Sunday, May 24, 2009

DONATE A USED BIKE | Pedals for Progress (P4P) Bike Drive

When:
Saturday, May 30th
12:00 to 3:00

Where:
The Grove West
Shrewsbury, NJ
exit 109 off the
Donate and Enter to win
a *new* Beach Cruiser

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What a great idea! Pedals for Progress is putting unused bikes to good use in the developing world. For many families in developing countries, a bicycle is as important to their well-being as your car is to you. Too often, though, these families don’t have a bike and must walk everywhere. A bike from P4P changes this almost overnight. Instead of walking at three or four miles per hour, someone can pedal a bike at 10 to 15 miles per hour. Destinations that were once hours away are easily within reach. These could be new opportunities for employment, schools, health facilities, markets—just think about all the places you need to get to in the course of a week. With no public transportation and no car, what would you do? Bikes have been sent to Nicaragua, Ghana, Moldova, Sierra Leone and Guatemala to help people take part in their local economy. Over 118, 000 bikes have been donated since 1991.

Please donate only 2 wheelers, without rust and no tricycles. Flat tires and in need of some repair are accepted. Pedals for Progress also collects sewing machines, which have been distributed in El Salvador, Uganda and Jamaica, as well. Only sewing machines in working condition are accepted.

Pedals for Progress is a nonprofit organization based in High Bridge, N.J., that has collected bikes to send overseas for the past 18 years. David Schweidenback, president of Pedals for Progress, referred to the recycling chain of the bikes as a "transfer of wealth between nations." Learn about the NJ Based non-profit charity, Pedals for Progress, the world's largest recycler of used bicycles. Bikes and donations are tax deductible. It takes $28 to ship one bike overseas, so please include a $10 donation to defray shipping costs.

Summer Collection Schedule for bike drives around the state.
Review their current partner locations
Organize a Pedals for Progress Bike Drive in your community.

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

LENS: NEW FEATURE OF NEW YORK TIMES WEBSITE

Lens is the photojournalism blog of The New York Times, presenting the most interesting visual and multimedia reporting — photographs, videos and slide shows. A showcase for Times photographers, it also seeks to highlight the best work of other newspapers, magazines and news and picture agencies; in print, in books, in galleries, in museums and from around the Web. And it will draw on The Times's own pictorial archive, numbering in the millions of images and going back to the early 20th century.

Go to Lens

Friday, May 08, 2009

Clay Shirky: Wikipedia and Seeds for Transforming Capitalism?

I just finished reading three chapters of Clay Shirky's book Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations. I think Shirky just might gives us a possible site to think about how capitalism can be altered through the Wikipedia model of doing good — just for the sake of it. No monetary remuneration. He makes a compelling argument for exactly why Wikipedia is revolutionary and human beings have the power to be the same. He goes on to explain that we are living through the most "human expressive period in history." The potential to alter life as we know it through collective action, participation and organization that in turn gathers knowledge, distribution and speed to make change. Group action.

Shirky explains that wikis are only worth their salt if people care about them, and that "a wiki is a hybrid of tool and community."Experts, professionals and amateurs alike make additions and corrections to Wikipedia out of the pure love, enjoyment and for betterment of everyone who uses it around the world. I repeat. They don't get paid to do it. Isn't that the old adage we've all heard— to do great work you have to do what you love? Somewhere in Shirky's book is a balance between working collectively, making change, doing it in a nearly effortless manner and loving it.

Protest Culture -- Ad Hoc vs Institutional, and What it Means (Event Video/Audio) Clay Shirky joined an intimate group at the Berkman Center for a deep dive discussion on one chapter of his book, Here Comes Everybody, which deals with protest culture -- ad hoc vs institutional, and what it means.

Friday, May 01, 2009

MAY DAY-MARCH FOR WORKER AND IMMIGRANT RIGHTS

Today, May 1st at Union Square in NYC at noon.

It's crucial that everyone; immigrants, trade unionists, youth, the unemployed, the foreclosed and all progressive forces come out in support of May Day to demand humane immigration reform end of raids and deportations, and money for people not war, prisons or
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detentions.