The global summit of the Creative Commons movement opened in Toronto on April 28 with keynote speakers including Alek Tarkowski (pictured above) from Poland (venue of the 2011 summit). Several hundred guests from around the world have gathered at Toronto's Delta Hotel to plan the future of a growing worldwide initiative to make open intellectual, resources available to all. As an example of the openness of the Creative Commons idea Tarkowski recounted how in 2004, as a young man from Poland he was accepted as a contributor to the struggle for copyright reform through the development of open licensing. Though the creative commons movement started with the impulse to make knowledge available to all in an Internet linked world TorontotheBetter welcomes its growth as a stimulus to, and a model for, more holistically inclusive social and economic development worldwide.

Since the eighteenth century the world has undergone ongoing struggles against the socially and economically excluding forces of enclosure and here in Ontario, three centuries later, we witness new examples of continuing privatization/enclosure such as the Ontario government's recent sell-off of public hydro resources. Commons offer a path that can avoid the recently all too obvious costs, including inequality, pollution and waste, of market-centred development models. As the right to Internet access continues its journey, hopefully inevitable, towards acceptance as a basic human right, TorontotheBetter recognizes the presence in our city of the Creative Commons summit as a marker in this city's Toronto's evolution as a holistic social economy. Through our website, www.TorontotheBetter.net and related activities we renew our commitment to the task of progressive city building.

Toronto the Good: not so. TorontotheBetter: better.            

Mark's and Sport Chek (aka Canadian Tire) are among them. Check the Labour Start bulletin at www.labourstart.org and let's do what we can to make Canada's new "sunny ways" bring light, air and justice to garment workers in Bangladesh.

We've already called in this space for de-missioning of at the now universally popular (in government, education and business circles) word "innovation" and its cognates - so popular it's not at all innovative (it may be insulting, but true to say this). Another term to put into the garbage bin of history is the "sharing economy". As popularly practiced and promoted, by enterpeises like Uber and Airbnb, social economy is simply a kind of rental. The appropriate word for it is the French renatbilite, the capacity to make money/profit from something. It is much more accurate than the ambiguous English word sharing with its slippery mix of the technical and the ethical. Write this on your walls: Renting is not Sharing.

Creative Commmons 2017, a celebration of all that's free and open, or isn't but should be, will  take place in the Delta Hotel, 75 Lower Simcoe Street. To find TorontotheBetter just go to the Registration desk and ask for directions, or check our Friday update to this blogpost.
For more information about the conference see  https://summit.creativecommons.org/index.php/program/sessions.   

 
Some interesting news in the soccer world today. Bournemouth is recovering from a 4-0 loss to the increasingly powerful Spurs team that continues to dominate on the field thanks largely to the return of their starring player Harry Kane and Bournemouth's inability to make enough shots on net. In other news, there was an arrest made after a Germany bombing loaded with metal pins near the team bus of Borrussia Dortmund. One of the team's players was seriously injured and there has been more investigation with two new suspects from the Islamic community. Elsewhere, Arsene Wenger from the London Arsenal club is looking at new contract deals with other teams. Paul Mariner from ESPN.com believes a trade must be made to replace Wenger with Diego Simeone, a huge motivator and leader on the soccer grounds. Be sure to follow our blog as more soccer and other news will be posted.

Thank you,

M.C.

For more worldwide soccer news please check out ESPN or ABC.com.
http://www.espnfc.us/arsenal/story/3103583/arsene-wenger-huge-alexis-sanchez-contract-could-put-arsenal-in-trouble
http://www.espnfc.us/blog/the-match/60/post/3101794/tottenham-capitalise-on-myriad-errors-to-complete-big-win-vs-bournemouth
http://abcnews.go.com/International/arrest-made-germany-soccer-bus-bombing/story?id=46750678

As defined by Canadian researcher/writer Jeremy Caradonna in his 2014 book Sustainability:a History [available by emailing postmaster@TorontotheBetter] sustainists seek "safe and livable cities with abundant green spaces; buildings that produce their own energy; public transportation networks to decrease reliance on cars; agricultural systems that can produce enough food to meet human needs without genetically modfied mechanisms or monoculture and without degrading soils and waterways with petrochemicals; and a healthy environment." [p.5].  

Tell us what you're doing by commenting on this post and/or emailing postmaster@torontothebetter.net to take up the challenge and become a Toronto Sustainist.   
 

Hey everyone. Here are the latest graphics. Hope you enjoy them and please make sure to comment.

M.C.

Hey fans and bloggers! I've been really busy making tons of new artwork for TorontoTheBetter, Fresh City Farms, Live on Chocolate, Eco-Gear and the Holistic Academy of Canada. TorontoTheBetter still taking large strides to improve our work with Cruyff Court Toronto and Red Panamericana and will continue to raise funds and awareness to get the Cruyff Court built ahead of schedule. Feel free to offer me any advice/ comments on how what you'd like to learn more about from Cruyff/ TBB.

Thank you,

M.C.

 In the 21^st century, as trading blocks grow in popularity, to provide greater economic power in a global economy, economic forces and their political expressions are less and less personal and the inevitable result is a desire for more direct and unfiltered communicative contact, aka populism, either inclusive and egalitarian or, unfortunately, but often, xenophobic.  The same phenomenon applies to the historically progressive response to the gross inequality resulting from increasingly uncontrolled private ownership and markets: nationalization and public ownership. To most workers, the “state” in Brussels, Ottawa, Washington or Beijing, feels as remote as high finance centres like Wall Street or Bay Street.

A popular alternative to bring economics closer to the public is available; it is called the commons. It is time to revive the idea and reality of the commons, not as a cosmetic device to hide inequality but to provide genuine economic participation to all who labour. To understand the relevance and increasing attractiveness of the commons model after a long period of enclosure and privatization we recommend attention to one incarnation of the commons model that has stood the test of time: the library. As a commons the library is a community trust from which users borrow, but do not consume. The library is particularly relevant because its long history extends from the time of the earliest known territorial commons to the virtual commons, the Internet, of recent times. In a future publication we will look at the original library concept and celebrate its historic and recent extension to many fields beyond books, from seeds to  tools. and beyond. Far from dead the library model  is alive and well. In keeping with the sustainable concept "the circular economy" libraries have long internally referred to their process of resource distribution as "circulation".    

With mainstream economic models recently significantly discredited, particularly after the collapses of 1989 (statist) and 2008 (market-ist), for their failure to provide sufficiency for all, even in the so-called developed countries, it's once again time for something completely different. It's called a commons, named after the medieval land arrangement that saw multiple residents use the same piece of held-in-common land for their sustenance. Commons come in many shapes and sizes, and now, since the Internet we have "virtual". Commons. Commons, whatever their medium, allow all "commoners" to partake while they also contribute. Commoning is not a contract; it is an act of citizenship. Commons avoid the wastefulness that dogs private property and the myth of their inefficiency has been largely put  to rest by Nobel economics winner Elinor Ostrom. Time for a Toronto Commons, we believe, and TorontotheBetter commits some of the starting resources, both physical and conceptual.. We recognize that other local initiatives like repair cafes and free markets are emerging from a similar group ownership and care model and here identify them and others as welcome fellow-travelers in pursuit of a truly sustainable "circular" economy where all benefit and all contribute. Building  the social  economy, TorontotheBetter's purpose since we started our directory in 2004, is truly under way. Contact us with your interests.