Conscious Manifestations

This article from Peace and Justice dot org is a sort of summary of some of the top points of Kurt Vonnegut's speech to Ohio State University.

It seems that this speech was the last paid speech Kurt will do.

Read it here.

A recent Slashdot article brought to my attention a a pilot project tha China commissioned the William McDonough and Partners firm to design. The goal is to create a sustainable city.

From the William McDonough and Partners website:

"The development of this new community is serving as a national prototype for the design of a sustainable village, an effort focused on creating a template for improving the quality of life for 800 million rural Chinese... The design of the village aspires to draw power from the sun, to maintain materials in closed-loop systems of technical and biological nutrition, and to create an intergenerational community of people productively engaged in restorative commerce. Its goal is to provide a higher quality of life for the villagers and to exemplify a more hopeful future for the children."

McDonough received press from the BBC regarding his book Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things.

Go McDonough and China! Best of luck in this worthy endeavor.