Announcing: Conference Calendar, February 2026 (Oakland/Berkeley)
My upcoming experiment scaffolding topic-based, in-person discussions at local venues
Welcome to the latest issue of Decent Tuesdays, an experimental edition of The Main Street Journal that covers and connects the many aspects of decentralization.
I’m no historian, but I’ve always been fascinated by how Jews re-invented their religion in the Diaspora. The lazy way that I think of it is that, after Rome destroyed the Second Temple, put down the Bar Kochba rebellion, and scattered the Jewish population, Jews adapted by changing their religion from a centralized barbecue cult into a decentralized book club.
As I understand it, in the Second Temple era, Judaism revolved around making pilgrimages to Jerusalem with your prized livestock to sacrifice and eat at the Temple, which by law (Deuteronomy 12) was the only place where meat could be cooked directly by fire. The Temple priests and their families got to eat barbecue all the time. But later, with the Diaspora and no more Temple, Judaism refocused on weekly local gatherings to read and discuss that week’s sections of the Bible. It was a great way to create a cohesive community out of a far-flung, minority population in an era with a limited media landscape. As long as each local community had a copy of the same handwritten scrolls that the others had, everyone could participate, and when everyone was done with what they were reading, they read it again.
Today, in contrast, we have an abundance of both content that’s available for us all to consume and spaces to discuss it, especially online. On one hand, this is amazing— I learn so much, enjoy blogging here on Substack, and appreciate you, gentle reader. But on the other hand, a lot of it is dumb, and it’s increasingly hard to know who’s even human.
Like many others, I’ve wanted to dial down my screen time and venture out of the bubbles that I’m in. To do this, I thought to take the time-tested, local Torah-reading approach, but apply it to the many more wild and wonderful shared references that we can all access now. In other words, local discussion groups. They’re hardly a new idea, but I started thinking about them in a different way that somehow seemed cooler.
So, I created a calendar of topics, times, and local venues (bars, cafes) where anyone who’s interested in that day’s topic can come and discuss it with others who share the same interest. It’s called Conference Calendar. Topics range widely: UFOs, Parenting Teens, The Crusades, New to the Neighborhood, Get-Rich-Quick Schemes, Community Economics, etc. For an introvert like me, a topic makes it easier and hopefully more rewarding to talk to strangers.
To capture the real world, untracked, analog-ness of the whole setup, my graphic designer pal Hans designed a beautifully anachronistic printed version of the calendar that’s inspired by old movie rep house calendars. It’s offset printed in two colors on 15” x 21.5” newsprint, perfect for sticking onto your fridge with a magnet. I now have stacks of them in the basement to hand out and place strategically around town. For convenience, the same info is also online, along with a PDF of the print version, but the paper version is nicer and more aligned with the spirit of the project.
I identified and talked with some great local bars and cafes in order to get their go-ahead for all the Conference listings, and some of them worked with me on the discussion topics that they’re hosting. Their views range from “OK with it” to “Excited about it.”
The back of the calendar has the Conference Manifesto (also online), which explains the whole thing. I’ve found that many people don’t get how Conference works until they read the Manifesto, and then it clicks. At first, I didn’t understand what was so confusing, but came to realize that we’re so used to seeing Event Calendar and Lecture Series listings that it takes a while to grok that these are not “events” in the usual sense of the term.
Next month, February 2026, is the big test; there’s a topic, place, and time for every day— except for the Fridays, when neither bars nor cafes need any more business.
Fingers crossed! I look forward to seeing how it goes, what does and doesn’t work, and hope there’s enough interest in Conference to justify sustaining it in the future. There won’t be a March calendar, but if February shows promise and yields relevant lessons, it wouldn’t take much to restart it more permanently later. All the pieces are in place already.
So, if you’re in my area (Berkeley, Oakland, and environs) and are interested in one or more of the topics, please come check it out. Bring a friend. I can’t tell you who else will show up (besides me), but whoever they are, you’ll have at least one common interest with them to talk about.
Image Credit: Paul Spinrad, Public Domain
NEWS
ENERGY
Illinois’s Booming Solar Sector Entices Young Job Seekers, Canary Media (January 14)
Illinois is aggressively growing its solar capacity through incentives and state mandates. Nonprofits like Elevate are helping by recruiting and training young adults to become installers and apprentice electricians, for example, former nightclub bouncer Sergio Mendez, 22, who is excited to join the clean energy workforce. He and several others in his cohort went to the Academy for Global Citizenship, an innovative public school in southwest Chicago.
MAKING
3 Tools Turning Utah Garages Into Professional Micro-Factories, KSL Broadcasting (January 14)
Three home shop tools launching credibly on Kickstarter promise to expand the abilities of makers in Utah (and elsewhere): a voice-controllable CNC laser cutter with a wire feeder for welding; a tabletop laser-sintering (powder bed) 3D printer that produces strong, precise prints; and a smart ruler and level multitool that sees lines and senses its motion on flat surfaces.
FARMING
Using Crop Residues for Sustainable Paper and Packaging, Corporate Knights (January 14)
Construction is starting on a new mill in Saskatchewan that will turn straw and other crop residues into pulp for paper and packaging. Opening in 2028, the mill will use far less water and energy than wood pulp mills, give farmers a new revenue source, and won’t require bleach to make paper white.
GOVERNANCE / POLICY
The Top Ten Policies Your State Can Use to Target Monopoly Harms, Institute for Local Self-Reliance (January 12)
Fact sheet lists 10 new ways that state laws are supporting small, local businesses against monopolies, including banning price discrimination, limiting card swipe and food delivery fees, restricting nonlocal ownership of Main Street businesses and farmland, and requiring Right-to-Repair.
SOLIDARITY
Ten Principles of Next Economy Enterprises: A Guide for Designing a Regenerative Future, Shareable (January 7)
Article distills Next Economy organizational principles. Examples: Democratize Governance means creating an inclusive culture and directly involving all staff in decision-making, which leads to their supporting decisions, and Integrate Education and Promote Open Source mean helping users help themselves and replicate solutions locally.
To unsubscribe from Decent Tuesdays emails, click your profile at the top right, select Manage Subscription, and deselect Decent Tuesdays.