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Montreal protests and refrigerator labels

  • user warning: Table 'cache_filter' is marked as crashed and should be repaired query: UPDATE cache_filter SET data = '<p dir=\"ltr\">This post was written by Paxus and originally appeared at <a title=\"Official Comm Conf website\" href=\"http://communitiesconference.org\" target=\"_blank\">www.communitiesconference.org</a> Sections in italics are additions to the original post.</p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\n</p><p dir=\"ltr\"><strong>1. Reconsider your living situation.</strong>  If you let it, the Communities Conference can really shake you up.  Daring people who are trying new or untested lifestyles are presenting or in attendance.  Step outside your comfort zone a bit and start from the assumption that you could live somewhere else, or with other people and see what this event has to offer and demonstrate.  Let go of the assumption that your next year has to look like your last year and go back to your own personal values.  What do you really care about?  How could this be better experienced in your daily living situation?</p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><em>This is a call to be daring, which i think is the most under nurtured revolutionary trait.</em></p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><img alt=\"\" src=\"https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/MlYJFErljS9j3u6y6WRVo0iBCXDZJwpTyYWEDvrWb2vpq-yicsSTFbj-OdjwR7hhnLnrhD4f8kVb2uWn0vUFDl_QsP_MmQfuhHYFbM0Qa6UK-i6fMrzmrjIMWQ\" width=\"NaN\" height=\"NaN\" /></p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><strong>2. Chat with a rock star.</strong>  There are a bunch of inspiring personalities at the Communities Conference and they are more accessible in this relaxed 3 day event than they are at most times in their busy lives.  Seek out the people who say something that excited you and ask to have lunch or a more private chat with them.  If this is your first time attending, read the entire set of workshop descriptions upon arrival and find out which presenters sound like they are doing stuff you are excited about and then get any of the event organizers to point that person out to you.  This conversation might just change your life.</p>\n', created = 1371538609, expire = 1371625009, headers = '', serialized = 0 WHERE cid = '3:1a0cae9ea7d8413500e25214684ad887' in /home/thefec/htdocs/includes/cache.inc on line 109.
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  • user warning: Table 'cache_filter' is marked as crashed and should be repaired query: UPDATE cache_filter SET data = '<p>Several people have said the most useful piece of the <a title=\"Official Loud Love event\" href=\"http://loudlove.org/\" target=\"_blank\">Loud Love</a> event was the transparency tools workshop.   i was powerfully reminded that while the tools are useful, what appears to be really happening is that people are longing to be asked these revealing questions.  With the smallest opportunity most people will share deep feelings and vulnerable information about themselves, even with people they dont know very well.</p>\n<p>We have re-started the transparency group at Acorn.  There were a few people excited about it and a number of people who showed up when it happened who seemed to like it.  My original thought was that we should try to fuse Acorns more festive culture with this tool set and instead of having the classical, slightly formal transparency discussions.  We should have transparency parties, where the format is more relaxed, less full group oriented and more smaller conversations.  Distracting food and drink could be part of it as well.</p>\n<p><a href=\"http://paxus.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/picsasso-girl-in-mirror.jpg\"><img class=\" wp-image-13883 \" alt=\"Picasso\'s girl in the mirror\" src=\"http://paxus.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/picsasso-girl-in-mirror.jpg?w=363&amp;h=450\" width=\"363\" height=\"450\" /></a><br />\n</p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Picasso’s girl before a mirror</p>\n<p>Instead, at the first Acorn transparency event this year, we stuck to a more conventional format, with the group in a circle and a single person revealing themselves to everyone using several <a title=\"This blog transparency tools list\" href=\"http://funologist.org/2010/12/27/liberal-transparency/\" target=\"_blank\">different tool sets</a>.  And i was blown away again.</p>\n', created = 1371538609, expire = 1371625009, headers = '', serialized = 0 WHERE cid = '3:eec343b01362d659c6c6422356f34349' in /home/thefec/htdocs/includes/cache.inc on line 109.
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  • user warning: Table 'cache_filter' is marked as crashed and should be repaired query: UPDATE cache_filter SET data = '<p>Scabies sucks, but it was fun when people got excited about applying each other’s permethrin and the subsequent “prolonged skin-to-skin contact” parties we’re now green lighted to have.</p>\n<p>And having strep is not fun, but it’s nice that I don’t worry about losing my job/money/childcare/house because I’ve gotten sick and need to stay in bed for a couple days.  And people will bring me food.</p>\n<p>So maybe intentional community breaks even.  We infect each other with every transmissible ailment, but then we take care of each other while people get back to normal.</p>\n<p>Cue inspirational music.</p>\n<p> <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/gocomments/runninginzk.wordpress.com/629/\"><img alt=\"\" border=\"0\" src=\"http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/comments/runninginzk.wordpress.com/629/\" /></a> <img alt=\"\" border=\"0\" src=\"http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=runninginzk.wordpress.com&amp;blog=51640857&amp;post=629&amp;subd=runninginzk&amp;ref=&amp;feed=1\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" /></p>\n', created = 1371538609, expire = 1371625009, headers = '', serialized = 0 WHERE cid = '3:ecef4d3a4c260902733e7beecb9958ad' in /home/thefec/htdocs/includes/cache.inc on line 109.
Submitted by Paxus on Mon, 05/28/2012 - 00:07
in

Though most readers of US based media are unaware of it, there are huge student strikes going on in Montreal and across Canada these days.  [They are invisible even despite their being solidarity protests in New York and Paris]  These strikes which started in the provincial capital are over 100 days old and keep growing in size.  Over 2,500 have been arrested so far and crowd sizes are in the hundreds of thousands.

Like the Occupy movement, these mostly nonviolent and not-property-destroying protesters have been bolstered by strategic missteps by the government.  The law which was  passed to block the student protests just about two weeks contained some highly unpopular provisions including:

The new Quebec emergency law says that any individual protester found guilty of an offense that forces the cancellation of classes would be liable to a fine of $1,000 to $5,000. If the offense is committed by a senior officer or representative of a student group or federation, the fine could be as much as $35,000.

This is pretty clearly in violation of Canada’s charter (their equivalent of the US Constitution) which guarantees freedom of assembly and association. But it is on the books till the high court strikes it down.  This draconian legislation so outraged average Canadians, they have joined the protests which have now spread across the country.

Meanwhile, much closer to home.  I saw this label at Acorn in the refrigerator and loved it.


Acorn Refrigerator Label – circa 2012

What is going on here is that in an active collective refrigerator there are two things going on with labeling. One thing is that most of the thing sin the refrigerator are in plastic or glass containers which are labeled with what they are (and ideally when they were stored).

What this label is for are for things which are not labeled, because they are in the original container and you dont want to  not have to put a label on them to say what they are, so you zone them for a part of the fridge where everything in this section is in original containers.

i cant quite say why this pleased me so.