Social Fabric 2018.05.31

Posted on May 31 2018

Social Fabric 2018.05.31

GOOD NEWS!

Every time I open my News app, Facebook, or, (why do i still?) Twitter, I find myself almost squinting one eye shut to avoid the latest evidence the world is spiraling toward oblivion. While we can’t bury our heads in the sand to bad news or real struggles, sometimes it helps to take a step back and realize that across the arc of human history, the world is actually getting better in many ways. Here are fifty bits of good news. Not one-off feel-good stories, but real hard data. From A Wealth of Common Sense blog.

 

ON THE OTHER HAND…

One part of the world that has definitely not gotten better is humanity’s relationship with its clothing. The price we pay for our clothes has fallen substantially in the past thirty years and we are buying five times as much as we did in 1980. While that might sound like a good deal for consumers, it’s also led to a toxic brew known as “Fast Fashion.” Faster, cheaper, more, repeat. Global brands have gotten huge almost overnight with this formula. But the hidden costs are huge too. From The Elephant Journal.

 

OLD DOG, NEW TRICKS?

Most of us have heard that learning a new language is hard after age 10, really hard after 18. It’s always been in the back of my mind as I’ve thought about taking additional Spanish courses. But a linguistics professor is blowing up these common perceptions. It depends on how we define “fluent.” When I’ve asked our Peruvian partners to score my Spanish, they are very polite and say it’s good. When pressed for a bit more candor, they admit I sound roughly like a Peruvian toddler with a cute accent (or one time, “like a Canadian who lived in Chile for a few years” ???).  In any case, they understand “I get taxi for hotel” really means “I’ll get a taxi to my hotel.” And it’s just fine. And now I feel almost as accomplished as the president of France. From Quartz.

 

LADIES WHO LUNCH

On my recent trip to Peru, one of our lunch conversations turned to a pilot project in a remote Pacific region where a group of women farmers are transforming their community’s school lunches to ditch processed and junk foods for nutritious organic meals. The women re-discovered the benefits to natural foods after a series of horrible weather events forced them to learn to grow new types of vegetables, just to survive. Their self-taught farming skills now form the foundation of their thriving enterprise. Way to go ladies! From IPS News.

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