The economic crisis rolls on, but people are coping by turning to public libraries, parks, and some of the more umble pleasures of everyday life.  Read Jay Walljasper's short piece about the resources we have, but often do not appreciate:

Let me offer some good news about the state of your wealth. Sure, the 401(k) tanked, the house lost a big chunk of value, and things are looking shaky at work. Indeed, the Federal Reserve recently reported that Americans all together lost $5.1 trillion during the last three months of 2008 alone.

But what you possess individually accounts for only part of your true net worth. Each of us also owns a stake in some extremely valuable assets: clean air, fresh water, national forests, the Internet, public universities, blood banks, rich cultural traditions and more.

All these things are part of what is now being called "the commons," and they are more important than ever.

The things we share enhance our lives in countless ways - the roads we travel, parks where we gather, publicly funded medical and scientific breakthroughs we take advantage of, the accumulated human knowledge we use for free many times each day. In fact, without these commonly held resources, our modern society and market economy would never have gotten off the ground.

Progressives think about the commons, though.  In fact, they consider protection of the commons as one of their core values.

Some further thoughts from Jay:

Cultures throughout history, including our own, have devised effective systems to make sure that common assets were not depleted. That was the impulse behind conservation laws, financial regulations and social programs enacted between the 1910s and 1970s.

The true tragedy of the commons has been inflicted on us by free-market zealots who attacked these sensible measures in order to carry out greedy raids on our common wealth.

Fortunately, this unprecedented looting of the commons sparked a new movement of "commoners" who are standing up to protect things that belong to all of us. The commons is becoming a model for thinking differently about how we make decisions, manage resources and think about responsibilities.

In an ever-more-populated world, facing unprecedented challenges, we should think of the whole world as the commons on which we depend--our home.  Let us be mindful, so we can defend our home from our more heedless selves.