Gore is passionate, convincing and inspiring. Now I understand what he’s going to do with his new ad campaign. I’m going carbon neutral. I want a footprint so light you can’t make it out in the sand. I want to be a part of the hero generation. Let’s save this planet people!
By the way, you should definitely check out more of the TED talks. They have amazing speakers that give really interesting presentations, performances, etc.
I’ve been following the Tibet protests with interest and especially now that they’re following the Olympic torch. One thing that I’ve noticed that China and it’s supporters are saying is that this about sports not politics. Essentially, they say this is not the time or place to discuss human rights.
It’s so incredibly hypocritical for China to say that the Olympics have nothing to do with politics. Does anyone really believe that China isn’t trying to show itself off as a world power with these Olympics? What they really mean to say is no one can use the Olympics for politics except them.
So I say, yes, the Olympics are sporting event AND they are a political event. To say they are merely a sporting event is simply wishful thinking. When sports teams are divided up by nation states, political entities, and then pitted against each other, how can than not be political?
As of today I am officially in the black. I paid off the last of my school loans and have exactly $0 credit card debt. It’s a nice feeling let me tell you. I imagine it will especially nice when my next pay check rolls in and I know that I get to keep it all.
I feel lucky to have been able to do get rid of everything so quickly. I know that I didn’t have an excessive amount of debt, but that’s because I’ve always been wary about accruing it in the first place. Part of it is just my personality. I don’t like owing anyone anything.
That same eagerness to pay people back sometimes comes back to annoy me though. I guess when I pay people back quickly it makes them think that I don’t mind doing them favors. So those same people begin asking me for more favors, not necessarily money mind you, but favors nonetheless. I don’t mind doing them at first, but a lot of times it becomes habit for them and I start to feel used.
Inevitably I resist and they say, “but I’d do it for you” to which I think, “yes, but I wouldn’t ask you to do that for me in the first place”. I hardly ever ask anyone for favors except maybe my parents (I love you guys) because I don’t like owing anyone and I just like doing things for myself. I guess I just don’t like people owing me anything either, especially since most people don’t feel the same way about indebtedness as I do.
I believe that this guy, Richard Heinberg, is absolutely 100% right on the money. I haven’t seen someone sum up everything I’ve read this well yet and I’m so glad I found it. This is why I’d like to start an organic permaculture farm and live a sustainable lifestyle. After I get myself taken care of I want to start working on a local level around the farm to teach others and help the community work on larger community projects that can’t be done by individuals.
Anyway, watch these videos. They’re important. You may not want to hear it, but it may be the most important thing you’ve ever watched.
Click to continue reading this entry and view the other 5 parts to this talk.
When I look around me I see a lot of people chasing things that will never make them happy. I imagine there are many more like me who can see that the dreams the powers that be teach us to chase are hollow. Whether it be only a piercing ray of truth slipping through the cracks or an undercurrent of suspicion always there but never coming into focus.
It’s easy to understand how uncomfortable the process of realization is if someone is to acknowledge that they have spent so much time and energy on an illusion. The urge to block those rays and suppress those truths is made all the easier with the diversions provided by the ones profiting off the willing labor supplied chasing the carrot at the end of the stick. Yet even those profiting are chasing unfulfillment…
I have a morning ritual. I go to three different web sites that simply by clicking on a link and shown a page with advertisers you can get those same advertisers to donate cups of food to the poor, save so many square feet of rain forest, and plant a tree(every 5th click).
The pages only let you do this once every day per internet connection. So every morning I make the rounds to www.TheHungerSite.com, www.EcologyFund.com, and www.LandCareNiagara.com and get my karma points for the day. Every workday I also make the rounds at work and rack up double points…
I don’t actually read USA Today, but I found this just browsing around on ThinkProgress today. It’s a full-page ad that Amnesty International placed in the paper. I think the picture is phenomenal.
The purpose of the ad is to commemorate the one year anniversary of the Military Comissions Act, which essentially removed the right of habeas corpus. The bill was passed under the guise of “protecting us from terrorism”. In reality they’re just eroding the protections that many people have fought and died for…
After writing my previous post about Burma I decided I really wanted to do something. The next day while I was cutting my hair(yes, I cut my own hair), I was looking at my head and thinking about the monks shaved heads. It dawned on me that shaving my heads in solidarity with the Buddhist monks would be a good way to do something. It turned out I was right, I probably had several dozen conversations about my head and Burma. I think I raised a lot of awareness.
When I got the e-mail from the U.S. Campaign for Burma people about the rally in Washington, D.C. I decided to go for it. I spent the few days before the protest thinking about what I wanted to put on my sign and I finally got the idea after seeing an illustration of the Olympic rings with a bullet hole for the last ring…
As you may well be aware, the military regime of Burma(officially called “Union of Myanmar”) is in the process of crushing a popular democratic uprising led by the country’s Buddhist monks which was initially sparked by an increase in fuel prices and subsequent attack on monks protesting the drastic price increase. The military regime is Orwellianly known as the “State Peace and Development Council”.
In 1960, U(Mr.) Nu, was democratically elected for his third, non-consecutive term, as Prime Minister in a landslide victory. Two years later the head of the military, General Ne Win, led a coup d’etat and seized power. U Nu had been elected several times previously in the few elections the country had held since 1948, when Britain released them from colonial rule. U Nu had given up power before and was continually re-elected as a popular leader. His popularity stemmed from being head of the AFPFL which led the movement for independence from England…
I was watching a clip from Politically Incorrect the other night. Bill Maher was interviewing Robert Draper, the guy who wrote the biography about George Bush called “Dead Certain: The Presidency of George W. Bush”. The guy seemed to buy a lot of what Bush says and does but was critical of his stubborness. He said that Bush seemed to be waiting on things as if a miracle were going to occur.
Normally I would just chock that up to the idea that Bush thinks he’s literally God’s gift to the U.S. of A, but I suddenly had a minor epiphany. I started thinking about Bush’s life pre-presidency…
I arrived in downtown D.C. in front of the White House about 30 minutes late for the protest. I was a little worried that the march would have already started but the speakers had only just started. The place was packed, it was an ocean of people. If I had to guess I’d say that there were 50-60,000 people (the organizers claimed 100,000) there when the march first started. However I think only about 20,000-30,000 ended up at Congress after the march.
I managed to get within about 50 feet of the stage and got to here Cindy Sheehan, Ramsey Clark, Adam Kokesh, Etan Thomas, and Ralph Nader speak. I think the largest applause was for the Iraq veterans, but calls for impeachment and ending the corporate dominated government also got big cheers…
Tomorrow morning, September 15th, around 10 a.m. I’m heading down to meet up with thousands of anti-war protesters on the lawn in front of the White House. At around noon we’re marching to congress, supposedly in the hopes that this will influence them into some form of action.
I’m not convinced of the power of mass demonstrations, but I know that it certainly can’t be hurting. Agressive resource wars against foreign nations will never solve the problem that there simply isn’t enough cheap energy/oil in the world. We could and should be spending our money to find some other type of energy source…
It seems that George Bush will appear to give in to overwhelming public opinion and withdraw troops from Iraq. Of course, he won’t withdraw any more than he put in for his so called “surge”. It’s quite a trick. Send more troops in so you can bring them home and appear generous? sympathetic? human? I don’t know any more.
It would have been near impossible for him to give in and bring troops home if we weren’t “winning” in Iraq. Thats why General Patraeus had to at least have some smidgen of good news…
I found this video clip on Alternet earlier and I was well…shocked. I knew that the republicans were using September 11th to push all kinds of radical and obscene legislation through congress but I hadn’t really thought about it being used as frequently as it has. Apparently, the video is a sort of introduction to a new book called “The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism” by Naomi Klein. It looks like she did a lot of really great research and connected a lot of dots. Its on my gotta have book list and I’ll get paid right before the September 18th when it gets released. Well, let me shut up and you watch the video for yourselves, we’ll talk after you’re done.
In a short synopsis she has on her web page about the book, she says that she tracked this trend back
If he insists on making his campaign solely about terrorism and 9/11 then maybe we should look at exactly what his resume entails. That’s exactly what these documentary makers have done with The Real Rudy: Command Center.
They may be gone but their stench is everywhere and they’re going to have a much harder time avoiding it than they bargained for. I seriously doubt that Rove or Gonzalez will be able to go out in public for many years and not be heckled or even attacked without a bodyguard.
I’m sure they’d argue that we don’t understand the sacrifices they’ve made for us. I imagine them perched in the towers of power looking down on Americans, and the world, as ignorant peasants for them to shepherd. They have to protect us from ourselves, otherwise we’d go around shoving forks in our eyes and putting solar panels on our roofs…
Tao is Tao Weilundemo, a freelance web developer and populist, a lover of disc golf, sailing, and politics in so far as it can be utilized to make the world a better more egalitarian place.
He's not from any one particular place, but you may know him from Columbia, MO, San Diego, CA, Santa Rosa, CA, Closeburn, Australia, Jackson, MS, Huntsville, AL, Austin, TX, Berlin, El Salvador, or Baltimore, MD. Did I mention he likes to travel?
Want to learn more about this Tao and his 3rd person talking self? Click here and he'll see what he can do.
I’ve been following the Tibet protests with interest and especially now that they’re following the Olympic torch. One thing that I’ve noticed that China and it’s supporters are saying is that this about sports not politics. Essentially, they say this is not the time or place to discuss human rights.
When I look around me I see a lot of people chasing things that will never make them happy. I imagine there are many more like me who can see that the dreams the powers that be teach us to chase are hollow. Whether it be only a piercing ray of truth slipping through the cracks or an undercurrent of suspicion always there but never coming into focus.
After writing my previous post about Burma I decided I really wanted to do something. The next day while I was cutting my hair(yes, I cut my own hair), I was looking at my head and thinking about the monks shaved heads. It dawned on me that shaving my heads in solidarity with the Buddhist monks would be a good way to do something. It turned out I was right, I probably had several dozen conversations about my head and Burma. I think I raised a lot of awareness.
As you may well be aware, the military regime of Burma(officially called “Union of Myanmar”) is in the process of crushing a popular democratic uprising led by the country’s Buddhist monks which was initially sparked by an increase in fuel prices and subsequent attack on monks protesting the drastic price increase. The military regime is Orwellianly known as the “State Peace and Development Council”.
I arrived in downtown D.C. in front of the White House about 30 minutes late for the protest. I was a little worried that the march would have already started but the speakers had only just started. The place was packed, it was an ocean of people. If I had to guess I’d say that there were 50-60,000 people (the organizers claimed 100,000) there when the march first started. However I think only about 20,000-30,000 ended up at Congress after the march.
Tomorrow morning, September 15th, around 10 a.m. I’m heading down to meet up with thousands of anti-war protesters on the lawn in front of the White House. At around noon we’re marching to congress, supposedly in the hopes that this will influence them into some form of action.
It seems that George Bush will appear to give in to overwhelming public opinion and withdraw troops from Iraq. Of course, he won’t withdraw any more than he put in for his so called “surge”. It’s quite a trick. Send more troops in so you can bring them home and appear generous? sympathetic? human? I don’t know any more.
They may be gone but their stench is everywhere and they’re going to have a much harder time avoiding it than they bargained for. I seriously doubt that Rove or Gonzalez will be able to go out in public for many years and not be heckled or even attacked without a bodyguard.