If we want to preserve what's still left of the natural world\, we
need to stop using so much of it. And\, says veteran environmental
activist Matt Hern\, cities are the best chance we have left for a truly
ecological future . . . but what does it take to make a "\;truly"\;
sustainable city?
Common Ground in a Liquid City is a fun and engaging look at the future of urban life. Hern takes us on a journey through over a dozen urban centers\, from Vancouver to Istanbul\, Las Vegas\, and beyond\, exploring the history and current composition of cities around the globe and highlighting the elements of each that make it livable.
Each of Hern's ten chapters focuses on a central
theme of city life\: diversity\, street life\, crime\, population density\,
water and natural life\, gentrification\, and globalism. What emerges in
the end is an appealing portrait of what the urban future might look
like--environmentally friendly\, locally focused\, and governed from
below.
Matt Hern is an inveterate city dweller and an
environmental and education activist. The editor of Everywhere All the
Time\: A New Deschooling Reader and the author of Deschooling Our
Lives and Field Day\, he founded Vancouver's Car-Free Day and is the
director of the Purple Thistle Center for alternative education. These
days\, he lives in Vancouver with his partner and daughters and lectures
widely around the globe.
You and yours surely will plotz when you dig the superb puppet stylings of Molly Piper aka Acorn &\; Rose! Details to follow...
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END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP;VALUE=DATE:20100310T222410Z DTSTART;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20100325T020000Z DTEND;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20100325T040000Z UID:http://www.orcabooks.com/event/pat-kennedy-loving-tree-march-24th-6pm URL;VALUE=URI:http://www.orcabooks.com/event/pat-kennedy-loving-tree-march-24th-6pm SUMMARY:PAT KENNEDY \\"The Loving Tree\\" March 24th at 6pm DESCRIPTION:The Loving Tree is heroic\, universal\, and powerful in its message of love\, loss\, and transformation.
Symbols\, like trees and flowers\, can open a door to our feelings where
our rational minds fail us. When we lose loved ones\, gaining access to
our feelings through stories and symbols can help the healing process.
As we age\, being resilient and accepting loss become critical
life-management skills. The Loving Tree will inspire and affirm anyone of any age who has ever lost\, or lived in the shadow of\, a loved one.
If Darwin’s theory of evolution is correct\, then it appears the humananimal has attained a plateau in physical development even as theintellect doggedly advances. How we use expanding intellectualcapabilities to jockey within the Darwinian restrictions will shapethe look of future societies.
The four short stories of “Darwin’s Prisoners” are an exploration ofhow four women - Maire\, The Broad\, Lilith’s Child and Mamaconas -maneuver within the physical limitations of that peculiar evolutionarycage.
Other books by Pat Shannon include “The Man Who Stayed Home\: AConamara Memoir” and “Charles and Me\: Notes in the Margin.” Pat liveswith the wild creatures at the Bluebird Wetlands and WildlifeSanctuary in southwest Montana.
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Four short stories in a cute lil hardbound edition from Montana's Pat Shannon\, flying in for this event only. Don't miss it!
END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP;VALUE=DATE:20100310T222410Z DTSTART;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20100327T020000Z DTEND;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20100327T040000Z UID:http://www.orcabooks.com/event/william-marcy-politics-cocaine-february-18th-6pm URL;VALUE=URI:http://www.orcabooks.com/event/william-marcy-politics-cocaine-february-18th-6pm SUMMARY:WILLIAM MARCY \\"The Politics of Cocaine\\" March 26th at 6pm DESCRIPTION:Drawing on declassified documents and extensive first-hand research\, The Politics of Cocaine takes a hard look at the role the United States played in creating the drug industry that thrives in Central and
South America. Author William L. Marcy contends that by conflating
anti-Communist and counternarcotics policies\, the United States helped
establish and strengthen the drug trade as the area's economic base.
Increased militarization\, destabilization of governments\,
uncontrollable drug trafficking\, more violence\, and higher death tolls
resulted. Marcy explores how the counternarcotics policies of the 1970s
collapsed during the 1980s when economic calamity\, the Andean guerrilla
insurgencies\, and Reagan's anti-Communist struggle with Nicaragua and
Cuba became conflated as part of the War on Drugs. The book then
explores how the U.S. invasion of Panama and narcotics related violence
throughout Andean region during the 1990s led to the militarization of
the War on Drugs as a way to confront narcotics production\,
narco-traffickers\, and narco-guerrillas alike. Marcy brings to the
reader up to the end of the George W. Bush administration and explains
why to this date the United States remains unable to control the flow
of cocaine into the United States and why the War on Drugs appears to
be spiraling out of control. The Politics of Cocaine fills in
historical gaps and provides a new and controversial analysis of a
complex and seemingly unsolvable problem.
While a college student at The New School\, Melissa Febos spent four years working as a dominatrix in a midtown dungeon. In poetic\, nuanced prose she charts how unchecked risk-taking eventually gave way to a course of self-destruction. But as she recounts crossing over the very boundaries that she set for her own safety\, she never plays the victim. In fact\, the glory of this memoir is Melissa's abilityto illuminate the strange and powerful truths that she learned as she found her way out of a hell of her own making.
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