Seeing Possibilities
by Elizabeth Sawin
— July 6, 2003 —
My neighbors’ daughter has been home on a break between a college semester and study in Brazil. She’s a beautiful young woman, and I am almost as enthralled with her as my two little girls are. She moves around from one odd job to the next – painting a house, moving furniture – wrapped [...]
Speeding Through a School Zone
by Elizabeth Sawin
— June 4, 2003 —
It is easy to see the assumptions of previous eras. They stand out so clearly.
“Kings are divine.”
“Women are too dim-witted to vote.”
“Slaves are sub-human property.”
It is much harder to see the assumptions of our own time, but as an old assumption begins to loose some of its power to explain the world, it becomes [...]
Community and Sustainability – A Powerful Combination
by Elizabeth Sawin
— May 1, 2003 —
Some years ago, I was part of a group that set out to create a community where we could experiment with sustainable living. One of our first steps was to write down a list of guiding principles. At the top of our list were Community and Sustainability. (The others, if you are curious, were [...]
Between the People and the Government there is a Huge Ethical Gap
by Elizabeth Sawin
— April 1, 2003 —
“Why aren’t they using their words?” a seven-year-old asked her mother today. She was talking about the U.S. bombing of Iraq.”
So begins Talking with Children about War – an article sent home from my daughter’s school.
The little girl’s question is a good one. But I didn’t find the answer in Talking with Children about [...]
A Different Kind of Green Revolution in Cuba
by Hal Hamilton
— March 24, 2003–
I recently returned from a research trip that challenged all conventional assumptions about progress and feeding the world.
Usually conversations about agricultural productivity begin with the Green Revolution of the 1970s and 1980s. During those years farmers of rice, wheat and a few other globally traded crops increased their yields with new seeds and chemicals. Green [...]
