Remembering Gandhi by Jeff Knaebel

Remembering Gandhi by Jeff Knaebel:

"I believe that Gandhi was totally correct when he said 'We must be the change we wish to see.' The point where change must occur is at the individual, personal level, multiplied by about 6 billion. As the cartoon character Pogo said, 'We have met the enemy and they is us.'

Once when Gandhi’s great friend, the Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore, was visiting a Bedouin camp in Iraq, the chief told Tagore, 'Our prophet has said that a true Muslim is he who, by his words and deeds not the least of his brother-men may ever come to any harm.' Tagore then noted in his diary, 'I was startled into recognizing in his words the voice of essential humanity.'

As I speak, the country of my birth is systematically, in cold-blooded calculation, destroying the Iraq of which Tagore spoke. When the killing will stop, no one knows. I stand before you with a deep sense of shame. My country’s actions are a stain upon humanity.

...Arundhati Roy, the Indian winner of the Booker Prize for literature, wrote in The Algebra of Infinite Justice '… a world laid waste by America’s foreign policy: its gunboat diplomacy, its nuclear arsenal, its vulgar policy of ‘full spectrum dominance’, its chilling disregard for non-American lives, its barbarous military interventions, its support for despotic dictatorial regimes, its merciless economic agenda that has munched though poor countries like a cloud of locusts…The International Coalition Against Terror is largely a cabal of the richest countries in the world. Between them, they manufacture and sell almost all of the world’s weapons, they possess the largest stockpile of Weapons of Mass Destruction. They have fought the most wars, account for most of the genocide, subjection, ethnic cleansing, and human rights violations in modern history. They have worshipped, almost deified the cult of violence and war…""

Truth is Perception

More funny at the link. Good stuff.

a life in the day of cheezygoof: 10 truths (depending on your perception):

"10 TRUTHS BLACK AND HISPANIC PEOPLE KNOW, BUT WHITE PEOPLE WON'T ADMIT:

1. Elvis is dead.
2. Jesus was not White.
3. Rap music is here to stay.
4. Kissing your pet is not cute or clean.
5. Skinny does not equal sexy.
6. Thomas Jefferson had black children.
7. A 5 year old child is too big for a stroller.
8. N' SYNC will never hold a candle to the Jackson 5.
9. An occasional BUTT whooping helps a child stay in line.
10. Having your children curse you out in public is not normal.

...10 TRUTHS WHITE AND HISPANIC PEOPLE KNOW, BUT BLACK PEOPLE WON'T ADMIT:

1. O. J. did it.
2. Tupac is dead.
3. Teeth should not be decorated.
4. Weddings should start on time.
5. Your pastor doesn't know everything.
6. Jesse Jackson will never be President.
7. RED is not a kool-aid flavor, it's a colour.
8. Church does not require expensive clothes.
9. Crown Royal bags are meant to be thrown away.
10.Your rims and sound system should not be worth more than your car."

"...asking what it 'really' is, where we are 'really' going, is so very much the wrong question."

Alchemical Braindamage:

"It's like Jacques Vallee has said; when you look at contact-type experiences as a whole, the only thing they really have in common is a confounding of rationality. But at the same time there's always enough loose threads there for the paranoid or the skeptic to weave something out of whole cloth. It's like you have the option at all times to go pronoiac or paranoiac. The experience is meant to shove you definitively one way or another. You could grab your rifle and hit the rooftops, start some idiotic cult or newsletter... Or you could change your whole life, heal your spirit or have the knowledge and conversation of the holy guardian angel.

...It's up to us to decide what we want, where we want to go with our world. Down into the toilet, or to the mountaintop? And I fear that asking what it 'really' is, where we are 'really' going, is so very much the wrong question. I do believe there is free will, and I do believe there is an intention, a purpose to the universe. And all that purpose can do is set the stage. If we chose to sail off the cliff, that's up to us, and if we can choose to step up and take on our true intended station on this planet, or in the universe, that's up to us too. But what's certain is that we are being MADE to decide, and decide soon.

A lot of us will break towards the low road, aligning ourselves to anger and fear and false appearances, what Steiner called the 'old moon'. The poisonous delusions and despair of the dark night dragging them under forever. And a lot of those folks will think of themselves the way my friend would do in that situation: fighting against the darkness, rifle clutched in hand, living like a hunted animal in an endless terrorscape. He wouldn't have betrayed himself, but he wouldn't have lived up to everything he was gifted with.

It is what we make it."

"I used the WCM approach all through my marriage with--I thought--pretty good results. Needless to say, I am now single again."

The Dilbert Blog: The WCM Method:

"Today I will teach you the most important rule about getting along with your mate.

The biggest relationship mistake you can make is to assume that because you have some special training or knowledge on a topic, that your opinion should be extra important. You could be the world’s most respected expert on insects, for example, but if your mate insists that caterpillars grow into chipmunks, there will be no talking him or her out of it. You could try saying, “I have a doctorate in bugs, I know what I’m talking about” but your mate will hear “I am an overbearing ass pimple who doesn’t know a fly from a suspicious mole.”

So forget about how much you know, or how smart you think you are, or how much extra information you might have recently collected. That will not help you. Instead, I offer you the only solution: The WCM Method.

WCM stands for Who Cares Most. If you want your relationship to have a chance, defer all decisions and interpretations of fact to the person who cares the most.

In practice, this will mean that women will make 98% of all the decisions and be “right” 98% of the time. Compared to men, women care more passionately about just about everything. Men mostly scratch what itches and call it good. BOCTAOE.

Many women and some men who read this blog will sharply disagree with my gross generalization. To you I say with all sincerity, “You’re right. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

See how easy that is?"

I hate bicycle helmets

Treehugger: Helmets - for whom? Cyclists or Motorists?:

"As anticipated, we had a flurry of comments, wondering why the riders weren’t wearing helmets. This question raises many others that are rarely asked. Like why don’t motorists ride buses, instead of driving cars? Because buses are 25 times less likely to cause a motor vehicle death than cars. And if in 2004, there were 37,142 driver/occupant US road fatalities, compared to 725 pedacyclist deaths, why it is that cyclists should wear helmets and not motorists? (and it can't be because there are less bicycles out there, ‘coz we already know that bike sales exceed cars.)

It might be illegal, in some jurisdictions, to ride a bike without a helmet, but when cancer is the second greatest cause of death, in the USA for example, it’s perfectly legal to smoke cigarettes, a known cause of cancer. Another report suggests that while deaths and injuries did fall in Australia after it was made compulsory for cyclists to wear helmets, that the number of cyclists also fell, by 40%. An issue noted by the British Medical Association, who holds the “long-held view that compulsion could discourage cycling, which would have a negative overall effect on public health. It has always maintained that the health benefits of cycling outweigh the risks.” And has rejected the idea that cycle helmets should be compulsory. Let’s not lose sight of the bigger picture here. Designing cities to include cycleways as legitimate public thoroughfares, not some tack-on to existing roadways will save many more lives (from increased exercise, and from less direct contact with automobiles). Bikes helmets are not preventative medicine, they are merely bandaids."

Be an interesting place to work...

Overheard in the Office: The Voice of the Cubicle - 1PM Lunch:

"Software Engineer: We had free pizza today to celebrate sexual harassment or something like that. I didn't really pay attention. I just got the pizza."

LSD Tested on British Troops - Google Video

This is a brilliant old video of an LSD test on British Troops.

"One hour and ten minutes after taking the drug, with one man climbing a tree to feed the birds, the troop commander gave up..."

Because everyone should know what a labiaplasty is.

Love Me, Love My New Labia / Because nothing says "Happy Valentine's Day" like stimulating plastic surgery. As seen on TV!:

"Where have you been that you haven't heard of, say, labiaplasty, the happy cosmetic reconfiguration of the outer labia of the vagina for purposes of, well, the happy reconfiguring of the outer labia of the vagina for cosmetic and beautification purposes? Makes for a fabulous proof of your love.

It's simply the latest thing. It's simply the hottest trend alongside Brazilian Butt Lifts and Six Pack Tummy Tucks and "Gummy Bear" breast implants (named for the new silicon material that resembles the beloved candy in heft and general squishiness and, one likes to think, overall addictiveness) and hymen-reattachment surgery (!) and male pectoral implants and the umpteen other newfangled cosmetic procedures that are marketed like some sort of bitchin' sports drink by celeb-wannabe L.A. surgeons and which are right now being featured on hideously moribund and yet strangely fascinating shows like "Extreme Makeover" and "Dr. 90210" and in the back of high-end Condé Nast nouveau yuppie magazines you should never read.

These are the things you need to know. This is the world in which we live and the culture about which we fight like drunken cats to make sense of, and it is my belief that you simply cannot go through this modern world anymore without knowing that increasing numbers of men are getting uncircumsized (cosmetic foreskin reconstruction) and women are getting their labia reconfigured like a '69 Trans Am on "Pimp My Ride."

I am not sure what to make of this. I am split down the middle like a manly calf muscle awaiting a new silicon insert. Is it cause for wanton celebration, a championing of the radical utopian idea that we should be absolutely free to mold and shape our fragile but oh-so-transitory vessels as we see fit for this brief bizarre mutant thing we call life and why the hell not?

Or is it something to be dreaded and mistrusted and even mourned, a loss of humanity and our connection to nature and the careful processes of time? Is it a little bit of both?

The line of what's acceptable and what we're capable of and what we should allow for our bodies is ever shifting, baby, and it's all you can do you make sure it doesn't get drawn across your face."

The Chicken in the 'Verse

FIREFLYFANS.NET:

"***Why did the chicken cross the road?***

Mal: Because the other side of the road was the only place it could live life on its own terms, without being meddled with.

Zoë: Because that’s where the job was, Sir.

Wash: It followed a really hot girl chicken that could kill it with its pinky. Do chickens have pinkies? No? We’ll I don’t know then.

Jayne: The money was better over there. (mutters) Lousy seven percent...

Kaylee: To meet shiny new chickens and see the sights.

Simon: That’s where the Alliance was hiding its sister.

River: To get to the other side.

Inara: It just suddenly, for no apparent reason, decided to pick up and abandon the luxurious life it had on this side of the road. That’s not odd, is it?

Book: It was a pilgrimage. Wracked with guilt over the atrocities it had committed, the chicken decided to devote the remainder of its life to God in a desperate search for redemption. Just a guess.

Jubal: What did you say? Am I a road?

YoSafBrige: Because you were over there, sweetie.

The Operative: The chicken’s motivations are not my concern. Getting it across the road is. "

It's a "Full House" indeed.

Noted because the last time we were in Japan, "Full House" was the only American show that was regularly on TV here. I grew to detest it, even more than it probably deserved.

[Now, of course, it's "Jessica Obasan No Jikembo" that's on constantly. That'd be "Murder, She Wrote". I'm beginning to hate that old woman. Hoping maybe, just maybe, once she'll be the victim.]

Also, apparently Jodi Sweetin/Stephanie Tanner grew up to be a bit of a hottie.

Which makes me feel a little dirty now.


FOXNews.com - Foxlife: Entertainment and Lifestyle News - Meth Addiction Led Jodie Sweetin of 'Full House' to Live 'Double Life': "The actress who played cute little Stephanie Tanner on the 1990s hit sitcom 'Full House' confessed yesterday to battling an addiction to methamphetamine.

'I was leading a total double life,' Jodie Sweetin, 24, said yesterday on 'Good Morning America.'"

YouTube - Brokeback to the Future

Everything can be made gay.

[This is hilarious]

"We're from the government. We're here to help."

"...cops are not on our side. They aren't your friends, they aren't here to help, and they don't want to hear your side of the story."

Video of a San Bernardino Sheriff's Deputy shooting an unarmed man who appears to be complying with orders. | MetaFilter:

"Video of an unarmed man being shot by a San Bernardino Sheriff's Deputy while appearing to comply with orders.

Senior Airman Elio Carrion, 21, had been riding as a passenger in a Corvette that was involved in a brief, high-speed chase with the deputy that reached speeds of 100 mph before the Corvette crashed into a fence, authorities said. The videotape, shot by Chino resident Jose Luis Valdes, shows Carrion sprawled on the ground and repeatedly telling the deputy, 'I'm on your side.' The deputy then seems to shout, 'Get up!' after which Carrion appears to lean forward. 'I'm going to get up, all right?' he says. The deputy then fires his gun three or four times from about five feet away. 'Shut … up, you don't get up …!' he shouts. Moaning in pain, Carrion responds: 'You told me to get up.' The deputy then radioed in to dispatch that shots had been fired. [LA Times]"

Wired News: LSD: The Geek's Wonder Drug?

Wired News: LSD: The Geek's Wonder Drug?:

"BASEL, Switzerland -- When Kevin Herbert has a particularly intractable programming problem, or finds himself pondering a big career decision, he deploys a powerful mind expanding tool -- LSD-25.

'It must be changing something about the internal communication in my brain. Whatever my inner process is that lets me solve problems, it works differently, or maybe different parts of my brain are used, ' said Herbert, 42, an early employee of Cisco Systems who says he solved his toughest technical problems while tripping to drum solos by the Grateful Dead -- who were among the many artists inspired by LSD.

'When I'm on LSD and hearing something that's pure rhythm, it takes me to another world and into anther brain state where I've stopped thinking and started knowing,' said Herbert who intervened to ban drug testing of technologists at Cisco Systems.

Herbert, who lives in Santa Cruz, California, joined 2,000 researchers, scientists, artists and historians gathered here over the weekend to celebrate the 100th birthday of Albert Hofmann, the Swiss chemist who discovered LSD here in 1938. The centenarian received a congratulatory birthday letter from the Swiss president, roses and a spontaneous kiss from a young woman in the crowd."

GWB sets land speed record for being full of shit.

KRT Wire | 02/01/2006 | Administration backs off Bush's vow to reduce Mideast oil imports:

"One day after President Bush vowed to reduce America's dependence on Middle East oil by cutting imports from there 75 percent by 2025, his energy secretary and national economic adviser said Wednesday that the president didn't mean it literally."

We have too many laws in America

Cheese? Seriously?

CDFA > Public Affairs > Press Release:

"CDFA dairy foods investigators, working with local law enforcement on a multi-agency rural crime task force, have seized 600 pounds of illegally produced soft, fresh cheese, also known as “bathtub cheese,” at a ranchette near the community of Perris.

...Other agencies joining CDFA on the multi-agency task force were the Riverside and San Bernardino county sheriff’s departments, the Ontario Police Department, and the Riverside County departments of environmental health and code enforcement."

Black comic book characters

The Absorbascon: BHM 2: Tempest:

"Joshua Clay, like apparently all black American characters in comic books, came from the mean streets of somewhere and got involved in gangs. He got in trouble with The Law, and was given the choice of jail or enlisting in the army, a concept so wrong I scarcely have the strength to discuss it."

Ah yes, this feels relevant.

Alchemical Braindamage:

"I've recently felt it important to consciously balance the 'slant' of the site more towards the middle, and away from the excessively catastrophic and doom based. In keeping with the thoughts expressed here, I am being more careful about deliberately 'selling' a particular view, especially to myself.

On a more personal note, I'm very concerned right now with moving my personal view more in the direction of enthusiastic optimism. Y'see, lately the biggest disconnect has been between my objective experience, which is undoubtedly of a higher quality in terms of constructive complexity and productive personal growth than ever before, and my felt experience, which has increasingly been wracked by tension, anxiety, feelings of looming pressure, and most recently cataclysmic paranoia, and borderline psychosis.

What I've come to understand is the hidden trap inside the idea of 'struggle'. The idea that I have to struggle to become happy, productive, positive and a fully realized person. This is doubtless a carry-over from my youth where I was surrounded by a family rife with crime, depression and addiction, generally disaffected and antipathetic toward society, unhappy, and lonely. It seemed my life at that time was nothing more than a struggle to not go under. It never occurred to me to simply change my view of life."

Oh sweet, sweet irony. You really can't make these things up.

Police Officers Sue Over Police Surveillance of Their Protests - New York Times:

"The demonstrators arrived angry, departed furious. The police had herded them into pens. Stopped them from handing out fliers. Threatened them with arrest for standing on public sidewalks. Made notes on which politicians they cheered and which ones they razzed.

Meanwhile, officers from a special unit videotaped their faces, evoking for one demonstrator the unblinking eye of George Orwell's '1984.'

'That's Big Brother watching you,' the demonstrator, Walter Liddy, said in a deposition.

Mr. Liddy's complaint about police tactics, while hardly novel from a big-city protester, stands out because of his job: He is a New York City police officer. The rallies he attended were organized in the summer of 2004 by his union, the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, to protest the pace of contract talks with the city."

Everything you ever need to know about the State of the Union address

Overcompensating: Actual Things That Happen to Jeffrey Rowland: Cake or Death:

"Did you guys see the 'President' last night? I didn't. If I wanted to be condescended by someone less intelligent than me I'd go to the indie record store."

Waxing nostalgic

Overheard in the Office: The Voice of the Cubicle - 12PM Find New Intern:

"Worker #1: Yeah, maybe he wasn't the best intern.
Worker #2: How was I supposed to know he'd go off his meds?
Worker #1: He sure did love opening mail, though.
Worker #2: Yeah. He sure did love opening mail."