[Dialogue] Ode Magazine: Sharing Approaches that Work

[Janice Ulangca]

Dear ICA Colleagues,

We've been aware of the power of "sharing approaches that work" since before the International Exposition of Rural Development international conference in India.  In that vein, Ode magazine sounds exciting, and I pass the information on for your consideration.  Perhaps Europeans and others are already familiar with Ode. They are offering a special 6-month subscription for $10 U.S., to new subscribers in the U.S. and Canada.  I just ordered these for myself and three friends.  If interested you can check it out at the web address at the bottom of this message.

Janice Ulangca

------------------------

Message from Ode's Cofounder & Chief Editor 

Dear Readers:

My name is Jurriaan Kamp and I co-founded and edit Ode -- a very unusual magazine. Since 1995 it has been giving Europeans a rich diet of real-life stories about positive change from all over the world. Since 2003, it has been doing the same for Americans and others around the world with its English-language version.

Well researched, well written, and - yes - inspiring. When I worked as an editor at a major newspaper in the Netherlands, I saw the need for responsible reporting on stories that give us reasons to hope -- but are rarely published...

And we all need to tell each other about every breakthrough idea, invention and real-life practice - anywhere and everywhere such real-world research and development is happening.

This is what Ode is all about… 

We want you to know about stories like these: 

·         A mushroom farm produces 25% more mushrooms a day, since it quit using pesticides. How? By dosing the soil with natural bacteria, fungi and yeast, the farmer increases yield and improves his own health - and the planet’s. 

And this is not in some boutique farm in California, or a converted barn in Vermont. This is in rural Thailand, where villagers grow cucumbers, tomatoes, corn, rice, mangoes fish, and more - using micro-organisms instead of chemicals to feed their soil and keep pests at bay. At half the price of the chemicals.

·         A Canadian professor of electrical engineering went to climb Mt. Everest, and was inspired to invent lights for the Nepalese school-kids he saw trying to read in dark classrooms. He convinced a Japanese firm to make light-bulbs out of tiny light emitting diodes that use 1 watt of electricity apiece. Now whole villages power all their light bulbs with small windmills, solar panels and - in a pinch -- pedal generators. AND the city of New York has just installed the same LED bulbs in all its traffic lights, saving enough electricity a year to prevent another blackout! 

“Meanwhile, our capital city of Washington DC is full of 25 watt bulbs in 100 watt sockets - you see ‘em interviewed on TV every night!” --Jim Hightower, former Texas Agriculture Commissioner. 

·         And in the frigid but very modern city of Reykjavik, Iceland, buses, offices and factories are running on hydrogen-powered fuel cells. Norway and Britain are installing turbines in the ocean, generating electricity out of the ebb and flow of the tides. While Dick Cheney and his friends in the American fossil fuel industry scoff at the idea that renewable nature can power a modern economy, Europe is leaping ahead in sustainable energy production. 

Ode is about empowering and inspiring the reader to make a difference. With factual reports like those I’ve summarized above. And IDEAS…

...(Including) IDEAS about the fundamentals of life – about our collective search for meaning beyond the frenzied chaos of everyday living. Ode explores the human spirit, and what has become almost an underworld – the world of spirituality. People the world over have discovered the healing powers of the mind, of light, of confronting what we glibly call “negative emotions”, of art, and of exploring the spiritual dimension --whether through established religions or through pathways recently revealed.

Ode brings you the cutting edge of positive changes from all over the planet... 

Our newer American edition is for American readers – still partly written and edited in Europe, so you see how the world looks from across the Atlantic. 

In fact, Ode is a global magazine. We are about bridging the ever-widening gap between the Northern and Southern hemispheres. 

… we present cutting edge reports and ideas, many of them by exceptional writers like Brazilian author Paulo Coelho, American linguist and political dissident Noam Chomsky, and our own often regarded Tjin Touber.

http://www.odemagazine.net/landing.html?source=sojo-nwsltr

**************************
Janice Ulangca
3413 Stratford Drive
Vestal, NY  13850
607-797-4595
aulangca at stny.rr.com
***************************
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: /pipermail/dialogue_wedgeblade.net/attachments/20061206/16650347/attachment.html