The Icarus Project has become an outspoken advocacy organization for the idea of "radical mental health. Co-founder Jacks McNamara explains how they define that concept.

Radical mental health asks if being "different" is something that requires treatment, or can sometimes be recognized as just a different way of being. need not be seen or treated as a mental illness, argues Artist and poet Jacks McNamara argues that her bi-polar disorder should be seen as a "dangerous gift," something to cherish and to be wary of.

The art and poetry of Jacks McNamara, as well as her personal history as told in her own words, forms the subject matter for the short film, Crooked Beauty, by  Ken Rosenthal. Here is a trailer for the film.

Now that the Icarus Project is eight years old, and well established across the country and beyond, McNamara says she is now turning more of her energies toward nurturing a new class of leaders and advocates to take the organization on to its next level.

Representative democracy in America has become so distorted that most citizens have opted out and don’t even register to vote. Ted Rall’s suggested cure for the many ills that afflict the United State’s current political system is radically simple: Tear it all down and start over again.

Rall isn't much interested in the coming mid-term election, noting that only a small minority of Americans will have anything to do with it.

Ted Rall will speak about his book, The Anti-American Manifesto,  at Sonoma State University  on Monday night, Oct. 18 at 7 pm in the Student Union Building's Multipurpose Room.

Small businesses have a disproportionately big impact on the local economy, especially when it comes to creating jobs. But public policy has been slow to recognize that. The need for changes was a central theme at Monday's Smart Growth Symposium, presented the Leadership Institute for Ecology and the Economy.

On the global economic playing field, the ongoing tug-of-war between local business and corporate giants can be distilled into competing views of how capitalism should work, explains Mike Shuman, Director for Research and Economic Development for the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE). He likes to think of them as two quite different women.

Many consumers are already aware of and acting on the desirability of directing their spending toward local businesses. But few give much thought to taking the same approach with their retirement accounts and other investments. Shuman explains how some of the long-standing obstacles to doing that are beginning to go away.

Only a few things can transcend the histories and circumstances of the hardened inmates at San Quentin prison. Music is one of them.


 

Sebastopol guitarist and youth advocate Buzzy Martin will read from his book and talk about his experiences at Copperfield's Books in Sebstopol, Thursday evening, September 16 at 7 pm.

Calls for greater transparency in the inner fiscal dealings of foundations based at California State University campuses are mounting, after some of those details became public.

State Senator Leland Yee (D-SF) has championed legislative action to apply the state’s Public Records Act to the CSU academic foundations and other auxiliary organizations. He says these latest revelations about their lax fiscal management only reinforces the need for such a measure.

California Faculty Association president Lillian Taiz, a history professor at Cal State Los Angeles, charges that the newly revealed CABO minutes make it clear that the CSU administration’s opposition to Senator Yee’s sunshine bill, SB 330, was driven not by principle, but protective self-interest.

At Sonoma State, there are four separate auxiliary organizations, explains Chief Financial Officer and Vice President for Administration & Finance, Laurence Furukawa-Schlereth. But the budget for the Academic Foundation is much larger than those of  the other three  combined.

Here's the link to the SSU tranparency webpage. You can also read the Executive Summary of the CFA report on the CABO minutes they found. To read the full report, go here. Scroll down for the links to the minutes themselves.