no rules, just rights

Something of interest to most or all:

This weekend, a conversation about turn-on-red (I am a major foe) and subsequent recall of an argument about the same last summer with another out-of-towner brought this to mind: TRAFFIC ANARCHY IN THE NETHERLANDS! (I have no idea what Seven Corners Localization Initiative is, so I can't be held liable if you get involved and it turns out to be some City Planning Scientology Sex Cult or something.)

I came up with this idea on my own a couple years ago, but it turns out a guy named Hans Monderman was as smart as me, and also has follow-through (and the entire town of Drachten at his disposal). The gist of the article is that there are no traffic signs, lights, anything in this town, and the lack of rules actually makes the roads there safer, because people are actually looking out for themselves and one another instead of relying on the rules and assuming everyone else will do the same. There are a lot of reasons why I thought this would work, and in one AWESOME town in the Netherlands, it IS working.

Thank you, Hans Monderman and Drachten, The Netherlands, for providing just a little bit of evidence that anarchy can and will someday work out.

Speaking of anarchy and things working out, I got to be interviewed about Indymedia for the first time in ages today, by a high schooler at Point Park University's High School Journalism Workshop (of which I am a proud alum, though it was merely a college back in 1999). She took Potter and myself on, both at once, a daunting task, in the plush Steel City Media Conference Room. Getting this sort of attention, and silly hyperbolic praise from Potter, in addition to accurate analysis of what the IMC is really doing for the world and the city, got me a little more stoked on getting re-involved in the movement. The Movement. The Rev. However you want to personify a bunch of actions that, together, comprise an attempt to make some part of the world a little bit more friendly.