WILMINGTON, DE— "The nation looked on in reverence Friday as 20,000 citizens were decapitated, dismembered, and burned alive in the name of Corporate America, continuing the age-old annual rite to ensure bounteous profits in the coming fiscal year...."
http://www.theonion.com/articles/20000-sacrificed-in-annual-blood-offering-to-corpo,18542/
Monday, November 29, 2010
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
It Was a Toasty, Stormy October
At Climate Central:
"What makes all of this — and especially the U.S. temperatures — so significant is that we’re now under the influence of the cool Pacific ocean and atmospheric cycle known as La Niña. La Niña, which appears every five to seven years on average, tends to lower global temperatures by about a tenth of a degree C from what they would otherwise have been."
http://www.climatecentral.org/breaking/blog/it_was_a_toasty_stormy_october/
"What makes all of this — and especially the U.S. temperatures — so significant is that we’re now under the influence of the cool Pacific ocean and atmospheric cycle known as La Niña. La Niña, which appears every five to seven years on average, tends to lower global temperatures by about a tenth of a degree C from what they would otherwise have been."
http://www.climatecentral.org/breaking/blog/it_was_a_toasty_stormy_october/
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Friday, November 12, 2010
Carl Sagan's Last TV Interview
"Carl Sagan gave his last interview with Charlie rose on May 27th 1996. He discussed pseudo-science, religion, unfounded claims, his personal love affair with science and his struggle with myelodysplasia as well as other elements of his last book: The Demon-Haunted World."
In three parts:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jod7v-m573k&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDKSZO-aACk&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxeN6Wf7mbU&feature=related
In three parts:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jod7v-m573k&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDKSZO-aACk&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxeN6Wf7mbU&feature=related
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Chris Hedges hew book on the failure American liberalism
NPR interview with Chris Hedges:
"In a traditional democracy, the liberal class functions as a safety valve. It makes piecemeal and incremental reform possible. It offers hope for change and proposes gradual steps toward greater equality. It endows the state and the mechanisms of power with virtue. It also serves as an attack dog that discredits radical social movements, making the liberal class a useful component within the power elite.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=131166027
"In a traditional democracy, the liberal class functions as a safety valve. It makes piecemeal and incremental reform possible. It offers hope for change and proposes gradual steps toward greater equality. It endows the state and the mechanisms of power with virtue. It also serves as an attack dog that discredits radical social movements, making the liberal class a useful component within the power elite.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=131166027
Thursday, November 4, 2010
A couple more things from G' Kar
G' Kar was a character in the television series, Babylon V.
"If I take a lamp and shine it toward the wall, a bright spot will appear on the wall. The lamp is our search for truth, for understanding. Too often, we assume that the light on the wall is God, but the light is not the goal of the search, it is the result of the search. The more intense the search, the brighter the light on the wall. The brighter the light on the wall, the greater the sense of revelation upon seeing it. Similarly, someone who does not search - who does not bring a lantern - sees nothing. What we perceive as God is the by-product of our search for God. It may simply be an appreciation of the light... pure and unblemished... not understanding that it comes from us. Sometimes we stand in front of the light and assume that we are the center of the universe - God looks astonishingly like we do - or we turn to look at our shadow and assume that all is darkness. If we allow ourselves to get in the way, we defeat the purpose, which is to use the light of our search to illuminate the wall in all its beauty and in all its flaws; and in so doing, better understand the world around us. "
"There is a greater darkness than the one we fight. It is the darkness of the soul that has lost its way. The war we fight is not against powers and principalities; it is against chaos and despair. Greater than the death of flesh is the death of hope, the death of dreams. Against this peril we can never surrender. The future is all around us, waiting, in moments of transition, to be born in moments of revelation. No one knows the shape of that future or where it will take us. We know only that it is always born in pain."
"If I take a lamp and shine it toward the wall, a bright spot will appear on the wall. The lamp is our search for truth, for understanding. Too often, we assume that the light on the wall is God, but the light is not the goal of the search, it is the result of the search. The more intense the search, the brighter the light on the wall. The brighter the light on the wall, the greater the sense of revelation upon seeing it. Similarly, someone who does not search - who does not bring a lantern - sees nothing. What we perceive as God is the by-product of our search for God. It may simply be an appreciation of the light... pure and unblemished... not understanding that it comes from us. Sometimes we stand in front of the light and assume that we are the center of the universe - God looks astonishingly like we do - or we turn to look at our shadow and assume that all is darkness. If we allow ourselves to get in the way, we defeat the purpose, which is to use the light of our search to illuminate the wall in all its beauty and in all its flaws; and in so doing, better understand the world around us. "
"There is a greater darkness than the one we fight. It is the darkness of the soul that has lost its way. The war we fight is not against powers and principalities; it is against chaos and despair. Greater than the death of flesh is the death of hope, the death of dreams. Against this peril we can never surrender. The future is all around us, waiting, in moments of transition, to be born in moments of revelation. No one knows the shape of that future or where it will take us. We know only that it is always born in pain."
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
The Great Divide
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2010/11/mid-term_elections_2
and
"Voters rejected a controversial proposal to suspend California's landmark greenhouse gas reduction law Tuesday, showing their support for the state's efforts to lead the nation in confronting climate change."
San Francisco Chronicle:http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgif=/c/a/2010/11/03/MNGN1G2HVN.DTL&feed=rss.news
At least we know what Carl Rove has been up to.
"Barack Obama pushed them together. Old habits and secretive instincts nearly kept them apart. But in the end, a cadre of big-money Republican outside groups worked together to spend millions to take down the Democratic House majority, carefully coordinating their ad buys and political messages through a series of regular meetings and phone calls aimed at picking off selected Democrats. The groups – including familiar names like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and American Crossroads – shared their target lists and TV-time data to ensure vulnerable Democrats got the full brunt of GOP spending."
http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=12A84851-9F18-52C6-9A295CB5B0C38371
http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=12A84851-9F18-52C6-9A295CB5B0C38371
"History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme." -- Mark Twain
Shades of German federal election, 1930?
http://www.freedomworks.org/blog/kpally/nationwide-poll-the-success-of-gop-depends-on-its
http://www.freedomworks.org/blog/kpally/nationwide-poll-the-success-of-gop-depends-on-its
The origin of the word "idiot"
"An idiot in Athenian democracy was someone who was characterized by self-centeredness and concerned almost exclusively with private--as opposed to public--affairs. Idiocy was the natural state of ignorance into which all persons were born and its opposite, citizenship, was effected through formalized education. In Athenian democracy, idiots were born and citizens were made through education."
Wikipedia article re Athenian democracy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiot_(Athenian_democracy)
"People who customarily refer to themselves as taxpayers are not even remotely related to democratic citizens. Yet this is precisely the word that now regularly holds the place which in a true democracy would be occupied by 'citizens.' Taxpayers bear a dual relationship to government, neither half of which has anything at all to do with democracy. Taxpayers pay tribute to the government, and they receive services from it. So does every subject of a totalitarian regime. What taxpayers do not do, and what people who call themselves taxpayers have long since stopped even imagining themselves doing, is governing. In a democracy, by the very meaning of the word, the people govern."
Quoted in citation above, from Daniel Kemmis's The Good City and the Good Life.
Wikipedia article re Athenian democracy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiot_(Athenian_democracy)
"People who customarily refer to themselves as taxpayers are not even remotely related to democratic citizens. Yet this is precisely the word that now regularly holds the place which in a true democracy would be occupied by 'citizens.' Taxpayers bear a dual relationship to government, neither half of which has anything at all to do with democracy. Taxpayers pay tribute to the government, and they receive services from it. So does every subject of a totalitarian regime. What taxpayers do not do, and what people who call themselves taxpayers have long since stopped even imagining themselves doing, is governing. In a democracy, by the very meaning of the word, the people govern."
Quoted in citation above, from Daniel Kemmis's The Good City and the Good Life.
Monday, November 1, 2010
We are One
I have been slowly re-watching the series Babylon V on Netflix.
The episode watched last night included an inter-governmental body passing the follow, which i have found inspirational.
ISA Statement of Principles
The universe speaks in many languages, but only one voice.
The language is not Narn, or Human, or Centauri, or Gaim or Minbari
It speaks in the language of hope
It speaks in the language of trust
It speaks in the language of strength and the language of compassion
It is the language of the heart and the language of the soul.
But always it is the same voice
It is the voice of our ancestors, speaking through us, And the voice of our inheritors, waiting to be born
It is the small, still voice that says We are one No matter the blood No matter the skin No matter the world No matter the star:
We are one
No matter the pain
No matter the darkness
No matter the loss
No matter the fear
We are one
Here, gathered together in common cause, we agree to recognize the singular truth and this singular rule:
That we must be kind to one another
Because each voice enriches us and ennobles us and each voice lost diminishes us.
We are the voice of the Universe, the soul of creation, the fire that will light the way to a better future.
We are one.
The episode watched last night included an inter-governmental body passing the follow, which i have found inspirational.
ISA Statement of Principles
The universe speaks in many languages, but only one voice.
The language is not Narn, or Human, or Centauri, or Gaim or Minbari
It speaks in the language of hope
It speaks in the language of trust
It speaks in the language of strength and the language of compassion
It is the language of the heart and the language of the soul.
But always it is the same voice
It is the voice of our ancestors, speaking through us, And the voice of our inheritors, waiting to be born
It is the small, still voice that says We are one No matter the blood No matter the skin No matter the world No matter the star:
We are one
No matter the pain
No matter the darkness
No matter the loss
No matter the fear
We are one
Here, gathered together in common cause, we agree to recognize the singular truth and this singular rule:
That we must be kind to one another
Because each voice enriches us and ennobles us and each voice lost diminishes us.
We are the voice of the Universe, the soul of creation, the fire that will light the way to a better future.
We are one.
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