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Archive | Social Change

Happy Earth Day?

  By Tom Peterson A Ben Sargent cartoon In 1977 when I was a student I thought highly of Austin American Statesman editorial cartoonist Ben Sargent and felt it would be cool to own an original. So I called and he invited me to the paper to pick out one for a small price. At […]

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Should We Be Hopeful?

“The very least you can do in your life is to figure out what you hope for. The most you can do is live inside that hope, running down its hallways, touching the walls on both sides.” — Barbara Kingsolver, from Animal Dreams In 1982 I spent a memorable Easter week with Salvadorians in a refugee […]

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Movember: Beginnings over Beer

So it’s November or, for many, Movember. Did you know that Movember is the largest effort to save and improve the lives of men affected by prostate and testicular cancer? That last year they raised $22.9 million in the U.S.? That to date, this mustache-obsessed organization has raised $559 in 21 countries? That its beginnings trace back […]

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Wendell Berry on Movements

    In Citizenship Papers, writer and farmer-prophet Wendell Berry tells of his distrust of movements. They “lapse into self righteousness and self-betrayal” and it adherents too easily deny other the rights they expect themselves. For Berry the movements aren’t radical enough. And they fail because they try to address effects instead of causes. In […]

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World Building for a Cause

“If this world does not have a place for us then another world must be made.” —Zapatista saying By Tom Peterson George R.R. Martin’s world, Game of Thrones, has captivated many of us, with its wonderful geography, seasons, languages, cities, ships, attire, customs and strange creatures. Most novelists tell their stories in familiar settings. But some—particularly […]

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