The Oberlin 2025 Planning Meetings

I just attended the final community feedback meeting for Oberlin’s planning commission to craft a plan for Oberlin in 2025. They have been held by the College, City, Library, different Non-profits, Churches.. etc. This one was held by the WRLC. If you live in Oberlin, I doubt you haven’t been invited to one. Fascinating table and the ability to be heard by city government. Really, the ability to craft our future as an area.

So exciting that we can build and prepare these networks to be ready for whatever happens. We should decide to go on a “green belt” that would be around Oberlin (the School district) and would provide Oberlin’s restaurants and schools with fresh healthy food, and Oberlin’s residents (esp. low-income) with a chance to grow on their own land to start.

If anyone in Oberlin is interested in growing, go with it! Get those seeds in and see if you can help it grow. It was organic gardening that got me started along a path that others can follow to be our future agricultural economy: access, vegetable/community gardening, small animals, farm intern, market gardener … (program at LCCC?)
In Massachusetts, an organization that I recommend ithe New Entry Sustainable Farm Project (http://nesfp.org/). They are amazing and have a class that leads into an intro program where you practice CSA growing on 3/4 acre.

For anyone who’s interested in Energy sustainability, BU has a great grad school program on it, very good and some of the top energy and environment professors in the country there. For energy, try to do something tangible like a utility-scale solar field or reducing how much you/we use. Here, last night I had great luck challenging the city council people that were there on it; they took up the challenge.

I hope that as we move forward we can rise to meet these challenges, as a nation and globally. A shout out to the folks in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts who are now beginning the 2 community discussion meetings on these topics!
-Eddie
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Obama Says Debt Default May ‘Unravel’ Global Financial System

Source: Bloomberg, May 15, 2011.
Possible! When “financial stuff” gets serious. I have written about this here here and here. In short, the government needs to reduce how much money it spends while stimulating the Economy to do something.

By Roger Runningen
May 15 (Bloomberg) — President Barack Obama said failure to raise the U.S. debt ceiling by early August might disrupt the global financial system and plunge the nation into another recession.

If investors “around the world thought the full faith and credit of the U.S. was not being backed up, if they thought we might renege on our IOUs, it could unravel the entire financial system,” Obama said on a broadcast taped for today’s “Face the Nation” program on CBS. “We could have a worse recession than we’ve already had.”

Obama is reaching out to Republican and Democrat lawmakers to win approval of an increase in the debt ceiling. The government projected this month that the $14.3 trillion debt limit will be reached tomorrow. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner says that while he can juggle accounts for a time, he will run out of options for avoiding default by early August.

Republicans including House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky are seeking trillions of dollars of spending cuts and no tax increases in exchange for supporting a higher debt limit. Obama on April 13 proposed a long-term deficit-reduction package of about $4 trillion over 12 years. It includes $2 trillion in spending cuts, $1 trillion in tax increases and $1 trillion in reduced interest payments.

Obama held talks with Senate Democrats and Republicans May 11 and May 12, and appointed Vice President Joe Biden to lead negotiations with congressional leaders to try to strike a deal on reducing debt and deficits.

“I’ve said, ‘Get them in a room, hammer out a deal, and make sure that we don’t even get close’” to defaulting on the nation’s debt, Obama said.

Debt reduction must be “balanced” and include tax increases, Obama said.

“Are we going to make sure no single group — not seniors, not poor folks, not any single group — is carrying the whole burden? Let’s make sure the burden is shared,” Obama said on the CBS program, which was taped on May 11 in Washington for broadcast today.

Obama said he would resist cuts in such areas as medical research, infrastructure such as roads, bridges or railroads, or college loans for needy students.

“My hope is that Congress is going to say ‘This is so serious, we can’t play politics with it,’” Obama said. “Have faith that usually after trying everything else, we end up doing the right thing.”

–With assistance from James Rowley and Laura Litvan in Washington. Editors: Andrea Snyder, Leslie Hoffecker

To contact the reporters on this story: Roger Runningen in Washington at rrunningen@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Mark Silva at msilva34@bloomberg.net

Liberal and Conservative Values

It’s so funny that Conservatives and liberals have different values that they express in Congress vs. what they would do at home..
Example:
A conservative, would discipline his kids in order to be a good parent and teach them what they should and shouldn’t do. At the same time, many Conservatives in Congress will not regulate companies no matter how out of line they get, and be a good parent for their own good.
A liberal, would trust that his kids will develop to be the best that they themselves can be and make their own right decisions, even if it’s not in line with the parent’s own values. This does not comply with a standard of regulation.

A point of agreement: More importantly than the decision to regulate or not regulate is whether a company or person has the capacity to look out for future generations in the bigger-picture impact of what they DO. Let’s get past this discussion on whether to regulate or not regulate, and encourage solutions that work to get our society and our economy off of oil, and preserve our planet for future generations. In a micro scale, it is part of everyone’s “work” right now (hate that term) to care for the well-being of future generations as well (even if your company doesn’t have to).

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Going to be maintaining my WordPress blog today and publishing some drafts that I’m writing and finishing up. -EM