November 2008
3 posts
“Time is the magician that takes a snapshot of a single moment and gives them the...”
– Klaus J. Joehle - The Messenger
“Inner Love
Inner Love is a
Natural experience
But when we cover
It with...”
– Klaus J. Joehle - The Messenger
“Love
Ever so slightly she said, I could easily fall in Love with you
I said...”
– Klaus J. Joehle - The Messenger
June 2008
2 posts
Modern Christianity: a failed religion?
“…religion, even the religion we are committed to and in which we have found God and purpose and meaning and truth, can become captive to a colossal distortion. It can become a benign and passive chaplaincy to a failing and dysfunctional culture, the religious public relations department for an inadequate and destructive ideology. It can forego being a force of liberation and...
4 tags
The power and danger of metaphor
“Metaphors help us see invisible or unfamiliar things by comparing them to visible and familiar things. They help us grasp intangible things by rendering them as tangible things. They help us leap from the known and familiar to the unknown and unfamiliar. [But] For all the help they give us, they do not give us exhaustive knowledge of the thing they seek to [explain]. The fact is, we...
May 2008
2 posts
5 tags
The War Machine "acting properly"
“Afghan officials expressed outrage at the decision by the U.S. military not to charge U.S. Marines involved in a shooting spree that left 19 civilians dead in 2007… Afghan witnesses and a report by Afghanistan’s Independent Human Rights Commission concluded that a unit of Marine special operations troops opened fire along a 10-mile stretch of road, killing up to 19 civilians and...
WatchThis is a captivating and inspiring video that combines science and empirical experience to help explain consciousness; what divides “me” from “us”. What keeps us focused on the past and future, versus how we can stay connected with the present. Her self-published book In My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist’s Personal Journey will be republished in a few days (not...
April 2008
7 posts
5 tags
We Speak Kindly to Ourselves
Thoughts have immense power. What ideas we allow to exist in our minds are what we will inevitably become, for better or worse. Often our thoughts become audible words that carry the same ability to create or destroy. Scripture has stories that illustrate the power of words, such as the verbal blessing given to the eldest son by his dying father. The younger son, knowing that the blessing that...
Paper or Plastic
As I build a new life without plastic, I’ve realized how ubiquitous it has become. More than that though, it’s made me realize how much I strive to create archival things. How humans have been doing it for over half a century; constructing items that will live on for eternity once we’ve begun to decompose. Plastic is the stuff of permanance. Paper is ephemeral. Like us.
Asking The Right Questions
“…by asking yourself specific questions on a regular basis, you can dramatically change your life. Questions are a quick and powerful way to change your focus- and what you focus on grows. Our emotional state is largely determined by what we think about. If we subconsciously think throughout the day, “What else is wrong in my life?” then we’ll likely feel anxious a...
The Power Breath for energy and calm
AKA: How to get high without drugs. Har har. It only takes 90 seconds, yet it’s energizing effect can last for an hour. You can use it to change your mood, feel more energy, become relaxed- even to replace a cigarette or snack. Have a clock or stop watch in front of you so you can easily see when the seconds have passed. To do the Power Breath, sit up in a chair with your spine straight. ...
5 tags
first and foremost we are our gender
“War is a time of heightened masculinity when women disappear off the public stage except as victims or supporters of their men. War in some terrible way is the final victory of gender hierarchies. Just as they did in the 1950’s, under the government-orchestrated fear of subversives, differences- imagined and lived- will now become even more suspect, more dangerous and...
6 tags
Rethinking the system to affect social change
“In the introduction to Sexual Politics, one of feminism’s earliest manifestos, Kate Millett complained that analyzing the patriarchy was so difficult because there was no alternative system to which it might be compared. Her comment could well apply to trying to analyze the gender system. The problem is not that we don’t know the gender system well enough but that we know it all...
4 tags
If gender is so "natural" why hasn't it been...
“We make jokes like ‘Real men don’t each quiche’, or admonitions like ‘A real woman would be married by now.’ Not that anyone has ever written all these qualifications down, mind you. People have tried, but there’s been too much disagreement about what constitutes a ‘real man’, and what constitutes a ‘real woman’ for there to be one...
March 2008
6 posts
4 tags
Philanthropies or Prisons: responses to...
“[Between 1989-1998] about 4 million jobs were lost in the United States. Although at least 4.2 million new jobs were expected to be in place by 2000, they were mostly low-paying, part-time, or temporary, service-sector positions. Currently many of the impoverished are actually working. A reexamination and redistribution of paid and unpaid labor is crucial now as less paid work becomes...
6 tags
“Today the subject of economics appears to have magical qualities beyond our...”
– Luis Rodriguez, Hearts and Hands: Creating Community in Violent Times
4 tags
How are we failing our youth?
Repeatedly approaching a problem the same way, despite those efforts showing little to no results, is a madness that we all engage in to some extent. What ineffective ideas and actions are we as a society clinging to that are failing our youth? Leaders are not fully committed to understanding the big picture, or to solving the problems when they get really messy. In fact, their lackadaisical...
“I too went [through] pregnancy/infant paranoia regarding the microwave, and then...”
– A blog, ok? It was a comment in response to some other comment. OT was about author loving her homemade microwave popcorn. And even if that’s totally false I feel better anyway.
3 tags
“Personally I would blame your deficient imaginations on the way that commerce...”
– Ian Watson, DEATHHUNTER A Science Fiction Novel
5 tags
Gangs and Unemployment: The System isn't Working
Oftentimes, when problems seem too complex, the popular notion seems to be that we are actually unable to discover the problem’s root cause. Instead, we chip away at the symptoms, hopefully looking for clues while doing so. However, as I delve into these semingly unsolvable issues, the more logical inquiry seems to prove it’s merit. All life on this planet is systemic. It’s a...
February 2008
8 posts
4 tags
Fight/Flight and Relaxation Responses
The relaxation response is a hard-wired antidote to the fight or flight response. It corresponds to the hypothalamus portion of the brain which—when triggered—sends out neurochemicals that almost precisely counteract the fight or flight response. Wow. Our bodies are so precise, it’s almost like we were… I dunno, designed that way… “In order to consciously choose the...
1 tag
Five Principles to Design By This article breakdanced on my current perceptions (both conscious and unconscious) about web design. At first I felt a little sniffy, but then I really started paying attention. Each of the 5 points is true, f’reals. Obvious stuff, (when you analyze it from a certain POV), but knowledge that I wasn’t putting into use.
“Youths… aren’t in gangs to be criminals, killers, or prison inmates....”
– Luis Rodriguez, Hearts and Hands: Creating Community in Violent Times
“These events [of extreme adolescent violence] exploded in communities that were...”
– Luis Rodriguez, Heart and Hands: Creating Community in Violent Times In response to the numerous “kids killing kids” gun violence between 1997-2001, most notably Columbine Highschool.
“Academia (is) one of the only cultures with a higher bullshit quotient than...”
– Po Bronson, What Should I Do With My Life?
3 tags
“(Americans) have mixed feelings about the seductive notion of destiny....”
– Po Bronson, What Should I Do With My Life?
“Poetry is amazing. It will help you to transform your mind into thinking...”
– Tommy Corn, I Heart Huckabees
5 tags
“Happiness is an emotional state typically dependent upon external circumstances....”
– Quest Study Bible NIV