Colonization of the Subconscious
This essay examines some of the effects of interactions with computers on the mind, taken from Adbusters

Annotated Bibliography from Beyond Schooling Conference
Prepared by the Zarnuji Institute, with additional annotations by Dar al Islam.

Selected Readings from Beyond Schooling Conference
Documents from the package readings prepared by the Zarnuji Institute for their Toronto Conference: Beyond Schooling.

Watch out for the Experts!
A new book examines the commodification of the concept of care, and the harm it causes communities. Review from Adbusters

Plucking Blessings from City Trees
An article from Mother Jones by Ian Frazier, telling the tale of one man's triumph over chaos, one plastic bag at a time

Brazil's Favelados build a better life
The development of Brazil's shanty-towns into permanent neighborhoods illustrates the way Allah's Mercy comes down on those willing to change their conditions.

Facing the Farm Crisis
From "The Ecologist" Glamorous excess is a staple of the mainstream media, even in its economic reporting. Stories about soaring corporate profits, exorbitant CEO salaries, improbably high stock prices, and the billions made by obscure dot com start-ups so dominate the news that one could easily believe the global economy is making everyone (else) rich. But high-flying winners are the exception in today's economic casino, and no one is losing out more than small farmers.

On the Streets of Seattle
by Paul Hawken
From the Amicus Journal, Spring 2000
More than 700 organizations and between 40,000 and 60,000 people took part in the protests against the Third Ministerial of the World Trade Organization on November 30. These groups and citizens sense a cascading loss of human, labor, and environmental rights in the world. Seattle was not the beginning but simply the most striking expression of citizens struggling against a worldwide corporate-financed oligarchy-in effect, a plutocracy. Oligarchy and plutocracy are not polite terms. They often are used to describe "other" countries where a small group of wealthy people rule, but not the "first world"-the United States, Japan, Germany, or Canada. But already, the world's top 200 companies have twice the assets of 80 percent of the world's people. Global corporations represent a new empire whether they admit it or not. With massive amounts of capital at their disposal, any of which can be used to influence politicians and the public as and when deemed necessary, they threaten and diminish all democratic institutions.

The Age of Access
By Jeremy Rifkin

This article, excerpted from Jeremy Rifkin's upcoming book by the same title, appeared in The Industry Standard, March 20,2000.

In the Industrial economy, with its emphasis on mass production and the sale of goods, securing a share of the market was utmost in the minds of every entrepreneur. In the Age of Access, with its emphasis on selling specialized services and providing access to expertise of all kinds, the role played by suppliers changes markedly. "We are shifting from being box sellers to becoming trusted advisers," said Hewlett- Packard's Wim Roelandts in Don Tapscott's The Digital Economy. The new idea in marketing is to con- centrate on share of customer rather than share of market. What these ideas boil down to is the commodification of a person's entire lifetime of experiences. Marketing specialists use the phrase "lifetime value," or LTV, to emphasize the advantages of shifting from a product- oriented to an access-oriented environment in which negotiating discrete market transactions is less important than securing and commodifying lifetime relationships with clients.

Deconstructing Suburbia
An interview with James Howard Kunstler by William Upski Wimsatt, appearing in Adbusters No.29 Spring 2000. (www.adbusters.org). "In The Geography of Nowhere, James Kunstler observes that the building of suburbia as a replacement for towns and cities was a self-destructive act, 'The living arrangement Americans now think of as normal is bankrupting us economically, socially, ecologically, and spiritually. The physical setting itself - the cartoon landscape of car-clogged highways, strip malls, tract houses, franchise fry pits, parking lots, junked cities, and ravaged countryside - is not merely a symptom of our troubled culture but in many ways a primary cause of our troubles."

Violent Images in the Media Change Us

American Churches Grapple with Growth of Islam

Data Smog

Reading List for American Muslims