TED Community » Lindsay Newland Bowker

More About Me

I'm passionate about

unwinding the plutonomy web, restoring soundness and consumer protections to banking and financial markets, dignity and quality of life for the aging and for persons with cognitive disabliy

An idea worth spreading

"LegBook" a legislative version of facebook/skype combined requiring plain english on line access by suject to bills before a legislative body and enabling remote participation at hearings.http://lindsaynewlandbowker.posterous.com/legbook-keeping-citizens-in-the-deliberative

People don't know that I'm good at

singing,celestial navigation, bluewater sailing

My TED Story

Happened to see a telecast of a TED Comference and had been checking in from time to time to see what's new at TED. The new conversations section is a great way for epople to rerally vsist the ideas in presenttations that stirred their hearts or imaginations and it seems already a place that may be an incubator for future TED talks.

Comments

• TEDCred score: +50 TEDCred reflects your contribution to the TED community.

• +1

  A reply on Conversation: How we can solve many of the critical issues facing our nation and strengthen our democracy.

  1 hour ago: That's it wholly..only through our own daily engagement in governance can we have the nation we want.
  
  I have lately taken up blogging at all of Maine's newspaper dailies and also testifying on bills that are ALEC generated or otherwise written by and for corporate lobbies.
  
  I have been truly shocked to discover that Maine is a corporatocracy and has been for decades..We are a banana republic at the mercy of corporations exploiting our natural resources and maximizing profits by undoing labor and environmental protection laws.
  
  
  
  I was recently given a big pin which I wear proudly "CITIZEN LOBBYIST"..
  
  Our informed voices must be in every single bill at the state and federal level. If each of us just takes an interest in some type of legsilatin that matters to us personally ..education, environmental protection, chldrens services, etc. there will be more than enough citizen power to matter on every bill.
  
  
  
  If we don't become Citizen Lobbyists we leave it all to the regulars and we deserve what we get.

• A comment on Conversation: Should Abortion be legal world wide despite religious beliefs?

  4 days ago: Here is a bit of TED history with a bearing on this question and the emerging discussion around it.
  
  
  At this conversation on what values we shared here at TED:
  
  
  
  http://www.ted.com/conversations/3058/finding_common_ground_what_do.html
  
  
  
  we set up a google moderator to capture consensus around expressed values that we believed were widely shared at TED:
  
  
  
  http://www.google.com/moderator/#16/e=8649b
  
  
  
  Interesting to note that abortion ad fetal rights were not mentioned specifically but it would be interesting to add this proposition to the moderator so all viewing and particpating in this discssion could also express their view as a vote at the moderator. Also, in what was expressed is there support for abortion rights and fetal rights?
  
  
  Here is a link to the U.N. Declaration of Universal Human Rights:
  
  
  
  http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/
  
  
  
  It expresses rights in very and fundamental terms so does not mention abortion or fetal rights specifically.
  
  Do you think it covers abortion and legal rights though in the principles set forth?
  .

• A reply on Conversation: Should Abortion be legal world wide despite religious beliefs?

  4 days ago: Obey No1kinobe, well said.
  
  
  
  You point to something important beyond sovereign rights..to fundamental universal human rights..aspirations for a global community.
  
  Becoming a global community will eventually erase the gap between what we might declare to be universal human rights and a nations invocation of sovereign rights to establish laws conistent with culture and tradition.
  
  Ideally, there would be no gap..all nations would be united and of one accord on fundamental universal human rights. We have become willing as a world community to recognize that some of what is claimed under sovereign righs are crimes against humanity and have been willing to take action as a world community to force nations to end such practices.
  
  At the moment, neither a woman's right to choose whether or not to bear a child nor the universal human rights of the unborn are on the U.N.'s declaration of universal human rights.
  
  I don't ahree with you at all that "what is right ethically on balance for one group is for all groups"
  Ethics and morality are normative..i.e. cultural or by consensus..they are not absolute or fundamental.
  
  
  When we speak of, or seek to define "universal human rights" we are looking to something that transcends religion culture history and tradition..we are looking to the essence of what it means to be human and to honor human life, to what serves life, to what serves humanity. As a global community we are in our infancy on this score we are crawling our way towards even thinking in these terms. A few nations like Equador and Iceland have adopted modern constitutions that include expressions of this humanity, statements of obligation to collaboratively commit to stewardship for humanity now and for future generations.
  
  
  Ethan's question was shoud abortion be a universal LEGAL right..My answer is we are a long way from even locating it on a universal human rights basis which puts us very very far away from any notion of universal LEGAL rights.,

• A comment on Conversation: Should Abortion be legal world wide despite religious beliefs?

  5 days ago: We have had many many discussions about global governance here at TED Conversations and they have been very helpful to me in thinking through the limits of soverignty..where is boundatu where global interests ( or the interests of adjacent countries )?
  
  I don't think that abortion is one of those issues. Abortion I think fals within "Sovereign Rights" ( the right sof nation to make and enforce laws with no outside interference or challenges. That puts people of childbearing age who do not agree with anti abortion policies in the very tough place of having to take great risk to have an abortion, or gives only the well to do the option of traveling to a country where abortion is legal.
  
  I don't think it is a human rights issue ( in terms of prosecuting people who choose abortion or offer abortion) that warrants outside intervention.

• A reply on Conversation: How has enduring some extreme hardship profoundly impacted your life?

  May 10 2012: Scott here is a quote and one link from one source on the physical chnages in the barin that can ocurr in PTSD or other witness to horror and atraocities:
  
  http://www.newharbinger.com/PsychSolve/PostTraumaticStressDisorder/tabid/163/Default.aspx
  
  "Research on the disorder strongly suggests that trauma causes physical changes in the brain. These changes include shrinkage in the area of the brain associated with certain kinds of memories, increased activation in the area responsible for emotional processing, and decreased activation in the area responsible for language processing"
  
  I believe V.S. Ramachandran. host of several TED Talks, also has done some studies and work in this area.
  
  Other work suggests that it shuts diwn the oart f the brain associated with empathy and compassion.
  
  The trasncendant experiences many are rpeorting here may not be availble to someone who has witnessed horrific things and suffered actual chnages in the brain as a result.

• A reply on Conversation: 'Capitocracy' : Democracy and capitalism are the same thing!

  May 10 2012: Democracy as we know it in America, was born out of a spirit of free enterprise.
  
  Our constitution, the constitution of most free nations, did not address itself to income inequality or to values like stewardship for the planet, stewardship for future generations, to stewadship for this generation for all our creatures and peoples, now and in the future.
  
  
  
  It was almost inevitable that our democacry would become a corporotocracy, a plutonomy and that our legislative process at the federal, state and local level would come to be harnessed to the needs convenience and goals of a corporate elite.
  
  
  
  Interestingly, many nations are rewriting their constiutions and these new consitutions do include these values, almost universally.
  
  
  
  Also see a TED conversation a few months ago Is Demoncracy Synonymous With Capitalism ,http://www.ted.com/conversations/7980/is_democracy_synonymous_with_c.html
  Some excellent inputs there that tue into this question and this conversation..
• +2

  A reply on Conversation: How has enduring some extreme hardship profoundly impacted your life?

  May 10 2012: Asgar,
  
  Such a loss...such an agony..such a triumph that your spirit instead of being crushed flowered.
  
  I was a seed in a crack in the concrete, sun and water came and I became a flower and I sent my seeds out , with the help of the wind to better soil where sun and water came and they became that garden over there which feeds this village
  
  Asgar, your inspiring story and blog ( where I found the seed for the above) speaks of what happens almost universally to those who come to the ground of their being through suffering.
  
  .they turn outward to the wolrd they turn outward to service to the world and for the first time they know in the ground of their being what it means to be human..what humanity is all about, what our place in it is.
  
  
  A radiance of blessings to you Asgar.
• +1

  A comment on Conversation: What does cave art mean to you?

  May 9 2012: There is a wisdom tradition in many ancient and widely dispersed cultures that rocks are either sentient or have the ability to record and replay sentience
  
  hommus spirtitualis
  
  perhaps only the rock images survived..can we know for sure their clothing and hides drum heads and spear shafts were not also richly figurated and decorated invoking spriti, expressing spirit
  
  hommus spritualis
  
  impossible not to be moved by the celebration of abundance and of the rhythms and patterns of life in these chauvet images
  
  hommus spiritualis
  
  
  
  hommus spiritualis

• A reply on Conversation: What does cave art mean to you?

  May 9 2012: mateusz
  
  It is very very very far from primitive in execution, conceptualization and expression...and it has enormous spiritual power and expression as well.
• +1

  A comment on Conversation: What does cave art mean to you?

  May 8 2012: Cave of Forgotten Dreams is spellbinding. A fresh and very compelling re interpretation of all ancient cave paintings and rock paintings in this " meditation" on the Chauvet cave images.. I have only seen one ancient cave painting in person ( at Bandolier in New Mexico)..not as old as Chauvet or Lascaux but I was mesmerized..by the colors ( beautful reds and turquoise blue) and by the images..There is a lot about them that is primal, fundamental as in foundational, but they are not primitive.