Bristol to Brooklyn, Paris to Pittsburgh: Restless cities act themselves on climate crisis
"Deep reading" is good for citizenship - but we need "deep screening" too. Time to cultivate a "bi-literate brain"
Veganism can generate anger - because it reminds us of the suffering of animals
Robots and AI: all the things they'll do. We must apply our intelligence for the best result, says Martin Ford
Four days for work, three days for play.
And both managers and workers can see the value
A girl skips school to climate protest before her Parliament... and other stories from Masha Gessen
The rat race--literally. "Happiness", an animation from Steve Cutts
EVENT SUGGESTIONS FOR THE COMING WEEKS
Can We Breathe Out Anxiety and Boost Our Resilience? A Challenge for Mind And Body - with Margaret Wadsley@Conway Hall
Tue 4 Dec, 19.30-21 Resilience and anxiety are topics frequently referred to whenever the mental health of communities is mentioned. Anxiety also seems to be on the rise in the world of children and young people.Margaret Wadsley will be exploring resilience and anxiety and linking them to issues around attachment. She will highlight connections to Porges Polyvagal Theory and recent discoveries that holistic practices can and do impact resilience positively. She will engage the audience in considering the obstacles to resilience and the factors in society that create greater predispositions to challenges with anxiety and low resilience. Findings from neuroscience research will be shared to give examples of experimental studies that validate claims that ancient practices benefit and calm mind and body. The lecture will include an experiential element to demonstrate the benefits of holistic practices that include: qigong, yoga, meditation and breath practices. More here.
The People's Lobby for Proportional Representation@St James the Less
Tue 11 Dec, from 12 PM Join Make Votes Matter as they descend on Westminster to demand fair votes! Brexit demonstrates, two years on from the EU referendum, the extreme polarisation and fractious debate within our communities and politics. Such division ultimately fails to serve the UK’s best interests - for that we need a truly representative Parliament. We must seize this unique and unusual opportunity to lobby our MPs for Proportional Representation - the time is now! Creating a better society for British people, in which genuinely representative, informed and deliberative democracy can thrive, is at the heart of the campaign to win Proportional Representation. The People’s Lobby can, amidst the noise of Brexit, get to the root issue: our democracy is broken. On Tuesday 11th December, the movement for Proportional Representation will lobby Parliament, calling on our MPs to back fair votes. Co-hosted by cross-party MPs, this will be an opportunity to push electoral reform to the top of the political agenda. Sign up here.
St Ethelburga's Festive Gathering@St Ethelburga's Centre Fri 14 Dec, 19-22 This festive season, St Ethelburga’s is delighted to be launching their new monthly one-of-a-kind devotional open mic sessions, hosted by the Beloved Sara Zaltash and Sunday Assembly’s Sam Weatherald, and featuring St Ethelburga’s own resident spoken word artist, Kishan Shah also known as Spoken Thiiird. What is a devotional open mic? It is an open stage for you to come up and share your experiences of faith and spirituality in whatever creative, performative way you feel called to grab the mic. A space to honour our expressions of spirit in these times of intense personal, social and environmental transformation. However your divinity sparks, come and share your songs, poems, stories, ideas and invocations in the spirit of communion and with the beaming-hearted witness of your St Ethelburga’s kin.
Delicious hearty food and festive fayre will also be on offer, with all profits supporting St Ethelburga’s work with refugees and migrants. Tickets here.
FINALLY All of you reading this have signed up to co-create The Alternative UK. Respect to you for knowing that an alternative is possible. We need your help and participation but know in return that not everyone has the time to do more than they are already doing. Not everyone can put the political work at the centre of their project – but they hope and wish that someone would. That someone is us. Please support our work so that it will get done – not just in a minimalist, marginalist way, but in a real and connected way that will cause lasting change. A one-off donation helps enormously. But a regular donation is a game changer.
