Imagine hearing the Mary Tyler Moore theme song playing, right this minute, in the very place where you're at....

Wednesday, July 3, 2013

Sermon: The Guardian of the Garden

Delivered to First Unitarian Church of Pittsburgh in the Undercroft Gallery (with wireless headworn mic), on June 30, 2013

On nights when it's my turn to get Henry ready for bed, after bedtime snack and toothbrushing, we read two books in his bedroom and turn out the light and maybe a prayer, and then I sing to him. Our standard default is “This Little Light of Mine” which I've been singing to him since he was an infant. But sometimes he asks for something new. And when “Swing Low Sweet Chariot” and “Hot Crossed Buns” didn't cut it, I offered him one of my own that I'd been working on called “Ode to Glen Eden.” The chorus and closing goes a bit like this:

♪♫“This is a beautiful garden, it has a dangerous guardian (x2).

We're going to melt that guardian down some time, we're gonna press our flames to that heart of ice (x2).

That heart of ice, (x3)

is my size....”♫♪

H: Dad I really like that song. What's the beautiful garden? (That was the easy question.)
J: Well son, the beautiful garden is the Earth, the only place where we can actually live, and we're so lucky that it provides us with food and wood and everything that people and animals need to live.
H: Tell me about the guardian Dad. (Of course I had no clue how to articulate this to Henry without going into adult details, so I punted a bit.)
J: Well, the guardian watches over the Earth to make sure and keep it safe, but it's not always friendly, especially when people are not good to the Earth.
He's getting to the stage of inquisitiveness now where he keeps drilling down with “Why?” followed by “Why?” followed by more “Why?” and... I don't recall how it ended up.
I really do find the Earth as a source of reverence – I learned that while preparing for my first time preaching here at First Unitarian – Winter Solstice 2011. How amazing is this Earth in all the idiosyncracies that somehow exist so it can support life like us.
And how very dangerous is the Guardian that protects it? Freewill creates its own karmic vehicle when we choose something harmful. And at the moment, collectively, we are choosing an abundance of things either harmful or potentially so – in our reading, Wendell Berry mentioned fossil fuels. The list continues: nuclear weapons; GMO foods and other genetic experiments; polluted air, water, and soil, imprudent use of medicines leading to more virulent drug-resistant pathogens that could one day bring us a pandemic. It's difficult to even imagine, but any of these things could potentially bring the end of the homo sapien species. And at the same time, there is very little likelihood that any of those could end life on Earth as a whole. The Earth would go on living, and perhaps vibrantly again without the avaricious hubris of competitive humanity plundering Earth's land, animals and people for industrial profits. The guardian would use humanity's selfishness and ignorance to end humanity's selfishness and ignorance.
This is my pastoral message then to what Emerson called “the Oversoul” or as I see it, the collective soul of humanity – underneath our day to day perceptions is a common sense of dread, that humanity is living so recklessly beyond its balance that it may crash. Recently, Rolling Stone Magazine published an article entitled “Global Warming's Terrifying New Math.” A brief summary: credible climate scientists have estimated that humanity can only pump out 565 more gigatons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere before Earth's temperature will raise 2 degrees Celsius, a point at which ecosystems – and humanity – would experience devastating effects. And unfortunately, just with the presently-known fossil-fuel reserves, we are capable of adding 2800 gigatons of carbon dioxide – five times that amount! The biggest problem – cutting back would cut into the fossil-fuel industry's profits, and they have no plans to stop. I wonder if this is humanity's way of doing the guardian's work, judging itself as unfit for the garden it's been offered. [pause] The answer to that question I do not know....
Prior to coming to Pittsburgh, I was a hospital chaplain, and met many people who were dying. I worked to comfort them, along with their families, and help them arrive at reconciliation, closure, and sometimes acceptance. It's a strange feeling to be with somebody soon to be breathing their last, a natural future experience we will all share. What's strangest is if/when they come to tranquility, understanding that “everything's going to be all right” and that means that they're going to be on the other side of the impenetrable existential barrier known as “dying.”
For the collective human existence, however, the timeframe need not be limited to 100-odd years. Humanity could expire in a year, in 100 years, or 20 million years.
On a rational level, we could say that “Species die off all the time. The fossil record indicates that prior to human intervention, up to 100 species went extinct every year. And now since the fruits of human activity have taken hold, scientists estimate an extinction rate of 27,000 species per year. Actually of all the species the Earth has ever seen since it first gave birth to life, 99.9% of them have gone extinct, most before humanity even entered the picture.” But of those that did go extinct, many of them lasted a million or more years. Humanity's known history is a fraction of that – perhaps humanity is practicing, “Live fast, die young?”
In case we do come to an early “live fast, die young” demise, I want to affirm that even then, it will be okay. It has to. After we're gone, the struggles will be over, along with the exhilaration and joy. And then there will be rest. But here's the rub.... What happens when one lives fast and recklessly, and doesn't die young? Humanity has been rough on itself and rough on its host planet. I can personally attest that being rough on my knees in high school sports, and on my shoulders in college – these things have brought injuries, making some activities painful. When I was high jumping at 18 and trashing my left knee, 45 years old seemed a long way away. Joel 45 would send Joel 18 a message, were that possible. In a similar way, Humanity 2100 will probably not have “died young” by then, and would ask us to prevent the injuries presently being created through these present generations' ways of living.

And I'm not ready for humanity to buy the farm just yet, or even to go on causing itself such long term harms. To put this clearly, I'll quote Wendell Berry, “Do unto those downstream as you would have those upstream do unto you.” I interpret this “downstream” to mean later in time, where “upstream” means earlier in time.
What are we to do? Humanity seems somewhere between directionless, and directed toward this quarter's financial statements. I believe a small portion of humanity are developing a clear understanding of what is happening in a systemic sense. I believe that we would do well to continue communicating with each other, and with the rest of humanity, to counter the stories of those seemingly hell-bent on creating an early end, or perhaps only hell-bent on gaining power, money, and influence at any cost. Our stories and our perspectives are our light, and in their telling, the darkness within us, among us, and between us is diminished.

(Include if appropriate energy: I'd like to go out on a limb and take a break and invite you all to tell stories to each other for a minute – without words. I was thinking maybe we could stand up and walk around and do this, but it's a bit too crowded to do that without introducing real chaos, so just from your chairs, I invite you to connect wordlessly – using your eyes, your faces, and your body language – to communicate with those around you, that for matters to you, for which words do not suffice. If you find this too intense, or you'd rather not participate, please feel free to just close your eyes and take a break. After several moments, I have these bells to ring. My family used to have these on the doors of our house that rang each time we exited or entered [wait 5 breaths, ring bells]. May we find ourselves in a new place and a new sense of purpose through this new connection to each other.)
I propose that humanity does not know its true purpose. Because “true” is monocultural thinking in that it focuses on a single objective, assuming some prior nugget of truth was somewhere buried. Humanity must wait to discover its purpose amidst all its other activities? No. Humanity is ready to evolve from adolescence, no longer wanting to live recklessly on some Amish rumspringa – a period of hard-partying the Amish teens do as part of discernment of their values, then choosing whether to return back to their own culture. Rather, humanity entering into its adult phase aches to determine itself – not in a “mightiest-most-influential-voices-get-the-megaphone” kind of way, but through the speaking and hearing of all voices.
Unitarian Universalist values set an excellent model for this process. Democratic processes will be critical. A goal of world community is seriously important for coming together around a common human determination. A lack of respect for the interdependent web is how we got here, and something we as UUs say we want to change. Human worth and dignity – including humans now living, along with those whose legacy we carry and wish to respect, and those further on in the timestream who call to us for a good world in which to safely raise healthy children. Equity in relations is important as well. Our quest for spiritual growth, and our responsible search for truth and meaning calls us to then respond with our findings, and with our whole being.
I know I said earlier that the democratic process will be important, however I believe that it may take considerable time for humanity to really come together for a determined unified purpose. Especially difficult for some reason is getting cooperation of those who have privilege to choose less privilege and convenience in a world like the one Wendell Berry speaks of.
And I'm white, straight-appearing, male-appearing – I come from white monoculture, so I want to see THIS democratic process expedited (impatience with process is part of the white monoculture I grew up in and am accustomed to). I would like to prime the pump regarding our present purpose. Because I hear the voices of 2100 calling me; I think you might hear them as well. I propose that we choose for our present purpose the creation of a safe, healthy, and harmonious world for the people of the 22^nd century, composed of safe, healthy, harmonious local communities. And I propose that we come together and have fun while we do it.
I say that because I also hear the voices of 2013 calling to me. People suffering from great emotional and social distance with even their nearest neighbors; and more to the point, people suffering from lack of the basic necessities of life, even. Because when injury comes to humanity at large, the brunt of the injury tends to accumulate upon the least fortunate and most oppressed among us. I hear them saying that there is so much struggle over who gets how big a slice of pie that we're actually making less pie. I hear those voices say we should be focusing on just making sure that everybody gets an adequate slice at this Garden Family Picnic (side-note not mentioned: family picnics are much less enjoyable when monetized – can you imagine bartering with family over baked beans, chocolate chip bars or corn on the cob?)

The way to a harmonized 22^nd century is to harmonize the 21^st, here and now. May we commit to finding the courage to risk joy. May we find our flame to melt the ice of each human heart we meet. And may we allow for the flames of our friends to work their magic on our own ices within. In this way – one by one – we will melt the heart of the guardian.

Labels: 0th UU principle, 7th UU principle, classism, Community, indifferent corporations, pastoral care, pastoral connection, sermons

# posted by Rev J D @ 08:18 0 comments

Saturday, February 25, 2012

Phone Books: Relics of the Past

Does anybody else have this problem? The phone books arrive from a variety of companies, once per year. I have no use of them, except perhaps as a booster seat for a child at our table. I have the Internet. Every time I drag these things from our doorstep to the trash, I feel yet again like humanity is failing. Cutting down trees (or expending energy and water to recycle old paper), and making books filled with advertisements, then driving them all over the nation, delivering them door to door. Such a waste on the environment. I've asked them to stop sending them, but then I moved to a new place, or I got back on their list. These big blocks of paper just keep coming.

pax hominibus, agape to all, joel

Labels: ecology, indifferent corporations, paradigm shift, water justice

# posted by Rev J D @ 19:51 0 comments

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

A List of Things to Protest About

Just a short list for now...

Government giving away licensing of public airwaves FM frequency bands to private corporations, while not providing sufficient bandwidth to public discourse.
Two party system forces people to vote for the lesser of two evils, and not their real choice. Switch to Instant Runoff Voting
Electoral College and gerrymandering when redistricting disenfranchise certain voters and candidates.
Marijuana laws, including federal-level obstinacy with continued status as a Schedule 1 drug despite preponderance of evidence
Private banks of Wall Street controlling money supply, overleveraging, and being massively bailed out
Unfair tax structure allows richest to pay lower percentage than regular people, and dramatically less than rich had to pay during other periods
Campaign finance reform
The right to bear arms
Wars of empire
For-profit healthcare -- single payer now!
Disparities in public education
Privatization of the commonwealth
Immigration rights
US aid to Israel
End fossil fuel subsidies, invest in sustainable energy R&D
Against GMO foods and bogus organic standards for food
Equal marriage rights for all, regardless of gender.
Guarantee accessible clean water for all
....

. . lyrics: colors: mood: chant/prayer/mantra: pax hominibus, agape to all, joel

Labels: anti-oppression, indifferent corporations, politics, USA

# posted by Rev J D @ 21:20 0 comments

Thursday, July 28, 2011

Solar Power is Fastest Growing Industry in US

And it can create a ton of jobs.

I think that is one reason why solar energy is being resisted. The other reason is that it frees the consumer from being tied to rising fossil fuel prices, which the energy industry magnates do not want. Here is a brilliant comment which explains how our economy's capitalistic primary driver leaves from slashdot user fuzzyfuzzyfungus:

There is are a couple of unfortunate wrinkles in what would otherwise be true:

If you don't have money, it scarcely matters what the price of goods is. You are still fucked. For virtually everybody this impecunious, having money = having a job, not selling some bonds or re-allocating your portfolio in the direction of a higher-dividend asset assortment. Given the er... not exactly small... number of people who have fallen off this particular bus(with the additional fun that periods of joblessness do wonders for one's future prospects of being re-hired...) "jobs" as something close to an end in itself does represent a net gain for a substantial number of people.

Secondly, you say that "Ideally you would want a world where you have unlimited energy that required no money (ie jobs). This is true If and Only If the gains from increased efficiency are allocated in a manner that gives you a slice of the expanding pie. If, however, the pie is expanding; but your share of it is shrinking even faster(because whatever you do is an "inefficiency", you are quickly sliding toward point #1.

Empirically, a great many people have reason to be concerned, and to have no particular room to hope that even steady encheapening of goods will allow them to do better than tread water, since labor is definitely one of the goods being encheapened. As this [investorvillage.com] cheery little J.P. Morgan report notes, in a discussion of the improvement of corporate margins: "There are a lot of moving parts in the margin equation, but as shown in the second chart, reductions in wages and benefits explain the majority of the net improvement in margins. This trend has continued; as we have shown several times over the last two years, US labor compensation is now at a 50-year low relative to both company sales and US GDP (see EoTM April 26, 2011)."

Improvements in efficiency do you absolutely no good if somebody with more market power than you have is capturing them. This would appear to be the case. Under such conditions, the people with less market power(ie. about the bottom 95%) don't have a rational interest in efficiency; because they won't capture the gains from it. While(from the perspective of people's actual state of knowledge) the fascination with "jobs" might be largely sentimental populism, it is arguably not economically irrational. If essentially all gains from efficiency(which includes reduction in human resources costs) are being captured by people who aren't you, it is very much in your interest to demand greater inefficiency and attempt to roll back the reduction in demand for you.

Only in a society where everybody has a boat is the fact that the 'rising tide lifts all boats' a comforting one. If a substantial portion of the population is stuck in the mud, the rising tide is not a welcome development...

Here's a good link on how little subsidies the solar industry gets from the US government. It's as if the government WANTS solar to wither and die on the vine, and would prefer to have an untenable and security-problematic fossil fuel system as long as it can. Hey, what gives, America?
. .

lyrics: "it would be so fine to see your face at my door, it wouldn't have to last very long" -flaming lips
colors: green
mood: okay
chant/prayer/mantra: this is a beautiful garden, it has a dangerous guardian.

pax hominibus,
agape to all,
joel

Labels: economics, indifferent corporations, politics, renewable energy, USA

# posted by Rev J D @ 09:44 0 comments

Sunday, May 8, 2011

Two things to read

An insightful understanding of the American system, and what needs to change.

America is a second world nation. We have no universal free health care (don't kid yourself about the plan underway), no guarantee of anything really, except competitive struggle with one another for work and money and career status, if you are one of those conditioned to think of your job and feudal debt enslavement as a "career." High infant mortality rates, abysmal educational scores, poor diet, no national public transportation system, crumbling infrastructure, a collapsed economy, even by our own definition we are a second world nation.

In serious, intelligent people, experiencing non-manufactured reality usually gives lifelong meaning and insight to the work.

"This societal media software tells us what music our digitized corporate complex is selling, but you never see images of ordinary families sitting around in the evenings making music together, or creating songs of their own based upon their own lives and from their own hearts. Because that music cannot be bought and sold, and is not profitable."

And cathexis.
lyrics: colors: mood: chant/prayer/mantra: pax hominibus, agape to all, joel

Labels: anti-oppression, Capitalism, indifferent corporations, media, oppression, personal bookmarks, personal growth, politics, salvation, theological sources, USA

# posted by Rev J D @ 02:08 0 comments

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Quick list of industries that would fight against cannabis legalization

Alcohol and Tobacco companies (competing recreational interests)
Pharmaceutical companies (competing medicinal interests -- they try to derive Marinol, which is only THC)
Corn-Ethanol producers (competing with hemp, when hemp can create much more oil/acre)
Oil companies (competing with hemp oil when it's easy to grow, compared to difficult to extract)
Cotton and other textiles industries (hemp lasts longer, doesn't shrink, easier to produce)
Timber (hemp can be made into paper and similar products, plus can be grown much more quickly than trees)
Agribusiness support such as Monsanto (hemp grows SO easily and doesn't require special seeds. it's more nutritious and the seeds in cereals, etc, have more fiber)
Law enforcement (as long as hemp and cannabis are illegal, there is definite job security)
Prison industry, including the privately-run prisons (1% of US population in prison, over half that non-violent drug users..., and the prisons get paid per prisoner)
The military supply industry, and also many corporations such as Target Stores, Microsoft, Motorola, etc, because "Hey, prison labor is dirt cheap!"
Politicians whose bases believe the rhetoric. They fear that if they stand up against prohibition, they will be voted out.
Drug cartels in Mexico and the US, which make tons of money because everything they do is under the table, and they get paid a ton compared to what their product would cost if it were legal.
Cannabis growing farms for dispensaries, and all of the niches that have sprung up as a result of the "pseudo-legality" of Cannabis, such as pot-docs, ID card places, and dispensaries. With legalization, they would have to compete in a much tighter market, and the jobs of pot-docs and ID card manufacturers would dissolve. And good riddance.

pax hominibus,agape to all,joel

Labels: changing the prison paradigm, drug war, economics, indifferent corporations, oppression

# posted by Rev J D @ 22:34 0 comments

Sunday, June 6, 2010

In case the Gulf Leak Cannot be Plugged...

I've been thinking that if the Gulf of Mexico gets so very contaminated with oil and dispersants and toxins--or if the leak cannot be successfully plugged--the Gulf may need to be quarantined off from the rest of Earth's oceans.

I introduced this thusly on Facebook:

[Me] wonders how quickly a causeway could be built from the tip of Florida to Cuba, and another from Cuba to the Eastern Mexican peninsula at Cancun, in order to close off the Gulf of Mexico, if need be. Also wondering about the environmental impact of doing that, versus not doing it.

Friend: It would have to be one hell of a causeway as parts of those routes are very deep. Then, we could extract the oil caught there, process it, and open it back up?

Me: My reason for bringing it up is to protect the rest of the world's oceans, and limiting the damage from that area. If it were to continue gushing for several years or heaven forbid the leak grows in size, there's the potential that the oceans could die [and us all with them].

Me: Here's a view of what I was thinking (map (c) 2010 by Google Maps: TerraMetrics, Google, INEGI, and LeadDog Consulting).

I guess that's kind of suggesting an oceanic amputation of sorts. I'm morbidly fascinated by the logistics of the endeavor and I wonder at the idea of what this would do to weather patterns, habitats, and oceanic currents. The reason for building the causeway(s) would be trying to make the best of a potentially globally-catastrophic situation.

It would require an astonishing amount of Earth to do it. Assuming a height-width ratio of at only 1-2, of a trapezoidal prism-type shape where the top is steadily 100 meters wide, and the depth varies from about 20 meters at the coasts to 1850 meters at the deepest parts of the Florida Strait and the Yucatan Channel. Also assuming that the causeways would total about 430km (270 miles), doing a little math gives a rough estimate of the rock mass required would be to take a simple triangular prism 1850m deep, 430,000m long and 3700m wide at the base.

1.85km^2 x 430km => 1472 cubic kilometers of rock.

To put that number in perspective, that much would be the equivalent of digging out a section of Earth about the size of a major metropolis (including its suburbs) to a depth of a kilometer deep. But that estimate is a little in the high side, because we used a simple triangular prism instead of trying to work out the volume of a trapezoidal prism with varying depth, plus it's all an estimate, since I can't seem to find the proper bathymetric mapping online (Would it be too difficult to have oceanic topography freely accessible to anyone with an internet connection?). I studied math at University, but I forgot how to do double-integrals sometime around the time I received my diploma. Also, I estimated on the high side, because I doubt that the causeway could be built so steep and have integrity, so likely a causeway would need to have a lower rise/run ratio.

I realize digging up that much earth and rock would have a tremendous impact on the sources, the rock-mining sites, so we'd need to be really careful where we dig from. My guess for the Florida Strait is there's some land in Cuba, and some of the southernmost Appalachians. Though nobody really wants to hear the news that you need to tear down their mountain and toss it bit by bit into the ocean. We could get some of the finer Earth and sand from Florida to fill in between the boulders.

It would require new thinking and new scales of labor--I envision an army of solar-powered Earth-moving robots, specialized into miners and movers. The former dig it up, and the latter haul it like lorry trucks--in fact, you could haul them in electric trucks with human drivers as well. (Hooray for creating jobs!) Alternately, there could be underwater solar-powered Earth-moving robots that could mine and scour up some of the Earth below the waters of the Gulf, most notably the continental shelf just north of Cancun.

This page shows how amazingly complicated all this is because the entire Mississippi River basin flows into the gulf, yet the gulf is not large enough to dissipate off that much water into the air, so it would want to flow out from the causeway, which would essentially work like a dam unless we can find a way to use up most of the freshwater that flows through the Mississippi....

So obviously before we go into a plan like this, we need to get an honest assessment of the possible environmental impacts from the gulf leak. And the environmental impact of a big drastic change like this, plus the impact of actually implementing it. In addition, perhaps there are ways to do this other than a causeway. Perhaps the Dutch could come in and help build some serious dams.

pax hominibus,
agape to all,
joel

Labels: environment, globalism, indifferent corporations, renewable energy, salvation, sci-fi, technology, water justice

# posted by Rev J D @ 00:16 0 comments

Thursday, November 19, 2009

My question on Digg to FCC Chairman

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Dear FCC Chairman Genachowski,

With the advent of digital broadcast television, and its capacity to greatly increase the number of channels, why are the airwaves still being leased to so few entities, mostly with commercial interests in mind? It seems that the FCC has been allowing for greater corporate media consolidation and the switch to DTV would be an opportunity to change course. Why has this not been done?

We could use those extra channels to allow for a much more diversity in terms of who gets to voice their opinions publicly via mass media, which would allow for greater democracy. The cynic in me wonders if that last statement doesn't actually answer my questions. Please tell me that is not the case, and how you intend to open the airwaves to the public.

Thank you,
.......

[edit] well, i got 6 diggs only. either others aren't interested in it, or it was a case of bad timing. the results of their Q and A session will be posted on Digg on Dec 2.

pax hominibus,
agape to all,
joel

Labels: Capitalism, indifferent corporations, media, USA

# posted by Rev J D @ 18:24 0 comments

Monday, October 26, 2009

What does the clove cigarette ban tell us?

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From the FDA's website:

On September 22, 2009 a ban on cigarettes containing certain characterizing flavors went into effect. The ban, authorized by the new Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, is part of a national effort by FDA to reduce smoking in America.
According to the act

…a cigarette or any of its component parts (including the tobacco, filter, or paper) shall not contain, as a constituent (including a smoke constituent) or additive, an artificial or natural flavor (other than tobacco or menthol) or an herb or spice, including strawberry, grape, orange, clove, cinnamon, pineapple, vanilla, coconut, licorice, cocoa, chocolate, cherry, or coffee, that is a characterizing flavor of the tobacco product or tobacco smoke

In short, it's not illegal to possess them, but it is illegal to sell them. However, you can't get them anymore because nobody's able to sell. It's supposedly to keep kids from starting smoking. That lie is so easy to see through, because this legislation was supported by Philip Morris, an American cigarette manufacturer.

They're not banning menthol cigarettes, which are a major cash cow for American cigarette companies. Clove cigarettes are imported from Indonesia.
Kids who smoke haven't heard of clove cigarettes, and typically smoke marlboros or camels. The big demographic to be affected by this: people who wear black and go to Cure concerts, NOT kids.
They're not banning flavored alcohol (wine coolers, schnapps, the new Bacardi-Ice-type malt beverages, etc), which kids DO consume.
If we're serious about stopping kids from smoking, why not ban cigarettes outright? Are the big US tobacco companies still pushing it to kids overseas?

This is about US tobacco companies getting a stronger hold on the US tobacco market, by literally making the competition illegal. In fact, if you look closely, you'll note that this legislation goes against legislation in the WTO agreement that the US signed onto.

This is remarkably similar to the conspiracy of the corporate power grab against industrial hemp, except this one is obvious and right in front of us. It's hard to say where the industrial hemp suppression originally came from, but at this stage, it's obvious that it should no longer be suppressed (for environmental and economic reasons). The main reasons now for not legalizing industrial hemp are:

There actually now are competing industries (oil, ethanol, timber/paper, cotton) that don't want hemp back in the mix because it is a mighty useful plant.
It is not easy to tell from a distance whether a plant is industrial hemp or actually contains cannibis flowers on it. My guess is that as long as the war on marijuana continues, there will be little headway made against laws pertaining to growing hemp.

Compare the complexities regarding the illegality of hemp and marijuana to the simple change of making clove cigarettes illegal. The former two remain illegal because of the ability to wield a continuance of economic and social power (including the drug war's value as a tool for perpetuating a powerful institutional form of racism), and the latter is simply a bald-faced power-grab by the corporations who have the most to gain, though considering how many menthol cigarette cartons I've seen in downtown Oakland, one could build an argument that race and class play a factor in the cigarette policies as well.

pax hominibus,
agape to all,
joel

Labels: drug war, economics, indifferent corporations, interconnected web, racism, renewable energy

# posted by Rev J D @ 20:40 0 comments

Friday, October 23, 2009

Prioritize USA Energy Independence

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THIS should be right up there with healthcare reform.

What the person at the link says is mostly about Biofuels, which I think are only a part of the equation, but there is a lot of good information about algae and industrial hemp there, so that's why I put up the link.

chant/prayer/mantra: free and natural. that's how i want to be

pax hominibus,
agape to all,
joel

Labels: indifferent corporations, personal bookmarks, renewable energy, USA, yachts

# posted by Rev J D @ 17:03 0 comments

Thursday, October 22, 2009

US Debt Clock

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Check out this link, and you can see how much the US owes and has in assets, both in the government and held privately. There's a lot more I'd like to see this page become, as it doesn't tell the whole story yet. I'm going to also put a link to this on the column at the left.

There's a lot of interpretation that can be done just from this data, but I'm not going to do that right now. There are a few important numbers to look at however.

1. Note the Gross Domestic Product (upper right), and compare to the US Budget Deficit (YTD, upper-left) and the interest on Debt (upper left, a little lower). When the interest on debt grows too large, it is a drain on the economy, in that it cuts into the government's ability to pay for other programs. Who do we owe all that principal and interest to?
2. The largest (by a factor of 30!) number on the page is Currency and Credit Derivates ($589.232284 trillion at 1:30 on Oct 22). This is the fabricated money partially responsible for the big trouble we are in. I am surprised to see that it is going down, and wonder what that actually means. Is somebody actually trying to regulate this, or is this currency being pulled off the market.
3. In many of these numbers, it's not simply the numbers that are important to watch, but the rate of change of the numbers, and the rate of change of that change (the acceleration).

pax hominibus,
agape to all,
joel

Labels: Capitalism, classism, economics, globalism, indifferent corporations, oppression, personal bookmarks, politics, theological sources, USA

# posted by Rev J D @ 13:12 0 comments

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

No loitering, for birds, or people

No loitering, for birds, or people.

If you click-thru and look closely, you can see the little sharp wiry things to keep the birds from perching on this ledge about ten feet up. On this side of the block in the Tenderloin, there is nothing except this building with its alternating grey and beige stone. No doors, no windows, and a barren sidewalk. And several of these "No loitering" signs.

Labels: homelessness, indifferent corporations, oppression

# posted by Rev J D @ 18:01 0 comments

Saturday, August 15, 2009

The Problem of Plastic

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Plastic is problematic for many reasons.

First, it's made from oil, which might well be usable in other ways in the future that we haven't even thought of yet, but we're running through at a breakneck pace.
Second, it doesn't biodegrade.
Third, it's polluting our oceans and killing them. Here is some important recent information about the garbage patches in the Pacific Ocean, along with their effects.

In short, we need to:

Discontinue using nonbiodegradable plastic, and switch to other materials for our bags, our products, and our drinking/storage vessels.
Gather up all of the plastic on land and store it safely, or put it to good use where it won't go missing in the ocean, killing untolled wildlife populations.
Design some type of swimming robots that can identify and capture plastic in our oceans, and return it back to land.
Educate everybody about plastics, and find new ways of living where plastic plays a dramatically different role in our lives.

lyrics:
"Tried to save the trees
Bought a plastic bag
The bottom fell out
It was a piece of crap"
From Piece of Crap, by Neil Young

colors: color of clear plastic 6-pack can ring containers. (I always cut them up so they don't get caught on the birds' necks if they get into the wild, but really that's nowhere near enough.)

pax hominibus,
agape to all,
joel

Labels: economics, environment, indifferent corporations, interconnected web, paradigm shift

# posted by Rev J D @ 21:32 0 comments

Thursday, April 2, 2009

Rolling Stone Article on the Truth Behind the Bank Bailouts

OMG, this article by Matt Taibbi just pushes me over the edge. I've been following all this stuff since I first heard of credit default swaps a couple years ago, but this article presents all the grisly details.

Here's two quotes that kind of sum up the situation (though they are not a summary of the article itself by any means) :

"...on the linear spectrum of capitalism to socialism, where exactly are we now? Is there a dictionary word that even describes what we are now? It would be funny, if it weren't such a nightmare."

"'Actually, come to think of it, why are we even giving taxpayer money to you people? Why are we not throwing your ass in jail instead?' But before you even finish saying that, they're rolling their eyes, because You Don't Get It. These people were never about anything except turning money into money, in order to get more money; valueswise they're on par with crack addicts...."

Either we can kiss the US capitalist system goodbye, or all the common people will be wage slaves working (if they are lucky) for those who are now in the process of outright stealing trillions from the US treasury and the Federal Reserve through a non-transparent process.

It makes me think of Henry Potter, when I hear about the big banks getting access to the TARP loans and other loans, and all the regional and small banks that were much more judicious about their lending practices have not gotten any money yet? Shame on the federal reserve and the US treasury, and everyone who let it get this bad.

lyrics: "We feed the cats to the rats, and the rats to the cats, and get the cat skins for nothing!"

From How to Skin a Cat, by Husker Du

colors: Black and Red. Mostly red. Not sure whether blood red, or red ink. Or blood used as red ink.

mood: Nervous.

chant/prayer/mantra: For a return to humanity's wholeness, and not this separateness.

pax hominibus,
agape to all,
joel

Labels: classism, economics, freedom versus freedom, indifferent corporations, oppression, theological sources, USA

# posted by Rev J D @ 02:40 0 comments

Thursday, March 26, 2009

Breakfast Cereal from UAE

.

About a month ago, I went shopping at the local Grocery Outlet, and saw some sugar frosted flakes in a box on one of the aisles. It caught my attention because it had an interesting looking guy (a la Buzz Lightyear) on the front of the box. I turned the box around, and on the other side, it had the same picture, but with all Arabic writing on it, probably saying something like "Sugar Frosted Flakes."

(View full - makes a great desktop background!)

So I bought it, and I just finished eating it (Yes, I still sometimes indulge in sugar cereal), and I took pictures of it, and then I went to visit their website, nmc.ae (beware the loud cheesy music that accompanies the intro video).

Upon bopping around the site, it seems like NMC is a major UAE conglomerate, and an economic empire. Just the thought of a major corporate giant in the Muslim world gives me a lot to ponder upon. I don't get much warm fuzzies from Western corporate giants, and neither do I get the warm fuzzies from NMC, even though they have the slogan, "Together we smile."

The Muslim world has resisted the secularizing forces of capitalism, and perhaps for good reason. Yet does the existence of a corporate conglomerate like this in the Muslim world bring our cultures closer together? Or is this an example of them becoming compromised, or infected with capitalism? Or perhaps the Muslims will know how to do capitalism compassionately, basing their decisions off of Muslim principles, most notably Zakat. It makes me wonder if there are different human natures -- human natures based off of different worldviews and religious practices. Could capitalism work with a different worldview and different religion?

I also wonder what does the average person in a Muslim nation think of a large company such as NMC? Are they also subject to public relations efforts, to bias their views, as are people in the United States?

Anyway, reading about their chairman on the Corporate Governance page, I am surprised to see words written in English pushing the limits of my vocabulary, used in hyperbole, even.

"His variegated experiences in conceiving and fostering entrepreneurial initiatives found matching synergy of enthalpy in the business acumen and rectitude of Dr. B. R. Shetty, to signal the beginning of a relationship as a business mentor, trusted partner and close friend, as Chairman of NMC. Thereafter, the power of exponentials has marked the growth graph to speak the language of business, as new stars were born, littering the business firmament of NMC."

Yikes! The Muslims have learned marketing-speak! That leans toward answering the question of what kind of company NMC might be. I just had a scary thought. Perhaps this is just a front for American investments, trying to push into new markets. I'm not going to believe that thought I had (sometimes it's possible to have a thought and dispel it), preferring to believe that the people who the site says are in charge actually are in charge.

Well, they made some tasty cereal that made its way to Oakland. So they must be doing something right. Then again, I just checked out their "Hotline" page, and it seems to have gone cold to the tune of 4 years without an update. Hmmmm....

Well, as long as all the people are fed and have clothes and homes, then they're all right by my book. And I would love to hear the thoughts of my Muslim friends or from people in the general NMC marketing area, concerning their thoughts on this cereal.

chant/prayer/mantra: La ila ha illal-Lah.

pax hominibus,
agape to all,
joel

Labels: art, Capitalism, indifferent corporations, inter-faith, Islam, paradigm shift, theological sources, UAE

# posted by Rev J D @ 17:47 0 comments

Monday, March 23, 2009

John Mellencamp on the State of the Music Industry

While this piece does provide some great insight about what has happened to the music industry, it doesn't seem to have answers. I wonder if there even are any, other than to just make music and do your best to get it out there?

Here is a quote for the ages:

Nora Guthrie, Woody's daughter, once told me a story about a reception she was at where Bob Dylan was in attendance. The business people there were quietly commenting on how unsociable Dylan seemed to them, not what they imagined an encounter with Dylan would be like. When that observation about Dylan's behavior and disposition were mentioned to Nora, the response was very profound. She said that Bob Dylan was not put on this earth to participate in cocktail chatter with strangers. Bob Dylan's purpose in life is to write great songs like "Blowin' in the Wind" and "The Times They Are A' Changin'."

And another quote:

"There is no street for the music to rise up from. There is no time for the music to develop in a natural way that we can all embrace when it ripens and matures. That's why the general public doesn't really care. It's not that the people don't still love music; of course they do. It's just the way it is presented to them that ignores their humanity."

lyrics: "I see your face and you tempt my dreams."

From Photograph by Def Leppard

pax hominibus,
agape to all,
joel

Labels: Capitalism, economics, indifferent corporations, music, USA

# posted by Rev J D @ 12:02 1 comments

Sunday, November 16, 2008

Google Starting to Suck?

Well, I'm starting to wonder about Google. Not that they're distrustable with respect to all the sensitive information they hold, like they might use it for nefarious purposes. I'm starting to wonder about their programming practices.

I've been coming across bugs and unresolved issues lately. While I realize that these aren't as big of a problem as world hunger, race-relations, etc, they are little things that add up.

1. When trying to update the description up near the top that talks about the 70s PSA and the Wagon Wheel, blogger straight up fails, and shows me this error page. The Google Help group I'm invited to visit is vaguely reminiscent of other methods of shunting tech support off into a no-man's land. I don't expect somebody to come visit me, but a real place to report a bug would be nice. I have a feeling this help group is not one of those.

2. Firefox 2.0 just updated itself to 2.0.0.18, and now Gmail doesn't load, except when using https, and my Google bookmarks don't load. I tried using Firefox 3, but the Google bookmarks just silently fail there as well.

3. Google's own browser (a beta, naturally) doesn't even support Google bookmarks in any integrated way. I just need to browse to them on my portal page.

4. And for cryin' out loud, I've been requesting this for years. I can't be the only Gmail user who wants this, and Google has got to know that users would want it. PLEASE ADD A PREF TO HAVE THE AUTOSIG AT THE TOP OF THE MESSAGE INSTEAD OF AT THE BOTTOM LIKE SO MUCH ASCII DETRITUS. Whenever I respond to somebody's message, I have to scroll down to the bottom and retrieve it, and cut/paste it to the top where it belongs. Otherwise a long thread between me and another Gmail user ends up having TEN of these autosigs all just kind of hanging out at the bottom.

For example:

2008/11/10 Joel wrote:
- Hide quoted text -

Yep, I just got it today. I sure do wish I could update the text on the most visible part of my blog.
Grrr,
Joel

2008/11/4 Chuck wrote:

Oh, I hear you. Did you get the bX-rvly7y error message yet? That's the pits.
Chuck

2008/10/30 Joel wrote:

Yeah, I'm pretty good. Except that my Google bookmarks aren't working so well in Firefox or Chrome, and I'm upset about racism, sexism, homophobia, poverty, prison conditions, and the complicity of the media in these issues not getting a fair conversation. Having my Google bookmarks not working slows me down from being as effective as I'd like to be.
Joel

2008/10/27 Chuck wrote:
Hey Joel -
Super. U?

--- On Mon, 10/27/08, Joel wrote:

> From: Joel
> Subject: Hi
>
>Hi Chuck, how you doin?
>
>--
>pax hominibus,
>agape to all,
>joel
>
> http://revjd.blogspot.com/

>
> "The purpose of art is to lay bare the questions which
> have been hidden by
> the answers."
> -James Baldwin

>--
>Hugs and kisses,
>Chuck
>
>"When I do pushups, I'm not pushing myself up. I'm pushing the earth down."
>
>
>--
>pax hominibus,
>agape to all,
>joel
>
> http://revjd.blogspot.com/

>
> "The purpose of art is to lay bare the questions which
> have been hidden by
> the answers."
> -James Baldwin

>--
>Hugs and kisses,
>Chuck
>
>"When I do pushups, I'm not pushing myself up. I'm pushing the earth down."
>
>
>--
>pax hominibus,
>agape to all,
>joel
>
> http://revjd.blogspot.com/

>
> "The purpose of art is to lay bare the questions which
> have been hidden by
> the answers."
> -James Baldwin

>--
>Hugs and kisses,
>Chuck
>
>"When I do pushups, I'm not pushing myself up. I'm pushing the earth down."
>
>

I do realize that in the scope of problems in the world, this is relatively small, but being among many users who have begun to really like and trust Google and use their software tools every day, I am hoping that they will turn out fully-fledged tools, and work to get things from 90% done to 99% done. And I know there are diminishing returns, but those returns are the difference between abandonware and stuff that is adopted. So I ask again, is Google nearing (or getting to) the point where they're big enough that they don't care when their products are starting to perform poorly?

pax hominibus,
agape to all,
joel

Labels: anti-oppression, C-Nor, google, indifferent corporations, technology

# posted by Rev J D @ 02:08 2 comments

Sunday, June 1, 2008

Migrant Labor Benefits residents of China, UAE, and the United States

Here's a story about China investing in surveillance technology, and prototyping it into a network in one city, for further eventual roll-out to the rest of the country. They are spending loads of money to keep track of people who are dissatisfied with the opportunities available, instead of spending those loads of money to create more opportunities. In the process of embracing some type of totalitarian communist capitalism, they've been creating migrant workers by razing villages, and then taking advantage of their migrant status.

From the article:

While migrants can live for decades in big cities like Shenzhen and Guangzhou, their residency remains fixed to the rural community where they were born, a fact encoded on their national ID cards. As one young migrant in Guangzhou put it to me, "The local people want to make money from migrant workers, but they don't want to give them rights. But why are the local people so rich? Because of the migrant workers!"

But its not just limited to China. Waste of resources that could be used toward equalizing economic injustice, and the creation/exploitation of migrant labor seems to be a trend.

I think I previously blogged on the world's tallest building in Dubai, the Burj Dubai, and commented on how amazing it was that they were able to build it for only $2 billion dollars (U.S.). Since then, I've learned that they have a very divided class system there in Dubai, UAE, with about 60% of the population in the city as non-citizens and migrant labors. These migrant labors can be paid and exploited so that the investors can end up with awesome buildings, purchased at a cut-rate. The fact that hundreds of poorly documented day-laborers die constructing these buildings doesn't matter much in this context, since they're expendable and disconnected from their home communities.

In the United States, the whole ambivalence about undocumented immigrants from Mexico and Central America is similar to this. Having an exploitable unempowered labor force allows for less production costs (and potentially cheaper goods) in any industry able to employ undocumented workers without having to pay the going rate, or give them benefits.

In short, we are culpable, even if we don't want to be.

The solution? Change public policy regarding immigration, commerce, and re-create the social welfare network that has been undermined during the last 25 years.

When we see people wandering around, looking for work, begging for work, it becomes an employer's market, encouraging the system to keep people hungry and homeless, and denying them citizenship and its benefits if possible.

To sum up: In a society built on a social contract, whenever an individual is left to fend for him/herself, it shows a breach of the contract, and a failure of the communities that the individual is within. If a subgroup of people are left to fend to themselves, it shows a breach of contract and a failure of the greater community groups the subgroup is a part of. In this case, displaced migrant labors (in addition to being real suffering people) stand as representatives to a system that pits people against each other, and encourages abandonment.

The numbers of those abandoned by our societies is growing! From the article: "Every rural village that is successfully razed to make way for a new project creates more displaced people who join the ranks of the roughly 130 million migrants roaming the country looking for work. By 2025, it is projected that this "floating" population will swell to more than 350 million.' That's greater than the entire population of the United States. The idea that there could be a billion homeless people on this planet by 2025 mortifies me so deeply.

How deep must we dig to find the love to bind our communities together, to pool our resources, and take care of EVERYONE in a cooperative fashion? Surveillance cameras are not an answer to that question. They are an answer to the question: "How can the people who are benefiting from inequity and injustice and oppression continue to do so?" That's the kind of us vs. them thinking that exists in the kindergarten sandbox when the child won't share his toys. We need to move beyond that. Its much more complex than that, but at each level of complexity is a simplicity based on sharing and cooperation. That unravels the complexity, and we still see those who benefit from creating and sustaining competition. Many of us are unwilling/unknowing/cooperating participants. But there are many who are not participants who are only shut outside of the system, to be used, exploited, and used up. That's not the love I'm talking about. But I'm afraid if I keep rambling on, you will stop reading, so I'll stop here. Find the love and embrace it. Okay.

pax hominibus,
agape to all,
joel

Labels: anti-oppression, Capitalism, economics, freedom versus freedom, globalism, homelessness, indifferent corporations, oppression, politics, religious community

# posted by Rev J D @ 23:21 0 comments

Saturday, January 19, 2008

my favorite fractal so far

here's one that i generated quite some time ago that i really like.

lyrics: what's going on? - marvin gaye

mood: exasperated. had a bad day waiting in line at best buy store #499, then picking up our "fixed" laptop, only to have to drive back and wait in line to give it to them, after they put it back together with a missing switch, so that we can't access the internet with it. in other words, they fixed the problem and created a new one. and we will have to go without our laptop for two more weeks. :(

when i asked the geeksquad guy behind the counter if we could get an extension on the warranty or credit of some type for this total mess up on their part, i could tell he was doing his best to NOT offer anything of value to replace our lost use of the laptop and my lost saturday. what he did offer was that they would ship the laptop back out for re-repairing using overnight delivery, so that the people who made the mistake would get the laptop on monday. needless to say, we will still not ever be buying anything from best buy again, and i will heartily recommend to any readers or friends that they do likewise.

pax hominibus,
agape to all,
joel

Labels: art, computers, fractal art, indifferent corporations

# posted by Rev J D @ 18:28 0 comments

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