Category: Community

Midsommarfest

On By SarahIn Community, Fun & Entertainment, Opinion1 Comment

Here we are enjoying some kabobs at Andersonville’s Midsommarfest.

At the Midsommarfest in Andersonville

You can see my new purse, and the pig t-shirt I got for Gillian’s birthday. We had a great time, wandering around, checking out the music and food and the art, chatting with folks from neighborhood.

However, I could have sword that I read on the website the day before that the festival was officially green. I carried my empties around in my purse all day because the only recycling bins I could find were teeny tiny little ones right at the entrance. Not very green friendly, it seems to me.

However, we had fun, and we look forward to going back next year. I hope they are able to acquire more recycling bins and get serious about promoting green living in Chicago. And perhaps other street fairs in the city will take heed.

National Conference for Media Reform

On By SarahIn Community, Opinion, Politics5 Comments

I’m not entirely sure how I stumbled onto these guys, but I sure am glad I did. This weekend Free Press hosted a the National Conference for Media Reform (NCMR) in St. Paul (St. Paul has got it going on these days!). Since discovering Twitter, I have been looking for cool feeds to follow, and I have become aware of a few folks who started following me. Pretty neat.

I found Free Press website and book marked them in Ma.gnolia back in April, but didn’t think about it much again after that. Admittedly, I get kind of lazy about the websites I save there, just kind of harding them for future reference. And I do refer back to them, but some times it takes me a while. But I digress.

I didn’t think about Free Press again until this weekend when the Twittersphere just lit up with activity from the NCMR conference. I had no idea it was going on, but I started seeing lots of posts with the #ncmr hash tag, and the tweets included interesting quotes from the speeches and panels they were watching, and there was a post for the live feed of the conference, so I decided to check it out.

It was amazing! The likes of Bill Moyers, Dan Rather, Ariana Huffington, Amy Goodman, and Van Jones were all there talking about media’s responsibility to help the public hold politicians accountable, and the necessity of media to stay independent in order to accomplish this.

It was all so inspiring. I’ve been tuning in as I can this entire weekend, in between chores and errands. Bill Moyers address is a must-see, and there is another video of him being accosted by a Fox News reporter that makes me just love Moyers more than I did before. The video is going viral, which is very exciting. Word is getting out!

I highly recommend checking out any of these videos. Lawrence Lessig’s is really good. Van Jones had me clapping and cheering here in my living room (I’ll post later when its uploaded). Dan Rather is just a cool guy. I missed Amy Goodman, but I hope they’ll post her speech soon.

I hope the few friends who read this blog and any who stumble upon it will check some of these out. It made me feel inspired to keep blogging, to keep doing my small part of expressing myself, spreading the encouragement to others to do the same, and to use the new media tools to build a progressive movement and community.

New Blog: InFomentation

On By SarahIn Community, Internet, WorkLeave a comment

All in all, I think it was a successful weekend. Looking back on my to-do lists, I accomplished many of the things I set out to do. Perhaps not all. I didn’t practice yoga on Monday. Oh well. But I did get the skate board out! Woohoo!

One significant thing that I didn’t include on my list, however, was launching my new blog, InFomentation. It was inspired by the research I am doing for an article that I’m writing about technology and social change movements. The folks at NetSquared have got it going on!

I’ve been sitting on the idea for a few months now, hashing it out with Gillian, letting it germinate. Well, Spring is here! Though you wouldn’t know it right now, its so darn cold out. But this weekend I was provided with just the fertilizer and sunshine that I need it to get that baby off the ground.

Paradoxologies will remain my personal blog, and InFormentation, while it will include personal reflection, will be of a more professional nature. I’m excited to be embracing this creative outlet more and more, and to be connecting with people and continuing to learn and grow as a result.

I hope you will visit them both!

Happy Earth Day!

On By SarahIn Community, OpinionLeave a comment

Every day should be Earth Day. Gillian and I are trying to live more mindfully each day, making changes that seem little, are relatively painless, but if more and more people practiced probably would make a difference. Here are a list of things that we do (or don’t do) to live in a more earth-friendly manner:

  • Take fewer showers and more “bird baths”
  • Drive less (we’re actually thinking of getting rid of our car altogether and getting into a car share)
  • Bring totes everywhere with us instead of collecting plastic or paper bags
  • Wash the laundry in cold water
  • Hang dry our clothes
  • Change our light bulbs to CFLs
  • Use rechargeable batteries
  • Use cloth napkins
  • Use reusable kitchen wipes instead of paper towels
  • Of course we recycle
  • Buy locally grown and produced foods and goods
  • Eat meat fewer times per week
  • Continue to educate ourselves about environmental sustainability

We’re also going to start composting and gardening this summer. When we shop, we try to be mindful about it, thinking about the object’s usefulness and life time, and think about what’s going to happen to the object after it’s no longer useful.

I was also gratified today to see all of the environmental links that my contacts were saving on Ma.gnolia. Actually, for the past few days.

So what if Bush won’t get serious about green house gas emissions? If he won’t create the policy to get our emissions lower, We The People can still make the life style changes to do so. If I model the behavior, perhaps my friends, family, and colleagues will be inspired to do the same. I know that I learn from the people around me, and have adopted more sustainable living practices.

So happy Earth Day everyone! Do something, however small, good for the Earth today and every day.

Earthquake! In Chicago?

On By SarahIn Community1 Comment

It was an eerily familiar feeling this morning, being gently woken up, as if someone was standing by my bed rocking it ever so slightly.

We live in a solid building, so I knew it wasn’t the wind shaking us. I had to think for a second, wake up a little and think about where I was.

No, I really do live in Chicago, not Oakland any more, but I wasn’t so sure at 4:35 this morning.

That was definitely an earthquake.

I thought we had moved away from that stress! I guess you can’t even count on the earth beneath your feet.