Wednesday, July 27, 2005

To take a moment away from the hopelessness that is engulfing people these days...I was trying to come up with stories that give me hope, and I remembered the introduction to a book I read years ago, called Is There No Other Way: The Search for a Nonviolent Future (a book I would recommend to all the cynics out there who think that nonviolence doesn't work...it is full of stories about how it has overcome even the most brutal oppression and violence)...anyway, the introduction starts with a reference to a town called Gaviotas...which I had never heard of...and after reading about it I am surprised that it isn't on the syllabus for a every classroom...the story starts like this:
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In the 60's a man called Paolo Lugari Castrillon flew over an uninviting section of the Colombian LLanos (barren plains in Eastern Colombia) and thought to himself, so the story goes, that if people could live there, they could live anywhere...so in 1971 a group of inventors, laborers and researchers set up what some have called "a village to reinvent the world"....it is now home to artists, scientists, former street children and the Guahibo Indians...200 in all...the United Nations has called Gaviotas the model for sustainable development and Gabriel Garcia Marquez has called Paolo Lugari the "inventor of the world"...
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So what is so special about Gaviotas?
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Gaviotas runs on wind, solar and hydro energy...the seesaw that the children play on is actually an efficient water pump invented in Gaviotas which can draw water out of extremely deep sources with the minimum of effort...so the children play and the village is supplied with water..
The wind turbines (windmills that supply energy) were designed to best suit the type of wind found in the area...so as you approach the village you are greeted with huge metal sunflowers turning in the breeze...
The hospital treats both the army and the guerillas (they don't ask for ID's, they just treat whoever needs help and so they are respected by both sides)... This hospital houses the patients' families in hammocks and they spend the day tending to the hydroponic vegetables in the adjacent greenhouse...(the government has asked that the hospital be closed down because they didn't have a resident surgeon, hopefully that has been or will be reversed)
The methane that comes from the waste generated by the cattle runs through air ducts to the hospital kitchen where it fires up the stove burners...nothing is wasted.
They planted a particular type of pine tree that was the only one that could grow in the harsh soil...what they now have is over a million trees which in their turn have created the right type of shelter for plants and trees that had disappeared ages ago to grow again from seeds that lay dormant in the soil...so they have given birth to a forest with over 40 spieces of plants...
The village has no prison, no police, no mayor and no laws but common sense...if anyone does something innappropriate (like an example of a store owner who addmitted to overcharging) that person is shunned until he/she makes up for the wrong..they have no locks no weapons ...and all this in the middle of one of the worst ongoing conflicts in the region..
While the US supplies the Colombian army with weapons to fight 'the war on drugs' it is actually the right wing groups and the military who are running the drug trade, and it is left wing guerrillas that are being targetted...the civilians and the country suffer in the most savege civil conflicts..and in the middle of it all is Gaviotas...
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The dream is real, my friends. The failure to make it work is the unreality. Toni Cade Bambara
Groundless hope, like unconditional love, is the only kind worth having. John Perry Barlow
(quoted from Znet)
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Gaviotas Rising: An NPR documentary
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For more on Colombia:
Colombia: Our Other War Thomas Oliphant
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Just to add another little story that I love from the same book...it is the story of a civil rights activist called David Hartsough...he was sitting with other activists at a lunch counter in Virginia in the 60's, peacefully protesting against segregation...an angry man stuck a knife to his chest and told him that if he didn't leave he would run it through his heart...David looked the man in the face and said "Well, brother, you do what you feel you have to; and I'm going to try to love you all the same"...the attacker took a moment and then dropped the knife and left crying...and that is the power of nonviolence...(p. 90-91 in Is There No Other Way by Michael Nagler)
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Tuesday, July 12, 2005

Off in the morning to the city of recent sorrows...stay safe and beautiful everyone..see ya in a few days...

Sunday, July 10, 2005

Just when we thought that FOX News couldn't get more distasteful...the reporters topped themselves...here is their reaction to the London bombings..as well as contact details in case you want to ask them why their brains misfire so often..

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Al-Qabas on Friday described the London events as a 'Baghdadi Day'...Did they mean to remind us that every day Baghdad experiences a 'London 7/7'?
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One of the world's most air polluted cities is allowing its taxis to finally go hybrid...NYC getting clean...may we say the same about Kwt soon...
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9,000 Univ. of California nurses are going to go on strike on July 21st, thanks to the policies of one Terminator...He has managed to cut their retirement plans in addition to cutting benefits for teachers and firefighters in favour of private businesses....good job Arnie..cutting the benefits of the hardest working and necessary members of society is a sign of true business genius...and your friends in privatized America will be sure to tell you that ,through their fangs, over drinks by the pool.
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us: With the thoughts you'd be thinkin'
You could be another Lincoln,
If you only had a brain
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him: And yet I'm torn apart
Just because I'm presumin'
That I could be kind-a human
If I only had a heart.

Friday, July 8, 2005

The Day after and what else was happening on thursday..

Polly Toynbee Friday July 8, 2005 The Guardian
"How barbaric, Tony Blair rightly said, that the terrorists should strike just as the G8 at least strives to do better on Africa and climate change. Yes indeed. But then barbarism is in the eye of the beholder and every act of war is justified in the warped minds of its perpetrators. Barbaric might also be 30,000 children a day dying in Africa while a mere 25,000 US cotton farmers keep their trade-denying subsidies. Or Bangladesh soon to be washed away in global-warming floods. Or arms sold to those who will force them upon child soldiers, or any number of worldwide atrocities."
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It is unlikely that London will claim to have been transformed in an instant, to have lost its innocence in the course of a morning. It is hard to knock a huge city like this off its course. It has survived many attacks in the past. But once we have counted up our dead, and the numbness turns to anger and grief, we will see that our lives here will be difficult. We have been savagely woken from a pleasant dream. The city will not recover Wednesday's confidence and joy in a very long time. Who will want to travel on the tube, once it has been cleared? How will we sit at our ease in a restaurant, cinema or theatre? And we will face again that deal we must constantly make and remake with the state - how much power must we grant Leviathan, how much freedom will we be asked to trade for our security?
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London After the Bombing
Maria Margaronis
It's not yet clear whether we'll hate Blair less or blame him more for putting us at greater risk by following Bush to Iraq. After the Live 8 concert last weekend and the Olympic bid's success, London was in a carnival mood. The bombs could not have been better timed to whiplash our emotions; their careful coordination seemed designed to maximize fear, not casualties. But so far there's no sign of demonstrations in the rain à la Madrid. Nor is this Britain's 9/11. It hasn't come out of the blue--there is no blue for it to come from anymore. It feels more like the other shoe dropping, which brings a kind of relief: Though this was terrible and there may be more to come, everyone knows it could have been much worse. After the lies that took us into war and their long-drawn-out exposure, it won't be easy for Blair to use the attacks to whip up another crusade--though they will probably speed the government's identity-card legislation. It's a cliché, but the British really are a pretty stoic lot. We've coped with bombs before, though the IRA generally issued warnings and set them off one at a time. With any luck we'll meet this with cool heads and sharp eyes--on people carrying suspicious bags, but also on our leaders.
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As up to 40 people lost their precious lives and over 1,000 were injured in the twisted blasts in London on 7/7...
Yesterday, another 1,000 lives were claimed in the humanitarian crisis in the D.R. Congo ( 3.5 million souls since 1998)....
Yesterday, somewhere in America, a different woman was raped every 90 seconds ....
Yesterday, every 2.43 seconds a child died of preventable starvation somewhere in the world....
Yesterday, AIDS had claimed"up to 22 million lives and infected over 60 million persons" since the 80's....
Yesterday, Civilian deaths in the Iraq war had reached 22,787 souls, at least....
Yesterday, one and a half acres of rainforest were lost every second...
Yesterday, the Arms trade continued to help make sure that every minute someone lost their life to armed violence...
Yesterday, 35-150 species of life became extinct....
Yesterday, someone somewhere every moment became a racist...an extremist.... a widow ....an orphan...homeless...sick...a victim... a statistic.
How are we making tomorrow a better day? Does anyone know?

Wednesday, July 6, 2005

I have been Book tagged by Valiant Contender...and it took me while before I figured out what that meant.. :) so here goes...

Number of Books I Have Read:
No idea..can't even guess ...but I will admit that there are a lot of books that have pieces of tissue or pencils in then to remind me of where I strayed and got distracted and started reading something else...not monogamous with the books i'm sorry to say.

Last book I read:
Persepolis By Marjane Satrapi...like i said before..go get it folks, really.

Number of Books i Own:
I think just under 2,000.

Books that mean a lot to me:
Conference of the Books
Khaled Abou El Fadhl
This book and his writing really helped me make my peace with the faith we were raised in but which got twisted and brutalised by the reigning orthodoxy. He wrestles Islam out of the ugly tangle of prejudices and anger and hatred and ignorance and fear that has plagued it and presents an evolving and very loving relationship with the text and the faith.

Upside Down : A Primer for the Looking-Glass World
Eduardo Galeano
This book made me laugh out loud in the subway, which is where I read most of it, and also got me so riled up about and interested in topics that had passed below the radar before. His Open Veins of Latin America is also great...and what a title.

Anything by Graham Greene...I don't know why but his writing manages to break my heart every single time..and it's so simple..

The Gift
Daniel Ladinsky's translations of short pieces by Hafiz...this was a lifesaver whenever I had nightmares or when things got icky...I would just open up a page and whatever I read made it all seem ok.

Arundhati Roy in general..her one leap into fiction and what a leap...and her essays...articles...
earthquakes. whatever you want to call them..just stuff that makes you sit up and say 'damn, that was sharp!'

The book I have been reading for a ages but could not finish:
The Corrections
J. Franzen
I have no idea why I am so slow with this..it keeps going back on the shelf and I keep pulling it back out...it has taken a tour of every tabletop and surface in the house...it will be finished someday..

I am currently reading:
Fiction: Snow by Orhan Pamuk... haunting tale about extremism, love and contradictions...
Non-Fiction: Crimes Against Humanity: The Struggle for Global Justice-Geoffrey Robertson- I like the way this is written, it tells the story of the rise of Human rights law and problems with the systems in place in a very engaging way...only 60 or so pages into it..have a ways to go.
Arabic: Samarqand- Amin Maalouf(translated from the French)- I know I'm late in the game for this one...but better than never eh..

Supposed to tag people now...so if you just read this..you are tagged..I can't list all the bloggers' bookshelves I am interested in..

Monday, July 4, 2005

Superstars and everyday folks were out in the millions on July 2nd for a cause...yes people were also there to see stars, to dance and to say they were part of history...and celebrities were there to maybe boost sales, be in front of 2 billion people watching worldwide and to say they were part of history...but that's not all...the fact that poverty is a preventable cause of death and suffering on this wealthy beautiful planet is something that should keep us up for more than one single night of star gazing and should not leave us feeling like signing a list is all we can do and therefore all we should do...It should, for one, make us wonder how we have contributed to the silence about this disgusting fact...how we contribute with the things we choose to value and seek above sharing and justice and plain brotherly sisterly love for every person on this planet...and i think, if my sister were starving, what would I do... If my brother were hungry would I sleep peacefully every night...Consume like it had no consequence...not think about my choices...not try to do something...but that's just what is happening...every minute of the day...and something that tastes of hot copper or ash suddenly hits you...and makes you stop and stare... not when you're listening to music, and not when you're watching sick and starving Africans, in photographic montages that lean and dip into mawkish paternalism...and not when you sign that list...it happens much less dramatically, in mundane seconds of your life.... something floats by very quick..like the world calling out to you, to your short time in it, to your voice and what's left of your strength... to realise that nothing is what it has to be...and if you support or not, that's not the issue...because all kinds of roads lead to justice, if that's where you're headed...so get going, read, learn, reach out and take those steps..because as ugly as it gets on this planet...it's damn beautiful too and don't you want to share that with people?
All the old talk about having to help Africa has passed.. that's not what it's about after all...The whole developing world is as much a lion and a survivor as any other region...but our system...the one that has been set up to keep the priveledged in their place and make sure it's a private party they're throwing for each other on this planet we all live on...that's what needs billions of hands together to bring down and reshape...and of course we all know, don't we, that it doesn't have to be this way...which is why people were out on the grass, in their sweat and their smiles...on a summer day all holding their hands up together and saying that they.. you ..me...we are the people of the planet and we have a voice...voices in fact..that I am sure sounded pretty lovely all singing together..in or out of tune..on one day in July...saying that billions of this planet's citizens do matter more than eight men in suits playing footsie with each other in a sealed room at a private party.

*****
Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows that the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That's how it goes
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I am one; but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something. I will not refuse to do the something I can do.
— Edward Everett Hale

What the hell is the G8?
What the hell is the problem?
G8 (Fiction and) Fact Sheet-from 50 Years is Enough
Causes of Poverty/ Third World Debt-from Global Issues
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What the hell are we going to do about it?
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Rather Watch Something and learn?
Life and Debt: film by Stephanie Black
Rich World, Poor Women: NOW with Bill Moyers/PBS

Saturday, July 2, 2005

Live 8


Updated:I watched an hour of the live feed of the live 8 concerts on MBC4 before I was actually moved..and who did it? Greenday...they kicked some behind...fired up, unafraid, angry, out there to get the people to feel something about why they happen to be there on this Saturday in July...the crowd reacted a lot more passionately to them than some of the more subdued swaying that some of the other crowds were displaying..and Berlin, where they were playing, looked like it was baking hot too..a lot of red faced people in the crowd, bless them...they actually made me pull out the blank vhs and tape and record this for history (oh memories of Live Aid... and why do I even have memories of being excited about and taping Live Aid?...I was too young to understand this stuff I would have thought) Think you remember Live Aid? Here's a quiz.
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Do you think if they had any Arabic popstars it would be a more popular event in the Middle East? Are a lot of people watching around here?
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Did it seem inappropriate to anyone that people were cheering the stars they liked the most during the 'every three seconds' ad about a child dying of poverty every 3 seconds?(opening of the Philadelphia concert)...Instead of being stung and silent by the horrible fact..the crowd screamed and clapped for Brad Pitt when he snapped his finger...or for someone else they thought was dreamy...is it that hard to separate entertainment from more serious matters?
******
Bless the Black Eyed Peas for the song they decided to open with, Where is The Love, and when they had everyone raise one finger and repeat "one love, one world"..yup, I got teary...
*****
If you don't like what's showing up on the global feed on MBC4, you can watch a specific city online..
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Prize for most heartfelt song by 8:30pm Kwt time- Annie Lennox: "Why"...She is one dedicated lady...go Annie!
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9:12 pm Kwt time-Madonna wakes the crowd up... and her dancers are fantastic...but not before Geldof tells the viewers not to give into cynicism, because a survivor of the famine in the 80's is on stage to prove the cynics wrong..and that beautiful lady stays on stage for a while when Madonna starts singing and she has the most bitter-sweet expression on her face...the cynic in me is alive and well, but is capable of appreciating all views and possibilities..
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9:50 Kanye West is on our screens and I saw him on the Philadelphia online feed two hours ago...
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Wowzers...it's like the past came and kicked me in the face...A-Ha are on at 10:10pm here singing Take on Me ...part of me wants to giggle, another part of me says "what are you laughing about, remember the 80's? you were there"...and then Will Smith and DJ Jazzy Jeff come on to remind me once again...
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Where the hell did Celine Dion come from? Suddenly her Vegas show is on in the middle of this all at 11pm...I need a good night's sleep people, it's cruel to suddenly put scary things like that on without a safety warning...(sorry to the many Dion fans I know we have in this country, I just can't handle it)ok ok..nice of her to contribute and all...
*****

Sign your name HERE to tell the G8 that you think we should make poverty
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history
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A few hundred millionaires now own as much wealth as the world’s poorest 2.5 billion people.

Global priorities in spending in 1998
Global Priority
$U.S. Billions
Basic education for everyone in the world 6/ Cosmetics in the United States 8 /Water and sanitation for everyone in the world 9 /Ice cream in Europe 11 /Reproductive health for all women in the world 12 /Perfumes in Europe and the US 12 /Basic health and nutrition for everyone in the world 13 /Pet foods in Europe and the US 17/ Business entertainment in Japan 35/ Cigarettes in Europe 50 /Alcoholic drinks in Europe 105/ Narcotics drugs in the world 400/ Military spending in the world 780

There is nothing like dream to create the future. Utopia today, flesh and blood tomorrow.
Victor Hugo


Live 8 Starts today...for the lineup see the BBC or the live 8 site itself...

Bob Geldof: An open letter to the leaders of the G8-The Independent



Why I won't be watching Live 8
By David Stubbs



"More than half the wheelchair users with tickets for London's Live 8 concert will be unable to attend, due to insufficient allocated space" BBC
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"BBC News website profiles a small sample of the many big African artists who some critics say should have been included at the show."
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MBC4 will have coverage of Live 8 starting at 5pm i believe...technorati is tracking Live 8 Blogs---The Guardian has a special report----Check globalissues.org for an easy to read background to poverty, 3rd world debt, globalisation and all the stuff that will put these events into perspective---

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A history of ending poverty: Tom Paine's ideas are still ahead of today's campaigners-Guardian

We have it in our power to begin the world over again. --
Thomas Paine, The Crisis Papers, 1783

The world has more than enough resources to accelerate progress in human development for all and to eradicate the worst forms of poverty from the planet. Advancing human development is not an exorbitant undertaking. For example, it has been estimated that the total additional yearly investment required to achieve universal access to basic social services would be roughly $40 billion, 0.1% of world income, barely more than a rounding error. That covers the bill for basic education, health, nutrition, reproductive health, family planning, and safe water and sanitation for all.
United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report, 1998
Quotes from the Vernal Project site