Thanks to Slow Food Boston, writer/farmer Novella Carpenter will be at the Fort Point Artists Community Store on Friday the 13th. So I get to ask the question (spoiler alert) that was making me crazy when I read Farm City
: why didn't you eat the bird killed by the dogs?
The book was a gift from someone who was reminded of me when she heard Carpenter on NPR. We both garden and raise bees in urban neighborhoods that have as much grit as dirt. But pigs and turkeys and ducks, oh my! After reading Novella, I wanted to raise my own pigs but my yard's too small and I don't own a car so couldn't schlep the enormous amounts of food necessary to keep 'em growing. Read the book!
Garden Girl is Roxbury's city farmer but I find her style a little too suburban. Give me the dumpster diving and free-ranging fowl and sow of Novella to the stifling animal pens and pristine raised beds of the Spruill/Moreno compound - even if the latter are mandated by city ordinance.
Friday, November 6, 2009
The History of the Past 30 Years in Greater Boston
...in one newspaper story and all the comments it attracted.
Luke Isman's Bicycle Defense Kit
Bicycle Defense Kit
The Bicycle Defense Kit (BDK) offers options for dealing with aggressive motorists. Contained within an altoids tin, the 8 tools vary in detectability, potential to cause damage, and legality. Specifically, cyclists can:
- Issue "citizen citations" with official-ish tickets.
- Label offending vehicles with an "I was a jerk to a cyclist" sticker.
- Introduce the risk of paint damage with a Jolly Rancher.
- Create certain coating cremation via DOT3 brake fluid.
- Make cars stink worse than their exhaust with a carefully-placed stink bomb.
- Throw a trusty bolt to dent offending traffic as it passes.
- Lock out loony drivers by filling their keyholes with super glue.
- Cut through tire valve stems with a utility blade.
Order a kit: $19.90 delivered (U.S.). Contains 3 citations, 3 stickers, and one of the rest.
home, contact, me
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
The Good Society - What's Your Opinion?
Click on share your thoughts and share your thoughts.
"The Measure of Our Success: How Do We Define and Attain the Good Society?"
A public panel presented by the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies at Harvard University
"The Measure of Our Success: How Do We Define and Attain the Good Society?"
A public panel presented by the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies at Harvard University
Friday, November 13, 2009In anticipation of our panel “The Measure of Our Success: How Do We Define and Attain the Good Society,” we’d like to hear from you. What do you think makes for a good society and quality of life? Share your thoughts on our blog by leaving a comment as we start this inter-disciplinary conversation.
The panel will take place on Friday, November 13, 2009 from 2:00-4:00 pm to consider this topic and present two important new publications. The first is the ‘Stiglitz-Sen-Fitoussi Report’ commissioned by President Nicolas Sarkozy of France that looks at how policy makers might go beyond GDP when measuring the well-being and quality of life of their people. Two of the authors, Amartya Sen in Cambridge and Jean-Paul Fitoussi (via teleconference) will discuss the findings. Professors Peter Hall and Michèle Lamont will then present their new book Successful Societies: How Institutions and Culture Affect Health, that integrates recent research in an effort to answer the question of why some societies are more successful than others at promoting individual and collective well-being.
2:00 - 4:00pm
Center for European Studies
Lower Level Conference Room, Busch Hall
27 Kirkland Street, Cambridge, MA
Amartya Sen, Nobel laureate in economics; Thomas W. Lamont University Professor and Professor of Economics and Philosophy, Harvard University; Chair Adviser of the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress;
Jean-Paul Fitoussi, Professor of Economics and President of the Observatoire Français des Conjonctures économiques (OFCE) in Paris; Coordinator of the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress;
Peter Hall, Krupp Foundation Professor of European Studies, Harvard University; Co-Director of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research's Successful Societies Program;
Michèle Lamont, Robert I. Goldman Professor of European Studies and Professor of Sociology and African and African American studies, Harvard University; Co-Director of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research's Successful Societies Program
Moderated by Éloi Laurent, senior economist and scientific advisor at the Observatoire Français des Conjonctures économiques (OFCE) and Visiting Scholar at CES
The Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies at Harvard University
27 Kirkland Street at Cabot Way, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138 USA
Tel: +1(617)495-4303 | Fax: +1(617)495-8509 | ces@fas.harvard.edu
www.ces.fas.harvard.edu
The Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies is dedicated to fostering the study of European history, politics, culture, and society at Harvard. Through our graduates, who go on to teach others about Europe and to many other roles in society, the Center sustains America's knowledge base about Europe, an important contribution to international understanding in difficult times.
The Center was founded as a catalyst to bring scholars and students together to talk and think about Europe. As such, it creates an intellectual community that is more than the sum of its parts. That community is open to everyone with interests in Europe.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
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