Tag: protest

Monthly Detritus Report (10-12)

More random chatter from the Monkey Mind as it leaps from limb to limb, howls, scratches its balls and flings feces at passersby…

  • 01
    • Hope you had a great Blasphemy Day! Did you blasphemed yesterday? It felt good, didn’t it?
    • “It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all — in which case, you fail by default.” ~ J.K. Rowling
    • I often get them confused. “I said let’s go join a Buddhist colony! Buddhist!”
  • 02
    • Punctuation can save a life. “Let’s eat Grandpa.” vs. “Let’s eat, Grandpa.”
    • Conformity usually involves the sacrifice of one’s identity and one’s individuality and sometimes one’s principles.
  • 03
    • Why is chkdsk so slow? I’ve had root canals that were quicker and more enjoyable.
    • Only work order today was for a PC and monitor that would not power on. When I entered the office I noticed that the power strip was not plugged into the outlet. Do ya think that had anything to do with it?
    • Hatha Yoga at Day Yoga Studio. Great practice. The time on the blocks was heavenly.
  • 04
    • “What were once vices are now fond memories.” — me, just now.
  • 05
    • RT @yisforyogini: “Defy your own group. Rebel against yourself.” ~ Cathy Guisewite
    • Who is Marilyn Trumbull and why do I need to get the latest on her? Is she someone I should know?
  • 06
    • Nothing memorable posted today.
  • 07
    • “I don’t trip. I do random gravity checks.” That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
    • Working on a few little projects around the house.
  • 08
    • “We have been programmed to consume foods that do not nourish, buy things we do not need, borrow money we will never have, marry though we do not know how to love and live without questioning the meaning of life. How can we embody our unlimited potential if we all follow nearly identical life paths? More importantly, how can we expect our planet to sustain us as we blindly follow paths to destruction?” We can change the program.
  • 09
  • 10
  • 12
    • RT @DepressedDarth: Padme and I are never ever ever ever getting back together.
  • 14
    • I’ve found most of the veggies for the cleanse. Next on my agenda is to replace a headlamp bulb and find the seeds and the other stuff.
    • Replacing the headlight bulb turned out to be much simpler than anticipated. I take back all the terrible things I said earlier today about GM engineers. Sometimes they get it right.
  • 15
    • First attempt at kitcheri ws a disaster. Did not bear any resemblance to any kitcheri I’ve ever seen. Rice porridge, while not a disaster, still counts as a failure. Very abbreviated yoga practice. Feeling tired, hungry and unclean this morning. On the other hand, the CCF tea turned out okay.
  • 16
    • Love the Nude Beach Planet!
    • “The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those that speak it.” ~ George Orwell
    • Good read. Why Life is So Difficult Today (and Mankind in Such a Mess) ~ Ben Ralston
    • “When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.” ~ Alexander Graham Bell
    • I’ve let go of Marilyn Trumbull. Alas, I never really knew her. Nevertheless, I wish her well. Live long and prosper, Marilyn.
  • 17
    • RT @yisforyogini: “Truth makes happy, truth liberates.” — Nisargadatta Maharaj
    • Great hatha yoga class this evening at Day Yoga Studio. Surprised myself going into Salamba Sarvangasana from Setu Bandha Sarvangasana. I’ve always had trouble with that but tonight it just happened.
  • 18
    • Pretty good practice this morning but yesterday’s magic did not repeat itself. The magic is like that. It comes when you least expect it, not when you call for it.
  • 19
    • And government marches on…blindly. Free Online Education Is Now Illegal in Minnesota ~ Will Oremus
    • Turkey Season — I shot my first turkey yesterday! Scared everyone in the frozen food section. It was awesome! Gettin’ old is so much fun…
    • Saw this in my Twitter feed this morning. Don’t know who said it but I like it: “A good life is when you assume nothing, do more, need less, smile often, dream big, laugh a lot and realized how blessed you are.”
    • Bonus quote of the day: “Normal is not something to aspire to, it’s something to get away from.” — Jodie Foster
    • Not looking for the 4.5 lbs I lost this week. Don’t miss them.
    • Squat everywhere — The Squat Song
  • 20
    • “When you start to tell lies you enter a very dangerous arena, a grey world where black and white blur into one, and right and wrong lose their meaning. And one day you will find yourself an altogether grey person, because you will have started to believe your own lies.” The latest Yoga Scandal? Or you prefer to read about Truth? ~ Ben Ralston
    • “The tragedy of life is not that it ends so soon, but that we wait so long to begin it.” ~ Author Unknown
    • It’s sad that the protest songs of the 60s & 70s are just as relevant now as they were then. Has anything really changed? — Sunshine ~ Jonathan Edwards
    • “Your work is not to drag the world kicking and screaming to a new awareness. Your job is to simply do your work … Sacredly, Secretly, and Silently … and those with ‘eyes to see and ears to hear’, will respond.” — The Arcturians
  • 22
  • 23
  • 25
  • 26
    • Why Tantra? A Personal Story ~ Nicole Taylor Linehan
    • Upgraded from ADSL to U-verse. Have my network all reconfigured and working. Not sure what I’m going to do with the TV/DVR box. I’ll give them back eventually. I just wanted faster Internet.
  • 27
  • 28
    • Trust the process, don’t rush it. I’ve been learning that lesson this past week. On Gateways and Trusting the Process ~ Sadhana for One
    • It doesn’t matter what you believe. What matters is what you do. “Welcome Great Pumpkin”
    • Sunday hatha yoga at Sri Yoga Center.
  • 30
    • I always liked old Ben. “It is the first responsibility of every citizen to question authority.” — Benjamin Franklin
  • 31
    • For some reason my droid is sucking too much power. Have to charge it 3 to 4 times a day and that’s with an extended battery. Haven’t installed any new apps. Even the original OEM battery is dead after a couple hours.

Compiled from this month’s Twitter and Facebook entries.

Through the Past Darkly

I think I started this blog in 2005. I know it’s been through a couple incarnations. Now and then (actually quite often) I like to peruse random posts here. It’s interesting that many of my views on politics, religion, and the general state of the world haven’t changed much. Well, the rants are pretty much unchanged. Sometimes I get the feeling that no one is listening to me.

In the same time period I have gone through a lot of crap (much of it of my own creation) and been through a lot of changes (hopefully for the better). I know that nothing is permanent and that change is inevitable but it seems that a lot of things in the world have not really changed all that much. I see the same sort of shit going on now that I saw in the sixties. The technology has changed but all we’ve done about the other shit is change the names, places, and labels.

Listen to some protest songs from the sixties. Fifty some years later these songs have lost none of their relevance. They may actually be more relevant. Just change a few names and locations. It’s the same shit, just with different spellings.

Protest and Activism

The United States was founded on protest and activism. What the founders thought of protest is an interview with historian Joseph J. Ellis about how our founding fathers might look upon today’s activism.

Many of the founding fathers felt that the activism that brought about the American Revolution was justified but they tended to tone it down afterward, believing that it should be channeled through the ballot box. Some of them, such as Sam Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Ben Franklin would probably understand and appreciate much of today’s protests and activism. Adams might be leading a Tea Party. Jefferson would probably have problems with today’s lobbyists and special interest groups. I think Franklin would probably understand it best and be able to be a voice of reason.

Here are a few points from the interview:

  • Jefferson believed that a little rebellion now and then was good for the tree of liberty.
  • For them [George Washington and John Adams], mob action was something that had served a purpose but could now be channeled into organized political activity. They didn’t object to dissent in an organized fashion.
  • The founders thought groups like political parties or lobby groups were dangerous violators of the principle of public service, that they were narrow and sectarian in their goals. They thought there was no real place for parties in the republic.
  • Mob actions were very organized in those days. The leading citizens of the community would be pulling the strings and the goal was to make a political statement.
  • The American commitment abroad would have a lot of critics since we now look like the British Empire. We are the hegemonic power of the day and, theoretically, a republic can’t be an empire. That would give virtually all of founders except Hamilton a great deal of trouble.
  • The person who would be able to understand us best is Benjamin Franklin. He was the most agile and would have found a way to ingratiate himself with people opposing the banking industry or even American foreign policy. He’s the one who translates into the present with greatest ease.

I tend to be a bit Jeffersonian in my views but I can certainly appreciate the views of the other founding fathers. I agree with Jefferson in his idea that people have the obligation to oppose a government that strays from its true purpose and I honestly believe that the government has strayed and we have the government they warned us against. It’s broken and it needs to be fixed in a methodical, rational way that restores us, as much as possible, to the vision they had for this nation.

However, I’m generally not in favor of public demonstrations and picketing as forms of protest. When I see demonstrations and protests, I usually suspect the credibility of those who organize them and they negate my belief in and my empathy for the cause. Raising awareness and educating people about an issue are worthy and noble pursuits but there has to be a more effective way to go about it. Perhaps a more subtle approach is needed, making people think without them realizing they’re thinking and reaching them without hitting them over the head. [Edit – I’ve since realized that most Americans don’t respond to subtlety. Nor do they get concepts like sarcasm and parody (except as vehicles for entertainment).]

How do you do this? I have no idea. I’m probably living in some Jeffersonian utopia where the government that governs least governs best and individual liberty is prized. But it seems like it would be a good place to live.