Posted 10/5/2002 11:36:39 PM

one only approaches experiencing happiness when there is no longer an other side. when one is in the now and that is enough. when the other side is simply a now yet unknown. so many defer life until they get to that place where the grass is greener. should the herculean effort to arrive on the other side be sufficient for its goal the thrill of arrival slowly dissipates into a disappointment that throws one into an even greater despondency. at that moment one finds the now without other side or continues the cycle of craving that is the source of the suffering one creates the other side as a means of escape from.

Posted 10/5/2002 03:20:50 PM

muhammed the terrorist

who buys this trailer park religion bandied about by the politicized christian right? can falwell not open his mouth without carrying on the long tradition of christian misinformation and vitriol that has been well documented in the literature over the past century? have we really learned so little? is uninformed vilification still legitimate in the ears of so many that a man such as falwell can make a handsome living off of producing, packaging and marketing his own brand of provincial ideological pabulum?

Posted 10/5/2002 03:06:24 PM

Not In Our Name

read, and if your conscience allows, sign.

Posted 10/5/2002 02:56:43 PM

last friday morning, i was illegally arrested... (more)

Posted 10/5/2002 11:59:12 AM

scraping bottom in post-war kabul

the work of getty images photographer Paula Bronstein, from her time at Marastoon, is presented in a flash performance in the header of the article above.

Posted 10/4/2002 08:52:13 PM

Reason: Biology vs. the Blank Slate: Evolutionary psychologist Steven Pinker deconstructs the great myths about how the mind works.

Posted 10/4/2002 06:12:20 PM

::absolute origin evaporates in the play of inevitable genealogy::

Posted 10/3/2002 10:51:38 PM

World's funniest joke comes from a UK Indian - The Times of India

the joke makes people feel better, because it reminds them that there is always someone out there who is doing something more stupid than themselves.

Posted 10/3/2002 07:26:56 PM

Posted 10/2/2002 03:43:47 PM

Posted 10/2/2002 10:01:27 AM


gravatt on miller: new worship?

ran across scott's review of a night at the miller's.



Rebellious, up-rooting, dangerous, kick-ass,
non-conforming, revolutionary, in your face worship music.

I'll drink to that.

Posted 10/1/2002 10:20:42 PM

There may be a great fire in your soul,
but no one ever comes to warm himself by it,
all that passers-by can see is a little smoke
coming out of the chimney and they walk on.

-Vincent van Gogh, Letter 133
via darren.friesen

Posted 10/1/2002 09:27:59 PM

so, i had some concerned reaction by, i would guess, well meaning people that took offense to my posting twice (2 and 1) regarding Get Your War On (how do you people find this blog?).

it is interesting to me that most respond to the surface (that cartoon said motherfucker!) not the substance. Get Your War On is saying something! respond to what it is saying. the history of political cartoons is rife with "objectionable content" that often is able to say more in a strip of pictures than can be said in months of professional talking heads monologue or op-ed political commentary.

THINK AMERICA.

stop being so damn retarded!

(unless of course you are retarded and, if that is the case, please forgive my flippant use of a term that describes your biological condition. i was using the word in the generalized, colloquial, derogatory sense.)

Posted 10/1/2002 03:40:21 PM

ongoing thoughts on the gift

We emerge into tradition. It is the gift of the fates that we are where we are when we are. There is no control on our part save, when our faculties allow, a desire to expose ourselves widely; nor is there anything, save child-like narrative in the moment of perspective that we currently inhabit, to station ourselves within some proposed ultimate design. Our planetary existence, our people, our language, our species, our sex all of these are gifts that we have been obligated to receive. The gift can be no other way. The gift is always a surprise without reciprocation.

So here we dwell--not one of us exempt from the gift. This, our common state, acts as a matrix with tangible effect on the stories we tell about ourselves, others and the meaning of all of this that we call life.

Within the gift we find ourselves telling stories that form our communal identities, but when we consciously acknowledge the gift as gift we are forced to reassess our responses to those outside of our communities of identity. The provincial xenophobia and violence of past communal metanarrative is found to be bankrupt, emptied and unable to draw out an imagination sufficient to engage a world of intermingled and interdependent villages in need of new ways of speaking and new patterns of living that are open to the, at once, accelerated otherness and slow, deliberative processes of complex systems.

Within the gift we find ourselves.
How will we now speak?
How should we then live?

With humility and openness on the one hand and in solidarity on the other.

When a sister and brother disagree they do not, in a functional family, kill each other. Nor do they move apart. Nor do they pretend the disagreement does not exist. They continue to live in proximity for long periods of time forcing the disagreement to gestate in the fluids of life together. The impasse may find its resolution in new ways of speaking that only develop on a path together over time. The impasse may find itself irrelevant as the trials and triumphs of existence pile up in the inevitable flow of surprise and complication that life is. The impasse may stay between the siblings until they eventually leave their parents home and it is resolved in the active decision for being in community despite disagreement over and against the reactive demand to be shown right.

This is accepting the gift as gift.

Posted 10/1/2002 03:34:43 PM

felt the need to say this again:

TheyBlinked: Edits

sometimes i read back over what i write and wince. i trust you to edit as i have a self-imposed moral obligation not to. being wrong is not that concerning to me. not speaking--now that is something to concern oneself with.


SPEAK OUT

Posted 10/1/2002 02:19:52 PM
The Hoosier Review: No

I really tried to be a hawk. I tried to support the war we're about to launch in Iraq.... I tried to make myself think that this war will make sense. I failed. I can't do it.

via hopkins via rachel

Posted 10/1/2002 02:02:28 PM
Powell's Books - Get Your War on by David Rees

support landmine removal in afghanistan.

Combining the wit of Doonesbury, the profane wisdom of South Park, and the office drone anxieties of Dilbert with the current-events-skewering savvy of Tom Tomorrow, Get Your War On critiques the government’s ambiguous war on terrorism to reveal a surprisingly wide spectrum of public opinion. Since the strip’s initial appearance, Rees’s working stiffs have lambasted everything from the anthrax scare and the Enron debacle to the Office for Homeland Security and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, bravely giving voice to a grieving, angry, and confused citizenry. Rees’s popular website, getyourwaron.com, has received over 8 million hits and has been featured in The New York Times, The Times (London), and LA Weekly, and royalties from this book will be donated to landmine relief efforts in Afghanistan.

Posted 10/1/2002 01:53:54 PM
the other kingdom: people who together make and keep small promises.

Posted 10/1/2002 12:38:16 PM
some articles i've looked over the past week...

~ Reconstruction: An Interdisciplinary Culture Studies Community ~
Being-There and Being-From-Elsewhere: An Existential-Analytic of Exile

~ London Bible College ~
Theological Education: Equipping Tomorrow's Leaders

Posted 10/1/2002 12:23:09 PM

i've just bought a cow.

Posted 10/1/2002 08:52:31 AM

advance apology to the easily offended...
the new get your war on is out.

we have entered the age of meta-wars in the War Against Terror. I can't wait until every country finds its own personal meta-war to start meta-waging!!! Then things will get pretty fucking meta-sane!

how does one argue for the insanity of war after reading such moving prose?

i think that get your war on may be the most influential grassroots anti-war literature ever created.

Posted 10/1/2002 12:55:40 AM
{when you meet someone who is a mirror of your soul you dwell in sacred time,
you bracket out everything else,
you trust in a way that allows you to truly believe.}

Posted 9/30/2002 10:40:14 PM

Posted 9/30/2002 10:54:58 AM
why?

values are transformative virally

Posted 9/30/2002 10:50:00 AM

the other kingdom is not about control or enforcement
the other kingdom is about giving without measure and forgiving like fools

Posted 9/30/2002 10:35:21 AM

Tolerance.org: One World Mural

kids from all over are building a huge web mural with the theme:

What Does One World Mean To You?

Posted 9/30/2002 10:11:34 AM

hopkins on gangs and spiritual community.

david, your archives do not have your gang post yet (it is blogger's fault).
the post can be seen on his front page.

Posted 9/29/2002 11:49:38 PM
peacemaking is a long effort--a viral effort.
it is easier to make war in the name of peace
than it is to live peace in the face of war.

if peace is being willing to die before you are willing to kill
than making peace is an always ongoing, multi-generational affair
and our children must be willing to bring attention to injustice without
enacting the presumption of unilateral exercises of power in the form of
every kind of manipulative violence that accompanies the actions of those
who presume themselves the benefactors and protectors of some cause worthy
of another's blood--metaphoric or actual.

Posted 9/29/2002 09:19:51 PM
the 8 blunders

Posted 9/29/2002 09:19:32 PM

kashmir
palestine
ireland
bosnia
sri lanka
sudan
iraq

gandhi

we must be the change we wish to see -m.k.gandhi

the gujarati text that inspired gandhi in his many experiments of life:

For a bowl of water give a goodly meal;
For a kindly greeting bow thou down with zeal;
For a simple penny pay thou back with gold;
If thy life be rescued, life do not withhold.
Thus the words and actions of the wise regard;
Every little service tenfold reward.
But the truly noble know all men as one,
And return with gladness good for evil done.