New Conservatism?

Really interesting article from David Brooks about Conservatism in Britain (or more correctly, "radical conservatism"). I particularly found this line interesting:

Essentially, Blond would take a political culture that has been oriented around individual choice and replace it with one oriented around relationships and associations.

It seems more and more of what we do is dominated by relationships, exemplified by the boom in social networking. It's difficult to imagine what this looks like policy-wise in the U.S., but it's not uncommon for socio-cultural trends to make their way into politics. There seems to be more and more discontent, but as others have pointed out, it's disjointed. This may indicate that we're on the verge of a massive shift in governance philosophy.

In many ways it goes back to something that we discussed in my climate change mitigation class. People are having difficulty relating to complex problems with linear solutions. Our dominant paradigm has been to look for cause and effect, but as we're discovering (especially with climate change), that linear relationship does not always hold true (e.g. multiple causes and multiple effects). I tend to think that the shift will occur once we begin to think of issues/problems/policies as interconnected ecosystems. Healthcare is much more easily viewed as an ecosystem than a linear cause-effect relationship. The same with finance, climate change...the list goes on.

The current frustration seen in Tea Parties and other movements is that we're realizing we cannot operate on the old model any longer. There is no 'cause' for many of these issues, it's a complex series of events happening within a network of related issues. The frustration, then, is that we want to still be able to identify the 'cause' even though there isn't one. We don't have the conceptual and policy models to be able to deal with this, and it's a big problem, because it makes it impossible to improve the situation. We don't need different policy, what we need is a new way of thinking about our relationship to issues.

Now the question is what those new models look like...

The Smurfette Principle

I greatly enjoy this video (via Clusterflock)

I was thinking today

Wouldn't it be fantastic if there were an agency/department of government that was tasked with looking at new academic ideas in all kinds of areas, then determining ways to scale them to government and run pilot programs. It could be a great cross-functional entity that would work to develop new solutions to problems. I can imagine such a type of organization looking for new ways to spur job growth, deal with social security, even combat obesity. Before you say, "but agencies already have that capacity." The problem is, the organizational capacity of many agencies can tamp down efforts to reform, as they run into politics, entrenched opinions, and resistance to change. But, if taken out of that context, and allowed a pilot program, it could be a wonderful way to demonstrate what works and what doesn't, outside of the confines of the traditional government bureaucracy. Think of it as a government trial of 20% time.

OK, GO.

You might have seen the OK GO marching band video, but this one is about 10,000 times cooler.

Dam, I'm Back

Lame puns aside, I got back from Amsterdam on Sunday after a much appreciated vacation. School continues to be crazy, with the administration attempting to cram 11 weeks of work into 8 weeks. It's not pretty. But, work must be done, so it will be done.

It was a bit of a tight fit getting in a paper on the topic "Copenhagen: Success or Failure. Discuss" in before I had to jump on my plane (oh, irony). Being sick with a cold the weekend before meant that I was hopped up on meds, and as a consequence in no state to press my case for the fact that Copenhagen was a success, even in spite (or because) of its failure to be legally binding. If you're interested, there are a couple of blog posts that make the case far better than I do. Luckily, a friend of mine offered to print out my paper and hand it in for me so that I could get on my merry way Thursday morning.

All in all, the trip there was relatively uneventful. Aside from an hour delay due to extremely thick fog, I got in with no complications in the early afternoon and headed to meet my friend Steve at the hotel. After tooling around a bit on the streets and canals and picking away at sandwiches and espresso, we headed back to the hotel to meet up with his coworkers for dinner and general merriment, including getting lost on the canals. Once we found the signs for the Centraal Station, we were home, though.


The next day was filled by trips to the Rijksmuseum and Van Gogh Museum, both of which were very impressive. I especially enjoyed the Rembrants at the Rijksmuseum. Later on, we walked around the Red Light District (natch), though I declined to purchase any of the, um, goods. It's a weird thing walking around there. On one hand, you can't help feel that a lot of these women are being degraded by dancing around in a window like a tea kettle or something. On the other hand, they are making decent money, and I suppose it reflects more on my values that I find it somewhat "icky" to be a prostitute, than it does on the actual act. After all, people sell their best assets all the time, whether it's the delicate hands of a seamstress, the brawn of a builder, or the abstract brain of a designer, we are all selling ourselves, physically and mentally.

The rest of the crew shipped out Saturday morning, but I soldiered on to see the Anne Frank House, the Niet Normaal exhibit at the Beurs van Berlage, as well as just generally walking through the city and getting a feel for the canals and streets. Honestly, there really are that many bicycles. It's fantastic to see people going around in other ways than cars.

Later on, after checking into my new Hotel in the Museumplein, I headed over to the Bols 'experience,' more or less to get a decent cocktail. While the exhibit was rather boring, the cocktail was excellent. I had a Holland House with Bols Genevere, which is one of the best cocktails I've ever had. It reminded me, in some ways of the tartness of a Pegu Club, combined with the smoothness of a Vesper (both favorites of mine, anyway). I'm not sure if you can get it in the states, but it's worth tracking down. I never knew the history of it, but it was more or less the forerunner of gin, and was used in many cocktail books at the turn of the century where gin features now. Another reason I probably liked it a lot.

I'm still not sure what's going on here, but I managed to look like a homeless emo kid.

After the museum, I decided to walk around the back streets of the museum quarter, to get away from some of the more touristy attractions. I was not disappointed. Beautiful houses and small boutiques lined the streets, and after happening in on a tea shop to warm up a bit, I was offered a free loaf of bread because the woman was closing and need to get rid of it. Dutch hospitality, score!

The night concluded with a long meal solo, at, fittingly, a place called Solo. It was a very well presented and solidly constructed meal--the duck pate was excellent. The next morning it was off to the Foam photography museum and then back to the train station to get back to the airport for my flight home. All in all, a very relaxing weekend. Unfortunately, now it's back to work.

There's nothing like dancing in public with headphones...

With the semester now in full swing, my life for the next few weeks continues to be a race to the finish, save for a few pleasant interruptions. Monday's (now regular) meetings with presentation groups continue unabated. Luckily, one of said presentations will be out of the way come Wednesday. Honestly, I'm a bit nervous as to how it will go. We have the unenviable task of writing on three sustainability standards for which there is no--ZERO--academic, peer-reviewed literature. Seriously, I've Google scholar'd, Proquest'd, and ABInformed, all to no avail. So what we're running off of is basically blogs and news articles. While I'm happy to blag our way through this, there's this terrible suspicion that there's this treasure trove of critiques that our group is missing; however, I sincerely doubt it. Still, the doubt remains.

There are a couple of honest-to-goodness highlights, though, throughout the week. On Tuesdays, our program now has a "coffee talk" about sustainability. Essentially one of us circulates a topic/paper/video and then we talk about it for an hour. It's good to get the different views, and work through some of the issues we're bound to face. Speaking of, I really need to read the one for tomorrow. Thursdays bring our climate change seminars. After an hour-long lecture in the morning, we have a couple of hours to discuss a problem facing the world, whether transportation, energy solutions, or otherwise. Its honestly surprising how often we come up with the same general solutions. Though, as they say, the devil is inevitably in the details.

As much as I like the climate change class, though, it's difficult, because I feel like all too often sustainability is conflated with carbon, and, at least for me, the two aren't one in the same. I'm glad that scientists continue to question the evidence around climate change. They should. Though, unfortunately, the slightest bit of doubt is what makes the headlines, like so many other politicised issues. To me, either way you slice it, whether the world is cooling or warming, fewer pollutants in the air like CO2 and SO2 are a good thing. But that aside, sustainability for me is about living better. It's about cleaner air, and fresher foods, healthier populations, and happier families. We often forget that so many of the sustainability initiatives have such a positive impact on our happiness. More light from sustainable buildings, trees and flowers in landscaping, and fresh foods all make for a happier people, and that's worth something, even removing CO2 from the equation.

Back to our regularly scheduled program. I was interviewed by Samantha's boyfriend, Marcus, recently about UK fashion for his website. I'm sure most of my UK friends will disagree, but, I had the platform, so there you go.

I was originally going to go down to London on Friday to see an exhibit at the Design Museum about Dieter Rams, the head designer for Braun for 40 years. See some of his designs here. I really believe his principles of good design are the bedrock for sustainable design in the future. I'm hoping I can incorporate his work into my thesis somehow. So, as I was saying, I was going to see the exhibit on Friday, but then got an offer to go with a coursemate down on Saturday morning and stay with her sister that night and leave on Sunday. I figured longer in London wouldn't hurt, and I'd be going with a friend, which is far better than going alone.

I ended up having such a nice time. The ride down was uneventful, but we met her sister, who lives in Brixton, around 1 at the Brixton market for lunch with another couple of friends. The place served sourdough Neapolitan-style pizza. Even though it was a bit of a wait, it was worth it. FINALLY, decent pizza in the UK. Though, I don't think I'll travel down to London every weekend to get it. After, we toured around the market for a bit, where her sister volunteers for Brixton Transition Town. After walking into the shop next door I ended up getting in a great conversation with a guy about design, then off to the house for some dinner and a movie. The next day, after breakfast, we headed into central london, only to stop at a silent disco for a quick dance. For those of you who don't know, it's where you wear a pair of headphones and listen to music, rather than it being pumped over loudspeakers. Looks kind of funny when you're on the outside looking in, but there's something very liberating about dancing with 50 strangers, where no one cares. I highly recommend you attend if you have the opportunity. After an hour dancing, we got to the design museum, I saw my exhibit, and then we went for a late pub lunch. Tired, we dragged ourselves back to St. Pancras for the ride to St. Albans (lots of saints in this country) to catch our ride home. I was exhausted by the end of it all, but I had a great time.

So that's my life thus far. Oh and I forgot, Wednesday I went ice skating with climbing club, which was a blast. And we ended up going to a really great bar afterwards with live jazz-y type music. I guess I was a bit busier than I thought.

Well, pancake day is tomorrow, so I've stocked up on shake and pour (thank you betty crocker) and some nutella and bananas for a bit of a morning/night rendezvous with the frying pan. Sexy.

Back to the reading and presentation preparing! Oh, and check out The Local Natives, they're quite nice, if a bit similar to a lot of the other indie acts out there right now.

Color tests and me

So I decided to take a color test based on this article from USA Today. Great, done. And of course, what top two personality types does it come up with? Creator and Persuader. I mean, I'm glad a test validated what I perceive to be my skill set, but my career options based on this are limited to everything I'd find interesting to do but have absolutely no background in. Where is "sustainability expert" on there?

Quasi-full report:

Best Occupational Category

You're a CREATOR

Keywords

Nonconforming, Impulsive, Expressive, Romantic, Intuitive, Sensitive, and Emotional

These original types place a high value on aesthetic qualities and have a great need for self-expression. They enjoy working independently, being creative, using their imagination, and constantly learning something new. Fields of interest are art, drama, music, and writing or places where they can express, assemble, or implement creative ideas.

CREATOR OCCUPATIONS
Suggested careers are Advertising Executive, Architect, Web Designer, Creative Director, Public Relations, Fine or Commercial Artist, Interior Decorator, Lawyer, Librarian, Musician, Reporter, Art Teacher, Broadcaster, Technical Writer, English Teacher, Architect, Photographer, Medical Illustrator, Corporate Trainer, Author, Editor, Landscape Architect, Exhibit Builder, and Package Designer.

CREATOR WORKPLACES
Consider workplaces where you can create and improve beauty and aesthetic qualities. Unstructured, flexible organizations that allow self-expression work best with your free-spirited nature.

Suggested Creator workplaces are advertising, public relations, and interior decorating firms; artistic studios, theaters and concert halls; institutions that teach crafts, universities, music, and dance schools. Other workplaces to consider are art institutes, museums, libraries, and galleries.

2nd Best Occupational Category

You're a PERSUADER

Keywords:

Witty, Competitive, Sociable, Talkative, Ambitious, Argumentative, and Aggressive

These enterprising types sell, persuade, and lead others. Positions of leadership, power, and status are usually their ultimate goal. Persuasive people like to take financial and interpersonal risks and to participate in competitive activities. They enjoy working with others inside organizations to accomplish goals and achieve economic success.