february sorry speech

i have mentioned a couple of times that i was deeply moved in australia to witness the "sorry" speech made by kevin rudd in february. i have been meaning to post a link to some articles about it and haven't done so. so, here it is. click on the header to go to a page from the sydney morning herald. the first video link (the day we said sorry) is a 4 minute report and really captures the spirit of the day. it was an historic occasion and i was so so happy to be there in the street sharing the moment with hundreds of people -- first nation people as well as others. there is also a link which gives you the speech in full. that's half an hour. so do have a look, i think it was an amazing day, i know it was a couple of months ago but...
better late than never.

more about transition culture

for anyone interested in my last post, take a look at the closing speech by rob hopkins of the transition town initiative. click on the header of this post to take you to the speech. i was especially interested in his references to santideva's bodhicaryavatara

transition towns

last weekend i met some people involved in the "transition town" initiatives -- sometimes known as energy descent initiative- in totness, bath and bristol. i had heard the term before and knew it had something to do with peak oil but i hadn't heard much about it nor met anyone involved in one of these transition towns. i think i had put it in a box in my mind which goes : "could be interesting but has something to do with permaculture so not my bag"!!!!

anyway meeting these folks i thought it was really interesting and bought a copy of
The Transition Handbook: from oil dependency to local resilience by Rob Hopkins

which seems to be the bible. i am just starting to read it. also been having a web trawl and seen various interesting sites. turns out portobello in embra (that would be edinburgh in case it isn't obvious) has a transition town initiative going. click the title of this post to get to their web site. this has links to the main wiki site for transition towns in general and information about the whole idea. in scotland the other transition towns are in biggar and dunbar, which seems pretty amazing somehow. hard to explain why! and there are around 60 in the uk apparently as well as others world wide.

forgive me if this is old hat but i found it inspiring, fascinating, rather challenging. i thought maybe some of us can be thinking about transition glasgow????? or something. long term? i don't know, i'm just throwing it out. what interests me is the idea of urban initiatives. i feel very strongly that i do want to move back to glasgow - don't know how or when - but i do know i don't want to live on my own in a wee flat. i want community and this seems to me to speak to something of that.