New York Times on Bioneers

[Shepherd]

Somewhat to my surprise the New York Times published an on online article about Bioneers. I sent them a shortened version of the following. I am wondering if some of you were there this year or have been in the past and what you thought about it.
Shepherd

“First they ignore you. Then they ridicule you. Finally they integrate (or co-opt) what you have been saying and doing all along,” someone famous first said decades ago.

After seventeen years of ignoring the growing Bioneers, the New York Times has finally evolved to the second stage of ridicule. The Bioneers drew over 3000 people to its annual conference in San Rafael, California, Oct. 20-22. It was beamed by satellite to another 10,000 people at eighteen communities around the United States from Honolulu to Anchorage to Houston to Massachusetts. Then those some 13,000 people went to homes around the country and beyond to talk to their friends about what they learned.

The Times’ Oct. 24 article cynically describes the event as a “pep rally,” a “megachurch for the Prius set” and “true believers” and “a monoculture, a love-fest between graying activists and youthful idealists.” As one of those “graying activists,” now 62, I appreciate the Times’ growth into adolescence on covering this important event and await its maturing to support at least some of the ideas advanced by the scientists and others at Bioneers. Perhaps better to be ridiculed than ignored.

The corporate media was skewered by “Democracy Now” host Amy Goodman, both at Bioneers and in her best-selling new book “Static: Government Liars, Media Cheerleaders, and the People Who Fight Back,” which is climbing up even the NY Times best-selling list. Though the Times article does not mention Goodman or her book--still trying to ignore the journalist whose radio and TV program appears on over 500 stations, making it the largest public media collaboration in the country--one wonders if there might be some childish payback going on here.

As a professional journalist who has also taught journalism in college, I try to be more neutral and objective than the Times when I write about the recent weekend. But let me admit to my bias toward the intention of the Bioneers to draw biological and other pioneers together to work to restore the Earth. Some still dismiss us with phrases like “tree huggers,” but with fewer trees each year to clean our air, draw water to the ground, and do all the other wonderful things that trees naturally do, I must admit that I have indeed been hugging the redwoods, oaks and other trees on my small Northern California farm.
Shepherd Bliss

[tommy]

I was there for Sunday only & it was a Blast!

I left with a new sense of optomism, and knowledge that care for the earth, and humans who inhabit it, will prevail. It occurred when Huey Johnson (CA Secy of Resources 1978-82 under Gov Jerry Brown), in responding to a series of questions about how to get thru political/economic/social obstacles, said something like "The whole system is going to change, there's no doubt, as things degrade and more people wake up...it's inevitable!"

I had the same feeling as being at Woodstock & Burning Man, however instead of everyone being stoned, people were alive and bright, conscious and aware!

And I thought the NYTimes hit that it was a "megachurch for the Prius set" was hilarious! Priuses were like the VW busses of the olden days.

Tomas

Somewhat to my surprise the New York Times published an on online article about Bioneers. I sent them a shortened version of the following. I am wondering if some of you were there this year or have been in the past and what you thought about it.
Shepherd

"First they ignore you. Then they ridicule you. Finally they integrate (or co-opt) what you have been saying and doing all along," someone famous first said decades ago.

After seventeen years of ignoring the growing Bioneers, the New York Times has finally evolved to the second stage of ridicule. The Bioneers drew over 3000 people to its annual conference in San Rafael, California, Oct. 20-22. It was beamed by satellite to another 10,000 people at eighteen communities around the United States from Honolulu to Anchorage to Houston to Massachusetts. Then those some 13,000 people went to homes around the country and beyond to talk to their friends about what they learned.

The Times’ Oct. 24 article cynically describes the event as a "pep rally," a "megachurch for the Prius set" and "true believers" and "a monoculture, a love-fest between graying activists and youthful idealists." As one of those "graying activists," now 62, I appreciate the Times' growth into adolescence on covering this important event and await its maturing to support at least some of the ideas advanced by the scientists and others at Bioneers. Perhaps better to be ridiculed than ignored.

The corporate media was skewered by "Democracy Now" host Amy Goodman, both at Bioneers and in her best-selling new book "Static: Government Liars, Media Cheerleaders, and the People Who Fight Back," which is climbing up even the NY Times best-selling list. Though the Times article does not mention Goodman or her book--still trying to ignore the journalist whose radio and TV program appears on over 500 stations, making it the largest public media collaboration in the country--one wonders if there might be some childish payback going on here.

As a professional journalist who has also taught journalism in college, I try to be more neutral and objective than the Times when I write about the recent weekend. But let me admit to my bias toward the intention of the Bioneers to draw biological and other pioneers together to work to restore the Earth. Some still dismiss us with phrases like "tree huggers," but with fewer trees each year to clean our air, draw water to the ground, and do all the other wonderful things that trees naturally do, I must admit that I have indeed been hugging the redwoods, oaks and other trees on my small Northern California farm.
Shepherd Bliss