Some of our best online-only material from the month of April . 

While we may have shed our “Best of the Alternative Press” tagline, Utne.com is still all about envisioning and realizing alternatives—whether that’s a different kind of politics or a new way to collaborate on a DIY science project. With that mind, here are some of our favorite blog posts, articles, and book excerpts from the past month.

For Story of Stuff filmmaker Annie Leonard, one big alternative begins with liberating ourselves from overconsumption and recognizing the commons all around us. “We have to learn to share more and waste less,” she says in an interview with former Utne editor Jay Walljasper. “The good news is that these changes not only will enable us to continue to live on this planet, but they will result in a happier, healthier society overall.”

In a similar vein, in “The Ideabook,” author Katie Haegele explores how repurposing vintage clothing—you might call it cross-generational sharing—can help us connect with the struggles, changes, and styles of the past, especially if we approach that past knowingly.

Sharing is also a big part of Dani Burlison’s post on California’s Maker Faire, an annual festival of crafts, science projects, and innovative ideas. With a strong emphasis on collaborative learning and a DIY ethos, the Faire creates a unique space where experimentation is encouraged and cooperation is essential.

For those who envision larger changes, Starhawk’s new EmpowermentManual and a new book of Howard Zinn speeches offer inspiring models for making it happen. While Zinn explores the life and enduring significance of activist, writer, and all-around awesome person Emma Goldman, Starhawk’s blueprint for social change gives us the tools to realize the kind of transformation Goldman had long fought for. As Starhawk writes, the first thing such struggle requires is a positive vision for change: “We are most empowered when we know what we do want, not just what we don’t want.”

That’s certainly true of the teachers’ movement Nancy Schniedewind and Mara Sapon-Shevin describe in Educational Courage. The reform agenda may be powerful, they write, but it can’t stop them from envisioning and working toward a truly democratic education system—one where social justice and connection to a larger community are front and center.  

We can also see some of that hopefulness in Jon Queally’s surprisingly optimistic update on the climate movement’s anti-Keystone campaign. The State Department’s official “comment period” may be over, writes Queally, but the fight sure isn’t.

A little less hopeful, but no less informative, is Suzanne Lindgren’s excellent gif blog on the history of corporate power in Washington—from the Powell Memo to corporate personhood. “Nearly 80 percent of the public opposes the Citizens United decision,” Suzanne writes. “That it hasn’t been reversed goes to show how skewed the current balance of power is.”

Equally sobering are the campaign finance stats Lawrence Lessig shares with us, from the time Congresspeople actually spend begging rich folks for money (a lot) to the 132 Americans—that’s the .000042 percent, if you’re curious—responsible for 60 percent of Super PAC funding in 2012.

To realize real alternatives, it seems, we’re going to have to confront the system of institutionalized bribery holding sway over Washington—or, as insiders call it, politics.

Our weekly guide to what you may have missed.
 

It’s an unfortunate fact that many Global South countries depend on fossil fuels for economic survival. But Ecuador has found an innovative solution, says Audubon. The Quito government knows full well that its Ishpingo, Tambococha, and Tiputini oilfields are worth billions, but the fields are also sitting on Yasuní National Park. And the Amazonian park has treasures of its own, including a full 20 percent of world bird species and more tree varieties than all of North America. So, President Correa has proposed a bargain: if the rest of the world can pony up a (small) percentage of the oilfields’ lost revenue by 2024, they won’t drill. The proposal may add up to blackmail, but major players are already heavily involved, including the German government and the UN. The upshot could be a protected forest and an empowered Third World economy. 

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Understanding Rem Koolhaas’ satirical architecture: from the “setback” New York office building to the “crumbling” Bangkok high-rise, Koolhaas’ largely unbuilt designs disrupt expectations and lend common forms a shade of irony, says Smithsonian Magazine. There’s even an occasional anti-corporate message. One proposal for a Paris office block includes a single floor jutting away from rest of the tower, complete with subversive billboard signs such as ne jamais travailler, or “never work.”

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It’s not easy to catch some civil discourse these days, but it’s still out there. Check out Treehugger’s list of “26 Things We Can All Agree On” (with pictures!), mostly having to do with the environmental crisis. It’s a lot of no-brainers—“Every kid should have the opportunity to climb a tree,” “Tap water shouldn’t catch on fire”—but that’s the point. The sooner we realize most of us see eye to eye on things like, “Kids need healthy food,” the better.

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President Obama may be ahead in national polls, but that doesn’t change the Democrats’ deeper demography problems, says Jack Metzger in Working Class Perspectives. Like most Democrats, Obama did very well among minorities and women in 2008, winning the nonwhite vote by a full 60 percentage points. But also like previous elections, 2012 will likely come down to working class whites—and probably males. In that group, the Dems have a lousy record. Such a crude classification of American society is unfortunate, says Metzger, but the fact is that if the Republicans can edge out just 5 percent of the white working class from 2008, Romney’s headed for the White House. And in 2008, those white working class voters made up a majority in battleground states like Ohio and Iowa. The solution? The Democrats need to stop thinking in stereotypes, Metzger argues, and maybe—just maybe—stop calling everyone “middle class.”

Not to mention the fact that the middle class itself is changing faster than pollsters seem to realize. Should the Democrats venture far beyond Charlotte’s Bank of America Stadium during the DNC next month, they might catch a glimpse of what local photographer Nancy Pierce has recently documented. There, once-booming exurbs have been transformed into ghost towns, says Streetsblog’s Angie Smith. We’ve known about exurban decline for a while now, Smith adds, but Pierce’s photography is still a powerful and surreal portrait of decay—and naturally poignant as the city plans to soon host the biggest political shindig of the year.  

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And don’t miss Democracy Now’s moving remembrance of Howard Zinn, who died two years ago at the age of 87. Zinn would have been 90 today, and to celebrate his birthday Democracy Now has posted a 2009 interview in which Zinn discussed honesty, history, and the power of ordinary people. And of course his message of standing up to injustice and falsehood is resonant as ever. 
 

A periander metalmark butterfly in Ecuador’s Yasuní National Park. Image by Geoff Gallice, licensed under Creative Commons.     

Listen now (7:10)

On Sunday, December 13, the History Channel will air The People Speak, a documentary based on historian Howard Zinn’s book Voices of a People’s History, a collection of 200 documents and speeches that serve as the raw material to Zinn’s classic book A People’s History of the United States.

The People Speak features dramatic and musical performances by Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Danny Glover, Josh Brolin, Marisa Tomei, Sandrah Oh, Matt Damon and more.

I asked Zinn to pick a speech he’d like to have performed for President Obama and who he’d pick to read it. He picked a piece read by David Strathairn and we’ve included a recording of the Strathairn reading here.

Music by the Bombay Sweets. Enjoy!

Image by Greg Federman.

Looks like 2008 is going to be a bumper year for graphic adaptations of U.S. history. Metropolitan Books just released A People’s History of American Empire, based on a chapter of Howard Zinn’s 1980 classic A People’s History of the United States. Cartoonist Mike Konopacki and historian Paul Buhle collaborated on the luxurious 8½-by-11 book, which utilizes Zinn’s text as narration. (Check out his style in our Sept.-Oct. 2007 excerpt of A Power Governments Cannot Suppress.) Historical photographs play into some of the frames, providing a cool contrast to Konopacki’s lively illustrations.

Then—and you’ll have to wait awhile for these—we recently received a booklet previewing two more graphic adaptations, both of them forthcoming from publisher Hill and Wang. Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colón, the duo responsible for The 9/11 Report: A Graphic Adaptation, will be back in bookstores this August with After 9/11: America’s War on Terror (2001-  ). Then, in October, look for The United States Constitution: A Graphic Adaptation, written by Jonathan Hennessy and illustrated by Aaron McConnell.

—Julie Hanus