In loving, living memory, John Melançon 1928 – 2007
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- How to kill a popular government institution with us since the founding of the country before everyone's eyes
- Evil Neighbor Blues
- My grandfather is doing fantastic
- Update on Housing Demolotions in Bangalore, India
- In which the hospital attempts to fulfill my grandfather's death wish
- Update on Alfred Natkin from Cape Cod Hospital
- Doing What One Can Do
- Proposition 37 Million Dollars
- Andrew Judson Grice (1969-2012)
- Peasants and migrant workers rising up, organizing, and even winning in repressive China
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Benjamin Maurice Melançon the First, A.D.H.D. variously known as BMM Inc., the Maurice Institute Library, and the godfather of CATSUP, is quite possibly a figment of his own imagination.
Johanna Wagner Natkin (Jean), 1925 – 2005
Fri, 2008/02/15 - 8:27pm — Benjamin MelançonIn Loving Memory, My Grandmother. She died three years ago this month. Shout-out to Ian for driving out to the memorial service, with friends, and lending me shoes to wear worthy of Grandma's approval.
"Do all the right things." — Jean Natkin
I'll try Grandma, I'm trying.
As my journalism career was half obituary writing, I was drafted to write this up 2005 March 1:
Blogging with Flock!
Fri, 2008/02/15 - 8:01pm — Benjamin MelançonCounter-recruiting, PWGD, and Thinking Big
Sun, 2008/02/10 - 12:50pm — Benjamin MelançonCounterrecruiting: very much a project for which I personally want to use PWGD. (PWGD tools, of course, are freely available for everything. Universal. That's the point. But if we who build it don't have some specific things in mind, we really lack imagination and purpose!)
(A discourse regarding the hypothetical People Who Give a Damn website...)
PWGD.org helps people who give a damn find one another and organize to take effective action on issues they care about. Right now these tools for connecting are pretty weak.
no more online comics, commentary
Sun, 2008/02/10 - 8:35am — Benjamin MelançonToday, 2008 February 10, Sunday, 7:30 a.m. I Benjamin Maurice Melançon will not look at any more online comics
Period.
Except ones sent to me.
So if you're really kind, you'll send me links to good Non Sequitur or Ted Rall or Pears Before Swine or anything once in a while.
Also I will no more partake in going to Counterpunch, Common Dreams, or similar random browsing of news and opinion.
Same here– if you're kind and care about my mental health and awareness of the world, you'll send me some facts and analysis once in a while.
A Movement Larger Than Electoral Politics is More Important Than Who is President
Sun, 2008/02/10 - 4:30am — Benjamin MelançonQuoting myself from over at RuralVotes' The Field:
One thing is certain. As Tom W. points out, there is not much distinction between Obama and Clinton on policy, and the term movement is being used pretty loosely.
Fun and respect and love and success and kindness and hope = PWGD
Sun, 2008/02/10 - 3:28am — Benjamin Melançon... but in a good way.
PWGD = fun and respect and love and success and kindness and hope
Mukasey and other Bush Officials Refuse to Talk About Their Torture Policies
Fri, 2008/02/08 - 11:23pm — Benjamin MelançonIs it just me, or is one solution to their refusing to talk, um, painfully obvious?
I do not endorse torture of anyone, not even those who endorse torture. But surely someone else has THOUGHT about it.
Genocide by Public Policy: First Peoples and the European Invasion
Fri, 2008/02/01 - 7:14pm — Benjamin MelançonHere are my thoughts after talking to a friend upset by a professor who said ignorant things about the people of this hemisphere. He used the fact that most of the massive indigenous death in the Americas came from diseases, not guns, to dismiss the moral import of the centuries-long genocidal invasion of these continents by Europeans.
We need to make an exceedingly well backed up case to convince anyone of anything, or to build knowledge we can use to build a better world.
I think the argument must be, essentially, that what happened was genocide by public policy.
Power as permission to communicate
Wed, 2008/01/30 - 10:51am — Benjamin MelançonSo PWGD:
the real asset most organizations can build isn't an amorphous brand but is in fact the privilege of delivering anticipated, personal and relevant messages to people who want to get them.
... what people really want is the ability to connect to each other
Artfully excerpted from Seth Godin's "Tribe Management" post.
If a charity is advertized on national television, it's a scam
Tue, 2008/01/29 - 11:31am — Benjamin MelançonChristian Children's Fund
You've seen an advertisement. One of the few times you see the disenfranchised, the very poor, of the world on television. I guess that's a service in itself.
But what must the expenses be like to advertise on the CBS morning show?
They bring in more than $200 million a year, mostly in direct public support, indirect public support, and lastly from the government.
Right off the top they say they spend more than $30 million for advertising and management.
I make a living doing web design and development with a great team
The Agaric Design Collective
I'm trying to make possible a worldwide nonviolent revolution for justice, liberty, and making more good things doable.
People Who Give a Damn
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Favorite Quotations
America touts itself as the land of the free, but the number one freedom that you and I have is the freedom to enter into a subservient role in the workplace. Once you exercise this freedom you’ve lost all control over what you do, what is produced, and how it is produced. And in the end, the product doesn’t belong to you. The only way you can avoid bosses and jobs is if you don’t care about making a living. Which leads to the second freedom: the freedom to starve.