Censored 2012 (41 page)

Sources:
Stacy Mitchell, “A New Deal for Local Economies,”
Yes! Magazine
, April 29, 2010,
http://www.yesmagazine.org/new-economy/a-new-deal-for-local-economies
; Jeff Milchen, “5 Ways to Help Your Community Go Local,”
Yes! Magazine
, February 3, 2011,
http://www.yesmagazine.org/new-economy/5-ways-to-help-your-community-go-local
.

By reducing expenses in creative ways (preserving the harvest from local farms, repurposing used clothing, etc.), Americans are transforming their homes from units of consumption into units of production. Now, instead of the family working to support the household, the household works to support the family. Members of this growing home economics movement enjoy time with family and a greatly reduced ecological footprint.

Source:
Shannon Hayes, “Homemade Prosperity,”
Yes! Magazine
, December 10, 2010,
http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/what-happy-families-know/homemade-prosperity
.

We’ve entered the digital age and the media explosion is impacting everything. Journalism is struggling to reinvent itself and local newspapers (those still standing) are trying to find a new commercial model that will allow them to survive. What about public accountability in this era? Media freedom? Education will never be the same, nor perhaps should it be. Yet where is this all going? The following independent news stories point toward trends and possibilities.

Social media is a great tool for spreading information and connecting
people from all over the world. Ninety-six percent of Generation Y has joined a social network. It is estimated that Google, Facebook, and Twitter connect two billion people worldwide—a third of the planet’s population! More video was uploaded to YouTube in six months than was produced by the three major TV networks in sixty years. Wikipedia has over thirteen million articles, all written by volunteers. Through social media, a radically new order based on open access, decentralized creativity, collaborative intelligence, and easy sharing is emerging.

Source:
Neal Gorenflo, “Social Media isn’t Changing the World, It’s Creating a New One,”
Shareable
, October 12, 2010,
http://shareable.net/blog/social-media-isnt-changing-the-world-its-creating-a-new-one
.

Enjoy audio and video archives of this historic conference with presentations on: Journalism and Public Media, Social Justice and Movement Building, Policy and Politics, Technology and Innovation, Media Makers, and Culture and the Arts.

Source:
National Conference for Media Reform archives, April 8–10, 2011,
http://conference.freepress.net/archive
.

Shifting from educational factories to creative, twenty-first century education.

Source:
“RSA Animate—Changing Education Paradigms,” video, YouTube, 11:41, posted by theRSAorg, October 14, 2010,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U
.

Media-led learning enables children of various learning abilities to learn at their own pace, helping shift the education paradigm to a more self-directed and effective learning experience.

Source:
“Salam Khan: Let’s Use Video to Reinvent Education,” video, TED, 20:27, March 2011,
http://www.ted.com/talks/salman_khan_let_s_use_video_to_reinvent_education.html
.

Virtual reality is immersive and interactive—and it’s changing people’s lives, tapping into individuals’ potential to transform themselves and their world. Coming Home, for example, is a program that uses virtual reality to help veterans struggling with mental health issues.

Source:
Matthew Gilbert, “Inner Space—Technology’s New Frontier?” Institute of Noetic Sciences, November 16, 2010,
http://www.noetic.org/blog/inner-space-technologys-new-frontier/
.

Transformative movies are deeply impacting twenty-first century audiences. What differentiates these films from others is their explicit intention to either affirm a positive vision of the world or to actually change people—to challenge personal or cultural conditioning or beliefs.

Source:
Matthew Gilbert, “Transformational Films: A Genre on the Threshold,” Institute of Noetic Sciences, February 2011,
http://www.noetic.org/noetic/issue-7-february/transformational-films-a-genre-on-the-threshold/
.

Using humor, transparency, and bold parody of PR industry reps to explore the underlying dynamics of branding and marketing hype.

Source:
“Morgan Spurlock: The Greatest TED Talk Ever Told,” video, TED, 19:28, February 2011,
http://www.ted.com/talks/morgan_spurlock_the_greatest_ted_talk_ever_sold.html
.

Through Spot.Us the public can commission and participate with journalists to do reporting on important and overlooked topics. Contributions are tax deductible and Spot.Us partners with news organizations to distribute content under appropriate licenses:
http://spot.us
.

Journalism That Matters supports journalists and leaders who are shaping the news and information ecology so that journalism serves the needs of people to be self-governing. JTM focuses on cultivating “healthy journalists” and informative interaction between journalists, educators, reformers, and community members. They support renewing the inner life of the journalist, and embrace all forms of media engagement:
http://journalismthatmatters.org
.

Jasiri X’s groundbreaking hip-hop news series:
http://www.realtalkx-press.com
.

The website WikiLeaks has released hundreds of thousands of classified intelligence reports, military logs, diplomatic cables, and other material related to US foreign policy, including the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The documents have brought the misdeeds of war into the sunlight of public attention, fueling today’s antiwar movement in much the same way the Pentagon Papers once galvanized those protesting the Vietnam War.

Source:
Phyllis Bennis, “WikiLeaks: Pentagon Papers 2.0?”
Yes! Magazine
, July 27, 2010,
http://www.yesmagazine.org/peace-justice/pentagon-papers-2.0-afghanistan
.

The news stories that follow report recent studies of consciousness on two levels: personal and psychosocial. These studies emphasize how our worldviews and habits of thought shape and limit our perspective, and how, when we open our minds and hearts, everything else seems to change as well: our health, our capacity to create, and our ability to relate and succeed.

Clinical research studies showed psychotherapy assisted by the drug MDMA significantly outperformed the pharmaceutical industry in effective PTSD treatment. A recent pilot study showed the rate of clinical response for the active treatment group was 83 percent, with 30 percent of treatment-group participants no longer meeting criteria for PTSD just two months after the study and no evidence of impaired cognitive functioning. These results are especially significant considering the chronic and resistant nature of PTSD. To do this research, scientists have had to overcome greatly exaggerated estimates of the risks of MDMA put forth by anti-drug authorities seeking to block research into the beneficial uses of MDMA and other psychedelic medicines.
Note: MDMA is not Ecstasy. Substances sold on the street under the name Ecstasy often contain MDMA, but also may contain ketamine, caffeine, BZP, and other narcotics or stimulants. In laboratory studies, pure MDMA has been proven sufficiently safe for human consumption when taken a limited number of times in moderate doses
.

Sources:
Michael C. Mithoefer et al., “The Safety and Efficacy of MDMA-Assisted Psychotherapy in Subjects with Chronic, Treatment-Resistant PTSD,”
Journal of Psychopharmacology
0, no. 0: 1–14; Jessica Winter, “Can a Single Pill Change Your Life?” O,
The Oprah Magazine
, February 15, 2011,
http://www.oprah.com/health/PTSD-and-MDMA-Therapy-Medical-Uses-of-Ecstasy
; “Harvard Study Published in Addiction Shows Ecstasy Not Associated with Cognitive Decline,” PR Newswire, February 15, 2011,
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/harvard-study-published-in-addiction-shows-ecstasy-not-associated-with-cognitive-decline-116226594.html
; “MDMA to Treat Post Traumatic Stress Disorder—Unnecessary Risk?” PTSD Trauma Treatment, November 26, 2010,
http://www.ptsdtraumatreatment.org/ptsd-treatment/mdma-to-treat-post-traumatic-stress-disorder-%E2%80%93-unnecessary-risk/
.

The term “psi” denotes anomalous processes of information or energy transfer that are currently unexplained in terms of known physical or biological mechanisms. A paper by Cornell psychology professor Daryl Bem shows that a significant number of people are able to sense and predict future events. Resistance to this idea quickly surfaced, and scientists are in the throes of a heated debate about how to interpret the data. Human potential is poised for redefinition, warranting a closer look at all psi phenomena.

Sources:
Daryl J. Bem, “Feeling the Future: Experimental Evidence for Anomalous Retroactive Influences on Cognition and Affect,”
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
, March 2011,
http://www.dbem.ws/FeelingFuture.pdf
; Cassandra Vieten, “It’s About Time: The Scientific Evidence for Psi Experiences,”
Huffington Post
, December 17, 2010,
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cassandra-vieten/esp-evidence_b_795366.html
; Jonah Lehrer, “Feeling The Future: Is Precognition Possible?”
Wired
, November 15, 2010,
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/11/feeling-the-future-is-precognition-possible
; “Psi and Psychology: the Recent Debate,” video, YouTube, 1:55:44, posted by “zooharvard,” April 25, 2011,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Tdiu5kwjKs
.

Meditation can ease the symptoms of depression and anxiety disorders and improve quality of life for people with chronic diseases. A recent study shows that even novice meditators were able to significantly increase gray brain matter density after practicing for only thirty minutes each day over an eight-week period.

Sources:
Mary Desmond Pinkowish, “The Muse in The Moment,” Ode, Spring 2011,
http://www.odemagazine.com/doc/74/muse-in-the-moment/
; Jason Marsh, “A Little Meditation Goes a Long Way,” Greater Good Science Center, February 9, 2011,
http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/a_little_meditation_goes_a_long_way
.

As the multitude of twenty-first century threats to the planet grow more ominous, positive psychology has risen to the top of the pop psych chart. But there are times when “staying positive” hits a wall,
and adversity calls on us to attend to the darker realities we’d prefer to avoid, ignore, or deny. But that only masks our hidden sorrows, allowing them to grow and consume us. As a culture, we perceive our darker realities as signs of impairment, but perhaps the only thing that’s impaired is our perception.

Source:
Miriam Greenspan, “How the Light Gets In,” Ode, Spring 2011,
http://www.odemagazine.com/doc/74/how-the-light-gets-in/
.

On every level of living systems, there exists evidence of the value of both chaos and coherence; healthy function is dependent on their coexistence. Each is important in different situations. When we exclusively reify one over the other, we pay a price. For example, a lack of healthy variability in neural activity is associated with depression. Conversely, a lack of coherence in brain wave patterns is characteristic of schizophrenia. Context matters.

Source:
Larry Dossey, “Coherence, Chaos, and the Coincidentia Oppositorum,”
Explore: The Journal of Science & Healing
6, no. 6: 339–45.

Synesthesia can be simply understood as a blending of senses (tasting colors, seeing music, etc.). It may sound unbelievable, but exacting brain scans can show locations of intense brain activity when synesthesia is stimulated. Many see synesthesia as a disorder, but some believe that it may be a kind of quantum consciousness and should be further studied for its possible implications for human consciousness.

Source:
Maureen Seaberg, “Tasting the Universe: What Synesthesia Suggests about the nature of Consciousness,” Institute of Noetic Sciences, May 2011,
http://www.noetic.org/noetic/issue-ten-may/tasting-the-universe/
.