I just realized that this blog is a place where sometimes I put down my thoughts in public for my own reference, and for yours. These include recipes, my artwork, the books from the school library I wish I could read, and now I'm going to start adding some favorite Bible verses and quotes from other texts.

As a reference, so I can remember the stories (not presently recalling all of them by book/chapter/verse), the ones that most readily come to mind are: john 3:17 of course, the one where Jesus gets P.O.'ed at the church leaders for carrying in th footsteps of previous leaders by killing their prophets, the one where the rabbis call on jesus and recognize him as having values that transcend those of human society, revelation 10, john 1:1. I need to scrape together several from other sources, but those are all over the place.



pax hominibus,
agape to all,
joel

Labels: favorite scriptural passages, John 3:17

I just got done reading this article about how the FBI is trying to infiltrate vegan potlucks, in hopes of finding out what protesters are up to. In addition, the article states that at the New York 2004 RNC, they planted an undercover agent to be "arrested" in attempts to get the protesters riled up. Um, unethical much? While this different than planting evidence, its remarkable in its blatant disregard for peoples' rights. Likewise, they also talk about how there were mysterious men wearing hoods at the back of a critical mass bike ride, who didn't get arrested, but who's bad behavior invited the police to turn on the other bike riders, arresting 19 and using pepper spray on them.

WHO ARE these people, that they're trying to turn bicycle riding vegetarians into terrorists? Are we unamerican somehow if we're not spending our hard-earned dollars on gasoline and meat, and trying to encourage others to live more simply as well?

lyrics:

colors:

mood: grouchy. we're having problems getting our networked printer to print. i hate networking issues.

chant/prayer/mantra: life is measured in love.


pax hominibus,
agape to all,
joel

Um, I don't know how much press this will be getting, but I'll mention it here. (It looks like there's more info available at dailykos as well.) Whether or not you missed Hillary's little RFK gaffe as a backdrop, this little bit by "contributor" Liz Trotta is shameful. SHAMEFUL!!

It's very ugly, with her as a Fox News "guest" dropping hints at "a suggestion that somebody knock off osama, ummm ahh obama well both if we could." (acting coy as if she stammered and misspoke!), and the Fox commentator not even questioning what she said AND Fox letting it actually air.

For allowing something like this to be aired, they should have their license rescinded. Unfortunately, considering the way big media and politics work, its not likely that will happen. Media companies such as fox care about two things: Getting their version of the truth out, and getting paid by commercial advertisers. Hit them where it hurts, in their pocketbooks.

Do not purchase from these sponsors, and CALL THEM to let them know that you won't be buying their products, and why. A list of FOX sponsors + phone numbers. (copied from link above) As of January, 2008: Two things I'm critically noting.
#1. When she said "well both if we could." Who is we????
#2. And in the backdrop image, it has red white and blue with stars saying "America's Election HQ" -- many of us still haven't forgotten the part that Fox News played in the forestalling and overturning of the 2000 election.

In what way is Fox News "fair and balanced," when they have a paid contributor coming onto their program suggesting that it would be good if a presidential candidate were killed, along with an infamous terrorist who happens to have a name that rhymes? God, I hate the lies of "story" being told out there. This is the kind of stuff the eighth commandment ("Thou shalt not bear false witness") was calling out. The culture in the U.S. has gone so postmodern, especially within big media where the lies are fully amplified, that the "story" told by "the news" is what matters, more than what is really happening, and Fox deserve a big chunk of the blame/credit for the appearance and maintenance in that shift. Yes, truth has always been hard to come by in societies that are not fully free, and especially in societies at war, but let's get real. You have to stop calling yourself "fair and balanced" when you have a show that allows itself to be a vehicle for people such as her advocating what she did in the way she did.... On behalf of the good people of America, this makes me want to puke.

pax hominibus,
agape to all,
joel

Here is an excellent article written by a fellow seminarian and friend. In it, Marla writes about how anti-miscegenation laws were once the thing that kept bi-racial couples from getting married. It has been 41 years since bi-racial couples got the right to vote across the United States, and while some people are still probably "dealing" with their prejudices, those rights are now protected.

What will the United States look like 41 years after couples of the same gender are allowed to marry, and afforded all of the same rights as couples of opposite gender?

lyrics: "Sense Wiseness" by Fela Kuti

colors: True.

mood: hopeful, yet reeling.

chant/prayer/mantra: Love, now. Spread the word.


pax hominibus,
agape to all,
joel

I have no idea when I did this one, but apparently I did, since it looks like something I'd draw. :) I just set it as my desktop wallpaper for a little while to help keep me going.

lyrics: "The lord was frozen alive and his presence it fell through the sky it fell through the sky." - Now, by Meat Beat Manifesto

colors: see pic.

mood: sleepy

chant/prayer/mantra: get it done.


pax hominibus,
agape to all,
joel

Labels: art, pax hominibus/bright shiny future, salvation, theology

An article on larouchepac.com states that Humanity is in Mortal Danger, and goes on to offer theories on what has been happening, and what is currently happening, with respect to world politics. I'm sure some of the information is correct, and other parts are less so, but it really makes me think -- are the world leaders 1) fatalistic in their intention to crash the global economy and ecology into burning flames; 2) thinking that they're doing a good job, and that billions of people starving when we can easily create enough food is acceptable; 3) planning on making it worse so there's a big die-off, complete with anarchy, chaos, and martial-law; or 4) something else that is either too fantastical or horrifying to envision?

We need new leadership, or for our current leaders to change their ways dramatically. Pronto.

lyrics: "See how we throw those cowgirls around." -Tongue

colors: blue, green, and white -- the colors of earth from the sky.

mood: hella exhausted.

chant/prayer/mantra: for energy from within like a spring.


pax hominibus,
agape to all,
joel

Hi Everyone-

Just the other day, I found one of these laying on the side of the sidewalk, kind of hacked-up, so I grabbed it with the intent of giving it a home among the other religious tracts I've found, but its pretty hacked up, so I'm just going to retype all of the text, with no commentary.

Front:

Back:

lyrics: "You, lost and lonely. You, just like heaven." from Just Like Heaven, by The Cure.


pax hominibus,
agape to all,
joel

Labels: Bible, Christianity, salvation, theological sources

Hi Friends-

Yesterday in Sufi Storytelling, the instructor surprised us by telling us we were each to deliver an impromptu 3-5 minute story, off the cuff. Here is a version of what I came up with.

How many of you have heard the story of the Robot at the Spelling Bee? [Of course, some wiseacre answered "I have"...] Well, this story might be a little different than the version you've heard. Here it is.

There was once this society of people who lived underground, because they didn't fit in with human culture. They were freaks (a term I generally use endearingly) in a way -- see, they were part eagle, part ox, part lion, and part orangutan. I'll leave you to try and picture which part is which, and you'll probably be able to come up with a visualization sufficiently freaky to get the picture.

Anyway, they lived underground, and ostracized, because the human people didn't know how to appreciate or understand them. But they wanted to get the chance to be outside in the sunshine, so they built a robot with the fanciest, shiniest, newest artificial intelligence (not just with solid logic and heuristics, but also with dynamically-reproducing seeded algorithms) they could come up with and sent it to the humans. The robot happened to arrive on the day of the spelling bee, and decided to join up.

When it was its turn, they gave it a pretty easy word. Can somebody give me a somewhat easy spelling word? [from audience: kumquat] Kumquat, well,... the robot heard the word and had not a clue, having not ever really learned anything about the human culture and its language or spelling, so it just sat there until the people said "Stupid robot, go away." And it was kicked out of the spelling bee in the first round.

It went back to the eagle-ox-lion-orangutan people and told them about the language of the humans and how they had this spelling bee ritual, so they found out a bit about it, and the robot processed what had happened, until it felt ready to go the next year. The next year, it went back and signed up again for the spelling bee. Can somebody give me a more difficult spelling word? [from audience: chartreuse] Hmm, chartreuse. Well, the robot had deciphered a little bit about the ways of the spelling bee during the last year, and learned the language, but only had a vocabulary of about 5000 words, so it didn't know "chartreuse." It asked the judges for the etymology and for it to be used in a sentence, and then said, "Well, I don't know how to spell that word, but I do know a word from our culture that apparently is quite similar." And it proceeded to tell them all about the eagle-ox-lion-orangutan word for chartreuse. Upon finishing, the judges thanked it and rang the bell to indicate that the robot was again kicked out of the spelling bee.

And every year, the robot came back for the spelling bee, knowing more and more about human culture. Each time it got to a word it didn't know (from the third year on, it was able to even advance a few rounds), instead of guessing at words it didn't know, it would teach the judges and the audience words from the eagle-ox-lion-orangutan culture. After many iterations of this process, the humans finally knew enough about the eagle-ox-lion-orangutan culture that they began to appreciate it. And when the robot reported back, the eagle-ox-lion-orangutan people were able to come above ground into the light of the sun, and live together with the humans in harmony.

\The End.

lyrics: "Here we are in the parking lot, getting ready inside our heads." -The Helvey Brothers, from Heavy Metal Parking Lot

colors: Not brown. I just (finally) found my summer chaplaincy internship at a state health facility just north of here.

mood: pretty good, tired.

chant/prayer/mantra: bless the freaks


pax hominibus,
agape to all,
joel

Labels: coursework, Islam, paradigm shift, parousia, pax hominibus/bright shiny future, theology

Huh, who'da thunk it? Granted, the article above is linked to from /. and they don't like Microsoft so much, so it take it with a grain of salt.

This is what happens when a company has a monopoly on a market. Yes, there's Apple (mentioned in the article), and that's kind of great, but they're not really in the same market, and Apple have got their own issues of being welcoming to third-party developers.

And Microsoft's codebase is now crufty as all hell and bloated and slow and not necessarily secure, and if you don't re-install or re-ghost windows once in a while it really gets slow. Decisions made decades ago for Windows 3.1 still are hounding them, and while they have such an enormous codebase that a developer can probably find stuff within their library that will call for a pizza, take a credit card number, and sprinkle red peppers and parmesan on top when the pizza guy delivers, that same codebase is old and overworked, in ways that people who have passed on from the company probably didn't figure for. So it's a question of architecture.

With sufficient resources, time, and dedication, somebody else could come along and do a whitebox design of a new OS with all the functionality of Windows (and Mac, and Be, and Unix), plus some forward-visionary stuff and really intuitive (non-kludged) developer (and user) interfaces, and they wouldn't have to carry around decades-old baggage, ready to make changes on a dime (or maybe a silver dollar, these things still take time).

What does all this have to do with theology, you may ask? Well, replace the word "decades" above with "millenia," and that might provide some insight. A theology based on functionality, not having to call all the way back to Adam, Noah, Moses, Hagar, Jesus, etc. Of course, its good to have people to tell stories about, and to have some type of a rudder/constitution, but going to them as sources of wisdom is disempowering to the voice within.


lyrics: "you are sleeping, you do not want to believe. you are sleeping." rubber ring, the smiths

colors: blue, brown, black, green

mood: stressed, procrastinating in the worst way possible.

chant/prayer/mantra: stay on target.


pax hominibus,
agape to all,
joel

Labels: computers, technology, theological sources

dear minnesota viking and bank of america, do not send me any more email.



--
pax hominibus,
agape to all,
joel


http://revjd.blogspot.com/

Love does not dominate; it cultivates.
-Goethe

The secret of life is enjoying the passing of time. - James Taylor

The miracle is not to walk on water. The miracle is to walk on the green earth,
dwelling deeply in the present moment and feeling truly alive. -Thich Nhat Hanh


[Edit after initially sending and Cc'ing to this blog:

I sent this in such a fashion because upon trying to unsubscribe myself, I found I was unable, as they didn't have my name or email address on record. Um, obviously, they did, if they sent it. I also sent it because you may have had similar experiences with other corporations/spammers, and might want to know that I am in commiseration with you.

Further, I received this immediate reply:

Mail Delivery Subsystem

to me

show details

13:30 (0 minutes ago)

This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently: vikings@bankofamerica.com Technical details of permanent failure: PERM_FAILURE: Gmail tried to deliver your message, but it was rejected by the recipient domain. The error that the other server returned was: 550 550 5.1.1 <vikings@bankofamerica.com>... User unknown. We recommend contacting the other email provider for further information about the cause of this error. Thanks for your continued support. (state 14)

I'd LOL if it weren't so annoying.

Joel]

If you note this link (also above), Paul Roberts, author of The End of Oil explains "why forging a sustainable energy future is dependent on foreign oil." In the process, he pretty much advocates conservative changes to U.S. energy policy. The point that getting a sustainable energy system up and running isn't easy is well-taken, but some of the other stuff is so defeatest and apologetic, and his pessimism about the state of renewable energy is so baldly biased, it turns the stomach. For example, WHY does he not focus on the pathetic amounts of tax dollars going toward solar, wind, geothermal, and tidal sources? His commentary about the futility of corn-based ethanol is certainly appreciated, however. The best part of the article is actually the user commentary, in which the people who reply talk about what they ARE doing, and how we CAN do this.

It seems like its a bit of a concerted effort, as I just came across this article in CNN money as well, about how the internal combustion engine is "here to stay." I do hope and doubt that Roberts is not associated with the folks at CNN-Money, because this piece is nothing short of FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt). He says "Experts say we better get used to pumping gas..." and then goes on to offer a short quote from an executive director from General Motors. Those who are up to asking questions about what's going on know that this is all about keeping the consumer base hooked up to a system where they need to come back repeatedly to a centralized pump so they can keep people dependent, instead of just being able to generate their own power and be independent, or better, interdependent, with some give-and-take.

So annoying... The pessimist theorist within me is wondering if there's a deliberate media push on this issue.


chant/prayer/mantra: time to work together, but under who's terms?


pax hominibus,
agape to all,
joel

A. For friends, I want to share this recording of a story about mini-marshmallows (it's a 12 MB download, so be sure to right-click and choose Save As...) I told a couple weeks ago. If you listen, I'd love to hear your comments. (And if you know Sonic Youth, PLEASE make sure they get a chance to hear it.) Another comment for clarity: The example I provided about the bowling ball and attributing the strength of the atomic connection to strong and weak nuclear forces -- that should actually be attributed to the gravitational force. Heh.

B. An unbelievably candid and deep movie that I saw last summer at the Unitarian Universalist General Assembly called Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North, written and produced by Katrina Browne, a graduate of Pacific School of Religion, about her family's participation in the African slave trade.

C. Some advice from Kurt Vonnegut in Bagombo Snuffbox about writing short stories (I'm adding this here mainly for myself):

1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
4. Every sentence must do one of two things—reveal character or advance the action.
5. Start as close to the end as possible.
6. Be a sadist. No matter sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them—in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

lyrics: no time for lyrics. must go to bed

colors: no time for colors. must go to bed.

mood: no time for mood. must go to bed.

chant/prayer/mantra: must.... go..... to ..... bed.


pax hominibus,
agape to all,
joel

p.s. - Albert Hofmann, the chemist who invented LSD, died at age 102.

Labels: anti-oppression, audio, paradigm shift, parousia, writing