Lynn's A Fan of the Fall 2011 Edition of Yes!

Take a look inside by clicking here.

You can pick up this issue at any Tattered Cover newsstand.

Lynn says:
"Initially attracted to the cover stories on 'The Upside of Downshifting' and an interview with Van Jones (not to mention the guy on the cover delivering soups on his bike!), I started out transfixed by (it being so close to 9/11/11) a book review by Valerie Trueblood of Transforming Terror by Carrington and Griffin that immediately led me to check out the book on our shelves and to bump it up to the head of an already long queue of must-reads.
Reading further into the magazine and having experimented some with 'cottage industry' ideas for a nonprofit and cooperative living in intentional community, the articles to do with creative DIY recycled clothing, laundry and solar-power worker coops and urban farms pulled me in.

I was truly hooked when I noticed the article on p.46 that is about the Bank of North Dakota, founded in 1919 as a populist response by farmers to the domination of big banks controlling credit availability and cost, much to the detriment of ND communities.  Having just been at a film screening of "Capitalism is the Crisis" at the Mercury Cafe here in Denver, with the truly fascinating in-depth discussions that followed, I was excited to find out more about North Dakota's state banking system that people were talking about.  At least a dozen states are seriously looking to the BND model as an alternative to a financial system that has shown itself to be so clearly out of touch with economic realities (or human potential) on Main Street.

This issue's interview by Sarah van Gelder with Van Jones on redefining the American Dream, 'Want Jobs? Rebuild the Dream' is a well-articulated distillation of our economic predicament that is too often lacking in mainstream media, and much of the issue is a breath of fresh air for navigating through these times of hyperbolic reactions to the tax/spending debates, poverty and wealth disparities, debt and military budget, austerity measures, 'security', 'patriotism',  Wall Street excess, Dow averages and political maneuvering seen in our local, national and international news. 

Yes! often is one voice in the crowd that chooses to focus on the stories behind the stories that get short shrift because they don't fit into neat ideological soundbites.  The current issue is a case in point that acts as a thoughtful jumpstart to my day and gives me practical ideas and useful information that can help me live in this city in a more sustainable, healthy way and to be energized rather than just daunted that, as Rebecca Solnit is quoted as saying on p.62, 'The world gets better. It also gets worse. The time it will take to address this is exactly equal to your lifetime.'"


--Lynn