Die Magdeburger Lebensmittelkooperative Food Coop veranstaltet am kommenden Sonntag ein offenes Themenfrühstück zu selbstorganisierten Gemeinschaftsgärten.

Während es in vielen Ländern eine längere Geschichte städtischer Kleingarten gibt, erleben nordamerikanische Städte gerade eine Renaissance urbaner Gemeinschaftsgärten (Community Gardens). Angesichts sozialer Entfremdung, erhöhter Lebensmittelpreise und globaler Erwärmung können diese Gartenkooperativen als eine interessante Antwort auf verschiedene Herausforderungen angesehen werden.

Neben der gemeinsamen Einnahme allerlei leckerer Dinge (gegen Solibeitrag nach Selbsteinschätzung) möchten wir über die Gemeinschaftsgartenbewegung in Nordamerika reden, diskutieren ob Gartenkooperativen eher Grünzeugkleinkrams oder die bevorstehende Gemüserevolution darstellen, und beleuchten was es für Möglichkeiten für selbstorganisierte Stadtgärten hier und jetzt gibt.

Themenfrühstück: “Selbstorganisierte Gemeinschaftsgärten” (Poster)
Sonntag, 28.6.2009, 10:30 Uhr im ÖZIM (Harsdorfer Str. 49)
Food Coop: http://www.foodcoop-md.de

The Calgary Herald recently published an editorial article (in the news section of their website!) arguing that a street festival that would block a small part of one major street would not make any sense and that there are much more pressing issues to be dealt with in Calgary, for example, making sure that traffic runs smoothly and swiftly. I added a comment, but i’m not sure when or whether it will appear, so here it is:

Dear Calgary Herald,

so you think you can judge what valid neighbourhood concerns are? How would you address the bottleneck you mentioned? Add another lane? A tunnel? Get rid of sidewalks? I (as a citizen) think there are much more critical bottlenecks on the tiny sidewalks on 10th street, on the pathways along the rivers, and almost anywhere in this car-obsessed city. The real problem is that Calgarians are hanging on the needle of individual, motorist mobility and suburban sprawl. In this light, I salute those that attempt to put on a street festival that seeks to celebrate and promote walking, biking, and urban living.

Your view of festivals centring around booths and vendors may be a bit limited to what you’ve seen in the past in this town of Calgary. Street festivals can be so much more. It can be taking a dance class, doing a picnic, practising aerobic, and just getting together. I know Calgary has its fitness studios, dance schools, and coffee shops - but wouldn’t it be great if we all would get out more? Dare I say, streets could be even fun places to hang out? Check out last year’s Summer Streets in New York City endorsed and put on by the city and supported by many organizations and thousands of citizens themselves:

http://www.streetfilms.org/archives/summer-streets-2008-nyc/

Well, I wish Druh and the festival organizers carry through with their ambitions and will not be put down by you, Calgary Herald. The comments at least draw a different picture of Calgary. Maybe closing streets temporarily could help us imagine all the possible things we could do in the streets of this city instead of congesting them with motorist traffic. Maybe even in a couple of years we will look back and will not be able to remember why we haven’t started earlier with starting to close down some streets permanently.

I am finishing the wonderful book Pedagogy of the Oppressed written by Paulo Freire in 1970 and i must say it is an inspiring read for anybody (still) interested in revolutionary social change. While this book deserves a lengthier discussion particularly about education and activism, i stumbled upon this sentence that begs to be quoted:

“The destroyers call themselves builders,
and accuse the true builders of being destructive.”

I immediately had to think of the discourse around street art. While commercial billboards are accepted and legitimate, street art gets criminalized and denounced. Yes, i also dislike many types of graffiti, tags, etc., but i have encountered so many beautiful and revealing pieces of street art that i just cannot resist seeing city administrations as the true destroyers here. Many of the pieces i have photographed have been destroyed by the true destroyers. For example, a wheatpaste of a homeless person under the bridge in Calgary—which also has the anti-human rocks—had a very short life span…

Together with my supervisors Sheelagh Carpendale and Carey Williamson at the University of Calgary, i am conducting a Web-based study on information visualization and Web search. Participants of this study are asked to use a visual search prototype for as long as they wish and fill out short questionnaires before and after using the system. The purpose of this research is to better understand performance and usability issues of information visualization supporting search on the Web. The data collected during the study will be anonymised and the questionnaires will not ask for any personal information.

If you are interested in participating, please visit this Web page:

http://pages.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/~mdoerk/view

If you have any questions, please contact me at mdoerk[at]ucalgary.ca for more information. In addition, if you have friends or colleagues who you believe might also be interested in participating in this research, we would be grateful if you were to talk to them about this research opportunity and/or forward them this information about our study.

Nachdem ich Kamran und Jens einst erwähnt habe, wie sie Städte und Städter zeigen, hier ein kleiner Hinweis auf Joe und Michh, die sich dem Groszen und Kleinen in urbanen Gefilden widmen. Bei Joe sieht man im Moment Potsdam und seine Park- und Wohnanlagen und Michh zeigt kleinere Artefakte wie Bahnhofuhren und Glühbirnen.

As i read this article on the website of Calgary’s weekly zine FFWD about a local magazine shop and the printed news industry, i thought about print and the physical. I agree with the commenter Melly Mel, that print is awesome and FFWD rules. But i really do appreciate adding comments to articles, subscribing to RSS feeds (which FFWD’s website lacks unfortunately), and saving trees. To me the limitation of the screen boils down to its resolution and versatility (so far) in contrast to paper. I don’t have a problem with taking my laptop and reading blogs or news outside/beyond a desk setting, but paper is in some respects still far superior. Yet, everytime i see those free magazines at C-Train stations and on campus i ask myself is it still worth it? Does printed broadcasting like this still make sense?

I have been to the store mentioned in the article before and i agree it has a nice selection of national and international magazines. But as i read and work more online than on paper, i think i am exposed to a wider range of information and inspiration that i could ever afford to access (read: buy) in such a store. While this may have bad consequences for news/magazine shops, i think there are still opportunities to “make money” off of our information needs. But maybe less directly. Maybe we will rather pay for coffee, muffins, and a nice atmosphere. Coffeeshops and teahouses are already experiencing a new bloom, as we yearn for more social and physical interaction.

Listening to BBC Global News (19 Feb 09 AM), i just learned about the US-American organization ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) that trains and supports to-be-evicted homeowners essentially to squat and defend their homes. Their ‘home defender’ campaign somewhat reminds one of the other kind of squatting carried out by dreamers in the global north and by the underprivileged in the south, both refusing and/or unable to play by market rules. Pretty interesting how a subversive method like occupying a property that ‘technically’ doesn’t belong to you (anymore) makes its debut in North American suburbia. As everybody is talking about Main street (in contrast to Wall street) i wonder if there will be alliances between the squatters from the edge of the city and those from the ‘real’ Main street in the inner city. However, i am actually not so sure whether inner-city squatting is still happening in North America or if it has already been declared terrorism.

Since my last rant about the Calgary Transit website five months ago on this blog and many rants with locals, much has happened. First Calgary Transit updated their website later last year and ironically it deteriorated even more. But the major step happened today: Calgary’s public transport is finally put on Google Transit (press release). Hooray!

There are still some glitches to be fixed. For example, right now the system has troubles integrating the C-Train into trip planning, if not the explicit station names are used for search queries. However, one can click the station explicitly. This problem seems to be due to the naming legacy at Calgary Transit. Where, for example, the university station is called “@Unvrsty STN”, which is a bit unfortunate… Anyhow, thanks to both Google and City of Calgary. Let’s hope now that the physical counterpart of Calgary Transit catches up, too.

Last Sunday i took a minor bike ride through the city ending up on a hill that actually stretches all along the major river here. Besides constituting a challenge when bike-commuting, it is one of several reasons to reconcile with a place that may not seem like the best place to live in the world… Standing on this hill provides a way to look at (parts of) the city from a distance while still being rather close. It makes the city somehow graspable and tolerable, if not enjoyable. It puts the city in perspective, in particular because the Rockies provide the next backdrop. And maybe regardless of what i am looking at, i just really enjoy looking into the distance. It is a nice counter-program to the screen that i face so much these days. And because you’re sitting in front of a similar thing, you can check out the panoramas and other views on Calgary that i put together for you.

I am slowly but steadily reactivating my habit of putting photos online. I revived my Flickr account and will upload more photographs in the near future. Flickr may not be the philosophically best way of sharing photos, however, it does offer a great service.