Sounding Circle

2 Mar 2003 @ 19:17
My buddy Greg Hurley ( my ever so conspiratorial email friend)sent me this short family history of the Bush family hustle.
Sounds like a new kind of dance though in doesn't appear to be so new.

There are many families who have, what a good friend of mine calls, "circumstantial integrity". So I can't fault them for following tradition. We all have our own demons to face, some peoples are just larger than others. But who am I to judge, mine feel pretty humongous sometimes.

While opportunism isn’t new in U.S. politics, never did so many in one family extract so many dollars from taxpayers as when George Bush senior was president a decade ago. As documented below from impeccable cited sources, the exploits of six Bushes, including George W., range from stock sales that were probed or sanctioned to arranging U.S. business investments for a Japanese Mob front. They range from lobbying for a Mafia-linked businessman that enabled massive Medicare fraud to misconduct that helped trigger S&L collapses costing taxpayers $1.2 billion. More >

More on Lysistrata

Congress Overturns Organic Bill

2 Mar 2003 @ 18:28
Join us and be a part of A GLOBAL ACTION FOR PEACE!
In over 750 cities in 45 countries

Monday 03.03.03
The Fabulous Monsters joins the..

The Lysistrata Project
A Theatrical Act of Global Dissent to Stop the War on Iraq
based on the sexy ancient Greek play about women on opposing
sides of the Trojan War who joined together
to get the men to end the war.

Aristophanes' Lysistrata a women's translation by Drue Robinson Hagan

presented as a
A Tag -team Staged Reading First Amendment Bacchanalia
20 L.A. theatre companies coming together to present the world's first war protest comedy!

The Wilshire Ebell Theatre
4401 West 8th Street (Lucerne/Wilshire)
doors open at 6:30pm, reading starts at 8:00pm
with peace orgs, speakers, celebrities, food and bev, music

suggested donation: $20 for reserved tickets
pay-what-you-can at the door
benefiting OPERATION USA- direct aid to Iraq and
THE ACLU FOUNDATION-protecting our civil liberties when our leaders are hell-bent on war More >

Saturday, March 1, 2003

1 Mar 2003 @ 12:10
Turn your back for one second and....

Last week Congress passed an appropriations bill which overturns USDA regulations requiring all organic livestock to be fed 100% organic feed.

My friend Eric Werbalowsky, permaculture guru and master MC forwarded this to me. Check out Farmer and the Cookour local hub for permaculture aaaaaaaction, seed swaps, lectures, locally grown produce and good ol' yummy home cookin'.

*****Take Action - to Protect The integrity of Organic Standards*****

Senator Leahy (D-VT) is introducing the Organic Restoration Act to repeal this rider along with Representative Sam Farr (D-CA) in the House. Both of these bills were introduced on February 26, 2003.

Co-sponsors are needed ASAP in the House AND Senate - both Republicans and Democrats.

For the repeal bill to be successful, we must generate a lot of interest and public comment on the Organic Restoration Act all across the nation. It is important that everyone - farmers, consumers, environmentalists, and the entire organic industry - talk to their members of Congress and
get them on board in supporting the Organic Restoration Act. We must stand up to this blatant attempt by agribusiness to have their way with the organic standards.

****What You Can Do - Take Action!******

Contact your representatives in Washington and demand that support the Organic Restoration Act to repeal the language inserted into Section 771 of the Omnibus Appropriations Bill undermining the integrity of the organic label for meat, poultry, eggs and dairy.

The message is simple: Urge your Senators and Representatives to support the Organic Restoration Act that was introduced by Senator Patrick Leahy and Representative Sam Farr to repeal Section 771 of the Omnibus Appropriations Bill. Repealing this section is in the interest of consumers, organic farmers and the environment. Repealing this section will encourage continued growth of organic agricultural production in
the United States, one of the bright prospects for U.S. agriculture
overall.

You can find your
Senator here.

You can find your Representative here.

Representative Farr's office has asked that we target the following Representatives, if you know of folks that live in their states please forward on this email to them.
Allen Boyd, Jr. (D-FL/2) 202-225-5235 Agriculture Aide:Charla Penn
Jerold Nadler (D-NY/8) 202-225-5635 Agriculture Aide: Kisette Morton
Dennis Rehberg (R-MT) 202-225-3211 Chief of Staff: Erik Iverson
Jim McDermott (D-WA/7) 202-225-3106 Agriculture Aide: Sean Hughes
Wayne Gilchrest (R-MD/1) 202-225-5311 Agriculture Aide: Jeri Finke

Please also let your local health food store know what you are doing.Tell them to carry NO products by Fieldale Farms, the company in GA that instigated this movement to gut the organic livestock feed standards. They also produce poultry under the Springer Mountain Farms and Redding labels.

Tom Taylor
Field Organizer
Organic Consumers Association
Tel: 612-331-7309
Fax: 612-331-7483 More >

The School Of Heartbreak

1 Mar 2003 @ 11:44
My aquaintance Daniel Foster from the invisible Theater sent me this recently.

It's a long read, yet well thought out. The author, Evan Hodkins has an intriguing take on the perversions of (average) community -- and the possibilities of what Hodkins calls "communitas".

THE SCHOOL OF HEARTBREAK

By Evan Hodkins

Community, even when intently devoted to harmony, routinely degenerates into a splintered collection of untamed egos, each ardently peddling their precious agendas in the form of dogmas, goals or style.

The ego specializes in divisiveness-it is angered when expectations go unmet, or sulky and self-piteous when slighted. As C. S. Lewis observed, the true slogan of hell is-- "I have my rights!" There are casualties within groups. Discord is the soup of the day. Paradise gets fractured. And, sooner or later--just wait your turn--everybody will be stabbed in the back, slandered, demeaned! Community is guaranteed heartbreak.

Jung likened democracy, the very heartbeat of American society, to a chronically sublimated battle, or prolonged civil war. It was, he thought, a modest attempt to add a dash of creativity to the circus of political aggression. Politics, more than anything, is the enshrinement of the ego on a collective scale. Power, employed capriciously, can ruthlessly slice the gizzard out of any cooperative enterprise.

Community intensifies frictional entanglements and fosters the proliferation of peevishness. It exponentially amplifies karmic misfortunes. It's a magic theater, replete with endless reflectivity, wherein the undigested aspects of our personal shadow is conveniently deposited, as if by dreaming, upon an unsuspecting other. Meanwhile, one projection engenders a counter-projection, as the favor is returned in kind. Prickly, jagged, reprehensible stuff--you won't get this kind of unpalatable feed-back just anywhere!

Colliding egos eventually cancel each other out. The rancor of one member insures the annihilation of another. Once crushed, however, we all sneak sullenly away from the School of Heartbreak, into the Wasteland of Despair, to pout in isolation and lick our wounds. Community handily scores another fatality as we fatefully resign ourselves to terminal hermit-hood.

How will we ever, in the words of W. H. Auden, learn "to love our crooked neighbor with our crooked heart?" Speaking esoterically--community is the unwitting instrument of the ego's demise, the agent of un-selfing, the slaughter-house for narcissistic agendas, providing an efficient means for the thorough pulverization of any residual conceits. Ironically, it is precisely our justifiable abhorrence of community that, in fact, awakens our considerable craving for something more. Once magnificently splayed by the banal bickerings and petty acrimony of your average community, we are then rendered perfectly heart-broken candidates for true communitas.

Click "more" for rest of article. More >

Friday, February 28, 2003

Comparative Analysis

Worldwatch Institute Symposium

28 Feb 2003 @ 23:15
One sentence can say it all. Brevity is a blessing.

From Jean Hudon Earth Rainbow Network Coordinator by way of Letecia Layson.

Click "more" so you can see a larger version of the pic and read the words on this woman's relevent poster. More >

AArrghhh...Quick Rant

4 comments

28 Feb 2003 @ 10:49
Letecia and I live in the forest literally at the end of the phone line. Technology is a big part of both our lives and there's no cable or DSL. Aarrghh....our 56k modem averages 24k.

Patience, I must have patience, (as he strokes his hair and sips his tea.)

My vision is to install a DirecPC or DirecWay, that's Hughes name for it,two way, with a wifi so I can utilize it in the guest house where my office and computer are. Ah, a networked wonderland in the middle of paradise...

It's still out of our budget to create this yet, but I'm dreaming. Maybe I'll start the Center for De-Urbanization Satellite Modem fund. Wanna play? More >

Thursday, February 27, 2003

Trusting Admist Uncertain Moments

27 Feb 2003 @ 19:40
Upcoming Symposium with the Worldwatch Institute and UCSB
Friday, March 7 & Saturday, March 8, 2003
Santa Barbara, CA

Are you in the Santa Barbara area? The Worldwatch Institute and the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB) will be presenting our second annual symposium, The Challenge of Sustainable Development, on March 7 and 8 at UCSB.

Worldwatch President Christopher Flavin and Senior Researchers Hilary French and Molly O Meara Sheehan will participate in lectures and panels that explore the environmental challenges of the 21st century, and present solutions for achieving an ecologically sound, economically viable, and socially just future. For more information, go to arts and lectures or call 805.893.3535.

About World Watch magazine: This bimonthly magazine is published by the Worldwatch Institute. Launched in 1988, the magazine has won the Alternative Press Award for investigative journalism, the Project Censored Award, and a number of Utne Reader awards. Recent editions have featured articles on the imminent disappearance of more than half of the world s languages, airport sprawl, the rapid growth of organic farming, and human genetic engineering. To order a subscription, please visit Worldwatch Magazine.

About the Worldwatch Institute: The Worldwatch Institute is an independent research organization that works for an environmentally sustainable and socially just society in which the needs of all people are met without threatening the health of the natural environment or the well-being of future generations. By providing compelling, accessible, and fact-based analysis of critical global issues, Worldwatch informs people around the world about the complex interactions among people, nature, and economies. Worldwatch focuses on the underlying causes of and practical solutions to the world s problems, in order to inspire people to demand new policies, investment patterns, and lifestyle choices. For more information, visit the Worldwatch Institute. More >

27 Feb 2003 @ 14:27
I have been writing poetry since I was 12 years old.
Originally this occurred in somewhat of a trance-like state,
strange suspensions in temporality in which I would not remember pen to paper until it was over. Later, as I began writing songs and discovering my singing voice, I was able to access the same creative zone, through more of a conscious process.

Here are two of my favorites:

TODAY...

Today I excite the senses,
To bestow upon me their everlasting grace,
Like notes adorn the symphony of conscious Being.
A hive with nectar and queens who guide an
army of delight and devotion,
Wings of an Angel fluttering in my ear,
Whispering, urging,
Gyrations of their lilac scent and
rose adorned countess lips.

Today I step with newly chiseled high steps,
Mirroring the future through
the looking of explorers eyes.
I course the labyrinth where the sun
breaks seeds through soil,
Where men caress the edge of time,
Where no prediction gifts me with its’ sight.

I jump sparkling like an opal dove,
Into Uncertainty.

-------------------------------------------------

IN QUIET MOMENTS

In quiet moments,
When stillness becomes my world,
I stand inside myself, I stand beside myself.
Present and lost in love’s magnificence,
Bequethed with the freedom that wisdom brings.
Sanctity caresses every breath,
Every gesture,
Every word.
In quiet moments.

I revel and shake,
The mystery that lives in my bones
Since before the earth was formed,
Before the first whisper of the moon’s
sacred marriage to the sun.

Sometimes these secrets explode within me,
This vessel turns from steel to gold,
And I lose myself, I lose myself
In this familiar wine.
Yet deep inside I know,
I must pass this drink,
I drink so that all may be drunkards
when Spirit shines,
When spirit shines,
In quiet moments.

These two poems were from a small booklet that I self published several years ago. There are more online at my website. Also, there are lyrics to read from some of the songs I've written. More >

Palindromatic Systems

27 Feb 2003 @ 14:16
So here's a thought. Maybe, and I say maybe, 'cause I think It's All made up anyway, all self organizing systems, i.e. Life, is a three dimensional palindrome, where everything meets in the middle, the center, the still point where all things are born and all things return.

A Palindrome is a word, phrase, verse, or sentence that reads the same backward or forward. Like "Damn! I, Agassi, miss again! Mad!"

Letecia sent me this really fun site, since she knows I love palindromes. Not that I ever make them up, but I am fascinated by the concept and how it might apply to consciousness. More >

Wednesday, February 26, 2003

Aristophanes' Lysistrata

26 Feb 2003 @ 08:27
I never knew this play existed until recently when Letecia and I went to see the Vagina Monologues and the reading of Aristophanes' "Lysistrata" was also announced.

I'm not sure that a witholding of sex would in actuality be that effective. Given the financial losses the sex industry would incur,which I assume is in the tens of billions annually,and the syndicated crime organizations that run it, I rather doubt that commercially available services would be suspended.

I have maintained for decades that one of the greatest pro peace actions that we can take is to severly cut back or stop altogether our consumer activities for at least a week. That kind of "buying strike" would cause corporate shareholders of the military industrial complex and ancillary companies to take notice. Another good reason to shop responsibly, support your local farmer markets, start a personal or community garden and make sustainable choices.

Lysistrata, a comedy written in 410 bc by Greek dramatist Aristophanes (c. 447 c. 385 b.c.e.), tells the story of a group of women from opposing states who unite to end the Peloponnesian war.

After matronly storm troopers take over the Acropolis, where the treasury is located, the women rise to end the war by withholding sex from their mates --- until, desperate for intimacy, the men finally agree to resolve their conflicts through peaceful diplomacy rather then violence.

This classic and somewhat bawdy comedy is being performed on Monday, March 3 worldwide in 36 countries and numerous cities in the US. It originated in New York as the “Lysistrata Project” to emphasize the need for peace and to refrain from war.

In Ojai a group of men and women are joining this event in the auditorium of Chaparral High School, at 114 N. Montgomery St. at 7:00 PM with a reading of this play in a translation by Drue Robinson Hagan.

This performance is free and open to the public . A donation is of course welcome to cover expenses and to benefit Citizens for Peaceful Resolution

Information abounds on the net that speaks to the current activism surrounding it,excerpts,the entire script and educational materials. More >

Prophets Conference

Ebay Gives PayPal Client Info. To Police

26 Feb 2003 @ 08:03
Well honestly I've never been to one of these conferences, however, I do support the vision of a coming together of multi-disciplinary minds,hearts and bodies to see whatform organizes itself out of the chaos.

Here's the latest info. and schedule on the Prophets Conference. Maybe someone who has been to one has more to say.

------------------------------------------------------------

Now, more than ever, we need to join together with others of like mind and find ways of navigating ourselves through these radical times of uncertainty.

Coming together in the Florida Keys is an exceptional group of committed souls faculty members and a community of delegates coming from as far as the UK to the east and Hawaii to the west, to ferret out possible solutions to our current personal and global challenges.

If you are not able to join this exceptional gathering in the Florida Keys, we encourage you to show up somewhere, in your community of kindred spirits, and share your voices. Make a difference. Strengthen your spirit. We need to come together now.

The tropical warmth and beauty of the Florida Keys, coupled with the significant energy and information, has the potential to make an impact in our personal and collective consciousness.

There are many ways to join this gathering for the full weekend, one day or days (one-day passes) or individual presentations (single presentation tickets). Or tapes, following the conference. Tickets will be available at the door. We all need to show up somewhere, in someway. Now.

If you have the ability to join the Florida Keys conference, please come and be part of this gathering. Inexpensive lodging is available in the nearby areas of Islamorada, Marathon and Key Largo. Your voice and spirit matter.

Full information is linked for you at Great Mystery.

A few low cost early registration incentives are still available for the Sedona, Stanford, and Oxford conferences. Early Registration Discount.

Schedule of speakers is on the next page. More >

Sunday, February 23, 2003

23 Feb 2003 @ 12:41
One of my music collaborators, Greg Hurley, sent this to me.

Given the numerous occassions that I use PayPal, I guess my anonymity is shot. Aaarrgghh... another seemingly "ease of use" programming where ideology has shadowed integrity.

Originally I saw this article here.

"When someone uses our site and clicks on the 'I Agree' button, it is as if he agrees to let us submit all of
his data to the legal authorities. Which means that if you are a law-enforcement officer, all you have to do is send us a fax with a request for information, and ask about the person behind the seller's identity number, and we will provide you with his name, address, sales history and other details - all without having to produce a court order. We want law enforcement people to spend time on our site."

The quote comes, apparently, from Joseph Sullivan, director of law enforcement and compliance at eBay, the largest retailer in the world. It's in a February 21 online Ha'aretz story. More >

The Invisible Audience

A Twisted Solar Eruptive Prominence

23 Feb 2003 @ 11:50
My friend Ken Symington,ethnobotanical preservationist,elder mentor, Nature Friends retreat center steward and one of the founders of the Invisible Theater Made Visible men's pereformance troop, for which I am privileged to be the music director of for the last four, years sent me this wonderful email. ----

I recently read this comment by Julie Taymor, producer/designer of recent theatrical events (Lion King, Frida, etc) that relates to our Invisible Theater project. I thought you might enjoy reading it.

"I went to Bali to a remote village by a volcanic mountain on the lake. They were having a ceremony that only happens every 10 years for the young men. I was listening to this music, and all of a sudden out of the darkness, I could see glints of mirrors and 30 or 40 men in full warrior costume. They came out with these spears and they started to dance. With these voices coming out of them. They didn't care if somebody was paying for tickets, writing reviews. They didn't care if an audience was watching. They were performing for God. And that profoundly moved me then."

The pic looks like Ming the Mechanic when his server goes down or his email "in" box exceeds 1000 per day. More >

Another Good Ol' Boys Club

23 Feb 2003 @ 10:00
How could this not have some influence on our behavior?
It would be interesting to see global / human history graphed to the eleven year solar activity cycle.

A Twisted Solar Eruptive Prominence
Credit: SOHO Consortium/, EIT, ESA, NASA

Explanation: A huge eruptive prominence is seen moving out from our Sun in this condensed half-hour time-lapse sequence. Ten Earths could easily fit in the "claw" of this seemingly solar monster. This large prominence, though, is significant not only for its size, but its shape. The twisted figure eight shape indicates that a complex magnetic field threads through the emerging solar particles. Recent evidence of differential rotation inside the Sun might help account for the surface explosion. The sequence was taken early in the year 2000 by the Sun-orbiting SOHO satellite. Although large prominences and energetic Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) are relatively rare, they occur more frequently near Solar Maximum, the time of peak sunspot and solar activity in the eleven-year solar cycle. More >

Friday, February 21, 2003