Idle Culture

Mt. Rainier

2005-12-31T17:51:00.000-08:00

2005-11-09T11:28:00.000-08:00

2005-11-09T11:15:00.000-08:00

2005-07-26T13:51:00.000-07:00

My Life
by Billy Collins, U.S. Poet Laureate 2001-2003

Sometimes I see it as a straight line
drawn with a pencil and a ruler
transecting the circle of the world

or as a finger piercing
a smoke ring, casual, inquisitive,

but then the sun will come out
or the phone will ring
and I will cease to wonder

if it is one thing,
a large ball of air and memory,
or many things,
a string of small farming towns,
a dark road winding through them.

Let us say it is a field
I have been hoeing every day,
hoeing and singing,
then going to sleep in one of its furrows,

or now that it is more than half over,
a partially open door,
rain dripping from the eaves.

Like yours, it could be anything, a nest with one egg,
a hallway that leads to a thousand rooms--
whatever happens to float into view
when I close my eyes
or look out a window
for more than a few minutes,
so that some days I think
it must be everything and nothing at once.

But this morning, sitting up in bed,
wearing my black sweater and my glasses,
the curtains drawn and the windows up,

I am a lake, my poem is an empty boat,
and my life is the breeze that blows
through the whole scene

stirring everything it touches--
the surface of the water, the limp sail,
even the heavy, leafy trees along the shore.

Martin Luther King Jr. Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech

2005-05-06T09:57:00.000-07:00

"There is a sort of poverty of the spirit which stands in glaring contrast to our scientific and technological abundance. The richer we have become materially, the poorer we have become morally and spiritually. We have learned to fly the air like birds and swim the sea like fish, but we have not learned the simple art of living together as brothers.

Every man lives in two realms, the internal and the external. The internal is that realm of spiritual ends expressed in art, literature, morals, and religion. The external is that complex of devices, techniques, mechanisms, and instrumentalities by means of which we live. Our problem today is that we have allowed the internal to become lost in the external. We have allowed the means by which we live to outdistance the ends for which we live. So much of modern life can be summarized in that arresting dictum of the poet Thoreau¹: "Improved means to an unimproved end". This is the serious predicament, the deep and haunting problem confronting modern man. If we are to survive today, our moral and spiritual "lag" must be eliminated. Enlarged material powers spell enlarged peril if there is not proportionate growth of the soul. When the "without" of man's nature subjugates the "within", dark storm clouds begin to form in the world.

This problem of spiritual and moral lag, which constitutes modern man's chief dilemma, expresses itself in three larger problems which grow out of man's ethical infantilism. Each of these problems, while appearing to be separate and isolated, is inextricably bound to the other. I refer to racial injustice, poverty, and war."

Excerpt from Martin Luther King Jr. Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech

1. Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), American poet and essayist.

Future Flower

2005-04-18T12:20:00.000-07:00

Rhododendron leaf after a shower

2005-04-18T12:17:00.000-07:00

Fallen apple blossoms

2005-04-18T12:14:00.000-07:00

Couch Potato Blight

2005-03-14T10:09:00.000-08:00

Average time spent watching TV commericals over a lifetime---2 years.

Number of commercials seen by the age of twenty---1,000,000.

Minutes of commercials during half hour show---8 (up from 6 twenty years ago).

Production cost of typical 30 second commercial---$300,000 (that is $10,000 per second).

Production cost of an entire hour of prime time public television---$300,000 ($83 a second).

Amount spent annually on TV advertising---$200, 000,000,000 (yes, the billions!) and it is growing at a rate of 7.6% annually, more than twice the average rate of the economy as a whole.

Karl Marx on consumerism

2005-03-13T13:06:00.000-08:00

"Excess and immoderation" becomes the economy's "true standard" as the "expansion of production and of needs becomes an ingenious and always calculating subservience to inhumane, depraved, unnatural, and imaginary appetites...(Every product is a bait by means of which the individual tries to entice the essence of the other person, his money. Every real or potential need is a weakness which will draw the bird into the line...)...The entrepeneur accedes to the most depraved fancies of his neighbor, plays the role of pander between him and his needs, awakens unhealthy appetites in him, and watches for every weakness in order, later, to claim the remuneration for this labor of love."
--Marx, The Economic and Philosophical Manual of 1844

Henry David Thoreau

2005-03-13T13:02:00.000-08:00

"If a man should walk in the woods for the love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer, but if he spends his whole day as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making earth bald before her time, he is esteemed an industrious and enterprising citizen."
--Thoreau, Life Without Principle

Think the Right Things

2005-01-17T13:43:00.000-08:00

When asked if he considered himself sad, Kurt Vonnegut recalled visiting the graves of his parents in Indiana. “…I looked at those two stones side by side and I just wished—I could hear it in my head, I knew so much what I wished—that they had been happier than they were. It would have been so goddamned easy for them to be happier than they were. So that makes me sad”

He says that he learned “a bone deep sadness from them. Kids will learn anything, you know. Their heads are empty when they’re born. Grown ups can put anything in there.”

He goes on to explain why he thinks his parents were so sad. “ They wrecked their lives thinking the wrong things. And, damn it, it wouldn’t have taken much effort to get them to think about the right things.”

*************************************************

There is a truth to these simple words of thinking the right things. The world that we live in right now is the only world that I have ever known and will ever be able to know. I cannot tell you what life was like before me other than subjective histories written in books and I could never tell the fortune of the generations that will follow me. I can only speak of the world that I am a part of right here and now. I am an expert on my world, to be sure. I can tell you that everyday there is a barrage of words thrown at me from the media, from the government, telling me that there are people that want me dead. I am told to live in fear, to always doubt the honor and integrity of my fellow humans (especially if they are not from my country or are members of non-Christian religions). I am fed images of the destructiveness of war and told that they deserved what they got. I am told that the world is a scary place and that the only institution that we can trust is our government and its military. Might is right. Humanity is lost in the shuffle.

What this is creating is a culture of fear. We are all being programmed to think in a manner that is self-destructive while it builds the coffers of the military. We are being trained to think that we are on our own, that we are superior to others because of our power and money. We are becoming a solitary country that easily forgets that we are not born to be soldiers.

When people begin to live in constant fear and distrust of others, there will be a breakdown in normal human behavior. It is no secret that humans are social creatures who depend on connections with others to live more functional lives. People who live reclusive lives are often thought of as being strange and dysfunctional because it goes against human nature to want to separate oneself from humanity. As we begin to take in the messages that are broadcast to us by our leaders and the people that are paid to promote their fear, we begin to draw lines in our thinking. If the only message that we hear is that we will all suffer greatly if we do not remain vigilant against our enemy, we will eventually become reclusive. I have heard that we are to spy on our neighbors, report any ‘strange activities,” and remain brave. We are told that our neighbors could be potential enemies, people that we have known our whole lives could be collaborators in our demise. How scary is that? We should lock our doors and keep the kids safe inside the house, away from the world that wants our blood.

The words that Vonnegut said are right--we need to be thinking the right things for us.

Humans are capable of peace, love, and understanding. When things go wrong, it is because one person plants a seed of fear into a group of people who desperately need leadership, any kind of leadership. That person causes a group of people to think the wrong things (or the right things for the leader’s movement). These people are no longer living their lives for themselves. They are becoming cogs in a wheel that could care less if they break off.

Think about your life. Think of how fortunate you are to be here. Think of the love that you have for your family. Think of the future that you would wish on your children. I would like to think that most of us would want better for them. I would hate to think that there will be as much fear in the thoughts of people after this generation. I cannot imagine anyone wanting their children and grandchildren to be afraid of everything, to be disconnected to the act of living. But if we are not careful, that is what will happen. Kids will learn from us to be afraid. They will pass that fear on to their children as surely as they could pass on compassion and understanding.

Think the right things.

*******************************************************

Kurt Vonnegut text from “Wampeters, Foma, & Granfalloons (Opinions)”, Playboy Interview

If You Say It Enough

2005-01-07T13:35:00.000-08:00

If you say it enough, you will believe it. If you believe it, then you will live by it. If you live by it, then you will become it.

This can be said of any belief or ideology, good, bad, or indifferent. What you become is dependent upon what you believe. Beliefs can change and therefore so can people. People who are willing to consider the beliefs of others will forever be open to change, free to reconsider their own beliefs, and become new again.

It is disturbing though to see so many people adopt standards of beliefs that oppose the interchanging of ideas. For far too many people, it is better to cut off voices that are in conflict with their own rather than listening. For these people, any idea outside of their own is automatically an opposing idea and, as such, should be silenced immediately for fear that others might hear. To listen would mean to consider and that it just not an option for those who fear what is not known. Often, the argument that is used by those who silence others is that the only beliefs that can be true are their own, that any other beliefs are only there to cause harm. And so, they say that they are right, they believe that they are right, they live as if they are right, and they become righteous.

A righteous person is a fearful person, one willing to defend themselves even when they are shown that they are hurting others in their beliefs. We have all seen the destruction that the righteous causes—war, genocide, racism, etc. When a righteous person is exposed to a belief that is not congruent with their own belief system, they react with total contempt and assume the responsibility to quiet the belief. When a belief system allows and/or condones the inhumane treatment of others then that belief system must be based on ignorance and fear.

Living a morally good life is not restricted to only one belief system. Most of the ideologies that humans abide by strive for the same goals but go about living in different manners. It can be found within one single belief system that there are even further subsets that divide them and so it should be expected that disagreements among and between belief systems will occur. When conflict arises, the first reaction should not be one of contempt but should instead focus on what is commonly shared between the disagreeing sides. Heavy-handedness will only result in further division amongst people that are in all actuality living their lives with the same goals in mind—to live meaningful lives.

Unfortunately, it only takes one righteous person to convince others that there is a threat to their belief system. One person with a keen eye for manipulation of people who fear what is on the other side of the curtain is capable of creating hysteria. When this person sees the control that can be had if the masses believe in the fear, it is likely that their righteousness will grow steadily. Once fear of other belief systems is planted in the minds of the people, the righteous person will use it to their own advantage.

But just as it only takes one righteous person to cause harm to others, it also only takes one self-thinking person to set an example for the good of open-mindedness. The Good that exists in this world far outweighs the Evil that the righteous warns about. Acts of kindness and love are rarely reported in a world dominated by the fear generated by the righteous. But that does not mean that Good does not exist. In order to see the Good, though, you have to maintain an open and free-thinking mind capable of ignoring the fear that is radiated from the righteous and willing to learn about the beliefs and ideas of others. One person who is able to free himself from the hysteria of the generated fear is capable of overturning the malevolent voices of the righteous.

If humanity begins to say that Good exists, then it will believe in the existence of Good. If it believes in the existence of Good, then it will live by the principles of Good. If it lives by the principles of Good, then it will become Good.

Rashida Bee

2004-12-30T13:46:00.000-08:00

"We are not expendable. We are not flowers offered at the altar of profit and power. We are dancing flames committed to conquering darkness and to challenging those who threaten the planet and the magic and mystery of life."

Rashida Bee
Bhopal Survivor
Activist
Goldman Prize Recipient

Another Leap

2004-12-30T13:31:00.000-08:00

I would always urge them to push me higher as my legs stretched out on my forward ascent. I held on to the chain that connected the seat to the frame as tight as possible as I tricked gravity into letting me glide into the sky for just a few seconds, long enough to kiss the air that was forever above my head. The dares would be issued from below, the children vying for the next push into the atmosphere called on me to leap from the seat and test out my wings. Holding my breath as I watched the trees in the distance disappear from my vision, I would let go of the chains and throw myself into the air at the moment of my highest ascent, praying that the ground below would catch me yet again. Happiness would fill me as I realized that the sky had let me go without hurting me. Rubbing my hands to make the lines from the chain disappear and no longer hurt, I would run back to the end of the waiting line and become one of the children shouting from below, excited to leap again.

"Pleading the First" by Janisse Ray

2004-11-04T08:19:00.000-08:00

"The End is Near" by Kurt Vonnegut

2004-10-31T17:15:00.000-08:00

That is just what happens in War

2004-10-30T23:34:00.000-07:00

“That is just what happens in War—people die.”

The statement in itself is true. People do die when wars are waged. It is expected that there will be casualties, that there will be loss of life on both sides. However, the loss of life that has occurred is not just reserved for those that are fighting with guns and missiles. A huge number of casualties are innocent people that have nothing to do with the war that is being fought in their neighborhood other than being unfortunate enough to have it in their neighborhood. These are people that are trying to live their lives despite the constant fear of death. These are people that are trying to raise their children, hoping that their beautiful babies do not become a statistic by being caught in the middle of someone else’s battle.

Humans can sometimes be a shortsighted species. We tend to care most about the people that We are related to and have a desire to make sure that the ones that We love are well taken care of physically and emotionally. We care most about issues that directly affect Us. We want the towns that We live in to be free of crime, to be safe for Our children. We don’t want Our water and air to be polluted. We want Our children to grow up and to be successful. These are truths that are widespread, that are evident in all cultures and societies. We all want the world around Us to be as near perfect as is possible.

But what happens when thousands of miles separate Us from Them? How do We react when We hear that several thousand people are now dead, will never reach adulthood, will never see their children grow up (if they survive)? Do We respond with despair for these lost people? There are many that do feel a pain in knowing that such a horrible tragedy has occurred in the modern world where warfare is supposed to be more 'civilized' by having the capability of targeting true enemies.

However, there are a great many people who say, “That is just what happens in War—people die.” The callousness of those words cut right into those that look beyond their own little worlds. To consider innocent loss of life as NOTHING is abominable. It is tragic to hear that ONE innocent person died due to a bomb, inadequate healthcare because the fighting is outside, or not enough medication to treat injured people. But to amplify that number by several thousand is heart wrenching. It cannot be overlooked. It cannot be excused away by simply stating that War causes death. To do so means to have that shortsightedness of only caring about yourself. There is no excuse for any human to pretend that others are not valuable, that the lives of people that we will never know do not have a worth to someone else.

We all feel that our own lives are valuable and would be hurt if we were ever put through the same tribulations as those that live in war torn areas. When people that we care about are ill or pass away, our whole world stops as we care for them or grieve our loss. When sickness comes, we expect treatment to be given. We expect to be treated humanely. We expect that our lives are worth enough to someone else to care about us.

One thing that is evident when people make those callous responses is that they view their own lives as worth more than someone they do not know. It is justifiable that they die since they live in a military zone and it is expected that they will die anyway but it is not okay for anyone to cause me harm. It is okay for them to be denied the opportunity to grow up because…that is just the way the world works.

It is also evident that those callous people are seeking a justification to the loss of innocent lives. War makes it okay for people to die. But where is the justification for a war that kills innocent people? What is to be gained by children dying? I can find no justification for that. The 'reasons' behind loss of innocent lives are deplorable, no matter the situation. No one should die because of where they live, because of lack of medical attention, because of stray bombs, because they tried to go to work, school, or the market.

Without making a stand on paper about the War (because it does not matter what I think to those who wage Wars), I wish to make a stand for the mourning of these innocent people that I will never know. I understand the loss of life and I am full of sorrow for those who no longer are fortunate to have their lost loved one(s) in their lives. I hope that there are more people out there who agree with me than disagree. I would like to think that all Humanity is not lost because of War.

And they are our leaders?

2004-10-27T20:19:00.000-07:00

"We need an energy bill that encourages consumption."
-President Bush, Sept. 23, 2002, Trenton, New Jersey, speech

"If we are saying that the loss of species in and of itself is inherently bad -- I don't think we know enough about how the world works to say that."
-Interior Department Assistant Secretary Craig Manson, appointed by President Bush to position overseeing the Endangered Species Act, Los Angeles Times, Nov. 12, 2003

Buy Nothing Day

2004-10-27T20:01:00.000-07:00

The World Below

2004-10-27T19:53:00.000-07:00

You are at 37,000 feet, going over 500 miles per hour in a metal cage. The clouds are below you as you make your way to your vacation, your home, your business trip. You look out of the small porthole window to catch a glimpse of the world below, to watch the topography change the further you go. Below you can see the geometry of farmers, trees forming massive forests, the rivers finding the ways of least resistance as they work towards the ocean, the crinkling of the earth as mountains begin to form. The land below is at work as you race through the air, leaving an exhaust cloud signature in the sky for those below to see.

Evidence that a world outside of you exists as you careen through the sky, causing a sense of smallness within you. To be able to look down and see that a world of trees is living without you is unsettling. There are rivers below that you will never feel run over your feet, mountains that you will never set foot on. Life and the forces of nature are on a steady course miles below your feet and the only thing that you can think of is how insignificant you are.

When you begin to consider how big the world really is and how your life is one of many, it is daunting and so you pull back from the window to catch your breath. You look around at your fellow passengers, longing to feel some sense of significance among the crowd. All you see are people in a hurry to get to wherever they are going, impatient with the turbulence that has prompted the pilot to put on the seatbelt light, grounding everyone to their seats. You glance across the aisle at the businessman reading his paper and notice that his eyes are fixed, not moving to the text.

Your stomach begins to knot as you speed through the air, wondering where exactly you are over the continent. You feel lost as you again take a look outside, hoping to catch a glimpse of some recognizable land formation below. There are more rivers and trees and many other countless things that you cannot see.

There you are in the sky, alone among the crowd, looking down at the world that you are chasing. The pilot breaks the cabin’s white noise to announce the descent of the aircraft and you feel relieved to know that you will soon touch the earth, to become one of the countless many that you just passed over. You anxiously look out of the window as the world grows closer, swallowing you back into its gravity. You await the final hug of the land, longing for the friction of rubber and asphalt, something to let you know that you are ‘home’ no matter where you are.

Edward O. Wilson--The Future of Life

2004-09-27T21:44:00.000-07:00

I am currently in the middle of reading "The Future of Life" by Edward O. Wilson, one of the world's premier ecologists. Early on in the book, the following paragraphs really caught my attention, prompting me to read them more than once. The words really capture the importance of caring about the condition of our only planet we call home. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who has the slightest interest in lessening human impact on the environment.

“Earth, unlike the other solar planets, is not in physical equilibrium. It depends on its living shell to create the special conditions on which life is sustainable. The soil, water, and atmosphere of its surface have evolved over hundreds of millions of years to their present condition by the activity of the biosphere, a stupendously complex layer of living creatures whose activities are locked together in precise but tenuous global cycles of energy and transformed organic matter. The biosphere creates our special world anew every day, every minute, and holds it in unique, shimmering physical disequilibrium. On that disequilibrium the human species is in total thrall. When we alter the biosphere in any direction, we move the environment away from the delicate dance of biology. When we destroy ecosystems and extinguish species, we degrade the greatest heritage this planet has to offer and thereby threaten our own existence.

…(Humanity) evolved here, one among many species, across millions of years, and exist as one organic miracle linked to others. The natural environment we treat with such unnecessary ignorance and recklessness was our cradle and nursery, our school, and remains our one and only home. To its special conditions we are intimately adapted in every one of the bodily fibers and biochemical transactions that gives us life.”
----"The Future of LIfe"
Edward O. Wilson
http://www.thefutureoflife.com/speakers/wilson.htm

Statistical anomaly

2004-09-26T22:20:00.000-07:00

Life is a series of causes and effects and who you are today may not be who you are tomorrow. From birth, we are given a world and told to make do with it what we will. And so, that is what we do. We grow and mature, all the while watching those around us make do with the world they were given. Like many other creatures in the world, we learn by example. Our parents, our family, our society, our culture, and our history play a hand in the molding of who we will become. The roles of each blindly play a lifetime of tug-of-war with each other, each pulling harder as soon as one backs down, each vying to make a mark on who we are and who we will be.

Just for a second, think of the statistical anomaly that you are. The very idea that you were ever born is incredible. The series of events that had to occur for you to be here is marvelous. If one of your ancestors ten generations ago had died before bearing the next in line, you would not be here. The likelihood that the exact gametes from your father and mother that would form you actually joined is spectacular. For every one of you, how many are not here, how many did not win the statistical game of life that you did? And then, the very fact that you endured life in the womb, childhood, and are now an adult is amazing as well. You are lucky to be here.

That being said, what does ‘living a life’ mean? Life is incredibly precious and so to actually live should be our highest priority. However, humans have, to a great degree, lost what it means to live and instead have fallen on their lower instinct to consume whatever is within reach and then some. We have broken away from the ties between humanity and the rest of the living world, putting us at risk of losing the entire meaning of living. We have been following the wrong examples from the wrong people and now we face living an empty life in which our main priority is to acquire more things that add nothing to our lives or to the rest of humanity (or for that matter, to the rest of the living world).

‘Living a life’ cannot mean owning things. It cannot mean your job title, your college degree, your car. ‘Living a life’ has nothing to do with what you obtain in material possessions. To live a life, you have to be a part of the living world. You have to have a connection to other living things. Life is self-renewing and will keep on going after you are gone. Your stuff will not. Spending all of your time chasing after more things will only make you work harder at chasing after more things. You will never find enough things to make your life better than it is already.

The damage that we do in our pursuit for more things is felt by all living creatures and will continue to be felt by future generations. Species that took millions of years to evolve are being lost at higher rates than they can be found, which in turn puts other species at risk for annihilation. Due to many human endeavors, the Earth’s temperatures are increasing at rapid rates, giving us the hazardous effects of global warming, something that does exist and will continue to worsen the longer we ignore it. The list of damages that we have done keeps going and going.

It is obvious that we are living wrong. If we were each shown the amount of destruction that we cause individually for each material possession for which we labor, I don’t think that we would find them valuable anymore. But, we are disconnected to that destruction and so we want what we want and we will get what we want. Our lives should not hinder the lives of other creatures. We should not take more than we can use or plunder those that are weaker for our own personal advantage. We are living as if we are the only ones here. To ‘live a life’ means to honor life, to cherish life, to preserve life. Our pursuits should incorporate those values, not overlook them.

Set a new example--use your statistical anomaly of living for good.

Live a life.

Kurt Vonnegut---Cold Turkey

2004-09-17T23:50:00.000-07:00

Another great Kurt Vonnegut essay.

Kurt Vonnegut on War

2004-09-17T23:45:00.000-07:00

No one says it quite like Kurt Vonnegut.

http://www.vonnegut.com/times1.asp

Commerical Alert

2004-09-15T22:57:00.000-07:00

Take a look at the company websites that this article cites. I would have never thought that this is actually legal. What a world!

http://www.commercialalert.org/index.php/category_id/1/subcategory_id/84/article_id/216

Wake Up

2004-09-15T22:03:00.000-07:00

It seems that the world has suddenly awakened from a nightmare and has not yet come to the reality that it is indeed awake. There is anger in the very soul of the world for wrongs committed against each other, yet not a single person can identify the wrong without his voice trailing off trying to remember exactly what the offense was. Fear is instilled within every man, woman, and child, a fear of what may come if they are not ever-vigilant to keep an eye on their neighbors, to make sure that no one steps out of line.

This nightmare that we experienced has a grip on our morals, our decency, our compassion, and our common sense. Our lives are examined by the small details, which are then magnified and twisted to make it look as if we have committed an act of wrongdoing. With every word that is uttered from our lips, we have to fear that we will be misinterpreted or heard by the wrong set of ears, ears that only hear what they want. Where there were once booming voices there are now subtle whispers and darting eyes. This nightmare has crippled our thoughts and our voices to the point that we no longer recognize who we are. It has knocked the air from our lungs and we have not yet reached the point of spasm, the point in which we can no longer take in the tainted air that is trying to fill our bruised lungs without coughing it all back out.

As time unfolds and the nightmare becomes a waning memory, we will realize that there is a void within our minds that was once occupied by the antithesis of the nightmare—a sense of oneself independent of the views of others. There is no returning to that state of mind once you have strayed. What is worse is that we seem to know that we are lost yet we have made it impossible to be found since we feel that there is no reason to try to recover who we once were.

We have abandoned our past for the false sense of security that fear and ignorance affords us. We beg for the blissful ignorance, for the numbness that not knowing brings. If we never know what is going on, if we never take the chance to care for others, we will never have to suffer for anyone else. There will be someone else to blame if the situation does not improve or becomes worse. Denying our sense of compassion frees us from any guilt for the pain and suffering of our fellow humans. For all too many of us, it is worth losing our ability to care about others so that we might live unaware of their problems.

There are a number of us that do make our voices heard as we awaken from the nightmare. Their voices are still trembling with the fear that the dream instilled in their spirits and their minds are reacting to the shock of the new reality to which their eyes are slowly adjusting. A sense of confusion is evident as they work through the new ideologues and try to make sense of them, to reexamine their thoughts and feelings to the new world that has disposed of their past. It can be expected that there will be those whose reactions to the new world will be at the far end of the spectrum, whose ideas for living in this post-dream world will be too radical for the majority of people. However, their voices must be heard in order to equalize the discussion.

The ideas of this new generation of thinkers, the post-dream thinkers, have the power to shape the new world that we are now living in. Information is capable of being shared at remarkable rates, making the world that we share an ever-changing landscape of thoughts and ideas. We no longer need to depend on those with money and power to give us our opinions, our cultures. Ideas cannot only be shared locally but globally as well. We are fully capable of realizing many of our goals through the use of the very tool that is allowing you to read this. The new generation of thinkers will need to rely on a more non-classical approach to reach the masses that are still numb from the nightmare. We cannot depend on the media giants, owned by a handful of millionaires with products to sell and lives to waste on greed, to give us what we need to make our lives full. Their job is to sell us our lives, to push false realities onto our over-burdened lives, to make us feel guilty for not being in the top 1% of wage earners in the US, to deaden our sense of self, and most of all, to make us dependent upon them for our information. They see the dollar signs in our zoned out eyes at we watch, read, and listen to the mangled reality that they feed us day in and day out.

The only way to wake ourselves up is to change our approach to gathering information about the world around us, to trust that gut feeling that you are not being told the truth. Look outside the reality that is put in front of you and question it. Read about topics that affect your life instead of only worrying about what Hollywood is up to. Don’t blindly accept the news that you are being delivered by the paid off media giants. Look at more than one source of news and make informed decisions based on what you have learned. Make time to make your world better by being a real part of it.

Fatal Harvest

2004-09-10T13:55:00.000-07:00

http://www.fatalharvest.org/myth2.pdf

http://www.fhcrc.org/pubs/center_news/2004/mar4/sart4.html

The Seed Keepers

2004-09-09T20:34:00.000-07:00

I just finished a very informative book by Vandana Shiva called "Biopiracy: The Plunder of Nature and Knowledge" and found this poem within it. She is a physicist, ecologist, and acivist who is well-versed on the implications of globalization on all living things--from complicated organisms like you and me to the very molecules that form life. The book is really interesting and this poem really says a lot to me. I researched the poem and discovered that it was written by a Palestinian in exile, originally from a town called Haifa which was taken in 1948.

The Seed Keepers
Fawaz Turki
(born 1940)

Burn our land
burn our dream
pour acid onto our songs
cover with sawdust
the blood of our massacred people
muffle with your technology
the screams of all that is free,
wild and indigenous.
Destroy,
destroy
our grass and soil
raze to the ground
every farm and every village
our ancestors had built,
every tree, every home
every book, every law
and all the equity and harmony.
Flatten with your bombs
every valley; erase with your edits
our past,
our literature; our metaphor.
Denude the forests
and the earth
till no insect,
no bird
no word
can find a place to hide.
Do that and more.
I do not fear your tryanny
I do not despair ever
for I guard one seed
a little live seed
and I shall safeguard
and plant again.

Newspaper editorial from a "crazy guy"--you decide

2004-09-08T19:27:00.000-07:00

Dear Editor:

I am not crazy, no matter what you think. I am just like you, only I am capable of showing my true feelings,speaking my mind whenever I feel like I need to say something. I do not care if I offend you with my personality, with my “uncontrollable” behavior. It is your problem , not mine. I am the way I am because of you…and you…and especially you with the green sweater on, reading this passage and smiling at my thoughts, saying “Poor guy. He can’t help himself.” It is especially your fault. You define me, you control my moves, you give me a reason to doubt everything that I have ever been told, ever seen. You are the reason that the world is out of control. Your arrogance at the discomfort that I bring upon you is highly ironic to me. You are the leper. You are the cretin. Deep down, you know this is true. You know I am right when I point my finger at you, when I toss words at you that sting with truth. They will forget you when you are gone and you know that. It hurts to know that doesn’t it? To know that I will be remembered, that they will overlook your useless life full of brown and gray, and that they will remember me. You are forgettable.

This is me. I cannot excuse my behavior, I cannot pretend to be the guy next door. I have always been this way. I cannot see the world as others see it, with all of the lies and the misrepresentations of the truth. There is nothing beautiful about this world. There is only pain in this world. Beautiful people, people that have wealth, people that have the public’s ear---they are all in pain. They are all struggling with the belief that they can be happy, that they can be removed from the mortality of this life. They do and say anything that makes themselves sound better than the “commoner”. They live as if they are made of something far better than anyone else. They know this a fabrication, they know that, when it comes down to it, they are pitiful. They crave what they cannot have—truth. They live a lie and we believe it. We struggle to be them, to make our problems become the problems of the golden ones, ignorant of the fact there is no one who is not in pain.

Not me. I do not accept your truth, I do not wish to fall for your trap. I am fully aware that there is only one way to live your life that will guarantee that you will be happy 24/7. You have to be brain dead. You have to be mentally incapacited.

Geniuses are the most disturbed individuals, knowing truths far more complex than the average human could ever perceive. They struggle with this knowledge, try to make sense of it all. Yet, with all of their genius, they cannot change the path of the world. They can only worry about it, have great pain deep within themselves, wishing that they did not know what they know. To be normal. To be ignorant to the world and its cruel lessons.

I am no genius. Many would say that I am crazy, that I am a bitter man who was never exposed to the “goodness” of the world. I have been told to lighten up, to calm down—“There is no need to scare the children.” Your life is a lie.

This newspaper is your way of connecting to the world that extends beyond your manicured yard, your cubicle on the third floor in a city full of people wasting their time, doing the wrong things to make themselves “happy” and “enlightened”—buying, selling, trading their lives for objects that were made to make us feel “successful” and “independent”. This newspaper feeds you, it tells you that we should be happy that Miss Movie Queen is marrying Mr. Independently Wealthy, that we should hate and fear anyone not American born, the welfare mothers and their eight children, the CEO’s of America, the illegal aliens, the obese, the economically challenged, the killer bees, the ghettos and the barrios, the guns, the whole lot of illegal drugs, the lumberjacks, the tree huggers, the fast food industry, the rap stars on MTV.

What do you know about this world, Mr. Green Sweater, sitting at your breakfast nook in your sprawling house with the fancy sprinkler system for your perfect lawn, reading this newpaper as you eat one of your three balanced meals before driving your new European station wagon for your “long” eight hour day at the air conditioned office? What do you know about these issues besides what you have been told by this newspaper? You donate your money to the local charity featured in the Lifestyle section, the one that sends money to some kid down in Central America—you can’t be expected to remember which country exactly—and that is how you make yourself feel less guilty about your life. You look at the newspaper, read the stories from around the world, believing what you see, feeling above the rest of us who know the truth--that you are the reason for our pain. Your life is inconsequential and you know it. You know that you will be forgotten and that hurts.

Go ahead,write your check, mail your pity to Chile or Bolivia or Paraguay. That will make you happy, won’t it? Feel sorry for me, shake your head at my crazy antics. Life is not beautiful, Mr. Green Sweater…and neither are you.

Loss

2004-09-07T22:20:00.000-07:00

Footprints leading to the shore-
As I sit on the long lost driftwood
I follow the curve of the water
To you.

The waves lap onto the shore-
Remembering ages that have long past
Taking pieces of land back into the abyss
Memory persists.

The crash of the water hitting the rocks-
The spray it creates in the struggle
To claim what it will eventually overcome
Give in.

Night Time, Bed Time

2004-09-07T22:19:00.000-07:00

A poem for the little ones....

Night time, bed time,
Has come once again.
This beautiful day is over,
Let your sweet dreams begin.

Sleep, sweet sleep,
Until the morning sun.
Close your eyes, my little one,
Tomorrow will be as fun.

A dream, sweet dream,
Is waiting just for you.
So lay down, my little one,
Until the day is new.

Night time, bed time,
Has come once again.
This beautiful day is over,
Let your sweet dreams begin.

Random Thoughts

2004-09-07T22:07:00.000-07:00

I can’t see the future
I can only see what is here
What is now.
The past is a distant shadow
Cast over my perception
Of what is now.
What will become of me
Once the shadow recedes
And the memory of then
Is no longer looming?
The past is said to repeat itself
Therefore the future should be known.
There will be life and death
And everything in between.
When the future is here
And I am in the moment
Will I see what was
Or will I dream of what will?
The future is here
And now it is gone
The memory of what was
Will soon fade.

Lessons that I have learned

2004-09-07T19:25:00.000-07:00

The only lives that are carry value are those that detract worth from the lives of others.
It is acceptable to claim independence while destroying the lives of others in order to guarantee your own freedom.
Truth is inconsequential if the circumstances that the un-truth was told called for it.
In order to be helped, you must bow down to the whims of the controllers of the future.
To live your own life means to live without interrupting the balance of power.
The only people that you can trust are those that speak loud enough to drown out the voices of others.
Thinking is not required to be considered informed.
The debt that you owe for living can be quantified and qualified.
Life, liberty, and happiness are objective.
It is necessary to threaten others before they threaten you.
Unhappiness can be medicated.
Happiness is financially possible.
Run, do not walk, through life.
The only rule to living is to be ruled.
What one values, all must value.
The only thing to fear is what you are told to fear.
Believe in the kindness of the "chosen".
Fear is a medication for the masses.

Make it Count

2004-09-03T23:06:00.000-07:00

When I see their faces full of fear, I do not think of furthering their pain or placing more burdens on their heavy lives. I can see their pain, their shock at the intersection that life has left them haphazardly balanced in and I cannot help but feel responsible for having caused them hardship. Anyone who sees an enemy in their despair is no human with reason, with compassion. These are people that live, breathe, love, and die. They are no different than anyone else that has been given a life. They were once children with hopes and dreams of life after childhood. They ran with smiles on their faces into a life that should be more than what has been given to them.

Those of us who are fortunate to have never experienced first-hand these realities are hard-pressed to understand how people are capable of surviving in such an extreme environment. How can a person deal with such great loss—loss of loved ones, loss of homes, loss of identity, loss of a future? There can be no stronger willed person than one who is capable of regaining his or her life after such tragedy.

We who sit safely from afar and judge from our living rooms cannot understand this strength and determination, this will to rebuild a life after losing so much. We are fed images and not emotions. We see the destruction but do not smell the decay, do not touch the shoulders of those grieving to provide consolation, do not connect the destroyed lives to lives before the ruin. Those images we see are frozen in time, in a perpetual state of ruin and despair. We do not know what living once meant to these images that provide entertainment to an emotion-starved world. We see their tears but only those that shed them can taste them.

With all tragedies such as this, there is a call to senses that eventually stirs enough people into realizing that the falsehood that we live in must change in order to move forward. The time to move forward, to wake up to the unnecessary pain that is all too familiar to these hurt people, has come. We can no longer surround ourselves with leaders that randomly point fingers at people in attempts to justify their own obtrusive behaviors, creating a world full of enemies through their greedy and dynastic plots. There has been enough destruction of values, morals, and lives in the name of all that is supposed to be good.

The next time around, We need to be more careful in who We choose to represent Us. The next time around, We need to be careful in who We choose to be to the world. We have the ability to be kind, to be generous, to be compassionate. We are one of many within a world that does not belong to only the chosen few who lead. This is Our world. This is Our life.

Make it count.

Turn On Life

2004-09-03T22:56:00.001-07:00

Remember the days of the hot wind ripping through your hair as you sped down a big hill on your BMX? Remember closing your eyes every now and then as you made your descent, braving the risk of hitting a pothole at the wrong angle and colliding with the asphalt? You let go of the handlebars occasionally, something that, if she had seen you, your mother would have grounded you from your bike for a week for doing. You rode your bike like the speed demon that you thought you were, oblivious to the rest of the world, in a state of utter exhilaration. You felt powerful against the world, you on your single speed. That is what it was, too—just you and your bike. Nothing to prove, nothing to lose, and everything to experience. That bike took you to places that were not only real but also to those places in your mind that you dreamed. You do remember those places, don’t you?

Fast-forward a generation.

Give a kid the option between having his own bike, his own means of transportation, or owning a television that will ensure that he is never in harm’s way since he will become one with the couch. Give him the choice to go outside, look at the nature that we are lucky to still have surround us given our propensity to squander our natural resources, or to hook up to the television where he can be transported virtually into a world created by adults and requires no more imagination on your child’s part than staring at a box.

Do we really give our kids a choice, though, between a bike or a video game or television? Look at the way adults run their lives, setting the examples. Who has time to actually ride that bike down hills now? Time is money and riding a bike is not going to give you anything besides a sore butt. We have to make more money, more money than we used to, more money than our parents, more money than our siblings, and even more money than our neighbors. We cannot afford to take time from making money to ride a bike, to look further than the space that we occupy. Speaking of the space we occupy, it has to be big, it has to scream, “THIS IS ME! I OWN THIS! THIS IS MINE!” This space includes our houses, cars, and our own bodies. How will the world recognize us if we aren’t screaming at them to take a look, take us in, envy our status, want what we want since what we want has to be what is wanted by all?

So we make more money, push more toys on ourselves and onto our families out of greed as well as the shame that we have to work so hard to provide what is “needed”. Our kids do not even have to ask for the latest gadget that keeps them indoors because you have already bought it for them in anticipation. You want them indoors, where the climate is controlled and they are safe from the dangers of the world. After all, how can the world “get to them” if they are never actually in it? We will replace this world and all of its problems with a world that can be controlled by it creators and manipulated by the many hands that have bought it. What could be better?

Life is not on a screen, it is not to be manipulated by anyone other than the person who was born. Life is not a series of events that can be coldly calculated, with levels of achievement that will bring you to a final level that allows you to “win”. It cannot be paused or have the channel changed for something better, something more exciting with a better cast of characters. There is nothing better than to live a life, to see the world without the vertical lines cast from the screen, to be a part of the grand scheme of things.

Remember looking forward to getting off of the school bus and jumping on your bike, ready to explore the same places that you saw the day before? Remember the daylight suddenly disappearing, another day over, a sense of dread of having to return home rushing through you as you went up that hill that earlier had given you so much joy? This was the world and you knew it, you saw it, you felt it. There was something outside of you and you saw it. It was real and you looked forward to it.

It is still there and your kids have not seen it and you’ve been away too long.

Value of Life

2004-09-03T22:56:00.000-07:00

I wish that Life could be Beautiful all of the Time.

I wish that Life could be what Life should be for Everyone.

I wish that Everyone could see the Value of Life before it is too Late.

Life is not Religion, it is not Race, it is not Country.

Life is not Money, it is not Politics, it is not Human.

Life is a Synergy of a collection of all that Lives and will Live.

One Life has the Power to improve the Whole.

The Whole has the Power to improve one Life.

One Life in these Parameters is as Valuable as the Whole.

I hope that Life will one day be Beautiful all of the Time.

I hope that Life will one day be what Life should be for Everyone.

I hope that Everyone will see the Value of Life before it is too Late.