Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Oh yeah this form of reparations is specifically the *absolutely
easiest* form of reparations. It's "starter reparations". The cost
of the damage is easy to calculate, and both the victim and the
perpetrator are still alive.

There are a *lot* of other areas where reparations are due, in my
opinion. But this is probably the easiest one to price and pay to
get the process started.

I believe it was in the Libertarian Party platform about 20 years
ago, I think that's where I first heard of it.
  

    
Reparations indeed.  I believe that giving people money is not
proper reparations, the dominant culture just steals it back. 
Education is the only proper reparation I can imagine.  That would
be: free education from daycare to doctorate.  And that for all
persons with slave ancestors.  And really free, as in books,
lodging, and meals covered while in classes.  Post-docs will have to
figure their own financing.  What I propose is not much more than
what the Scandinavian countries already do, so it's not exactly
radical.  Start now, start with the 4 year olds, and increase it
every year to cover the current group and the next group.  That
would be some pay back and would be effective for the future and
doesn't try to put some dubious fix on the ills of the past.
  

    
Bruce Fox: "just steals it back" - interested in knowing more about
this. Are there situations where we've seen that happening? I'm no
specialist, I'm genuinely curious about what actually happens.

I like the free education model.
  

    
> "just steals it back"

Here is, apparently, Will Rogers take on that:

"The money was all appropriated for the top in the hopes that it
would trickle down to the needy. Mr. Hoover didn’t know that money
trickled up. Give it to the people at the bottom and the people at
the top will have it before night, anyhow. But it will at least have
passed through the poor fellows hands"
  

    
Via email from Lloyd Arnold:

Vinay Gupta, for more recent work with living machines, look up John
Todd and Nancy Todd at Ocean Arks. <https://www.oceanarksint.org/>
  

    
And that practice/paradigm of free education (for starters) needs to
be for everybody, of all groups.  After all, African-Americans are
not the only group in America that has historically been
marginalized.  Plus, if it is only instituted for one group, won't
that just prompt those members of the historically dominant group to
claim, "See?  They're discriminating against us again!".
  

    
And I agree with those who say that the divide-and-conquer strategy
here in the U.S. has always been more about power, and about money
most of all, than about ethnicity.
  

    
Via email from George Mokray:

Thanks for the conversation.  It is always enlightening.

John Todd is still doing projects at
<https://www.toddecological.com> and is working with a Dutch
company, the Weathermakers <http://theweathermakers.nl>, developing
a plan to make the Sinai Desert green
<https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/mar/20/our-biggest-challenge-lack
-of-imagination-the-scientists-turning-the-desert-green>. They are using John’s "eco machines," greenhouses with an extremely biodiverse environment reflecting "the aggregate experience of life on Earth over the last 3.5bn years." They will distill salt water while growing plants, fish, and animals, all powered by the sun. "The idea is that you may have 100 of these structures," says John Todd. "And they’re spending five years in one site and then they’ve moved, so these little ecologies are left behind."  He has written a history of his lifetime building healthy and healing ecologies, Healing Earth: An Ecologist’s Journey of Innovation and Environmental Stewardship
<https://www.northatlanticbooks.com/shop/healing-earth/>

Greg Watson, who was the last director there, is now with the
Schumacher Center for New Economics
<https://centerforneweconomics.org> and working to make Buckminster
Fulller's World Game an active tool <https://worldgameworkshop.org>


One of the founders of New Alchemy Institute was Bill McLarney who
40 years ago started a Costa Rican version of New Alchemy, ANAI
<http://www.anaicostarica.org>, to integrate nature conservation and
sustainable development in the Talamanca region.  I’ve supported his
work there with a small annual donation for most of that time and,
in return, get a short annual report.  This year’s brought more than
a smile to my face and demands to be shared:

"With the indispensable assistance of Bioeducators, we have finally
completed a long deferred project to produce laminated sheets with
photos of almost all of the 50 species of freshwater fish we have
identified from the La Amistad Caribe watersheds, with scientific
names plus common names in Spanish, English, Bribri, Naso and Ngobe.
Getting the indigenous names right was a challenge which required
sending our indigenous Bioeducators on errands to remote villages to
visit 'old timers' who were thoroughly familiar with the names of
the fish in their native languages, and putting them together with
younger people fluent in the recently created written forms of the
four languages.  Thus a byproduct of our biologically focused work
was to fortify the indigenous cultures….

"For many years, ANAI's signature program was organic agroforestry. 
Over the years, and in keeping with our philosophy of maximizing
local responsibility and involvement, this responsibility has been
passed to APPTA (Talamanca Small Producers’ Association
<https://www.appta.org/index.php/en/> which has become the world’s
largest organic farmers' cooperative.  ANAI's most recent
contribution to APPTA’s success has been in securing funding to
obtain and install three industrial driers, which tremendously
increases their capacity to purchase, process and market local
organic farm products….

"As what was once merely ANAI's vision of how things should be
matured, we are ever more forcefully reminded of the links between
terrestrial, aquatic and marine biodiversity, and the crucial role
organic agroforestry plantations on small farms can play in reducing
fragmentation and protecting landscape integrity.  Toward this end,
we are planning to initiate a process of mapping all existing
forested corridors, and gaps, in our service area extending from the
Rio Estrella watershed in Costa Rica to Almirante Bay in Panama, and
from the cost to the Continental Divide...

"All of the activities reported here - strengthening old and
creating new organic agroforestry farms, fomenting the community
Water Observatories movement, advocation for the needs of migratory
fish - play into this vision."

ANAI can always use donations at
<https://www.anaicostarica.org/donate.html>

The New Alchemy land in Hatchville, MA on Cape Cod is still
continuing the vision in different ways, with some of the original
New Alchies, as you can see at <https://newalchemists.net>

John Todd, another of the founders and a pioneering ecological
designer, is still working (one of his latest projects is on
greening the Sinai Peninsula) through
<https://www.toddecological.com>.
  

    
FWIW, my grandfather's application to Columbia medical school was turned 
down because they'd already filled their "Jew quota".   He became a 
pharmacist instead.
  

    
>Jew quota

Ugly policy. But maybe a good band name. Sort of like The Negro
Problem, from right to left.
  

    
One of my grandmothers left Russia partly because as a Jew she
couldn't get into nursing school.
  

    
these stories were so common in our grandparents' and parents'
generation
  

    
Big thanks to everyone in the thread. It's been a wild ride!
  

    
As will 2022!
  

    
#462--I just don't want such stories to be common in our and future
generations.
  

    
And yes, thanks to all.
  

    
Via email from fruitbatpangolin:

Would like to post thanks, and special thanks to Jon for helping
post my varied ramblings.

I would have attempted more commentry, but y'all were saved this
torment after my major intestine, in a desperate attempt to save
humanity, leapt straight up through my neck and throttled my brain.

In reality ( or whatever passes for that nowadays ) it was a wildcat
strike of an ear infection, but I suspect that the bacteria involved
were motivated along similar ethical lines, my prose style being
very often quite indistinguishable from the poetic forms of the
Azgoths of Kria.
  

    
I hope you're feeling better soon.