STIR - APRIL 2012
This issue features an interview about the Transition Network with
ROB HOPKINS; an account of the criminalisation of Food Not Bombs by cofounder
KEITH McHENRY, a look at the creative protests of Craftivism Wellington by LIZZY WILLMINGTON; an exploration of how
sports teams can build communities around political ideas by a member of
THE EASTON COWBOYS; an article on the failure of centralisation file sharing systems by
FRANCO IACOMELLA; an interview about the The Common Ground Collective in New Orleans with cofounder SCOTT CROW; a history
of money and other ways of monetising our wealth by The New Economics Foundation's
DAVID BOYLE; a review of the new Transition 2.0 film showing communities printing their own money and growing food by
CHARLOTTE DU CANN; map reading the future of radical publishing by
ANNE BEECH; a blog from an activist from
TRANSITION HEATHROW about generating their own energy; a blog from
PATRICK CHALMERS on why we can be the answer to the mainstream media; and the launch of the online radio show RADIO FREE EVERYBODY and a Q&A with
MAT CALLAHAN.
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Money and Wealth: How to Heal the Disconnect
DAVID BOYLE
There is no more conservative nation on earth than the British when it comes to money. Let me correct that. The Scots are great money innovators in history. They gave us Michael Linton who invented LETS and John Law who ruined the French government in 1716
by monetising their national debt. No, it’s the English who are so financially conservative...
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Interview — Rob Hopkins
JONNY GORDON-FARLEIGH
To mark the release of In Transition 2.0 — an inspirational film about communities printing their own money, growing food, localising their economies and setting up community power stations — I
spoke to the Rob Hopkins, co-founder of the Transition Network and Transition Totnes, about energy ownership, cooperative finance strategies, and how storytelling can change our expectations of ourselves and our communities...
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Stir
Magazine has teamed up with
PM Press for a chance to win a copy of scott crow's
Black Flags and Windmills: Hope, Anarchy, and the Common Ground Collective. Answer this simple question for a chance to win:
In which city was the Common Ground Collective founded? Send you answers in an email to [log in to unmask] with 'scott
crow' in the title by 10th May 2012. The Winner will be contacted shortly after the competition ends.
To
celebrate the release of the new
In Transition 2.0 film,
Stir Magazine is giving away a copy to one lucky reader. To be in for a chance to win, answer this simple question: In which town did the Transition Network begin?
Send your answers in an email to
[log in to unmask] with
'Transition' in the title by 10th May 2012. The Winner will be contacted shortly after the competition ends.
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Sharing in Compulsive Times
FRANCO IACOMELLA
Recently, two of the most important and used storage and sharing files services in the web — FileServe and Wupload — changed their conditions of use making impossible to share information between regular users. Now both services only offer cloud storage for
people to access files they personally uploaded. Millions of files stored in those services are now inaccessible and the links pointing to them are now dead...
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The Hidden Power of Cooperatives
MICHAEL SHUMAN
A group of scholars at the University of Wisconsin recently counted nearly 30,000 cooperatives in the United States operating
at 73,000 locations. The vast majority are consumer cooperatives, with 343 million memberships (many people belong to multiple co-ops, hence the number of memberships exceeds the U.S. population)...
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Moving Towards Ethical Energy
IAN WESTMORELAND
A question that seems to garner a lot of debate whenever the topics of climate change and peak oil are raised is what our future sources of energy might look like. This is a common feature of groups involved in the Transition movement, since the vast majority
of us in the north depend so much on finite sources of fossil fuels to power our modern, civilised lifestyles..
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Easton Cowboys: The Whos, Whats, Hows, and Whys
WILL SIMPSON
‘Who’ is easy enough. The Easton Cowboys and Cowgirls are an amateur sports club based in inner city Bristol. We haven’t got our own ground and most people wouldn’t have heard of us. But over the years we have done some interesting things, most of which are
included in a book I’ve co-written about the club that’s due to be published this summer...
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Mainstream Media Aren't the Answer, We are
PATRICK CHALMERS
It’s a pig to get going as a journalist. Despite reporters’ enduring reputations as sub-pond-life types, plenty of people are eager to join them in writing, filming or photographing the news. Supply way outstrips the commercial demand, making it hard to earn
any sort of living...
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Map Reading the Future of Radical Publishing
ANNE BEECH
As part of Stir’s series on radical publishing and bookselling, I’ve been invited to add my thoughts on the future of radical publishing. This is a personal response, not intended to represent either the publisher I work for, or the community of radical publishing,
however defined, as a whole. A brief background and full disclosure: I’m currently one of the directors of Pluto Press, which itself is one of a small but determined group of avowedly political, independent publishers...
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April 4th Day of Hunger
KEITH McHENRY
I picked up the phone as I waited for my 4th April flight from Chicago to San Francisco. It was Nick Cooper, a Food Not Bombs volunteer, calling with news from Houston. “We lost. City council voted to restrict our meals.” Houston joins a growing list of cities
banning or restricting the sharing of food outside. These laws will force people to seek food from the garbage...
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Craft + Activism = Craftivism
LIZZIE WILLMINGTON
Craftivism is about reclaiming craft and breaking it out of the domicile environment and into the streets, parks, railings, and pretty much anywhere you can attach a cable tie on. The process takes thought; the skills take time and subjects are about long
term issues. It’s about the return of craft and a resistance to mass production; a celebration of the individual and an encouragement to participate...
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In Transition 2.0 Review — People of the Butterfly
CHARLOTTE DU CANN
In an abandoned lot in Pittsburgh a boy is selling lettuce. Down Tooting High Street a carnival is in full swing. In a village in Portugal two men are walking in a field beside horses. In a fire station in Moss Side a film preview is taking place: “There was
silence. You could have heard a pin drop. And then a sound, kind of like a pin dropping. There it is again. And again, many times in rapid succession. Then silence. Nothing.”...
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