Roger Briggs's Blog (16)

Some of this handbook actually read more like principles in mass-brainwashing, but on the wh***, that is the best way to control an information crisis. The H1N1 freakout was started by a small group of infections and deaths and elevated with the eight-second sound bites which further inflamed the hysteria. However, people were ignorant of information that compared it to the regular flu, which was much more deadly. H1N1 was covered in such intricate detail that…

I'm filing this under "Act" because there's no "Teach" option.

You can watch the movie Food, Inc. streaming online for free. I believe it may be a limited time deal.

Know where your food is coming from and what can be done about it!

http://video.pbs.org/video/1472879887

So I tried out Swagbucks. I have heard about it before, but I just made my first transaction using it!

Swagbucks is a bit different from PayPal or other forms of exchanging money in that it actually is a service. It's a search engine. And through this search engine, users are rewarded Swagbucks at random intervals of random amounts (10, 20, 50, and there may be more) which then can be used at the Swagstore. These can be redeemed for…

This morning, after much local anticipation, Wichita city officials in cooperation with local banks unveiled the Keeper, Wichita's new local currency.

The two groups decided it was time for local currency when, during the previous decade-long recession, a great deal of money was leaving the city via online transactions. This put local small businesses and employees at risk of further economic crisis. The Keeper was designed to make sure that money produced here in Wichita…

I've chosen to go in a bit on the local currencies, which are springing up around North America. Oddly enough, these local currencies are coming around as much of Europe has recently (not all that recently, but can be remembered by many without an internet search) formed the Euro.

The idea of local currencies is to keep money in an area and local businesses thriving. This is especially good for small towns that are near big cities where some may go to shop.

When…

There are a couple of different levels to do this kind of event on: The event for the general population and the event for the hardcore.

General population: A waterbaloon or squirtgun fight would be one way to celebrate water, but that would be like dumping nuclear waste on Earth Day. So there still needs to be some big event that is accessible to everyone. That's where people go to nearby lakes, rivers, and oceans to go swimming. Volunteers are handing out…

http://thewaterproject.org/

From the language in the introductory video, this does appear to be a church-sponsored project, and one that is doing good. Over 40,000 people last year gained access to water through donations. These hand-pumped wells are specifically small-scale targeted, usually going to schools, churches, or smaller, remote communities in Kenya, Sudan, Sierra Leone, and India. This gives health and life benefits they…

http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900sid/MYAI-84R4M5?OpenDoc**ent&RSS20&RSS20=FS

In Ethiopia, women are only recently beginning to own land, and that is only due to an inheritance or, as is the case in this story, divorce.

Typically, women lack access to lines of credit or loans in order to buy land, and inheritances were passed on to sons since…

The 4th of July is one of the biggest holidays at my parents' house, mostly because of their rural address and the large amount of explosives. My brothers have been known to take long drives and flights just for this one day.

In 2020, it will likely look a great deal the same, just with a few different power sources:

Instead of my dad's typical gas grill, I'll finally be able to convince him to take down some of his dead trees and put together an in-ground…

In a poor rural countryside where nobody ever bothered putting in a power grid, and where an unpredictable monsoon season make other alternative energies inefficient, "Ashoka-Lemelson Fellow Lalith Seneviratne has created low cost, high yield biomass-based generators to produce electricity for rural Sri Lanka."

One of the main objectives a culture must have for sustainability is some kind of electricity, even if it is only enough…

I'm stuck in a mid-point here on food directions. I find myself leaning either totally vegan or totally local--it would be very difficult to do both. Many of my favorite grains, nuts, and other sources of protein and energy are not native to the area. Quinoa, namely, as a grain that is high in protein, comes from South America. I'm not sure if it can even be grown in Kansas. Then there are all the beans and nuts that we don't have a long enough summer for. However, once climate change really…

Kansas is the number one producer of wheat in the United States. That means a great deal of crops grown in the state leave the state.

And there are fewer crops every year. Around Wichita, the suburbs are still expanding. Fields that used to be used for wheat and corn every year are somehow more valuable as housing developments. Housing is important, but these houses have lawns, which do nothing to feed people like the fields they replaced. Farther out west in the state,…

Okay, I won't be 64. Late in 2020, though, I will turn 40. And by that time my kids will be 10, 12, and 15--old enough to join me on missions!

I'll likely still be in Wichita, as my wife is close to her family here. I will still in one way or another be teaching, whether at a college or through some other medium, like online or even using a newspaper to get the word out.

In the ten years between, I will have etched out an interwoven community that, during any…

As a teacher, I looked in the field of education for innovations, and I remembered hearing about the University of the People, a free online university. So, I am now shadowing (cyberstalking?) its founder and president, Shai Reshef.

The mission of UoP focuses on five areas: Opportunity, Accessibility, Community, Integrity, and Quality.

The materials for the university are minimal as well, usnig already existing information…

Embrace market mechanisms (Giving stuff away rarely works as well as selling it.)

People are wary of free stuff. "What's wrong with it?" "Is it broken?" "Why won't anyone buy it?"

I've gotten these comments putting things on the Free section of Craigslist, where I've actually unloaded things faster by selling them than by giving them away. People are always thinking there's a catch. Something-for-nothing is a concept that doesn't sit well with a lot of people,…

The most potential disaster to strike Wichita, KS is undoubtedly a tornado. Within my lifetime, two towns near Wichita, one about 15 minutes east and the other about 2 hours west, have been leveled due to tornadoes. In the first instance, in Andover, this tornado was part of an outbreak of 55 tornadoes in six states on one day. The second town,…