The last time Mike Ciul complained to me about the depressing negativity of Adbusters, we decided that there should be an equally radical, relentlessly positive activist magazine: Happiness Pony.
I’ve posted too many negative things of late. In the spirit of Happiness Pony, here is some happiness.
Library of Congress: has archived our Fasting for Darfur series! It will be part of “the historic collection of Internet materials related to the Crisis in Darfur, Sudan.” Kaihsu points out that the site for Sage, a group he’s involved with, has been archived by the British Library.
MSN search: What makes a person a genius?
Google search: Pope Benedict XVI rock and roll!
Television: Father Michael Bafaro and P&C contributor Scott Schaeffer-Duffy will be discussing the situation in Iraq on the next two episodes of “Stand Tall, Be One.”
The first episode debuts Saturday, Feb 11 at 6:30 pm Eastern time. It repeats Feb 11 at 11pm and Feb 12 at 2 am, 10 am, and 6pm. The second episode debuts Saturday, Feb 18 at 6:30 pm Eastern time. It repeats Feb 18 at 11pm and Feb 19 at 2 am, 10 am, and 6pm.
In Worcester, it shows on cable channel 13, WCCA.
On the internet, you can try WCCA’s website. This doesn’t work for me, so I just point Winamp at http://wccatv.com:8010/;stream.nsv
Father Bafaro is a Catholic priest whose resume is too extensive to summarize here. The Telegram & Gazette has called Scott Schaeffer-Duffy “Worcester’s most-traveled, most-jailed, and most notorious political radical since Abbie Hoffman.”
The Cardinal of Scotland: is back safe from Darfur.
Coffee: Workers in several NYC Starbucks have joined a union.
Kelley Square: Free, local, on-line classifieds with a clean design, named after Worcester’s beloved traffic free-for-all.
Peter Singer: interviewed in The Believer. I don’t agree with him on everything, but I appreciate the clarity of his thinking, and Ethics Into Action is the most inspiring book on activism I’ve read.
PETER SINGER: If every citizen of developed nations (and affluent people living in developed nations) were to give just 1 percent of their income to organizations fighting global poverty, we could eliminate the worst poverty….
[…]
But since most people are not doing that, there is a need for those of us who do try to act ethically to do much more. But that doesn’t mean that I’m suggesting that everyone should give away a very large portion of their income. It’s either everyone giving a little or a few giving a lot. In neither case will it destroy our economies.
BLVR: What are the clearest implications of your moral view?
PS: That we should include nonhumans within the moral sphere, and cease to make their lives miserable in order to satisfy such trivial interests of our own as the desire to eat meat, when we can nourish ourselves very well without doing so; and that we should not spend money on luxuries when the money we spend could help others to escape the tragedy of desperate poverty.