My new mantra seems to be “Everything is Broken.” It reminds me of Frances Moore Lappe when she told us that things were getting better and things were getting worse. It’s an ambiguity that is difficult to live with. With money and livelihoods, the theme of this issue, usually we don’t have the time or space or inclination to even consider what is taking place in our economy that is better, or that there are even alternatives out there. With this issue, we explore and report on the solutions. They may not all be “radical” in the sense of going to the root of the matter, but we present them nevertheless. We report on SRIs, Regenerative Investing, the Green MBA program at New College in Santa Rosa, one of three such programs in the country, the various forms of local currencies, the way we spend our dollars if we truly are committed to changing the world.

Yes, we also have the bad news, the news that clearly states that the system is truly broken. It’s the real news that gets sugar coated by corporate media.  [Check out
Eight Things you Need to Know about the Shaky U.S. Economy for a shocker.]

We have a new section for Sonoma County, besides Ventura County. Check out what those two counties are up to.

And FiLMS — I cannot keep up with all the incredible films that are coming out. If the corporate cineplexes aren’t going to show them, as well as the art houses, then who is going to screen these films? I hope that by my example of screening films in 5 cities that we can turn others on to screening more and more of these films throughout the country! [Please refer to the main page of the website for a complete list of film showings]. Besides Santa Barbara and SLO, we are now screening films in Santa Rosa, Ojai and Ventura.

And we have gone four color!

Thanks for all your support, inspiration, and letters for this ongoing experimentation to take shape.


Bob Banner, Publisher


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