Greetings from Lisbon, Portugal, where I’m tending to both family business, and soaking up all I can when it comes to how things are REALLY going here for the individuals that make up this country. The results, in both text and audio will be coming soon, as well as the next edition of the DIY homesteading series which I’ve greatly enjoyed working on.
For today I wanted to go back in time a few months, back in June I was in Georgia doing some work on behalf of Small World News. While I was there I was invited to give a talk at the Frontline Club, and the topic was crowdsourced funding with some extra attention on flattr. Afterwards I did a longer form interview on the topic of journalism and new media. You’ve probably seen me do many of these in the past, but just in case, here’s how it turned out:
Thats how it feels when everywhere you turn there are victims of some rapidly spreading phenomenon that leaves dispair and suffering in its wake. Here in Lisbon the headlines read “Nation Reduces Its Deficit By 22%” with a sort of pride; the demands of the global bankers are being met. But if you flip the pages of the newspaper, talk to the taxi driver, or the women on her way to work in Lisbon this morning, you’ll hear the painful details: Energy company privatized, raising prices by 30% next year. Most salaries in public and private sector slashed by 8% and higher. Elimination of holiday pay, a yearly bit of income most mid and low income families count on to get by. Government programs for career development, cut. – Everywhere you look it is the average citizen, who for decades has survived on one of the lowest wages in Europe, that now literally pays to get the government out of its massive financial hole.
Somehow the bankers, governments, and many citizens in the rest of Europe will call it a success if Portugal manages to keep reducing its deficit. Many of the same people who, over the past decade, helped plunge the country into its current crisis. The government in Brussels and here in Lisbon will probably pat itself on the back when the good numbers are announced in a few months or (more likely) years.
But what is left of a nation when everything has been cut or sold, and people have been squeezed to a breaking point?
I digress, this is not supposed to be a list of what does or doesn’t need to be done to save Portugal or save the Portuguese economy. This is an open question about the working of the global and European economy. About how we measure what is good and what is bad. While government and financial leaders act as if this is the medicine to cure the country of its ills, they bleed and beat the country through their actions. No I suppose not literally, but if you look around, there is a country full of afflicted people here.
What happens when two New Yorkers leave their successful careers and fabulous apartments in favor of building their own house and a new kind of life on a former trailer park in New Mexico? 5 years ago Wendy Tremayn and Mikey Sklar set off to live life in a radically different way in Truth and Consequences, New Mexico. Building their own home-compound. Growing a lot of their own food. Using alternative energy and sources for basic needs. And working from home as independent professionals and entrepreneurs. Whats more, they’ve been blogging and vlogging the process the whole way.
How did they do it? What do they say about the experience 5 years in? Whats the biggest drawback or benefit? Listen to this inspiring couple as we cover all this and more.
Part 1 in a series that focuses on the topic of making your own home, work, and life in what these days might be considered a nonconventional way.
(note there was an extremely loud storm in Amsterdam as I recorded this interview, so be ready for the sounds of rain)
This week Im working on a series of podcasts as well as an article for United Academics Magazine which focuses on people who have created their own home and work spaces. Those who left cities and suburbs, left houses and apartments, left conventional jobs, and moved to a rural or undeveloped place. In their new environments they have built or rebuilt their homes using a mix of traditional, proven techniques and new, innovative features. They do things like grow/raise their own food, collect their own water, generate their own power, and create their own kinds of income-generating work.
This phenomenon, at first glance, is nothing new; people have been leaving cities for the country periodically for decades. (though statistically more people do the opposite) But this generation is the unique above all for the techniques and knowledge it brings to these remote locations. Knowledge that is not only their own, but the never-ending collective knowledge one can consult via the internet. Installing a solar power system? Never built a barn before? Canned your own preserves? Check youtube, the step-by-step instructions are there waiting for you.
Of course the internet is not the only source of knowledge, the offline community that one joins when moving to a rural area also has its own experience and skills which might be called upon. Between the depth of the internet and the generations of experience in your town, whatever it is you don’t yet know how to do on your own, you can learn. And this is exactly what is happening.
Back in the urban-suburban world that so many in the western hemisphere see as the only two choices, such life changes are probably still seen as odd or undesirable. They might lose sleep over barely tenable costs of living and work stress, but they’ve grown up with the idea that this is all normal and simply “life”. Need something for the kids or for the house? Go to Walmart. Need heat? Turn up the thermostat. All needs are met by some external service or source, all of which come at a monetary cost. Again, at some point this may seem like the only way life works. But this group of people has proven otherwise, and their will to take action in this manner has inspired more people to do the same.
In the coming series of podcasts you will hear from this special group of people. They’re explain how they used to live and what led them to make a radical change. They’ll also explain the details about why this way of life not only works better for them, but why they are better prepared for the foreseeable future where the value of money decays further and the ability to grow or make things becomes more rare and necessary.
This month saw one of the first major uprisings against the government in Angola in recent memory. It was organized, you guessed it- with the help of social media. After Gaddafi, President José Eduardo dos Santos is the longest running leader of an African state (32 years). And just like with the now-fugitive Muammar, many are saying this presidency has gone on for too long. But can change finally come to Angola?
Joining me for a podcast conversation about the reports that have come out of Angola this month is citizen of the world and Global Voices contributor Janet Gunter. Together we try to understand and explain where the country stands when it comes to politics, economy, human rights, and prospects for the future.
At this year’s Chaos Communication Camp I decided to talk about what i’ve learned regarding how the minerals in our mobile devices are mined. The infamous process including all the middle players and related groups is increasingly being looked at as people around the world wake up to the reality of what this thing is that we carry with us everywhere everyday. In waking up, more and more people are demanding transparency and a real standard of ethics when it comes to how phones are made. One such group of people here in the Netherlands came together under the name Fairphone. In my talk I get into the activities and discoveries made by fairphone in the past year during a fact finding mission in Congo (DRC).
(full credit to the documentation team and everyone who made it possible to have this video and share it online)
