


good:
Citizen Building Block #17: Take Public Transportation
- Stef McDonald wrote in Building Blocks Of Citizenship and TransportationIf you have a car, you know the convenience of getting in and driving directly to where you want to go. You might enjoy this enough to wonder why you should bother taking public transportation at all. But you can give back and gain so much by taking the train, bus, subway, or ferry. Start with the environmental benefits of leaving your car behind in favor of public transit: reducing carbon emissions and our collective use of non-renewable oil. It can be good for people, too. Without having to fill up at the pump, you can save money on gas and vehicle maintenance. And without having to pay attention to the road, you’re free to read a magazine, prepare for a presentation, or study for an exam. When you’re sharing a ride on public transit, you can interact with other passengers—or discretely eavesdrop on conversations. You can daydream or doze, solve a crossword puzzle or play a word game with friends on your smartphone. Do it for a day, a week, or simply more often.
Highly recommended
Jherin Miller - Pixels and Polaroids (2011)
Artist’s statement:“A series of images I created combining pseudo-polaroid photography and retro 80s-era video game graphics. The concept behind Pixels and Polaroids was to blend these two elements into one world where pixelated characters live through the eye of a Polaroid camera.”
[…]All of a sudden, our relationship to this thing [photography] changed dramatically. No longer an art form, and no longer a way to document life events, the photograph became a way to communicate and share experiences. […]
Since when art and documents don’t communicate and share experiences? I thought it was the whole point behind them.
Granted that HOW we photograph DID change, it is fair to say that it’s been changing since the very beginning. But if we have a look at WHY we photograph, we will notice that it remains very much the same.
Ask yourself WHY you photograph. Chances are HOW you do it has little, if any, importance.
By George Monbiot http://gu.com/p/3ct3x
//must say that George highlights an important side of this story in this piece. No winners, just a long trail of sorrow, fears and tears.