Friday Faves - Your Weekly Strong Towns Roundup
It’s easy to feel defeated in our current politically divisive moment, but it is possible to get things done, even when it seems like the right–left divide brings everything to a standstill. At Strong Towns, we hear stories every day from our members who are working together with neighbors who might vote differently from them, yet can still find common ground when it comes to making their community stronger.
Recently, we hosted a Local-Motive Tour focused on how to make progress when political divisions dominate. We’re sharing a printable “action guide” from that session with you—totally free. Read more about it here, and download your free action guide below!
Comment of the Week:
This came from a discussion on our Upzoned episode, “Can We Build Strong Towns from Scratch in the 21st Century?“ Join the conversation on our Facebook Group!
Here’s what Strong Towns staff were up to this week:
(Source: Wikimedia Commons.)
Chuck: This article is about one event in the war in Ukraine, but I don’t want to focus here on anything more than the lesson of this event, the sinking of the Russian battleship Moskva. This should not have happened, at least not by conventional military doctrine, but it did, and this brief article from The Economist explains how. I’ll summarize: Small, tactical, and stealth can, and often does, prevail against big, powerful, and clumsy. It’s not merely a metaphorical David versus Goliath, but an actual David (agile, slinging rocks from a distance) versus Goliath (large, hulking, built for close combat), and David won. Know that there is a longstanding debate within America’s military industrial complex about the value of multibillion-dollar warships and related accessories. The sinking of the Moskva by a drone and a small rocket will shift that debate, hopefully in more than just the military.
Shina: Here's a simplified recipe for baghali ghatogh, a Caspian soup with poached eggs. Lately it's been my go-to dish when I just want something quick and easy to prepare. (If you want to make it the real way, though, watch the above video—with captions on!)
1.5 tbsp. butter or ghee / 5–6 cloves garlic, thinly sliced / 1 tsp. turmeric / 1 oz. fresh dill, chopped (supplement with dried dill if needed, to taste) / 16 oz. frozen lima beans or fava beans / salt and pepper, to taste / however many eggs you want for serving
Melt butter in a medium-sized pot on medium heat. Cook garlic in the melted butter and stir until fragrant. Add turmeric and dill and cook until fragrant while stirring, no more than 30 seconds. Add frozen lima beans and stir until they are coated in the turmeric and dill. Add water until beans are fully covered, then bring to a boil. Cover and bring back down to a simmer, for 23–25 minutes, until beans are tender. Add salt and pepper to taste. Crack eggs directly into the soup, cover the pot, and poach until yolks are done to desired firmness. Serve with basmati rice, flatbread, fish, and/or chicken on the side, if you like. Noosh-e jan (bon appétit)!
John: Last week a friend sent this TED presentation featuring author Daniel Pink on the topic of human regret. Pink looked at 50 years of social science research on regret, and he analyzed 16,000 regrets that people sent him from 105 different countries. What he found is that regrets tend to fall into four basic categories: foundation regrets, boldness regrets, moral regrets, and connection regrets. What was interesting to me—and why I'm sharing it here—is that Pink says you can look at these categories of regret as almost a “photographic negative” of the good life. People desire stability and the opportunity to take a few risks, they generally want to do good, and they want to be connected with others.
I think this connects to the Strong Towns movement in a subtle but important way. People want the opportunity to live a good life in a prospering place. A strong town is one that provides a platform for a life of fewer regrets: stability and the opportunity for strategic risk-taking, a place to be connected with others, and a place where, in the words of Catholic Worker co-founder Peter Maurin, it's a little easier to be good.
A scene from Japanese television show Old Enough!
Seairra: When I’m not working for Strong Towns, I spend a lot of time on a local farm, which I talked about recently with my colleagues Rachel and Christa on The Bottom Up Revolution podcast. One of the things we discussed was how sometimes work on a farm just takes over and completely unexpected things happen that fully consume you. Last week I had one of those wild days where if something is going to happen, everything is going to happen at once (including a cold, windy rain).
The vet came for a visit and we learned that one of our mama's milk was making her baby sick. She wasn’t moving around much and seemed more interested in sleep than exploring, which is not a good sign for a newborn lamb. So on came the task of teaching this three-day-old lamb to bottle feed and just hoping that along with some medicine, she’d get better. Not long after the vet left I heard a ruckus out in the pasture and went out to find one of the younger mama sheep flat on her side, unable to stand up. In the pouring, freezing rain this ewe and I tried to work together to get her to stand. But she'd lost all mobility in her legs and would just fall back on me.
With some help, I carried her to a shelter and sat/shivered with her until the vet could circle back around. We aren't sure why, but it was clear that the issue was neurological, possibly related to a vitamin deficiency. The vet taught me how to give the sheep muscular shots in her neck, because I’d have to be giving her them myself the next day.
The next morning, our sheep seemed worse off and we feared she wouldn’t make it. I gave her the shots as the vet instructed and miraculously, after a grueling, almost 17 hours since I’d found her unable to move, this sheep pulled through and stood all on her own. It’s been a full week and she has gone from not being able to hold her head up on her own to walking and running around. She’s on her way to a full recovery and this weekend we’ll be letting her back out with the rest of the flock. Oh, and that little lamb has fully recovered, as well. She’s finally up and running in the pasture with all the others.
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Finally, from all of us, a warm welcome to the newest members of the Strong Towns movement: Staci Almager, Nicholas Clyde, Joyce Day, Timothy E. Farrar, Sheila Gallagher, Jose Gay Cano, Dorothy Knudson, Catherine Lalley, Steven Lybeck, K.R. Moore, Reg Nelson, and Jordanna Park.
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What stories got you thinking this week? Please share them in the comments!