Scientific American reports: When Mary gets home from work and goes to her PC to check e-mail, the PC isn’t just sitting there. It’s working for a biotech company, matching gene sequences to a library of protein molecules. Its DSL connection is busy downloading a block of radio telescope data to be analyzed later. Its disk contains, in addition to Mary’s own files, encrypted fragments of thousands of other files. Occasionally one of these fragments is read and transmitted; it’s part of a movie that someone is watching in Helsinki. Then Mary moves the mouse, and this activity abruptly stops. Now the PC and its network connection are all hers. … Mary’s computer is moonlighting for other people. But she is not giving anything away for free. As her PC works, pennies trickle into her virtual bank account. The payments come from the biotech company, the movie system and the backup service. Instead of buying expensive “server farms,” these companies are renting time and space, not just on Mary’s computer but on millions of others as well. It’s a win-win situation. (03/04/02)
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Green politics differs from traditional politics in that its purpose is to promote these values, rather than to gain political power by using issues which are currently fashionable. 1. Ecological Wisdom, 2. Grassroots Democracy, 3. Personal and Social Responsibility,4. Nonviolence , 5. Decentralization , 6. Community-based Economics, 7. PostPatriarchal Values, 8. Respect for Diversity, 9. Global Responsibility and 10. Future Focus (03/04/02)
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Yesterday, Ralph Metzner explained that we humans have lost our connection with Mother Earth. We have seen ourselves as separate from Life and from the Planet that is our home. This separateness and loss of connection now threatens everything. Today, contributing editor Jivan Vatayan has prepared Metzner’s call to action for posting on the web. The following selection is from Chapter 11 of Ralph Metzner’s book “Green Psychology”. (03/04/02)
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There are major concerns that the people who will be looking into this major downfall of a former solid company cannot really judge the people involved. This is due to their receiving money from Enron as campaign contributions. This is not accurate. The real problem is that the people that are looking into this situation are the inventors of the types of accounting that has brought us the ENRON disaster. They are our fair congressman. They invented pro-forma accounting, and how to best hide the truth about the real strength of what we know as our government. Remember when we had forecast surpluses as far as the eye could see. Even then we were still running deficits. What a scam. The best analogy I have heard is that it is like putting Colonel Sanders in charge of watching the chickens. I am sure that they will certainly get to the bottom of this.  —Terence R.Wilken (03/04/02)
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Terence R. Wilken continues his series of essays titled No Safe Ground that began with this conclusion: I have often tried to figure out why the obvious is so difficult for the Generals to see, why the obvious is so difficult for the Congress to see, why the obvious is so difficult for our President to see. They reside on “SAFE GROUND.”  They reside in the most secure bunkers.  They reside on Capital Hill.  They reside aboard Air Force One.  They don’t become fatalists.  They feel that War is Winnable.  They have no reason to look for any other solution.  As long as this attitude prevails at the highest levels of military and civilian authority, there will be “NO SAFE GROUND.”
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