and reward.
-Farming can be done in a way that is permanent and fulfilling.
-Development is a right. Which means material things and energy, unfortunately!
-Through the crisis, take the opportunity to rethink our great institutions. “Redream it” (Lynn Tarist- Pachamama alliance).

Look at all the amazing things that are happening! Every day, every person working to make the world better makes it so. Our energy creates our environment, Can this many leaders work together?

We already are.

—
Eddie Miller
Eddiemill.wordpress.com

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