Quidnovi    
 Beware9 comments
picture26 Mar 2003 @ 23:58

Beware.

Beware those who will tell you we must all speak with one voice.

Beware the brush of the wings of the Locust.
 More >

 The Arrogance of Power22 comments
picture19 Mar 2003 @ 21:30


THE FIRST TRIUMVIRAT

WHO WAS PONTIFEX MAXIMUS?

1914---WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE DONE?


 More >

 Elegy for Rachel Corrie: the choice is Life!11 comments
picture17 Mar 2003 @ 16:32
[Photograph: Rachel Corrie *, 23]

There will be those who will want to politicize her death.
There will be those who will say she was an innocent victim.
And there will be those who will say she died because she was at the wrong place at the wrong time.

But unlike the September 11 tragic and innocent victims of the World Trade Center,
Rachel Corrie didn’t die because she was at the wrong place at the wrong time.
And Rachel Corrie was not innocent.
Rachel Corrie died because she was at the right place at the right time.

The place and time do not matter.
Nor does it matter to me for whom or for what she died on that day.
It is enough for me to know that she died because she cared.

She didn’t have to be there, but she was.
She was, because she believed a better world was possible,
And she believed in her part in bringing such a world about.
She was not innocent.
She knew what she was risking, she knew the danger,
Yet, she risked it all because she also knew that there are some forms of death
that are far worse and far more abhorrent to the spirit than death itself.

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about the things that matter”
---Martin Luther King, Jr.


FD

 More >

 Fallen Jedi5 comments
picture16 Mar 2003 @ 21:21
THERE IS NO PEACE, THERE IS ANGER
THERE IS NO FEAR, THERE IS POWER
THERE IS NO WEAKNESS, THERE IS THE DARK SIDE

 More >

 In every generation, Pharaoh4 comments
picture14 Mar 2003 @ 09:24

Today, in our generation, we all face global corporations and international economic institutions that clearly have enormous power. Some believe that they place themselves beyond public accountability, and that their policies endanger the earth, shatter the lives of children, enslave workers, turn the very water of life into a commodity too expensive for hundreds of millions. Others believe that their structures and behavior increase prosperity and freedom for most people.  More >

 Are you now or were you ever...3 comments
picture14 Mar 2003 @ 09:23
...a member of the peace movement?

Well, this might not be exactly word for word the question that McCarthy was asking, but the spirit is pretty much the same isn't it?
 More >

 If we are so right, why does it feel so wrong?10 comments
picture13 Mar 2003 @ 00:51
"Justice is about Truth, and truth has many sides. Justice and Truth have shapes that change among nations and throughout the seasons of history. Mercy is Love, and that has the same strength and beauty for all people, for all time. I serve Mercy, not Justice."
---A. A. Attanasio, The Wolf and the Crown


Operation Desert Storm was about the "good guys" liberating one Arab state, Kuwait, from occupation by another Arab state, Iraq. But the roles are not so clearly defined in the current conflict and while I'd love to have the same kind of self assurance as G. W. Bush has been displaying that we are doing the right thing and that God is on our side, this new situation with Iraq looks to me (and to others) uncomfortably too much like an effort to install a client regime in Baghdad.

Worse, while some have been denouncing oil as the motivating factors of our current administration for its military presence in the Gulf region, there have been some troubling and alarming signs from the administration that Iraq is only the tip of the iceberg:  More >

 The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters1 comment
picture13 Mar 2003 @ 00:51
Francisco de Goya: "The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters"
( 1799. From the series Los Caprichos, plate 43. Etching and aquatint. 21.6 x 15.2 cm.)


Manifesto for Preemptive Peace
---Don Abbott

61 years old
Andover, Massachusetts
Lifetime educator--teacher, administrator, fund raiser. Blessed in marriage for 37 years, with a son, a daughter, and 3 grandchildren.


Cede not your rights for the sake of security. Resist all trespass on your soul.

Practice truth, with forgiveness. Refute death and start all over. Outwit the dead-end; manifest a miracle.  More >

 Las Palabras del Diario4 comments
picture11 Mar 2003 @ 22:39
Francisco de Goya: "El sueño de la razon produce monstruos"
( 1779, Aguafuerte y aquatint. 21.6 x 15.2 cm)

PAZ ...VERDE PAZ....!!!!
---Ivan Portela


Ivan Portela (Irlanda-Mexico) es un poeta que escribe exclusivamente acerca de temas irlandeses. Él ame la paz com la amaron Yeats y Kavanagh.
Este poema pertenece al libro "Cantos de Tirnanogue"

EN EL NOMBRE DE TODAS LAS DEIDADES
QUE AMARON LAS ENTRAÑAS DEL BEN BULBEN.
EN EL NOMBRE AZULADO DE LOS ASTROS
ESCULPIDOS AL BORDE DE LOS DÓLMENES....

EN EL NOMBRE DE NIÑOS Y GIGANTES,
DE LEPERCAUNS Y SIDHES QUE SOÑARON
LOS CABELLOS DE DAERDRA EN LAS MAÑANAS
DONDE CANTAN LOS PÁJAROS DEL SHANNON....  More >

 "No!"5 comments
picture10 Mar 2003 @ 10:58

Anouilh's Antigone was originally produced in Paris in 1942, when France was occupied and part of Hitler's Europe. The play depicts an authoritarian regime which mirrors the predicament of the French people of the time.
 More >

 The Meaning of Life6 comments
picture8 Mar 2003 @ 18:06

When we come to believe, we have no desire to believe anything else;
for we begin by believing that there is nothing else which we have to believe...
----Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullian (190-220 AD), De Carne Christi (ch. V)


"It was a large room. Full of people. All kinds.
And they had all arrived at the same building
at more or less the same time.
And they were all free. And they were all
asking themselves the same question:
What is behind that curtain?

You were born. And so you're free. So happy birthday."

---Laurie Anderson


 More >

 "The World As I See It"6 comments
picture7 Mar 2003 @ 19:45

We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.
---Albert Einstein


THE WORLD AS I SEE IT, Albert Einstein (1934)

The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science. He who knows it not and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed.

 More >

 Why War?3 comments
picture7 Mar 2003 @ 12:15

Einstein answer was that the minority in power rules over the schools and the press, and also has influence over the religious organizations. The minority in power uses these institutions to manipulate and channel the feelings of the masses in order to use people for their own gain.

This however, he claims, cannot be the only reason that the majority lets itself be used in these ways, and will indeed let itself be driven to the extent of frenzy and self-sacrifice. Einstein concludes that there must be a force within humans, a wish to hate and destroy. A force which during normal times is dormant, only showing itself in the abnormal. It can however, easily be awakened, and increased to the extent of mass-psychosis.  More >

 Back to the 1950's0 comments
picture7 Mar 2003 @ 00:26

Nationalism is an infantile sickness. It is the measles of the human race.
---Albert Einstein


Book description
(inside flap)

The story that emerges not only reveals a little-known aspect of Einstein's considerable social and humanitarian concerns, but underscores the dangers that can arise to the American republic and the rule of law in times of obsession with national security.

From the moment Albert Einstein arrived in the United States in 1933, the year of the Nazis' ascent to power in Germany, until his death in 1955, J. Edgar Hoover's FBI, assisted by several other federal agencies, began feverishly collecting "derogatory information" in an effort to undermine the renowned physicist's influence and destroy his reputation. For the first time, Fred Jerome tells the story in depth of that anti-Einstein campaign, explains why and how the campaign originated, and provides the first detailed picture of Einstein's little-know political activism.  More >

 Religion and Politics: An incendiary combination0 comments
picture2 Mar 2003 @ 16:40

"The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world, it is God's gift to humanity."
---G. W. Bush (State of the Union Address, 2003)


Well, so much for G. W. Bush's electoral promise to conduct our foreign policy with humility.

As a dear friend of mine recently put it:

"Being filled with the spirit of Christ is something amazing, It is the best pair of glasses a man can have."

But then, again, if such glasses of which he speaks lead to such clarity, why is it that Christians argue with other Christians and sometimes slaughter each other and their fellow human beings over such arguments? Fanaticism (and sadly Christianity had its share of it) has lead throughout history to some of the most brutal, heartless, and senseless madness known to man. The historical examples are not difficult to recall: the Crusades; the Inquisitions; the Witch-burnings; the St. Barthelemy; and many more.  More >

 One Story About Healthy Community0 comments
picture1 Mar 2003 @ 13:19

The following story is from a Wampanoag Nation Storyteller named Manitonquat (which means Medicine Story, or Healing Story), at a presentation he made to the Connecticut Storytelling Association conference in New London, CT.

At the heart of Manitonquat's philosophy is the notion of "give-away"---something about gathering from one's life all the awareness one can, and then to pass it out freely to those who are interested.  More >

 An absurdist comedy of love and Life0 comments
picture27 Feb 2003 @ 13:16


Quicktime TRAILER
Give the file the time to download---It does take one or two minutes with DSL
(Can take much longer with dial-up connections depending on the speed of your modem)


 More >

 ISMAEL~ISRAEL2 comments
picture26 Feb 2003 @ 01:47

"Not Christian or Jew or Muslim,
not Hindu, Buddhist, Sufi, or Zen.
Not any religion
Or cultural system.
I am not from the east
Or the west. (……)
I belong to the beloved,
Have seen the two worlds as one
And that one call to and know,
First, last, outer, inner,
Only that breath breathing
HUMAN BEING."
----Rumi



Sadly, I've had to deal with more than my share of fanaticism on the Israeli-Palestinian question from extremists from both sides of the conflict already (more than I wanted to really---this is what you get for being a moderator.) It therefore comes as no surprise to me to see that such passional and irrational arguments eventually (and very unfortunately) seem to have found their way on NCN.

It doesn't surprise me but it does sadden me however, hatred is not a pleasant thing to behold and I can only regret to see it manifest here again in a place I would have thought would be immune from such excesses. I think about what peace-brokers must have to go through when arbitrating negotiations and I shudder.  More >



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If Schroedinger's cat walks into a forest, and no one is around to observe this, is there really a cat in the forest?



Previous entries
2003-06-18
  • Whom does the Grail serve?

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  • Ocean

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  • Bobbing for Apples

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  • 2003-05-18
  • The Musing Muse

  • 2003-05-17
  • This being human is a guest house.

  • 2003-05-14
  • SIGNS OF LIFE - 4 : I thought that I heard you laughing
  • SIGNS OF LIFE - 3 : Consider this...
  • SIGNS OF LIFE - 2 : Every whisper...
  • SIGNS OF LIFE - 1 : Oh, life...

  • 2003-05-13
  • The egoMETER

  • 2003-05-10
  • The divine Prakriti

  • 2003-04-20
  • Ten million years of uncertainty

  • 2003-04-16
  • From Republic to Empire - A disturbing trend

  • 2003-04-13
  • Hans Blix: Is US sending out the wrong signal?

  • 2003-04-06
  • Proxima estacion ¡ESPERANZA!

  • 2003-04-03
  • The Lathe of Heaven---Ursula K. Le Guin

  • 2003-03-30
  • The choice is Life

  • 2003-03-27
  • Zionist Rabbi Questions "Official" Assertions about Reborn Anti-Semitism

  • 2003-03-26
  • Beware

  • 2003-03-19
  • The Arrogance of Power

  • 2003-03-17
  • Elegy for Rachel Corrie: the choice is Life!

  • 2003-03-16
  • Fallen Jedi

  • 2003-03-14
  • In every generation, Pharaoh
  • Are you now or were you ever...

  • 2003-03-13
  • If we are so right, why does it feel so wrong?
  • The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters

  • 2003-03-11
  • Las Palabras del Diario

  • 2003-03-10
  • "No!"

  • 2003-03-08
  • The Meaning of Life

  • 2003-03-07
  • "The World As I See It"
  • Why War?
  • Back to the 1950's

  • 2003-03-02
  • Religion and Politics: An incendiary combination

  • 2003-03-01
  • One Story About Healthy Community

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