Episode eight of RTTE is now live on YouTube. This month you’ll see Debbie Stowe, a British journalist, who’s been living in Romania for the past 9 years and has found her home, her partner and her career here.
RTTE-008-EN-HD
Released 3/19/12
Enjoy the insights!
The BBC put together a Fry & Laurie reunion show in which I got to see them together after many years. I was glad to learn more about their start in showbiz and about how they met, which was the biggest surprise of all. I had no idea Emma Thompson went to school with them, introduced them and did comedy with them. No idea at all.
The TED channel published two interesting videos recently which present two points of view about the Earth, in terms of its resources and economy. The first is from Paul Gilding, entitled “The Earth is full“, and the second is from Peter Diamandis, entitled “Abundance is our future“.
I invite you to watch both points of view, which are at first in seeming opposition but after some consideration, are both saying pretty much the same thing, namely this:
Our current economic models, based on carbon forms of energy, will soon reach their lifespan, and we have some choices to make ahead as we transition to other economic models and other ways of generating our energy and making our stuff.
We can have a smooth transition or we can have a rocky one, with elements of anarchy and possible energy and water wars.
What’s clear on both sides is that we need to something about it and we need to start doing it now.
The wonderful thing is there are solutions to our energy and pollution problems emerging now and if they’re implemented correctly, we will not only avert any potential crises but we will come out ahead of the curve.
What are we waiting for? Let’s do it!
I filmed a short vlog today about the need for true craftsmen, which is becoming more apparent in developed countries pretty much everywhere. The more emphasis is placed on white collar jobs, IT and college degrees, the less people you have going to vocational schools in order to learn how to become craftsmen. Countries don’t run on computers alone. We need people doing real, physical work, building the infrastructure and taking pride in their jobs, building with the best methods and to the highest quality available to them, otherwise fields like construction are going to get worse, not better. (Have you looked at the build quality of the sheds we call “homes” these days?)
I hope you take a few minutes to watch the entire video and do your part to encourage your children or your students in schools to become real craftsmen. They can make a good living, even a great living, doing craftwork, and they can do it without going into debt by the tens of thousands of dollars, getting college and post-graduate education which isn’t going to be useful to them. If you’d like a list of good, honest trades and crafts, this article which lists 19th century occupations alphabetically should help.
I’m not alone in my views. You can also watch Mike Rowe, host of “Dirty Jobs”, give a testimony before Congress where he urges the US government to encourage our children to choose to go to vocational and tech schools, because there’s a real need for these kinds of people in the US economy.
It goes without saying that Thomas Hawk loves photography. It also goes without saying that he writes about photography. In spite of all those givens, I still got a pleasant surprise when I saw that he took time out of his truly hectic schedule and went to the trouble of identifying 1,500 great photographers who are active on Google+. He posted the full lists on his blog and also on Google+.
What surprised me wasn’t that I was on the list (although that was nice). The real surprise was the effort involved in manually identifying 1,500 people. It takes a lot of time and effort to do that! It shows genuine interest in others and a desire to see them succeed and be recognized!
I’ve known TH since 2006. We’ve met and talked during his trip to Miami in 2010. The man is consistently nice, online and offline, obsessed with his art, works punishingly long hours, is constantly working to improve his craft and trying new things, is always pushing the envelope when it comes to photo sharing technology and is concerned with the welfare of other photographers.
While I’m fairly sure that I came across as a bit odd to him in person, because I’m much more comfortable interacting with people online, we had a nice conversation and a nice little photowalk on Hollywood Beach. Here are a couple of photos I took of him back then.
Thank you TH! Keep up the great work! 🙂
Raoul Pop 