Thursday, January 8, 2009

"Constantainiously"

Wikipedia has it that when Wam Kat was 18 the doctors told he he had a year left to live. Faced with this horrifying fact he told an affirming solution - he decided to live an entire life in a single year. Then he did not die, nor did he slow down. Now nearly 4 decades later his life could fill several biographies.

Founding of the European Youth Action network EYFA and summer activist gathering Ecotopia. He was also the mastermind behind the differential currency rate conversion based on countries earning power rather than the legal conversion rates - calle dthe Eco-rates. During the Yugoslavian conflict he set up the largest non-state refugee camps in Croatia as well as the Pakrac housing reconstruction project. He's set up email networks, written books on the history and reciepts of the Dutch mobile anarchist kitchen Rampenplan. And won a city counsel seat in Belzig Germany.

Now he wants to do the 20th Ecotopia in Belzig in 2010. since the network he founded seems to have lost interest in the project, fearing it is not action oiented enough and too "life style" in approach.

Wam is a digital pioneer, but did his heavy lifting long before Facebook showed up. So is exploring this as a new organizing/discussion tool.

Wam tells stories and makes up words. "Constantainiously" is one of my favorites. It does not exactly mean constantly + instantaniously, but if you hold this meaning in mind, you will get something of the flavor of what he is trying to say.

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