Get yours: MapLoco.com	ClustrMaps.com

Of SigInt on The Side of The Angels
A letter to a rare acquaintance

I'm sure your time is short: I'll get to the point. How would this army of 1 connect fine folk like your good self with the forensic IT tool he's spent 30 years devising?

"Is your truth the same as mine?" ... Pontias Pilate was a career diplomat. And his sophistry works as well today as when he spoke it.

But we've learned some. PoMo? Entirely problematic.
But how about historiography?
How about forensic accounting?
How about how civil society thrives on real discourse and shrivels without it?

How about "truth is dialectical in nature; facts are the raw material that fuel that mill".

Thing is: for me to blurt (after so many years on the web, so much pro bono work) is for me to loose my last grasp on survivability.

I turned 54 yesterday.
I've been on welfare since I broke both feet escaping from a home invasion.
I need some entity into which I can invest my work.

http://bentrem.sycks.net/gnodal/ or, less eccentric: http://groundplane.wordpress.org

with respect and appreciation
ben

p.s. I was in the Canadian Armed Forces "Communications Research" in September of 1973. I filed for release on the 14th of that month. They rolled out a red-carpet deal. I turned it down and got a job selling stereos.
Philippe Agee is/was a hero.

I write that as a socialist, knowing full well that "the republic" means the machinery in place to optimize exploitation. (The government is only the executive board put in place by the oligarchs.)

But it's an improvement over raw tyranny ... the alternative to democracy is slavery. We came out of slavery and serfdom, but that's where we're headed, so "fulfilling the bourgeois revolution" has always been my motto. You know, stuff like "rule of law". (Pressing for that brings to light just how corrupt things really are.)

But who will do the work?
Yuppies and their kids have learned that phony bullshit is how to make money, and that authenticity is most often subject to arbitrary punishment. (Most do-good organizations are headed by the most incompetent wannabes you can find.)
Who let Hurricane Katrina turn into an unmitigated catastrophe? Well-paid yuppies.
Who profited from corporations like Enron, and from financial schemes like phony low-interest mortgages? The same buncha yuppies.

So: the oligarchs are obviously sociopaths, and the yuppies are merely corrupt and hypocritical.

Who's left?

0_o

happy birthday to me
heh

See, the thing about karma ... do you want to be like a piece of paper in the wind?
Oh sure, in the bad moments don't we all wish we could just check out.

But apart from that ...
... do you really want to be a mindless plug?!

I'm betting on "No".
So far I've only just barely managed to pay for food and warmth.
But I put that down to your compulsive need to project the asshole attitudes of those who came before you.
Which is exactly the point.

What's "responsibility"?
What's that mean?
What's "individual freedom" ... you gonna say that's a myth?

You gonna say none of us are free?
Bet yuh won't.

You gonna piss in my face?
You'd be pissin in your own face, if you did.
Quite the trick.
Neato ... but perverse, nae?
You want others to piss in your face?
Nope ...
... so STFU and get a grip.

You, me, all of us ... we're constantly subjected to *gee golly what to call it?!* thoughts.
Thoughts.
Thoughts.
Thoughts.

Is that too subtle a concept for you?
Nope.
Soooo, if that gives you an excuse to cop out ...
... precisely my point.

Thoughts are like ocean waves on the beach.
Are you a bit of drift-wood?
A wisp of paper?
Or do you have substance.

There is no other.
It really is that simple.

Of course you think this and that and the other.
Meanwhile the planet is dying.
Meanwhile people who'd been surviving on $2/day are now subjected to rising food costs.

Of course you think this and that and the other.
It's what you do next that counts.
"The Force" ... it's true.
Google "bodhicitta".
Or don't.
Duck.
Hide.
Get snotty.
Whatever.

But in that moment, you experience karma.
You either do what you do with intention ...
... or you're no more than a bit of paper in the wind.

That's it.
That's all.
There is no other.

Write yourself off?
Then you're sociopath ...
... if you write yourself off, you won't care about others. Or the planet.

... according to them Tibet isn't a human-rights issue at all. Their line is that HH Dalai Lama is a liar and a cheat.

A reward is being offered for information which results in outside contact with Gedun Choekyi Nyima, The Panchen Lama. The Panchen Lama was kidnapped by the Chinese government in 1995 and his wherabouts remain unknown.

Share this webpage with the media and with those you know, especially those in China and Tibet. For Chinese speaking people, please distribute the Chinese language version. Email if you're able to translate this into other languages.

Amber Alert - Tashi Lhunpo Monastery, Bylakuppe INDIA

"Satan" as the root of all evil ...
... oh, really?

You sure?

Have you ever questioned that?

No?

Now, who inspired you to stop thinking?

There ...
... didn't your sentience flicker, for even just an instant?
Aren't you inclined to deny it, even though it did?

Didn't you duck away?
To deny your sentience?

Satan wants to be glorified.

He's the Lord of Light.

You duck away, into the shadows.
So: who are you serving?

2+2 != 17

Mulling over how things grow and blossom, or not.
Any true competitor knows that even slight praise for another player's work can set off a meme ... and it's a zero-sum game, right? So silence is the order of the day, unless one's skillful enough to pull of "damned with faint praise", which isn't that easy. (Far more likely is a "left-handed compliment", what Atisha's lojong ("mind-training") refers to as "talking with a twist".)

Here's what got me thinking.
Look at the right sidebar on http://robingood.typepad.com/ ... a nice selection, right?

Ok, now imagine a resource page with those links, where the description is expanded a bit, and the whole block for each site is completed with a screen-shot.
Ok, now look at the list on http://bentrem.sycks.net/gff/gff_comp.html ...
... that's what I had done.

For each item in that list I had created a text block, description, c/w screen-grab.

That's just one item that was blown away by the SysAdmin at St Mary's University when it de-funded the International Education Center.
That's the sort of thing that nobody defended.
That's the sort of thing that nobody valued, inside or outside.

Nobody scolded me for creating such a list. (The "Green Future Foundation" is what I was trying to launch.) Very likely administration called it "Nice" at some point.
But in the end it was blown away.

Months of work ...
... 12 years ago.

           

1995 ... The People's Summit ... not a bad page for 13 years ago!
2002 ... I created the prototype for an update, in time for the G8 Finance Ministers' Meeting.
Faint praise.
Silence.

The chill of repeated cold-shoulders.

The A-list players fuck me over while "nice" people damn me with their mealy-mouthed self-serving hypocrisy.

It's been a looooooooooooooooooooong road.

---

http://groundplane.wordpress.com

A while back I did a little online work for a guy on the other side of the Atlantic ... just helping him re-design the frontpage of his commercial site. Not rocket science, but not thumb-twiddling either.
Thing is, he had no means of paying me. I don't have credit card, so paypal is out.

Anyhow, he got me an account at DreamHost which I've been using to slowly develop my project.

I've been in "stealth mode" for years ... cat definitely in the bag.

Well, I just let the cat's head out:

"The Antenna is You" - GroundPlane.wordpress.com

I just had an exchange with Phil Jones on Twitter.

He started this off by asking me, "ok, so numeric weights for reliability of assertions and then do fold calculations to consolidate ?"

I replied with a short series of DMs:

My approach: 1) strict/rigorous syllogistic logic, combined with 2) vox populi ...

My "inspiration" (Habermas' discourse ethics) was to salvage/ secure/ loft/ promote subjective narrative by filtering it away from logic.

Once matters of "fact" are treated w/strict logic, the valid individual diffs in perspective float to the surface!

> FACT | TRUTH <

It's dialectical, doncha know! ;-) cheers

But my direct answer to his question would be something like, "Less AI/mathematics, more discourse and participation!"

---

Point is, and this is why so many of the previous 15 years are fallow for me: we have tremendous tools for crunching and processing data ... I'm partial to multi-variate analysis ... and so long as communications are oligarchic and hermetic (read: between experts, controlled by experts) that's fine.
But, in the spirit of OpenAccess, we need to develop tools that popularize the best of our thinking, the best of our research, the best of our techniques (see Paulo Freire on "Education for Critical Consciousness" as well as his more familiar "Pedagogy of the Oppressed.")

"It's all about governance!"

Thinking together about what is crucial;
Speaking deeply about simple things.

There's any number of schemes for measuring reliability and vadlidity and credibility and popularity and on and on. Any one of those is sufficiant to totally swamp discourse ... real conversation.

My point is to enable and extend decision making, to in-form discussion (OpenAccess) with our publically-funded research ... to produce a framework for participatory deliberation concerning public policy.

Is all.
;-P

p.s. earlier this morning I /finally/ figured out a way to wikify WordPress!
Not all blog readers comment, right? (In fact, a very small proportion do.) And only a small group of that small group would bother themselves to edit a wiki page, right? Soooooooo: use WP as the front end ... what appears like a conventional blog post c/w sidebar and links and, of course, comment box.
But there'd be a wiki "Edit This" button.
Cuz the post body would actually be extracted from a MediaWiki database!

So that rare bird could in-fold his/her thinking or reaction to the post and comments by using normal Wiki process! (And, of course, MediaWiki History and RollBack functions would serve to protect the posts from vandalism ... best of both, nae?)

I just tweeted this:

At the heart of "liberation theology" is this: what matters to you matters; if it matters to you then it matters. Discourse / group discernment / participatory deliberation.

How would a sophist treat this?
Probably by mocking and sneering, if he's straight up.
More likely with some snotty joke, if he's cowardly.

Earlier, joking with someone about yuppies rule the web with their ohh.sooo clehvur bla-yada-blah yada-yada, and how it's hard to get through them to the actual work, this:

Heavy lifting and tough sledding? Airborne-infantry comms / SigInt; TELCO and NORAD SAC; MIL-SPEC avionics; broadcasting, studio recording, and venue sound.

The sophist would probably mock this, too, saying I'm just a boy who likes to play with toys.

Funny thing came up in that thread. It had started with me writing this:

Thus sayeth me - Marketplace dominated by 2 types: programmers and schmoozing feather-merchants.

Some sophist chipped in with a snotty comment, mis-quoting me "BenTrem says that the Web2.0 world consists of by 2 types: programmers and schmoozing feather-merchants."
Notice the shift?
I wrote dominate ...
... she shifted to "consists of" ... making it all/none, as though I had written "There's just me and then all of you."
My meaning was quite the opposite: most go with the flow and make it increasingly hard for the rest of us.
A very crafty bit of dishonesty on her part.

The point is: sophists are so cynical and bitter and caustic that they want to pollute rationale thought. (Dig: from one, recently, global climate change is fine because not only will it be fun for the lizards but it will actually save lives! I asked him when he'd come out pitching the up-side of child-slavery, domestic abuse, and racism.)

Psychopaths want to manipulate in order to control. (Profit is actually secondary ... and sadism isn't actually a necessary symptom. It's all about control.)

Sophists just want to fuck up the argument.

Once upon a time there was talk of emancipation.

Now fuckin' wonder I'm broke: you ain't buyin' ... you've either been seduced / bought out by your local psychopath or cowed into submission by clehvur sophists' trash-talk.

It's a sad time, ayup.

"Be of good heart" ... who said that?
The sophist will answer, "Some coward".

---

Q: what do you call a bourgie yuppies' kid with "left" ideas? a bourgie yuppies' kid, cuz now-days Left/Right is paradigmatically bourgeois. (Relationship to possessions.)

Q: how do you talk to good hard-workin'folk about self-exploitation and the unhealthy consequences of self-abuse, unreasonable ambition and greed? From the outside, looking in, amid cat-calls, insults, and shouted abuse.

... yaa. $$$ cuz I could do.
I can still do. But now I'm scrambling to keep a roof over my head.
Why the change? Easy: the people around me brag about being whores.
Zen? Bushido? You want 3 or 4 more 9-11s? How fucking stupid are you really?!

I don't think folk are stupid.
I think folk are corrupt. Dishonest.
Me?
heh ... fuck-wads, what English word dare you understand? None at all. You don't dare think straight. Whores. Pimps. Thieves, liars, cheats ... and I'm supposed to use you as a reality test?
heh ... shows how brain-damaged you are!

---

---

I finally got a few bucks and bought a 5V power supply for my old ZIP drive. Here are a few of the trax I was working on before the "nice" fuck-wad dropped my briefcase and killed my laptop ... that was September 2003.

When you were last hurt ... I mean, you know, really hurt ... maybe dumped, maybe betrayed, maybe assaulted ... chances are you found yourself from time to time trying to "figure it out".

To show how ill-equipped we are to do that (our ancient history is rich; our present culture is fuckin'near carcinogenic) ponder, "Everything happens for a reason." As "everything has a cause" I'd agree whole-heartedly, and develop that theme to the max. As "everything furthers some fine goal or end" I'd say it's toxic. Mind-fuck bullshit.

But even when our "culture" ill-prepares us for the mind-bending paradoxes of our daily lives, we still cope. We're good at coping. Coping is how we came to be top of the food chain. Coping means smart ... clever. Dishonest folk are often very smart, and very clever. Just look at Condi Rice.

We cope by coping. We don't cope by answering the big questions ... answers are few and far between ... raised on a diet of pap-cultured and white sugar, ain't fuckin'likely you're gonna come up with any good answers. (You could, if you bothered trying to grok Zen ... but you're far too busy and far to important to lower yourself by considering actual emancipation, liberation, and enlightenment ... that big-screen TV is, to your warped state of mind, far far more important. Am I wrong? Let me guess: you've never asked about Zen or meditation cuz you just plain don't like me. Take a fucking number.)

We cope however we can. That's what coping is. Whatever gets us through the night. Not that trash is advised, but *shrug* we cope by surviving. Is whott we're good at.

So, chances are, after spinning your wheels for a while trying to understand the hurt *shrug* prolly you shrug. Cuz you're human, and you ain't Buddha.

PTSD? You can't shrug it off. You shrug and there it is again. So you shrug again. But it's still there. Again. And again. And again. I mean like 9 / 17 / 42 times a day. Every day. Week in week out. Month after month. For years.

And nobody else cares.
'Course not. Cuz they're coping.
When you have PTSD you just barely cope.
Just barely.
Like flying a plane 10degrees below the horizon ...
... you're gonna crash. Sometime. Somewhere. For sure.

And you get pissed off at others.
Cuz they don't seem to care at all.
Or they care, but not much.

PTSD is about caring too much. About something that's no longer here.
It's about caring so much that it hurts to think about it. And the hurt kinda proves how very very important it is.
So not thinking about it is horrid ... gotta think about it ... gotta figure it out.
But there's no answer. Which we can't accept. We can't spot it cuz we can't see straight through the pain.
So we keep trying ...
... and we keep getting pissed off at those who don't.
Which is a really lousy alternative to coping.
PTSD is about coping badly.

http://warriors.groundplane.org/

The US administration made things up to justify attacks against Hussein ... the war in Iraq.
Now the Chinese are making things up against HH Dalai Lama.

Let's say you're a nice person ...
... does that mean you have to ignore what's happening around you?
Are you being pressured?
Are you just chosing to ignore?
Are you basically dishonest?
Or are you being abused, jerked around, threatened?

Do you live in a democracy?
Do you value freedom?
Are you a crypto-fascist?
Have you just given up on human-kind entirely?

Email this evening -

MESSAGE FROM EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE TIBET CONNECTION:

Since March 7th, The Tibet Connection has been unable to publish anything to our website TheTibetConnection.org because of a problem with our server. We are learning that other Tibet-related sites are experiencing similar problems. We are working to resolve this situation as soon as possible, and naturally we are incredibly frustrated not to be able to post updates and audio on the recent events in Tibet.

In the meantime, we are redirecting some of our content to the Los Angeles Friends of Tibet website LATibet.org

There you can find complete audio and video of His Holiness the Dalai Lama's March 16th press conference in Dharamsala, India, as well as postings about local events in support of the Tibetan people.

We at the Tibet Connection wish to express our steadfast solidarity with the peaceful protesters in Tibet and our deepest concern over the harsh response of the Chinese authorities there.

Rebecca Novick, Executive Producer
THE TIBET CONNECTION

I've been thinking more and more on how it's almost impossible to connect with people who are ego-centered materialists. It's straight-up #borg shit.
treehugger's most recent post included something that got me keyboarding: "at times i wonder if my lack of anger at people's stupidity is laziness, or acceptance."

Interesting synchronicity
I was thinking about how years ago there really was an alternative to live in a communal situation. I mean, of various sorts. And now, there really isn't. Not realistically ... practically.
I was trying to grapple through to the root of that.
Got tangled, as usual, with the usual "the world is becoming Matrix" and "folk are becoming allergic to others, suffering their presence only in the spirit of commercial or ego-centered transaction".

"it's easier to expend energy on tearing people down rather than facing challenges yourself, or hell, having the courage to believe in yourself." resonates.
Thing about a narcissistic life-style (which can arise as a given, almost by accident of history) is that it doesn't recommend any solution or alternative. It is not, except in a deep Zen sense, self-exploding. Quite the opposite: self-involvement increases alienation which supports a world-view that's based on a sense of entitlement, where others become opportunity for exploitation.

In a deep sense catastrophe really does offer a moment of opportunity ... I'm not the only one to note that real spirit work isn't likely to be taken up by someone who isn't feeling a deep compelling need ... but that opportunity isn't immediately obvious. "The gateless gate" ... you can't even approach it because it isn't visible, but when you see the reality of it you quite possibly find that you've already crossed through, if only by having tripped on fallen on your face.

Is why I keep punching out warnings that consummer-life is BluePill ... because it operates that way: if I construct a materialistic lifestyle, the more I invest of myself in it, the more I forgo for it, the more it monopolizes my consciousness, the more it feels vaguely heroic and principled and virtuous to persist in it.

"if my lack of anger at people's stupidity is laziness, or acceptance."
Good question. Truly.
It might be a sort of sloth. Could well be. In basic Zen training I got a real good handle on "the builder of the house of ego" ... we're brilliant at explicating things in a way that flatter our self-image.
It might be a sort of hopelessness ... no point going through the wall of flame if one is convinced that there's nothing on the other side.

I fall back on self-interest: if I don't respond then I become increasingly deadened, and opportunities to respond don't rise to front of mind, so I become increasingly deadened, and I feel compelled less often.
Not that I'm saying that those compelling moments are virtuous ... more than likely with me that they're 9 parts frustration and 1 part disgust at others' blithe destruction of themselves and their surround ... but they're still the raw stuff of vigour, of energetic creativity, and those are foundational to loving-kindness.

So: keep the home fires burning!

*Sings: "This little light o'mine ... I'm gonna let it shine!"*

I can't stand working with "nice" people ... smarmy suck-up kiss-ass careerist yuppie types.
I mean I can't stand it.
I mean I'm allergic to it ... their particularly brand of bullshit makes me gag.

But straight up assholes?
No problem.

Right now I'm feeling like I won a pool championship.

Just had a long loud phone conversation with the landlord.
I smoked him.
He wants to be a piece of shit?
Fine.

I didn't lie. I didn't insult. I didn't raise my voice. I didn't attack him.
I just out-played him.

He's so pissed off that he said he was giving me notice ... eviction.
So I stuck it to him: 3 months notice required.
With no rent increase.

He walked into the noose then tightened it around his own neck.

heh ...
... this aulde warrior hasn't lost his form.

Fact is: smarmy yuppies win by wasting my life.

Assholes like him don't win at all.

+1

p.s. maybe that's why so many "winners" consider themselves superior, looking down on others: it gives them the sorta motivation that leaves them with the edge ... so "the worst are filled with a fiery intensity" while "the best lack all conviction" because the worst see others as enemies, or as raw material to be exploited.
humm ... that actually works!

I went all the way across town and when I got to the venue I caught a glimpse of the dozen or so people who'd shown up. I stopped. Dead. And I waited. For a long time. Then I walked away.

I could pretend it was because I couldn't stomach the idea of dealing with yet.another buncha yuppies. But that would have been pretending.

I'm poor. That's the fact.

I just can't stand the humiliation anymore.

I'm worn down.
So I stay home.

The yuppies have won: they broke me.

Notes for The First Annual General Meeting of the Alberta League for Community Democracy
Wednesday, November 23rd, 2005

* Innovations in Democracy - toward wiser democracies that work for all. "Wiser democracies are systems of politics and governance, of citizenship and activism, which creatively engage more of our human capacities -- not only to better address today's pressing social and environmental problems, but to help us build more desirable futures for ourselves and all the generations after us. As we build wise democracies, all the good things people are trying to do for the world will become so much easier to accomplish. We hope to catalyze a movement to build wiser democracies using powerful ideas, resources and stories from around the world, and engaging millions of people who realize how vital this goal is." ... from the good folk at The Co-Intelligence Institute.

* From Democracy Unlimited of Humboldt County's mission statement:
"Our world is in terrible crisis. Solutions to the problems we face are not being implemented because "We the People" do not have control over our own government. Multinational corporations have become the governing institutions – determining for us how our food is grown and distributed, how we heat and light our homes, what poisons we breathe, drink and eat. Giant corporations largely decide what controversies get attention, how wealth is shared and distributed, what solutions are acceptable, who gets elected to public office and how the United States treats other nations. Citizens have lost our authority over the fundamental decisions that affect our lives. We are defined as "consumers," left to choose between paper or plastic at the grocery store. We think it is time for this to change."

From Michael Ignatieff's "The Needs of Strangers; an essay on privacy, solidarity, and the politics of being human"
Respect and dignity also depend on whether entitlements are understood to be a matter of right, a matter of deserving, or a matter of charity. ... There is a contradiction at the heart of the welfare state between the respect we owe a person as individuals and as fellow human beings. In the first case, respect is owed to their specific qualities as individuals; in the second, to their common humanity. ... Treating everyone as if their needs were the same may be a necessary condition, but it is not a sufficient condition for treating each of them with respect. ... The most common criticism of modern welfare is precisely that in treating everyone the same it ends up treating everyone like a thing. ... A potential contradiction of the same sort arises between our need for social solidarity and our need for freedom. ... We have not only needs for ourselves, we have needs on behalf of others.

Individuals are not solitary masters of pre-given preferences; what others need and what they lack are constitutive of their own needs. It is as common for us to need things on behalf of others, to need good schools for the sake of our children, safe streets for the sake of our neighbors, decent old people's homes for the strangers at our door, as it is for us to need them for ourselves. The deepest motivational springs of political involvement are to be located in this human capacity to feel needs for others.

Bernard D. Tremblay (ben)
10444 - 86 Avenue
Edmonton T6E 2M5
439-4433
trembenATnetscape.net
ab006ATchebucto.ns.ca

My LiveJournal - http://hfx_ben.livejournal.com/
My project notes - http://livejournal.com/~gnodal/
Basic Bliss - http://chebucto.ca/Current/AEF/raps/blog/blogger.html
Beyond Greed - http://chebucto.ca/Current/P7/blog/blogger.html

Disagreement and Consensus: The Need for Dynamic Updating in Public Deliberation

Christopher F. Karpowitz, Princeton University
Jane Mansbridge, Harvard University

SUGGESTED CITATION:
Christopher F. Karpowitz and Jane Mansbridge (2005) "Disagreement and Consensus: The Need for Dynamic Updating in Public Deliberation", Journal of Public Deliberation: Vol. 1: No. 1, Article 2.
http://services.bepress.com/jpd/vol1/iss1/art2


This analysis compares a consensus-oriented procedure, Princeton Future, with a more adversarial procedure, the public meetings of the Princeton, N.J. borough council, organized as public hearings. It finds that the consensus-oriented procedure failed to pick up significant conflicting interests among the citizens and as a consequence failed to provide venues for discussing and possibly negotiating those interests. It advises that deliberative democratic procedures provide for dynamic updating on the underlying and changing interest structure before and during deliberation, with particular attention to the important lines of conflict. Thus facilitators should help participants in deliberation not only forge common interests but also clarify their conflicting interests.

( Music sample )

Exchanged email with Matthew Montfort earlier (Matthew's on guitar in this clip) ... that got me snooping the Ancient Future site again.

Over the past 3 weeks I've emailed and contacted every social service place in this city.
Not a single one of them could advise me about my rent hike.
Read: the freakin' yuppies collect their pay while diddling themselves and each other.

Meanwhile the landlord and a contractor I know both had the same story. As the contractor wrote in email, "Once ownership changes the rental agreement doesn't hold water."

But I kept googling and finally found the a copy of the legislation:

Reference Guide to Landlord & Tenant Law in Alberta
3rd Edition
page 22

New Landlord
If a person buys a property that is already rented to a tenant, the new owner has all the rights and obligations of the previous landlord if the lease is for less than three years.97 This would apply to all periodic tenancies [...] Termination of periodic tenancies is governed by the Residential Tenancies Act, so that the tenant will not be in any different position with regard to a new landlord."

So what's that mean? Two things:

1) the new landlord and the contractor are both fucking liars
2) it would have taken the fucking yuppies less than 60 seconds to give the the straight goods.

Yuppies kiss bullies' asses ...
... is why they're so twitchy and fragile and brittle and defensive: guilty conscience.

The bullies? They're straight up ... cheats, liars, thieves.

I'm not sure which bunch is worse ...
... but I think the yuppies stink more.

see http://bentrem.sycks.net/housing.html

I just got email from him:

"On Monday, March 3rd from 8:00 to 10:00 pm, Canada Live on CBC Radio Two presents Roy Forbes and Connie Kaldor - together again at the 2008 Winter Song Festival in West Vancouver. A
ard-winning singer/songwriters Roy and Connie will each perform a set with their own trios and then collaborate on a handful of songs together. (In Roy's group Robbie Steininger played guitar and sang, and Linda Kidder played bass and sang.) Go to www.cbc.ca/radio2 and click on 'Listen Live' to do just that! After the broadcast time, click on 'Concerts on Demand' on the same web page to hear an archived version."

http://www.cbc.ca/radio2/schedule_canLive.html tells the tale.
see also http://ckua.com/programs/roysrecordroom/

Travellers and Magicians

( YouTube trailer )

Released in France in 2004, directed by Khyentse Norbu.
A blog post related to the film's theme: "Peach blossoms are beautiful because they are temporary."

---

On the flip-side of that: "Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work"



see also "Narcissistic Leaders: The Incredible Pros, the Inevitable Cons" from Harvard Business Review