Politicas Europeas de Inclusion Cultural..

East of Eden quote

"The American Standard translation [of the bible] orders men to triumph over sin, and you can call sin ignorance. The King James translation makes a promise in ‘Thou shalt,’ meaning that men will surely triumph over sin. But the Hebrew word, the word timshel — ‘Thou mayest’ — that gives a choice. 

It might be the most important word in the world. It says the way is open"..

EU & US

Will the EU ever become the US? With a single parliment i mean, we';re just about there for the rest of the measures.. Trade, populations, culture, hey we're all the same huh.. Apart from those crazies in the balklands, and maybe turkey (new pakistan anyone?). We'd be the hicks in the north arguing with everyone. So not so different from now then..

Evidence based policy..

I wonder if evidence based policy is ever going to become a reality: we could even blame it on the computers who calculate risk. It would also mean starting again with current laws which if you look at gun laws in the US, or property laws in the UK are fundamentals no 4 year government wants to mess with. And starting again often means revolution or Khamer Rouge or other nasties..

However: Someone gets badly hurt for every 350 trips on horseback; for ecstasy trips, the figure is one in 10,000. As politicaLLY unpaletable as it is, its hard to argue against killing horse-riders..

Ideas for study abroad programme..

We've got students coming here for a month (24th May -19th June), and i'm putting ideas together for potential projects and side-sessions from the main teaching. Three themes so far:

1) case studeis - ireland, rwanda (15 years ago this month), the 'boy's club' problem of refugees (potential huge numbers anda future where nation states matter less), problems beyond socialism & ideological conflicts

2) Short taster sessions - group mediation, types of power, behavioural change, Ubuntu, NVC, cohesion linked to identity and culture.

3) Counter arguments - get them to argue the opposite point of view (could relate to case studies above), attitudinal changes in the 20C of war, media and complicity in recent unpopular wars (related to 'who are the stakeholds & who gains'), do 21C societies need enemies, world values survey and how soldiers and civilians can have the same values.

I'd like to get beyond the usual 'war is bad' hippy bit (in fact it can be a very effective long-term conflict resolution tool), and that NGOs are good and governments are corrupt. Ideas welcomed..

pics from hot springs..

European Union

Erica did her first talk last night at the Ministry of Culture, was kissed by the minister (although he has, as yet, been unable to sign her off officially), and gave an hours talk on the european union and cuture. Pretty impressive, and i'll stick the vids & pics up tomorrow.

But about the European Union - got me thinking. If South America is planning to make a union, maybe they need a big war like we did to start it. They need economic motivations, and they need to cosy up to people they don't like (so not just Chavez and his mates in an anti imperialist rant - like maybe our future 'league of democracies' would be). How we have dealt with diversity, with borders, with trade and money - could this be the future of South America?

I'm not sure people here have the same sense of time and space. Not just the example that we were kept waiting for a meeting for 20 mins directly beneath a poster promoting 'good timekeeping'..

The Ecovia is the main motorised bus lane transport, and has a narrow passage to get in and out. And you wait in the corridor for the bus,  with people walking past you. And then someone will come and stand directly in front of you (when there is lots of space to the side) so that everyone walking along has to bump into you, or stop of push past etc. 

Now - we have been socialised to say "I was here first, your subsequent actions have a direct negative consequence on me that i think you ought to be aware of" etc. We force these bad people until they stop doing being so thoughtless (as a form of society moulding behavioural change), so do the same things in cars through reward and punishment. 

But here in ecuador - i don't think i have any more rights because i was there first. Which makes more sense if you think holistically. (i remember stupid examples of people 'playing the system' in the UK by driving very fast towards traffic pulling out to force them to stop - this it the downside of a system based, erm, system.) I wonder what would happen if we see things more as a whole and less as separate interaction in our lives as a linear path..

Where we live on google maps..

(although you might have seen the street when the plane came down behind our flat!!!)

View Larger Map

or this:

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=colon,+quito+ecuador&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=36.452734,79.101563&ie=UTF8&ll=-0.199856,-78.49062&spn=0.011244,0.019312&z=16&iwloc=addr

I promise to pay the bearer on demand..?

In which case i am asking (i'll put it in a freedom of information request if you like) for my money back. If i'm going to be incurring $30,000 worth of debt over the next few years, i think i'll take my bat & ball home.

When the currency failed in ecuador in 2004 - they closed the doors of all the banks, and noone get their money while the currency plummeted. By the time the Sucre had been shored up by the Dollar most people's assets were worthless. We met a lady at the weekend who lost $7,000 (a lot of money here).

So with the eruptions in London this morning. While we MUST retain confidence in the banks, what other options are there?

I remember two stories from the summer: 1) if the ports were blockaded we would run out of food in the UK in 72 hours. Instead of cracking heads, why doesn';t someone target French ports (normally the french do this themselves but..)

2) there was a suggestion in the summer that the cashpoints might run out of money. In the same way as we ran out of petrol (many people here consider petrol a safe way to store money!) why couldn't we run out of pound notes on fine afternoon..? Again, instead of cracking heads, why don't they organise everyone to take out money on the same day, the system would crash (like the trojen at the moment that blackmails companies - if they don't pay, the trojen sends hundreds and thousands of emails and requests to the company website at the same time and crashes it.). Oh  - i forgot if we crash the banks, we own them now and we're the shareholders. 

If they lose, then we lose.

Mobile telephone applications as a development tool..

Nokia are calling for social innovators to make mobile phone applications that help development in poor or rural areas. A few ideas so far (of course i can't actually write the code for the apps, but its an interesting idea).

Info on the standard price of goods so farmers aren't ripped off.

Peer to peer selling, so co-ops can cut out the middle man.

Have virtual networks so meetings can be arranged in the local town, or bargains can be struck before physical meetings.

Education ideas - how about linking open university with interesting modules, people can download and store info on what they want to know.

Health care - Home Doctor application called "name that disease".

Video module for people performing their own surgery.

SMS the hospital with your arrival time.

Recycling, bartering and lending system in rural areas - like gumtree or craigslist.

http://callingallinnovators.com/default.aspx