Attorney fights to be slow

There are people who are actively involved in many causes to help humanity and there are others who run around like the proverbial chicken with its head cut off. Then there's 73-year old attorney, Edgar S. Cahn, who is making a point of people's right to be lazy.

My kind of person.

He is head of the "slow movement", a national campaign that believes that speed kills.

The slow movement backs random acts of slowness, such as turning off the BlackBerry or spending time with friends.

Its leaders say that Americans are so starved for time and that the need for speed is destroying health, families and communities.

Read the whole story here: http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/worklife/06/06/balance.slow.movement/index.html

There are groups people can join including:

• The Long Now Foundation, a group based in San Francisco, California, was established to provide an alternative to a "faster/cheaper" mind set and promote "slower/better" thinking.
• Take Back Your Time, a nonprofit group based in Seattle, Washington, is leading a national campaign to address time famine by using conferences and teach-ins to wean people off of their need by be busy.
• Slow Food USA is a nonprofit group that offers an alternative to fast-food eating and industrial food production. It encourages members to plan communal meals and use farmer's markets. It has at least 80,000 members in 100 countries.

Slow movement members don't fit one profile. They're journalists, lawyers, chefs, farmers. Yet they cite the same factors for our inability to slow down: longer work hours, longer commutes and technological advances like BlackBerrys that keep many employees chained to work.

Perhaps this is a movement whose time has come.