Posted 6/14/2002 07:14:12 PM
for all of my friends who think they know me...
what the She's Crafty internet poll reveals about me:

Posted 6/14/2002 05:30:53 PM

the cycles of knowing and forgetting

the christian middle ages forgot much that the ancient greeks knew. case in point: our spherical planet earth.

in 20 CE the greek scientist/geographer/thinker strabo published his geography in which he described the known world of his time. in this work he spoke of our planet as a sphere with climactic zones and polar regions. his work was the capstone of the greek understanding of geography. somehow this was forgotten in the west for hundreds of years during the rather intellectually restrictive centuries of roman christian scholasticism.

what fascinates me is the idea of massive knowledge creation and loss. civilization-level knowledge events such as the one described above seem near impossible to imagine in our time of hyper informationalism. nonetheless, what would become of our tenuous global progress should our silicon and electricity based repositories be rendered impotent by say an EMP event?

perhaps we are too far along to lose fundamental knowledge. perhaps not. if history is any indicator it seems we are not as sophisticated as we would like to think we are.

Posted 6/12/2002 12:30:10 PM
so Daniel and Miriam are off to the foreign service! rock on! an amazing life is latent in the simple steps you are now taking. peace and love to you both! wow. maybe i'll see you in Istanbul or KL sometime and we'll have some real coffee?

Posted 6/12/2002 12:02:51 PM
Hiding the Dirty Bomber From the U.S. Constitution

...the Constitution does not permit what Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz announced yesterday to be the government’s new primary interest: deterring future attacks and interrogating those with knowledge of such attacks.

Posted 6/12/2002 10:49:09 AM
so, some ask, how can you so flippantly identify spirituality and a "lover" or (gasp) tantric orgasm?

my real response: spirituality is inspiration, whether in joy or in suffering. what inspires--with joy and suffering--more than love?

the easy reply: how could solomon?

note to self: write on the interplay of eros/epithymia and agape.

Posted 6/12/2002 10:25:14 AM

BBC News | In Depth | War on Terror | After the Taleban

With the loya jirga in full swing in Kabul it seems a good time to try to clarify who the personalities are in the politics of Afghanistan.

Posted 6/12/2002 10:00:34 AM

Teaching a machine to think

In 1986 Cyc asked whether it was human. That same year it asked whether any other computers were engaged in such a project.

Posted 6/12/2002 09:58:08 AM

Voice Of Tehran

Iran begins Hebrew radio broadcasts

“We hope the radio will open new channels of cultural communication with all Jews in the Middle East,” said former parliament deputy Manouchehr Elyasi, a leader in Iran’s 25,000-member Jewish community — the largest in the region outside Israel.

Posted 6/11/2002 12:06:16 AM
blinded by the eclipse
it feels unsafe to speak

Posted 6/10/2002 11:05:11 AM
ash to ash
dust to dust
fade to black
{met}

i was singing REM's the end of the world as we know it the other night with some friends over a couple at this pub. the line "i feel fine" struck me as so real. not that this was new. i've felt this for some time, though, i can't remember when it began impacting me in this manner. in college the line never set well with me. i really didn't feel fine with my world ending... something has moved and morphed in the ensuing years. perhaps it is that i am not trying to control things in the way i once did. perhaps, it is that the inevitability of the ending of my identity as i know it in this place has simply become more real. in the pub the other night i said something like, "being at peace with your own demise... few ever seem to find this." this is my greatest wish for the world. that sounds odd, but it seems to free one to really live.

Posted 6/10/2002 10:58:19 AM
looking for dfw, texas employment... any takers?

qualifications?

insane
single father
grew up a minority in s.c.asia
founded and led numerous ventures technical and social

contact me

Posted 6/9/2002 04:13:29 PM
...but i knew exactly where i was

and i knew the meaning of it all
and i knew the distance to the sun
and i knew the echo that is love
and i knew the secrets in your spires
and i knew the emptiness of youth
and i knew the solitude of heart
and i knew the murmurs of the soul

(and the world is drawn into your hands
and the world is etched upon your heart
and the world so hard to understand
is the world you can't live without
and i knew the silence of the world...)

billy corgan, muzzle

Posted 6/9/2002 03:19:38 PM
some spend their waking hours trying desperately to avoid the risk of the cliff that they imagine always before them. this avoidance constricts possibility and dulls the god like humanity latent in the moment lost to fear. these, one day, come upon this imagined cliff, but from below, and in a moment of dawning bewilderment feel the deep realization of their lived folly.

we all face these reversals of expectation and our lives are for a moment opened for us to see in a way we've never known. what is done next determines whether this opening is a beginning or an ending of life.