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Breaking Out of the Empire Box

Three days after the 2008 presidential election, no matter which political party takes the White House, a convention will be held in Vermont's Statehouse to consider more radical solutions to the problems facing the nation. The organizing group is the Second Vermont Republic, a citizens' network that aims to dissolve the United States and, in particular, return Vermont "to its status as an independent republic."

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Alaska Natives Watch Traditions Melting Away

Bobby Koezuna Holds Tusks
Hunting walrus is an age-old tradition for the Inupiat Eskimo Native people of King Island, a tiny rugged piece of land jutting out of the Bering Sea off Alaska. The walrus provides meat for the long, dark, frigid winters, and its tusks, skin, blubber, intestines and other body parts serve other crucial functions, including making watertight parkas and "pokes" to store berries. Watching the sky and sea for signs of the coming walrus migration is an art still passed on from elders to the young generation. Now, indigenous people across the Arctic region say, due to the effects of climate change, they can no longer predict important climactic changes and events like they used to, leading some to freeze to death caught in storms or stranded on ice; or face privation as their traditional hunts are interrupted.

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Beyond Voting: Guerrilla Gardeners, Outlaw Bicyclists & Pirate Programmers

This US election year an unprecedented number of voters will likely head to the polls to cast their ballots in an exercise that should take just a few minutes to complete. But what about the rest of the minutes left in the year? Author and activist Chris Carlsson has some suggestions for social change beyond voting in Nowtopia, a new book about modern day rebels who, in his words, "aren't waiting for an institutional change from on-high but are getting on with building the new world in the shell of the old."

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The Global Battle Against Noise Pollution

Plane Over London Neighborhood
Until a few decades ago noise was seen as no more than a nuisance of modern urban life. Then research began to show that loud, but not uncommon, noise could damage hearing. And numerous studies indicated that many widespread sources of sound near schools impaired children's ability to learn. More recently the World Health Organization (WHO), using data from pioneer studies done in several European countries, including Germany, Switzerland, and the Netherlands, has demonstrated that noise can be a major killer.