Darfur - What more can be said?

Today thousands rallied in Washington DC to end the genocide in Darfur, Sudan - Thousands Gather in DC at Rally for Darfur

What I don't understand is how much more speaking up it will take for our elected and international leaders to MAKE SOMETHING HAPPEN. I can't tell you how many emails I've gotten to raise awareness on the murders (over 200,000 people killed so far), displacements (over 2,000,000 so far), and rapes. I can't tell you how many newspaper articles I've seen. And yet the genocide continues.

WHAT MORE CAN WE DO? COME ON, LEADERS. Lead for once, damnit! Does no one feel pressed to make this a priority? What are the roadblocks to sending a multinational peacekeeping force? I know that negotiations are underway... I know it is a very, very difficult and complex process. But I'm just extremely frustrated with this whole thing. Leaders should be representing the people, and the people want effective action NOW.

Versions of your life

I'm reading a novel called The Myth of You & Me by Leah Stewart (a Chapel Hill, NC writer... woohoo). Last night before turning out the light, I was looking for a good stopping point and found it in this quote...

"I'm asking you, of all possible versions of your life, why have you chosen this one?"

What a great question.

Signed my name without lifting a pen

Well I have seen the shadow in this valley of death
I've trembled in its icy stare while drinking from its dregs
Taking my life in my own hands
I've taken my life in my own hands...

Well who am I to say I shall not fear?
When I've seen the seat where Mercy sits and scoffed at my own need for it
I've signed my name to treaties without lifting a pen
Cause the heart is a strange pretender
And the face is a poker hand...

I will write my own song, I will write my own song
From the depth that is in a soul comes a seed of hope
To write my own song.

(Dog Named David, "Write My Own Song")

Geisha, which we like to call Gaysha ;-)

Finally got to watch Memoirs of a Geisha last night! With Curt. (Sorry Jasmin that we didn't get to watch it! And bah humbug to all the rest of you. Hehe.) I really enjoyed it... it's not life-changing but it's a great story.

There's a lot to react to (Susan..:) but I just wanted to say the two positive things that I loved the most.

One, a simple act of kindness not only changed a little girl's life forever... but it did so by profoundly affecting her very spirit, her life... giving her a drive that let her survive extremely difficult circumstances. That's awesome.

And secondly, the scene I remember the most, is when the older mean geisha gets banished out to the streets (her name is Hatsumomo), and walks away in the nighttime rain, devastated and totally alone in the world... the main character (Sayuri) makes some comment to the effect that... I wonder if I am looking at my future. Are we so different? She once loved. She once dreamed. Is this my future, too?

For someone to look at their "enemy" with these eyes... to see that we are so much like even our worst enemies... wow. That is what impacted me the most.

Raping the environment

[President Bush] also said he is directing the Environmental Protection Agency to grant temporary waivers of local clean-fuel requirements with the aim of relieving gasoline shortages in some parts of the country.
(From Bush Orders Probe Into Gas Pricing)

[President Bush] also directed the Environmental Protection Agency to use its authority to temporarily waive air quality laws in states if that would relieve a local gasoline supply shortage.
(From Bush Eases Environmental Rules on Gasoline)

Warning: The next few lines are an internet temper tantrum: GAAAAHHHHIkajes;lrkj3^%@$%#sdlkjflejh%&^#(*%(#()$@(%*W*UDSOJFDKJflksjdxkdnmckjnmksdj;kjesrfkjkmnkxns
jkndf!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Only swear words come to mind. Also phrases such as, sorry but, SICK BASTARD! I am so angry, not just as the President's move, but at all our leaders who are gambling with our future and our children's future. It's so sick. There's no creativity anymore (when it comes to government and policy). No innovation. No positive movement forward. What's happening with oil prices and rumors of war (Iran, Iraq) and genocide and environmental change and so much more... it's not right, and it's not even totally necessary. Partly it's just sinful humanity, yes. Partly, I believe, it's the result of a MALE-ruled world. But neither of these gets anyone off the hook.

It's just sad.

MySpace Ban & the Creative Class

Texas School Bans MySpace

Hehehe.

It's just funny. Someone told me recently MySpace has only even existed 2 years. And now we're all addicted. Crazy.

I'm reading this awesome book called The Rise of the Creative Class by a guy named Richard Florida. It is answering so many unformed questions I've had for a long time. I'll do a post about the book when I'm done or at least a few more chapters in. But suffice it to say that MySpace is a perfect fit in time and space for the market of people who need to be creative and align themselves with a very ecclectic array of interests, music, books, colors, fonts, graphics, and so on. We are post-work. (I love saying we are post-anything. Post-Christian. Post-modern. Post-cool is one of my personal favorites, because I think it's accurate. Well now I've gotten off topic and forgot where I was going with this whole thing. I'm post-thought.)

I caved in and joined the MySpace thingy majig, too.

9/11

First of all, can I just say I am hating the term "conspiracy theory"? The fact that you question the official account of anything suddenly makes you a conspiracy theorist, which means you're paranoid and overly imaginative. How about conspiracy detector, eh.

Secondly, to those of you who watched Loose Change and are willing to consider we know less about what happened on 9/11 than we thought... when you share this with people, some will get very defensive. Why, I don't know. Here's what you need to know: they will make your conversation very general and superficial. My cousin is equating it to believing in UFOs and who-shot-Kennedy conspiracies. Others just use contemptuous words like "ridiculous" and "dumb." Don't let them get away with this. The movie primarily deals in pieces of concrete evidence which raise specific questions. Stay on the questions. Don't have a stake in the outcome. Just the questions... just the truth. If it all turns out to be crap, at least I reached that conclusion honestly and with integrity.

My latest interaction with this is on my friend Sarah's husband Anthony's blog. Haha. Long way of saying that.

Loose Change.. WATCH IT NOW

Please stop whatever you are doing and watch this documentary right now. If you have a working brain, if you have any interest in truth-seeking and truth-finding, if you are willing to consider even 10 percent of what this film has to say... it will absolutely shock you and change your entire perspective.

Loose Change - The 9/11 Documentary
(It's 1 hr and 20 minutes long. You can watch it online through Google Video.)

Please watch it. Please tell me what you think.

And while we're at it.... check out this Wikipedia definition of extraordinary rendition. I've seen an interview with a guy who experienced this extraordinary rendition by the United States and he was eventually released... he was totally innocent. It includes kidnapping, interrogation, torture, months away from your family, and no clue what is happening or where you are or why this is happening to you. It is a mockery of human rights, the rule of law, and all things American and HUMAN. Seriously.

You gotta love this email

Dear Jenny,

(Insert specific CD and price info here...)

Your CD has been gently taken from our CD Baby shelves with sterilized contamination-free gloves and placed onto a satin pillow.

A team of 50 employees inspected your CD and polished it to make sure it was in the best possible condition before mailing.

Our packing specialist from Japan lit a candle and a hush fell over the crowd as he put your CD into the finest gold-lined box that money can buy.

We all had a wonderful celebration afterwards and the whole party marched down the street to the post office where the entire town of Portland waved 'Bon Voyage!' to your package, on its way to you, in our private CD Baby jet on this day, Friday, April 21st.

I hope you had a wonderful time shopping at CD Baby. We sure did. Your picture is on our wall as 'Customer of the Year'. We're all exhausted but can't wait for you to come back to CDBABY.COM!!

Thank you once again,
Derek Sivers, president, CD Baby
the little CD store with the best new independent
musicphone: 1-800-448-6369
email: cdbaby@cdbaby.com
http://cdbaby.com/

End the info age, please

The information age is totally out of control. I cannot believe how much time I spend just mentally and physically sifting through information that is not relevant to me. Well, it may be relevant, but I have to decide. I have to make millions of these decisions everyday. It is too much!

I get e-newsletters from Sojourners (that's new but uhh okay), Speaking of Faith, Relevant, NPR, the Writer's Almanac, Yahoo, the US Postal Service, Wheaton College, Brewing Culture, Mitch McVicker, Jars of Clay, Rascal Flatts, Rob Thomas, Human Rights First, the Chamber of Commerce, John Edwards, the DNC, and SO SO SO MANY MORE! I'm just naming a few here.

This doesn't even include all the businesses that email me various bills each month (cell phone, landline, car insurance, student loans, etc.) and it doesn't include the fact that I write e-newsletters for a living. Yes, I participate in the evil deed itself!

It doesn't include the news that comes at me on television or in the newspaper. Or on my google homepage. Or in a variety of other advertisements online.

It doesn't include the junk mail that I throw away from my mailbox everyday. More trees dying... yep. The credit card solicitations alone are enough to make my blood pressure rise. I DON'T WANT THE CARD. Stop it already!

This doesn't include the hundreds of thousands of beautiful looking, brand new books and magazines that assault my eyes when I step into Barnes and Noble or Borders. (I honestly usually have to pause for a minute to visually look around the store, breathe, and take it all in.) Or the magazines and package covers everytime I go grocery shopping. There's always a new line of yogurt... a new way of putting together cookies and candy (yuck)... a new way to bake or flavor what should be a simple cracker.

Everything is commercials. Everything - advertising. Information. Knowledge is extremely cheap these days. Knowledge is like a prostitute and I've lost respect for her.

I kind of just want to be ignorant. I want to go back to a place of silence in some ways. Don't get me wrong.. I do love stimulation. I'm as web-saavy and ADD as the next 20-something. I just think we all just need a collective break.

PS. Doesn't even include myspace... or itunes... or so many more infinite things. Mwaaaahhhhh

PPS. Reminds me of classic Walt Whitman... who I love. Don't be hating on the Whitman. You know who you are. I put in BOLD the part I am thinking of... but the whole excerpt I love.

I have heard what the talkers were talking,
the talk of the beginning and the end
But I do not talk of the beginning or the end.
There was never any more inception than there is now,
Nor any more youth or age than there is now,
And will never be any more perfection than there is now,
Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now.

Urge and urge and urge,
Always the procreant urge of the world.
Out of the dimness opposite equals advance,
always substance and increase, always sex,
Always a knit of identity, always distinction,
always a breed of life.
To elaborate is no avail, learn'd and unlearn'd feel that it is so.

Man has no choice when he wants everything

... and other good lyrics from "The Scarlet Tide" which I finally am just HEARING for the first time tonight. Funny how I can listen to something a hundred times before I hear it. Or is it hear before I listen? You know what I mean, you punk :)

Well I recall his parting words
Must I accept his fate
Or take myself far from this place

I thought I heard a black bell toll
A little bird did sing
Man has no choice
When he wants everything

We'll rise above the scarlet tide
That trickles down through the mountain
And separates the widow from the bride

Man goes beyond his own decision
Gets caught up in the mechanism
Of swindlers who act like kings
And brokers who break everything

The dark of night was swiftly fading
Close to the dawn of day
Why would I want him just to lose him again

We'll rise above the scarlet tide
That trickles down through the mountain
And separates the widow from the bride

Google Calendar

Finally, Google Calendar has launched!

I love it! Google is so smart and intuitive. It is so responsive to my needs. It is so friendly and always there for me. It is taking over the world, but I like it. (It may qualify as the Anti-Christ, I'm not sure yet... but it's definitely on its way to world domination!)

I used to be anti-Google but they're just so good lately.