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Table of contents for Despair-Work, an essay by Joanna Macy on the weight of the Nuclear Age on each/all of us, whether we are consciously aware of it or not, and some ideas of what can be done for/by each of us to ease that burden.
Part one: Introduction, Ingredients of Despair, Symptoms and Suppressions
Part two: Validation,
Part three: Feeling, Imaging, Waiting
Part four: Community
Citations and references page [external links]
This essay became her book Despair and Personal Power in the Nuclear Age.
And some related links: Deep Ecology, Nuclear Guardianship, Non-Violent Peace Force, Yes! Magazine and Critical Will: Force for Nuclear Disarmament.
ETA: I've been asked why I'm keeping this at the top of my page?
Because it's relevant. Because this essay saved my life when I first read it in 1982. Because it's thoughtful writing. And because now, instead of two countries with [relatively] stable nuclear warhead programs, there are [actually, do we even know how many?] at least 6 with nuclear warhead capability. / (ETA- am letting it slide down a ways for now- doesn't mean I won't relink it at the top at some point.)
I don't know about you, but that weighs on me something terrible. I'm so grateful to have ways to relieve that burden which are practical and do-able.
ETA to add Rebecca Solnit's Library of Hope (including hope in the dark) from Tom Engelhart's Tomdispatch, courtesy of Perceval Press.
ETA 4.16.08 to add Waging Peace and the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.
Thank you, you who read, ponder, come back, read again. If ever you'd like to talk about this with me, I'm available. Just drop me a note here.
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Keep the Arts In Public Schools is one of my FaceBook causes.
To support this cause, I'm listing all my Arts for Children books in this note, and promising 10% of profits from each sale to KAIPS.
Arts&Crafts
Make Sculptures (Art and Activities for Kids) by Solga, Kim $3.00
Make Gifts! (Art and Activities for Kids) by Solga, Kim $3.00
How to Make Soft Toys and Dolls (A Sunset Book) [Paperback] by various $3.00
Draw! (Art and Activities for Kids) by Solga, Kim $3.00
Paint! (Art and Activities for Kids) by Solga, Kim $3.00
I Can Draw Animals (Usborne Playtime Series) [Paperback] by Gibson, Ray $3.00
The Big Book of Soft Toys [Hardcover] by Mabstyler; Kingsford, John $5.00
CRAFT BOOKS: MODELING BOOK (PAPERBACK) by Owen (Modeling clay & more) $3.00
Batik (Start-A-Craft: Get started in a new craft with easy-to-follow projects... $4.00
Stenciling (Start-a-Craft) by Skinner, Betsy; Sapsford, Jamie $3.50
0401E1GY5XQ Start-A-Craft: Puppets by Schneebeli-Morrell, Deborah $3.00
More Lettie Lane Paper Dolls by Young, Sheila $2.00
A World of Costumes in Cutout : All You Need is a Pair of Scissors and Glue $12.00
Poetry, writing & words
Animal Poems For Children by Golden Books $2.00
THE GOLDEN JOURNEY: POEMS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE. [Hardcover] $10.00
Poems for Brothers, Poems for Sisters by Livingston, Myra C.; Zallinger, Jean $4.00
Performing arts
Musics of Many Cultures: An Introduction [Paperback] by May, Elizabeth [This is a college text, but makes a wonderful guide to teach from, as well] $7.00
DVDs, VHS, CDs
Jim Henson's The Storyteller: The Definitive Collection [DVD] $15.00
Tchaikovsky: Nutcracker Suite; Swan Lake Suite [Germany] [Import] [Audio CD] $4.00
Notes from the Wild: The Nature Recording Expeditions of Bernie Krause $8.00
Also available at EnjoyIt are books for kids about science, myths & fairy tales, geography; books on parenting and fun activities to do with kids; several antique children's books (not perfect first editions, but the kind of lovely old book you want to just hold and read= the kind that makes your hands ache to hold another book, and another), and chapter books/YA books as well.
Remember, 10% of profit from these sales goes to Keep Arts In the Public Schools. Thank you for your support of this Cause.
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Swine Flu: This is the real deal, according to a friend of mine who's a very experienced infection control nurse.
So, what can you do?
1. Don't panic. Get educated. Be smart. Yes, it's infectious. Yes, it's scary. So be intelligent.
2. WASH YOUR HANDS. Early. Often. I don't usually like anti-bacterial soaps, but right now, I'm carrying Purell Hand Sanitizer with me (on my keychain, in my backpack, a bottle in the car...- yeah. Before and after the ATM, etc...) and using the sanitizer wipes at my grocery market's entrance. Yes, I know some people are sensitive to it, and can't use it. That's ok. Soap and water works just fine. But them as can, could, and that'll help keep germs from spreading via all those publicly shared things like ATMs and grocery carts. (and everything else you touch: doors, bus bench backs, etc. etc. but ATMs and grocery carts are known to be great reservoirs.) I've been informed about Vicks Foaming Hand Sanitizer also available. I put the whole listing so you can choose where to order from.
3. If you're really worried, get some masks. Just enough to keep your coughing from spreading in its usual 3-feet-in-all-directions cloud, and enough to keep other people's cough-cloud from getting into your nose and throat. (The only really useful scene in the movie "Outbreak" is the one of how airborne infection can spread. The rest of the movie is more or less melodrama, as well as geographically insanely incorrect.)
4. Remember: Infectious agents need very specific things to spread. A useful model is the Chain of Infection model: infectious agent, reservoir (where it lives when it's not infecting someone), portal of exit, means of transmission, portal of entry, susceptible host (and back around to the infectious agent, ready to swing through the chain again).
Break that chain at any point, and the power of the infectious organism is broken, too. This is why hand-washing works, why you should cover your mouth when you cough or sneeze (preferably not with the hand with which you're next going to touch the ATM or grocery cart, but by sneezing into your shoulder or the crook of your elbow).
To my friends who live in places already affected, my very best love and good wishes to you. To the rest of us, let's be good, and wash our hands.
[Editorial comment: This is why we vaccinate, even though it's likely that a vaccine for this strain of Swine Flu won't be available soon. Mechanism of vaccination, and some numbers: (Wikipedia article, WiseGeek article, and yeah, I know the objections to vaccination, I do, but I also know the huge dent in my Dad's back from where part of a rib was removed so he could have a pulmonectomy for Diptheria, and how crappy two weeks in bed with Measles worrying I might go blind was, and how scary Rubella was for pregnant women, too, and how horrible the deaths of the children who got Measles with secondary pneumonia in 1989-1991 in California were. {I worked in the PICU at Oakland Children's during that epidemic- It was not good.} If you're not going to vaccinate, fine. Just be prepared for the possible consequences not only to your own or your child's health, but to your community's as well, because it's work, dealing with an epidemic. Yes, the vaccine developers and manufacturers can do a better job. yes, we should hold them accountable. But, yeah- community health is the responsibility of the community, not the manufacturers, not even, in the end, the government. Of the people, for the people, by the people...etc., etc.) End Editorial comment.]
If you're sick, STAY HOME. Tell someone you're sick, but STAY HOME. If you must be out, cover your mouth, wash your hands early and often, eat well, drink LOTS of water (not soda), and go home early- don't linger about out in the world. MomsRising Petition for Family Sick Leave act. Yes, it's only one country, yes, it's only one segment of the population, yes it's a start.
x-posted, sorry for the repitition.
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Paul Rodriguez narrates this one hour doc on salt in the water supplies of various parts of California, and how what we do here in the Bay Area affects and is affected by water use elsewhere, statewide water policy, and other things. I had a chance to see it tonight at work. It's well worth seeing.
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Chatelaine
She started with fairy tales,
reading along over her mother's finger
as the golden apple was snatched from
atop the glass mountain
and the giant's heart broke because
the three iron bands that held his chest
closed were breached, though that
chest was atop another mountain, and
his heart was not in his own care
at all.
Learning to read took all her time. She
loitered in the dictionary, following from one
word to another across the continents and down
the centuries, aching to hear Sanskrit
and dreaming with the monks of
books recopied by candlelight lighting
learning anew in some year yet to come.
She'd've lived in the library if they let you.
There are stories everywhere. Baseball
games, heard across the hall from the
janitor's closet, in third grade:
epic poems of struggle, defeat, victory.
Too old to be read to
by someone else she drifted from
place to place: now an adult, now a
gypsy child, now responsibly paying bills,
now spinning a tall tale just to see
where it led, confusing her friends,
annoying her co-workers.
It took forever to finish school.
She was thorough, and easily distracted.
One sentence led to another page, to another book,
to another subject and another story
and every paper was due the next morning,
with references cited, and a cover sheet.
She learned MLA and APA and Chicago this way
and pocketed them like the keys to treasure
maps.
She wears the keys at the waist of her skirt
hidden away in her pocket as she walks
the halls of her life, learning her trade,
seeking permission to be silent, to go
on about her business without hindrance
or regret.
Her gift is to appreciate both key and lock
and the moment of unlocking.
Not to know what treasure is behind the door,
or under the lid, or hidden in the code, but
to believe that it is there, that precious
gift that, unique unto itself, answers
some need perhaps as yet unstated, unheard
by anyone but her and the story told
by an unfinished storyteller.
No wonder it was broken, she thought,
when she reread the giant's tale so many years after,
seeking solace for her own pain,
absolution for the pain she'd caused
to others. If he'd kept it with him
instead of being so afraid of it,
maybe he would have learned to live with it,
like I'm going to have to.
[a/n title thanks to itstonedme at lj]
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A Satisfied Mind.
( lyrics )
Mediafire share folder
of versions, and a zip of the versions there.
ETA
more versions, and zip2
am looking for other versions, as many as you can bring me.
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So it's probably no secret that, once Kucinich was out of the race, I supported Obama.
And it's probably no secret that I've got some major disappointments about the Bush years, and that I'd like to see criminal proceedings against members of that administration.
That said (and don't defriend me until you finish reading- come on now, fair's fair)- that said, I think it's important to say this:
Someone had to be that President. It was gonna happen- someone was going to be the one who pointed out what Twain said, what Eisenhower said: if we let the military and the corporations own the country, then we don't. There's money to be made in fear, in hate, in anger, in war and raining pestilence, and corporations care about money. And corporations, Departments of Defense (War), are big, are impersonal, don't care on the individual level. They can't afford to.
But we can. We can, and we have to.
So. Someone had to carry the weight of showing just.what.happens when we don't. It was almost Clinton- he signed NAFTA, he signed GATT, he signed Don't Ask/Don't Tell- but he was too pretty, too charming, and the weight of that got slimed off him with impeachment-over-foolishness. He could have been nailed for Afghanistan, for Somalia- but the opposition let themselves be distracted by the sleazy side of him, and thus: the weight was still there to be carried.
So George did.
Not elegantly. Not intelligently. But he carried it, and his administration made sure that we, the people, learned all over again that it's our government, not the Department of Defense's government, not FEMA's, not General Foods' and Bechtel's and the NRA's and FMC's or whoever they are today, the corporations that make weapons and sell them to anyone (that's prostitution, not business), that destroy farmland in the name of mechaniculture and agribusiness (that's not dominion over the earth, that's just waste of what's been given to us in stewardship), that steal work a person can do for profits an entity that exists only on paper can reap.
Someone has to manifest the shadow- the Imperial America (Manifest Destiny, anyone?), the "Leader of the Free World" that can't free its own people from poverty, starvation-posing-as-affluence, from ignorance-induced fear. Someone had to, and George did.
I don't envy him. I think he could have done that more intelligently- I think he had criminal advisors and took the easy way out, and I hope he pays. I hope they all do.
I don't condemn him. The shadow was going to be manifested- it had to be- and now it's happened. I surely condemn what he let happen on his watch, just as I condemn Clinton- a Rhodes scholar, for fuck's sakes- for being a vain, pompous idiot and wasting glorious opportunities. Someone had to manifest that, too, and damn, but he did a good job.
So let's get on with the rest of it. Let's get on with educating our people, with sorting our differences, with making a real country out of this huge experiment called a Representative Republic. Let's each represent what we believe in- if it's that God's on our side, then be a representative of the most humane, most compassionate version of that you know (Mother Teresa said once, when asked how she did so much, that "I do what is in front of me. I trust to God to do the rest." He can handle the big scale. We need to do what's in front of us). George H. W. Bush said he counted on the 1000 points of light to carry this country through- isn't now a good time to light up, to come together and light up the shadow of America, and really let this country shine in a way it never has before- not by denying the worth of others, but by celebrating it and working together?
I like Kucinich, for all he says he saw a flying saucer. Hell, I talk to ghosts, and more than once told Death to wait for a patient of mine- better the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God (or as the Quakers say, "so I do affirm") than to lie. Before Newton and Descartes were the saints and the mystics; before Mao and Lenin the grace of poets and farmers; before the 500 years of planetary war and slavery and commerce we could claim to be separate, but we are all related now- your history is my history, and my planet is yours, and even though I can only live where and when and in relation to this now that I'm experiencing, I can acknowledge yours.
We're here, now. Obama's being sworn in today. Whether it's for four years or eight, change is gonna come. How do you want to be part of it? Where do you stand? It's not about him, although it is- it's about the arc of this country, this experiment, this dream- and it's about who you want to be, in that moment before you die, when you say "This is who I was, this is what I did." In that moment when the truth is all you have, what do you want it to be?
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“El lamento del cabrón” from Perceval Press
( text of article )
I'm not through translating this (for my own use, I'm not so good to try and translate it for everyone! but if someone DOES translate it, I'd love to see it) but essentially Sr. Gelman says Mr. Bush and his administration lie now, lied then, and have lied all along, about Iraq and weapons of mass destruction, and that for Mr. Bush to say that one of his main regrets about his presidency is the lack of good intelligence about that is like a goat crying. (Cabrón translated at wordreference.com- street meaning and formal meaning. crying goat, my ass.)
I got curious about the song El Lamento del Cabrón, so here is some information about that and the band Orthodox:
( lyrics, english )
about the band:
http://www.headheritage.co.uk/unsung/albumofthemonth/1494
http://www.metal-archives.com/review.php?id=109944
Orthodox performing on YouTube
for download (ripped from youtube)
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And how does the government pay for universal tax-payer funded
healthcare and universal tax-payer funded education? You might say it
is only a utopian dream, that it is naïve to ask for the government of
the United States of America to provide free comprehensive healthcare
and education for all of its citizens. I say that it was not dreaming
to expect Barack Obama to become president, and it is not dreaming to
expect the United States of America to behave like a modern, civilised
democracy. Where does the money come from? For one thing, it comes
from not bailing out the privileged few who have, through willful
mismanagement of their financial institutions and through corporate
piracy, raped and pillaged the nation's economy and robbed the U.S.
tax-payer blind with the encouragement of the government officials
whose campaigns they continue to fund. It does not come from
continuing to make a lucrative business of war-profiteering and
military-backed corporate imperialism, from perpetual armed corporate
robbery around the world, largely funded by U.S. taxpayers of today
and tomorrow.
Barack Obama received considerably more campaign funding from "Wall
Street" than John McCain did. Does this mean that he will
automatically bail out the rich who continue to steal from the hardly-
as-rich vast majority of U.S. citizens and their children? Ask him. If
he tells you that it is just too complex an issue, that bailing out
these for-profit failed capitalistic institutions and corporations is
a necessary stop-gap measure to save the economy, I would venture to
say that the answer is "yes". I would venture to say that he is as
bought-and-paid-for as George W. Bush, Bill "Nafta" Clinton, and every
other president in memory. Sadly, this would mean that "Change", that
word Mr. Obama so eloquently used - if often vaguely - as a
rhetorical cudgel to win the presidency and a chance to really make a
difference, is worth nothing more than a handful of pennies to the
economic future of the average citizen and to the hope of a socially-
responsible democracy. If the answer is "yes", then those who have
stolen Big will be richly rewarded and the profitable (for the
privileged, amoral few) military-industrial empire will thrive and
prosper as the noble dream of a just society suffers ever greater set-
backs. Let capitalism function as a responsibly-regulated system, not
as a costly welfare safety-net for billionaires and their capitalist
enterprises. We have a dream. It need not be further compromised by
the next U.S. administration. Sometimes the picture is quite clear.
Take a stand.
Viggo Mortensen
The People Speak
"Democracy is in dissent. Democracy is in resistance. Democracy doesn't come from the top: It comes from the bottom." ~~ Howard Zinn
Please. I know it can come off as ranting. I don't think it is. I think it's an impassioned plea for each of us to own our citizenship, to own the commonwealth that is ours by virtue of our labor, by virtue of our participation, however indirect it may seem to be, in the governance of and economy of our country.
I know it would be a long project, re-making the way we take care of our health as individuals and as a society. I am well aware of the limitations of "Universal health coverage" in Canada, in the UK, in the Scandinavian countries, and I can imagine as well limitations and risks of universal tax-payer funded education. But I like to think these are public conversations, conversations in the national interest as well as in the personal, and I hope that as I pursue my part in it my President-Elect, soon to be President, will be at least willing to listen while I speak.
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Dear President-Elect Obama,
Please do all that you honestly can to bring to justice Dick Cheney, David Addington, John Yoo, William Haynes, George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Condolezza Rice, Colin Powell, George Tennet, John Ashcroft, Alberto Gonzalez, Karl Rove, and numerous other members of the Bush administration since the start of 2001 who have either been directly responsible for or complicit in the numerous acts of treason, human rights violations and other crimes in the United States of America and abroad, including in but not limited to Haiti, Iraq, Afghanistan, Venezuela, Colombia, Pakistan, Syria, Iran, and Lebanon. There have been many violations of domestic and international law by the Bush/ Cheney regime, but the use of torture by this administration, in blatant disregard of long-accepted international and U.S. standards, is on its own enough to see many U.S. officials prosecuted and jailed. The energetic promotion and white-washing of torture by U.S. interrogators are not only reprehensible and damaging to the reputation of the United States, but have undoubtedly placed all of its citizens - military as well as civilian- in increased danger from reprisals and acts of terrorism for years to come. The war crimes and clearly-impeachable misconduct of the Bush/Cheney administrations cannot go unprosecuted and unpunished if citizens of the United States of America are to move forward with relatively clear consciences and the hoped for restoration of their country's relatively good standing in the community of nations. This is about moral responsibility, common decency, and historical legacy. Thank you in advance, Mr. Obama.
http://www.percevalpress.com
ETAThere are things about this that bother me. Worry me. I agree, emotionally and ethically, that there have been war crimes committed in my name. But I also worry that directing too much energy toward that, right at the beginning of what I fervently hope is, and will work for making be, a huge change in our national bearing, will steal from what needs to be done.
I trust Mr. Obama to do what he honestly can. I think he's well-educated, thoughtful, resourceful, aware.
I just wanted to put this out here, as an articulate presentation of one aspect of the effects of the last 7 years.
ETA2 I should mention, too, that Mr. Mortensen has a double degree, essentially Government or Political Science and Spanish, from St. Lawrence College in New York. I suspect that as angry as he is about this, he's put a fair amount of thought into this post.
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Smithsonian Folkways recently released Nobel Voices for Disarmament: 1901–2001 (SFW47005), a stirring collection of new and archival spoken-word recordings by the most prominent advocates for peace during a century marred by war and bloodshed. With thirty-nine tracks organized into eight chapters, Nobel Voices offers testimonials from luminaries such as Kofi Annan, Bill Clinton, John F. Kennedy, Jane Addams, Jody Williams and Linus Pauling.
Introduced and narrated by Academy Award-winning actor, producer and United Nations Messenger of Peace Michael Douglas, Nobel Voices honors the achievements of the last century’s Nobel Peace Prize winners in disarmament and arms control and those who have been inspired by their work. (Streaming tracks available at the moment.)
At times, because there is still a nuclear arsenal, and still countries who think that having MORE nuclear stuff is necessarily in and of itself a good thing, I am disheartened.
Then I listen to something like this, and realise it's an on-going process to keep things on an even keel. And then I can keep going.
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this is harder than it looks.
it would be so easy if there weren't so much i want to talk about, and if my brain would stay awake long enough to actually help me make coherent posts.
1) ![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) tammy212 has better posts than I about the Health and Human Services "conscience rule". Deadline for HHS to decide is 10 days away now; Planned Parenthood Petition is here.
2) I love it when one sentence in a book opens the world tenfold for me. From The Wild Swan (my find from San Francisco last week) these sentences- just a bit of background information setting up Andersen's first round of travels as an adult: The Germany of independent states through which Andersen passed on his first visit was to be transformed within his lifetime. The Holy Roman Empire with its three hundred and ninety-six principalities, ecclesiastical states and free towns had been completely reorganized by Napoleon in 1806. After his defeat it was found impossible to restore the old order[...]
Which both reinforces that even in the known and incomplete history of the North American continent (about which, between Native American studies and Chicano/Latino Cinema, I am being given new points of view) there are orders and orders which came and went before Europe came; some of which is recorded, still, in the oral histories of the people still surviving and some, did we have eyes to see, in the geography and ecology of the continent itself.
3) I bought Miss Sarajevo. For a lot of reasons- because I have a good friend who is becoming a director of documentaries. Because people I admire and respect are involved in bringing his bookFools Rush In to the screen.
A lot of things about this film have made deep impressions on me, but the one that I'll mention here is the sight of the Bosnian National Library burning after being bombed, and Bill saying that '...with it burned basically all the history of Bosnia because Bosnia is a country with a lot of history written by monks and and clerics and whatnot and it pretty much is gone and that's a problem today because now you have a country with no real written history which can lead problems because it allows people to make up their own history and that is a problem in Bosnia today.' (quoted from the DVD.)
4) There are all kinds of ways history rewrites itself. Sometimes it's because one person pulls together threads and odds and ends of impressions and sees the pattern formerly woven that has been hidden from view by misdirection, by forgetting, by not-wanting-to-know.
My uncle, my father's oldest brother, was a bomber pilot in World War 2. I met him once. Over the years, in scraps of information from my father, I learned my uncle been shot down and captured at some point, came home very ill, and died young of cirrhosis caused both by starvation while he was a prisoner of war and partly by his drinking after he got home.
What I've put together since is this: he bombed Heroya, Hamburg, Paris, in 1943. He was shot down in France. He was held in one of the concentration camps, I don't know which one. I've walked in places that are changed forever because, before I was born, my father's older brother was dropping bombs on them.
I don't know what to do with that, really, or what it means, except that just as these two classes this term are giving me opportunities to re-view and re-learn, more globally, the smattering of history I've had in the past, so too this more personal connection to place, people, and history gives me opportunity to appreciate, to not take so much for granted, everything I have in my life.
Including my right to consider my body my own: not pre-or-post-pregnant, not a tool of the state or church or a man, but mine. I remember before Roe vs. Wade, before Planned Parenthood; I remember the thalidomide scandal and the deep shame that a man in our Friends Meeting, a physician who had prescribed thalidomide to mothers, felt as the facts came out, as he confronted what it meant to have been an unknowing part of that, and as he worked out how he, as a doctor, had to change his relationship to 'who owns the woman's body'.
This was in the 1950's. It was shocking and progressive and unusual that he spoke so, but I didn't know that- I thought it was part of some larger national conversation about how to be healthier, more intelligent, more compassionate, less insane.
And so here endeth PETDM # 14- with my (rambling, incoherent) plea to look again at what is being done in your name. I understand about conscience, I do- I could not give lethal injection. I have argued with surgeons about keeping some patients alive and allowing others to die. I recognize that there is indeed something precious and sacred about new life, and I'm not in a position to absolutely, categorically state when that life begins.
But taking away from the woman carrying the baby the right to determine her own health- that bothers me. Not developing the national conversation about the obligation of men to prevent unwanted pregnancy, to support the health and safety of communities, of mothers, of daughters- that bothers me.
So please. Go. Read. Take a stand, and stand behind it. You never know when, with the swipe of a pen or the pressing of a button, your life and all the lives you know are changed, irrevocably, and all you have left is how you've lived up until this moment.
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As a nurse, I'm firmly science-based. As a child of the 1950's, brought up on fairy-tales and science-fiction, poetry and reference books, geography and archeology, I'm equally at home in (or at least recognize some of the signposts and landmarks in) 'left-brained' and 'right-brained' experience. As a child of the 60's with my brief foray into psychedelics and a much longer, more careful sojourn in spiritual and esoteric study, I'm a believer that things connect- that living as though we are not all in relationship to each other, to all of life, all of time, all of space, lessens us.
From the TED website: One morning, a blood vessel in Jill Bolte Taylor's brain exploded. As a brain scientist, she realized she had a ringside seat to her own stroke. She watched as her brain functions shut down one by one: motion, speech, memory, self-awareness ...
Amazed to find herself alive, Taylor spent eight years recovering her ability to think, walk and talk. She has become a spokesperson for stroke recovery and for the possibility of coming back from brain injury stronger than before. In her case, although the stroke damaged the left side of her brain, her recovery unleashed a torrent of creative energy from her right. From her home base in Indiana, she now travels the country on behalf of the Harvard Brain Bank as the "Singin' Scientist."
"How many brain scientists have been able to study the brain from the inside out? I've gotten as much out of this experience of losing my left mind as I have in my entire academic career."
Jill Bolte Taylor/My Stroke of Insight/ TED Feb 2008
( Click )
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Ok. I have been studying Marshall Rosenberg's theory and practice of Nonviolent Communication for a number of years now, and YAY! for YouTube: he's on it. I cannot recommend this enough- I hope the vids are enough to whet your appetites for being treated kindly, with respect and dignity, and the expectation that what you want most from life is to be alive every minute.
Nonviolent Communication
part 1 9 mins 35 sec.
part 2 5 mins 47 sec. (particularly helpful about depression)
part 3 4 mins 25 sec.
Nonviolent Communication and Corporations
part 1 28 mins 32 sec.
part 2 28 mins 58 sec.
part 3 26 mins 32 sec.
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from our poli sci text
"Did you know... that an aide to President George W. Bush gave this succinct description of federal priorities? "It helps to think of the government as an insurance company with an army"?
no, i did not know that.
or, i did, but not in words.
oh, ow.
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| 2008-03-15 13:51 |
| Ethics, politics, the world, fanfic, and music |
| Public |
| despair-work, fandom, fic, music, peace-work, politics, reccies |
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the first three can be summed up here: Monks Protest in Tibet and Nepal. Candles vs. automatic weapons; bare arms and heads against full body armor; the search for compassion, connection, and peace vs. fear, loneliness, and hate.
and the second? Idaho Mortensen and the Obelisk of Osiris. As the author says, It's funny, it's cheesy, it's even work-safe.
Me? I've finished vacuuming the Mail program on the big computer. I've been swimming. I've prayed for my fandom. I've talked with friends about my trip to Europe.
And now I'm going to bed. Blessings on your heads, each and every one of you.
Ah. And, courtesy of poetic_self: Ray LaMontagne, Till the Sun Turns Black.
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Because I will be taking Political Science, and Critical Thinking this Spring Term, some things in my FL and around and about. (Sorry, no lj-cut today ;))
1) The gay rights meme: I dislike the wording of it [posted it last year, and had the wording pointed out to me then- a lot to think about since then]. Suffice to say my son's gay, and I do worry about his rights being restricted because of that.
2) Rudeness in LJ and other places: reading someone's journal is like anything else voluntary: You're free to leave, anytime. No need to flame them, email rude things, or start a brawl in comments. Save your sanity, and just leave.
3) notes from all over:
About the US elections:
from ithiliana13: Gloria Steinem and Melissa Harris-Lacewell on race and gender in presidential politics. Ithiliana says: "Steinem has not done enough to think about racism and intersectional theory, and it shows."
from ![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/community.gif) dark_christian: Mike Huckabee, the Constitution, and 'God's Standards' "(excerpt)[Some of my opponents] do not want to change the Constitution, but I believe it's a lot easier to change the constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God, and that's what we need to do is to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's standards," Huckabee said, referring to the need for a constitutional human life amendment and an amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman. (thanks to zorya_speaks) from The New York Times : Dennis Kucinich battles for your right to hear all the candidates, so you can make up your own mind. about US policyUS Joint Chief of Staff would like to see Guantánamo shut down (thanks to nverland and she_gollum for surfacing the story and for keeping Gitmo front and center in my thinking). About thinking:from circe_tigana: A discussion (not stated truths) about the Cassie Edwards/Signet Publishing plagiarism situation, and secondarily, as Circe says, "a case study in the evolution of a created newstory in the internet age i[which] can't be beat." (linked with permission). The Fallacy of NeutralityPlagiarism is a Community IssueThe New P&P: Professionalism and Plagiarism, a not so classic tale of romance. [A woman who, oh, 35 years ago, I took care of in daycare (and am still in contact with), is now a romance and sci-fi writer (among many, many other things), so I'm following this with particular interest because it is close to home.] About writing:from penknife: prompts at the potcfest as well as other ficathons are still available!from dorrie6 ! axial_tilt multifandom pg fanfic exchange- today is last day to sign up</a> Movies I recommend, or want to see, and what I'm reading about movies: Alex Gibney's Taxi to the Dark Side; Wonders are Many by Jon Else; Black Light/White Rain: The Destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by Steven Okazaki; Sweeney Todd; Comanche Moon; Women in Film by Jeannie Rose. And what is a long, link-filled post without a present or two? Ocean Surf: timeless and sublime by Dan Gibson (will reupload on yousendit soon); and Kindness, by Naomi Shihab Nye.
Kindness
Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.
Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you every where
like a shadow or a friend.
~ Naomi Shihab Nye ~
(Words From Under the Words: Selected Poems)blessings on your heads. all of you.
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from Perceval Press: We wish our brother Floyd Red Crow Westerman a Continued Good Journey,
and thank him for making our own journeys better by his dignified and wise example. Pilamaya Kola!
Floyd Red Crow Westerman's activism, movie work, and musicianship. Thank you, Floyd, for carrying the fire.
"And I told them not to dig for uranium, for if they did, the children would die. They didn't listen, they didn't listen, they didn't listen to me. And I told them if the children die, there would be no keepers of the land. They didn't listen. And I told them if they destroy the sky, machines would come and soon destroy the land. They didn't listen... And I told them if they destroy the land, man would have to move into the sea. They didn't listen... And I told them if they destroy the sea -- they didn't listen..." -From the Floyd Westerman song "They Didn't Listen" as Westerman recited the lyric concluding his testimony in 1992 at the World Uranium Hearings in Salzburg, Austria. [from Wikipedia]
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"...significant portions of the testimony..." from the World Uranium Hearings.
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Floyd Westerman on Internet Radio
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Peace is every step.
The shining red sun is my heart.
...
Peace is every step.
It turns the endless path
To joy.
Thich Nhat Hanh
Engaged Buddhism
Youtube of the movie
Despair-work.
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