Get yours: MapLoco.com	ClustrMaps.com

I've been grappling with the "theism" thing since I was in my early 20s.
I found things made no less sense when I took a nearly animistic / a-theistic view of things.

Here, try this: call "gravity" by another name, come up with whatever wierd name and concept you want ... then drop something from your hand.
Did the thing fall up to the ceiling? Over to one of the walls? (Freak the hell out of the cat doing that would, I promise.)

I don't need "intelligent designer" to know the world will be a worse place if I indulge my worst temptations, and a better place if I made an effort to follow my best impulses.
I don't need any external agent to realize at least the humblest of my aspirations.

What /really/ requires the grey-haired God sitting in the high throne?
Hatred ... self-righteous condemnation. That sorta thing needs absolute truths, and absolute authority.

*just wanted to jot this down*

---

p.s. A little note about the Bible's "literal truth".

To set the stage: let's say you have a choice of 2 jobs. In 1, you get minimum wage, basic food, not a lot of extras, you have work assigned to you and you have to do that work ... but you pretty much live your life. In the 2nd, you're a slave. In the real sense of being a slave.

So ok: in Egypt, people were often forced to labour on public works. And yes, there were slaves, too.
The Jews in Egypt weren't slaves. Bad translation from the original. In the original (No, I don't have the freakin' term, step off my foot!) it clearly states that they were put into forced labour.

Now you gonna say that the two jobs are the same? That words don't mean what they mean? That human beings can't think? or write? or read?

So mebbe "literal truth" is a way for zealots to band together, to group against all others. To recruit others who will do the hack work and provide money. (Which, BTW, is precisely the foundation of fascism.)

"Too lazy to work, too nervous to steal." Is why a person lives the life of a cowboy.
You get it?
Great ... but you still missed 90% of it.
You missed why you got it: it's authentic.

"Don't lie ... makes for too many things to remember." That's a line from a movie.
"Don't lie ... too much effort keeping track." My 9yr old realization of bodhisattva benefit.

So here's the point: you consume, and dramatize, and confabulate ... why?
1st cuz you're in a culture of cheats and liars, so this passes for "just getting along". Which I could almost buy into.
But 2nd: it's smoke-screen as you scramble to try to keep the bits and pieces of lies together.
Cuz you're enormously false.

/You/ condemn yourself. Not me.

You're hiding from your family, from your co-workers, from your boss, from you're "friends" ...
... from yourself.

Is why you have to ignore me: I'm part of the truth.

In the LJ I've talked about authenticity.
And you hate that. *blink* (Do you, really?)
So you ignore me.

Are you, really, better than Stalinists? Nazis? Fascists?
Are you, really, different from Taliban?

Sorry kiddos ... I know I am ... but you?
*shrug*
You can deny it ... that's what you've practiced, year after year after year: denial.
But that doesn't change the fact of it.

I learned to hate your parents as I watched us kill the planet.
I can learn to hate you as you deny it.

Or I can choose not to.
/I/ can ...
... cuz I've paid the price of autonomy, and authenticity.
Paid ... paid in full.

You rely on denial?
Okie dokie ...
... so now say there's no karma. No individual responsibility.
And, having said that, look to find the joy of yet.another dawn ...
.... the joy will be there for you. But you won't enjoy it.

Because you are sentient beings, denial is poison.

You want to cheat, to profit from cheating, to enjoy the benefits of having cheated ...
... and then to pay no consequence.

You are your parents' children.

How sad.
So much destructive power, and not the wisdom of a gnat.

How sad, to be you.

How sad to be me ... knowing your parents ... watching their chidren.

How terribly tragic.

I just posted the long version of this to buddhists.

I was trying to talk a friend through an unfortunate incident at the CD release party Friday night. Of course I'm the bad guy ... like Socrates at his parties: the a**holes pick an argument and he wouldn't be "nice" and back down. (I was going to write STFU but that might be too frank for this forum. heh) So, of course I was the bad guy. Cuz the cracker got in my face. And the cracker was a popular guy. Ipso facto, right?

So anyhow, for the 83,998th time I tried to talk about stuff like ... well, like indulging cruel bullies, like being an enabler, like sucking up to people, like being dishonest for personal gain ... that sorta stuff.
And, for the 103,999th time I didn't really do a convincing job of it. *shrug* (There is data ... and there is information ... but meaning? Meaning is a social construct. So, really, what's the chance of establishing truth?!)

But this morning I came across 2 things that moved me to come back here and write something.

[...]

Like the only time I encountered "sin" in Taoism: interfering with the development of another.
I ain't gonna let the affection of yuppies' kidz coerce me into saying that something false is true.
Now it ain't likely that I'll do things well.
But I won't intentionally do the wrong thing.
That would be wrong.
Been there / done that / replay the movie frequently. *G*

Afterthought: Anybody remember "Disiderata"? Anyhow, if memory serves, one line is something like "As much as possible be on good terms with everyone." If someone asks a person to, well, to eat shit ... well, I say we each of us gotta play it by ear from there on.

Yaa, that.

BTW: watched The Libertine late last night. Wow, what a movie. Don't hurt that it stars Johnny Depp!
Something I cobbled together after watching it: "The English Libertine and the French Degenerate"

Anchors: AustinHeap   |   Tor   |   IRC #CivTech

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"Anonymous Iran" forum: Iran.WhyWeProtest.net

First Aid 101 in Farsi; Street Medic Wikia; Tear Gas & Medical info for Protesters; HELP with the CS gaz (WikiPedia) and AutonoMedical Collective (PDF)

The original of this is at http://bentrem.sycks.net/resources.html

( Read more... )

Ok, not so short.

See it at Bit IPTV ... they're hosting this stuff, they deserve it.
Killing in the Name

*spit it, brutha!*

( feel it here )

RATM in HD on Bit IPTV; if you don't know RATM then you don't know dick (Recorded: May 17, 2009)
Eminem (recorded)

Is why you ignore things while, with my experience in SigInt, I called for forensic audits. 30yrs ago.

http://pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/blackmoney/

Just duck. Duck and hush.
Muddle your minds, and slop up what's in your face.
Cuz yuhr smart.

I'll post results after I do them all.
* World's Smallest Political Quiz
* The Enhanced Political Quiz
* The Politics Test
* How Liberal Or Conservative Are You?
* Belief-O-Matic
* Jung Typology Test
* Not working right now: http://www.politicalbrew.com/politest.cgi

It's kinda sad ... everywhere (ok, 95% of places), all the time (ok 95% of the time) and from everybody (ok, 99.5% of folk), the same systemic disconnection from mere actualities ... #borg #matrix #oligarchs.

Hey rick - Just wanted to respond to one thing: "for an undercover shaman, hippie-hillbilly and societal outcast in some ways, things are paradoxically pretty busy for me right now" without wanting to diss, and with all respect, I notice this and have commented on such a number of times. And each time the individual has the sense that theirs is an eccentric situation.

Paradoxical? Ohhh I dunno ... something like, yes ... but more like Borg or Matrix ... after years magnetizing and energizing various social phenomenon I have finally withdrawn, because everywhere and from everyone I hear 2 lines, as though mantra: "Too busy" and "Can't really afford that right now".
But folk are busy because they're doing lots of things ... which means they have time to do lots of things ... which means they are choosing to do lots of things ... which means they can make other choice, /not/ that they don't have the time.
And as for the money, 99.5% of my "cohort" walked down the corporate carpet one way or another ... they were unchallenged in their pragmatic "We have to be reasonable / Best to change things from the inside" attitude ... but now, after decades of earning, are either drowning in debt or (to hear them say it) broke.

So part of this dark age is that those who enjoyed the best of everything (yes I mean the 60s) are entirely disconnected from their own reality. Not that their reality is that good or that bad ... but that they have falsified their own actuality. And there can't be anything good about that.

be well
ben aka WillowBear

Julian Brennan
June 22, 1983 - January 23, 2009
husband of Bettina Beard
son of Thya Merz and Bill Brennan
brother of James and Shannon Brennan

KIA Farah Province, Afghanistan
3rd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment
2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force

* Slain Marine Lance Cpl. Julian Brennan's wedding secret (NYDailyNews, with family video)
* Afghanistan bomb blast kills Brooklyn Marine and aspiring actor
* Julian's MySpace? ... I know he has one ... don't think this is it

Into that good night ...

http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com is developing a fabulous theme: global climate change and it's various impacts. "Rich-Poor Rift Persists Over Climate" [1] is the most recent in this series, tying back to "The (Warming) World Is Not Flat" published on November 7, 2007. [2] (Check out the debate in comments between a couple of key authors on the subject.)

"Everything is interconnected" can be said so glibly. The actual implications and ramifications are often ghastly ... the lack of potable water in areas where rainfall has dropped as temperatures rise.

The series deserves a good close read. What's happening "over there" isn't distant; it's right next door.

---

1

"Elizabeth Rosenthal, who covered the talks, sent in a final dispatch over the weekend once the last prolonged plenary session concluded. Her note, posted below, illustrates the deep “climate divide” that persists. On one side are the world’s industrialized nations, which largely built their wealth through a century of fossil-fuel combustion; on the other, those seeking a path out of poverty that, for the moment, has to depend on the same energy sources, and in many cases also on clearing forests.

2

"“The Climate Divide,” a set of stories in The Times earlier this year, revealed how money and technology shield advanced nations from climate-related hazards like drought and flooding, while many countries most in harm’s way are also among the world’s poorest, and thus most at risk.
Now a new analysis has looked in more detail at health risks that could be amplified in a warming world and finds the same profound disconnect. Countries responsible for the most greenhouse-gas emissions are also the least vulnerable to diseases, heat-related ailments or nutrition problems associated with changing climate conditions."

*X-posted from my blog on http://GlobalSenseMaking.net*

Micah Sifry quoted this in his post about the IntenseDebate deployment on Change.Gov:
""I just wanted to say thank you for giving us a place to make our thoughts and comment heard. It's about time the government provide a centralized place for citizens to express their opinions where they feel they will be heard." [Emphasis added by him there.]

My response to him on Twitter was this:
"With 3.7K / 53 pages of comments (and the thread closed), you say ID on Change.Gov is a place people can go to be heard?! #koolaid"
In effect, this says that standing in a crowd with 3,699 other people and holding up a placard is a brave step forward for engaged democracy.
That's non-sense ... and worse: it leads to complacent self-delusion, entirely antithetical to the drive for innovation.

Sidebar: I noticed that Sifry has blocked me on Twitter ...
... to that, I tweeted this: " Well, after years of cold-shoulder I finally got a reaction: blocked by none other than @Mlsif, the high-priest of democracy. #borg #matrix "

The ironies are ripe ... and entirely keeping with what might seem a cynical appraisal on my part: those who are charged with the responsibility of applauding the Emperor's new clothes are doing just that.
( Such behavior has consequences. )
p.s. about an hour ago I had an honest.to.god Eureka moment ... that makes ?what? maybe 3 in 54 years. I was yet again going over my theory concerning taxonomy / ontology, tags and categories, topics and subjects, and on and on ... going back over what I've implemented, all the way back to '75 and the resources library database (cards with holes punched along their edges, to be sorted with knitting needles. I adore that!) ... and for no real good reason OLAP came to mind ... OLAP cube ... maybe I visualized a Rubik's cube, I'm not sure ... but it fell into place. IssuePress.com has legs!

"War" is too big ... almost an abstraction.

Anyhow

Anybody here do theatre/writing/poetry or documentaries?
I got a concept for a radio piece that could also be staged

Thinking about how folk understand their world. I'm sure everybody recognizes the word "fascist". And I'd bet most folk think of Henry Ford as an American hero. But I'd also bet not one of you reading this get the connection. I don't mean some abstraction ... I mean how he used his millions in the 20s and why the Hitler administration awarded him a medal in 1938.
History ... facts ... events ... real people and real actions.

Folk know words and names, but if they don't understand those words and names they don't understand their world ... they can't understand themselves. (peek PinkyShow of Vietnam)

( A half dozen or so book titles )

That I'm without credentials means you can ignore me with impunity.
Doesn't mean that I'm wrong.
Means that you're wrong.
And the "impunity" part? That you can persist in your folly w/o fear of consequence. (Not "that there will be no consequence", but that you are not conscious.)

http://lessig.blip.tv/?user=lessig | TechCrunch article | Charlie Rose segment | most recent tweet

Hear Lawrence Lessig:p.s. Irony:

Cast:
Lawrence Lessig hasn't shared any cast information with blip.tv yet.

(And right at this moment Lessig tells Charlie Rose, "We have to break the connection between money and results". Which isn't wrong. It's just incomplete. He allows for elitism. Which ham-strings him. Which will ham-string Obama. Cuz yuppies can't stop being yuppies. *shrug*)

Once upon a time it was understood as a matter of practice, that ... no, wait.

Who gets into a cab late at night and talks trash?
Well, I do. Sometimes.
Because I'm not projecting my best hopes; I'm reality testing.

Cabbie gets snotty I'm outta there before we're down the block.
And cabbies in my sorta city know it.

But in the "real world"?

*pssssst Which "real world"?*

Truth is a social construct.
"Fact" ... well, yes, that too. But in a different sense.

There are those who will say that this desk is only a construct ... and that wall, and the door in it.
They. of course, have never been in the infantry.
Or in sewage.
Or in transit.
Or meals.
Or anything else that actually related to material reality and phenomenal world.

"Service economy " ... sounds innocuous, nae?

Nae.
Nothing innocuous about it.
Selling too-busy people crap they lust for but don't need.

Show me a culture that appreciates fresh-made noodles I'll ...
... yaa, whatever.

Schmooze, spin, sophistry ... jingoism ...
... but to be "nice" we ignore all that.

Technology is the Emperor and his new clothes both.
Any speaking of ancient truths?
Those who've never tried would say no.
I've exhausted myself trying ...
... I'd say maybe.

"Too long in the warrior's tent ... what of peace?"
Sure do wish I knew my bible, ayup.
heh

A Discussion About Race and Gender - Charlie Rose Show

"Predatory Scapegoating" by Patricia J. Williams; Columnist at The Nation - professor of law at Columbia University; BA from Wellesley College and a JD from Harvard Law School.
Her blog: Mad Law Professor.

MozDawg on DAV and Docs</blockquote>With Obama's massively successful campaign I've watched Web2.0 do what it does best: drive money.

Now ... now what?
Since the mid-70s I've been surveying the field as I tried to enable civil society with the best IT.
And, as some of you know, the mid-70s was a pretty harsh time ..
East Timor, apartheid coming to a head in South Africa ... harsh.
This hard on the heels of the war in Vietnam ... Cambodia and all that.
And, more personally for me, Chile.
As an airborne-ready SigInt operator I served by interdicting the Evil Empires' attempts to over-throw democratic regimes.
My group interdicted as they tried ... ... but then my group did. I mean we over-threw the democratically elected government in Chile.
Of course cracker trash-talkers will say Allende was a flaming-red Commie ... ... just like they said that Obama was a socialist with ties to terrorist friends.
Crackers don't change much over time.
Does anything? Sure: the tactics for manufacturing concensus and the techniques for driving money.

Will Obama's oh-so capable team transform the field of governance with something like what I call "participatory deliberation"?
I have reason for hoping so ... lots of reasons ... age old reasons, too, since we're talking about the emancipation project itself.
But is there reason for optimism? I dunno ... it's up to us.
"Yes, we can!" is only operative if we get off our butts.
Crackers and red-necks are going to push Obama's principles towards the ditch.
We can stop that if we try ... if.

But I'm no cynic: given the tools, we'll do the work.
But tools don't grow on trees.
Technology doesn't sprout up out of the ground.
So those who control the money control the agenda ... as usual.
And ain't it a coincidence that Obama takes on a nation that's on the brink ... some coincidence!

p.s. the Obama page on my wiki