vedana.net

Everyone, you have an assignment, to be completed before October 6th, when I'll be back from Vipassana course #6. Rent a copy of the movie "Baraka" and watch it, and we'll discuss it here. The significance of this image in relation to the conversation below will immediately be apparent to you.

Okay, so who the f*ck was Camilla Rhodes?

The word blog is one of the words that OED has drafted for probable inclusion in the dictionary. So, I guess we can all shuffle off our hip attitude and happening persona. The trend is over, blogging is now just another word, like skeevy or perp walk. [via birdhouse]

Happy Birthday to Jonas, who turns ?? today. The Vipassana course starts in about half an hour, so I'll be handing Jonas the keys to the blog for the next few weeks, while I'm busy dissolving my ego and trying *not* to think. To kick things off, here's an article at the New Times LA that's sure to piss a few people off... ;) [link courtesy of Jonas]

Any of you remotely interested in cause of the 11/9/2001 (and no, that's not a typo) terrorist attacks should read this book by Noam Chomsky, ASAP. I just read it here in New Plymouth and it lays out the whole story, cutting straight to its root. Well, maybe not the _whole_ story, because nothing ever goes that far, but at least describes everything you're not hearing from the mainstream media. You do want to hear the rest, don't you? Or are you afraid you might not like what you discover?

Jimmy Carter: "These unilateral acts and assertions increasingly isolate the United States from the very nations needed to join in combating terrorism." [via Matt B.]

I'm taking off shortly for New Plymouth, where I'll be hanging out with my friends from Te Ihi Tu, a Taranaki-based prison rehabilitation program (scroll down to #5). They teach Vipassana as the first step, and I'll be sitting the September 10th 10-day course with the new group of guys entering the program. The idea is to include members of the community in the courses (both sitting and serving), to show the guys that people in the "outside" world are also doing Vipassana.

Hawke's Bay is also home to the longest place-name in the world. As you can see, it confounds me. See if you can pronounce it- "wh" sounds like the letter "f" in Maori. Perhaps Professor Norris could enlighten us with an audio clip of the correct pronunciation? I'd gladly post it for all to hear! ;-)

You know spring is here when the sheep start lambing! The weather in Hawke's Bay has been phenomenal, I've had a t-shirt on every day. Shorts yesterday as well, when I did the Cape Kidnappers Walk. Finally, warm weather! See, the seasons down here are opposite those in the northern hemisphere. Remember? It's been *winter* down here while most of y'all have been sweating through summer in the US and Europe.

Excellent stickers! [via Kottke]

Despite the abundance of bandwidth (thanks Hamish) in which I can freely bask here in Wellington, I'm driving to Hawke's Bay Tuesday afternoon to hang with friends for a few days. I hear there's a HBMUG meeting Tuesday night, hopefully they won't mind a Yank crashing the party.

Tony Alexander, my old R.A. from freshman year/Scott Hall at Miami, is now blogging. Check it out.

He brings my number of BlogChildren up to 6, after Dan, Chuck, Goehl, Jonas, and Sieburg. Am I forgetting anybody?

0wnz0red, by Cory Doctorow. [via Matt H.]

I've said it before and I'll say it again... Bandwidth, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways! (posting from CityLink HQ in Wellington)

Casey West: "It was obvious that we needed to liberate ourselves from the phone companies. Any normal person would have stopped at this point and bought two-way radios. For better or worse, I'm not a normal person. I'm a geek, a geek beyond reason. A wireless network was in order."

...

"Meng and dha connected using talk on Schwern's laptop and we spent a good 100 miles just finding things to talk about. That's what happens when you work hard to build something that's minimally useful."

...

"There was one major problem that destroyed our network. If a large truck drove directly between us is creates the same effect as a careless backhoe discovering your fiber network."

...

"All I know is that my friends and I made the most out of an otherwise boring all-day drive. Wireless networking has thousands of undiscovered applications with no end in sight. Do your part to uncover the useful bits."

New York Times: "In-N-Out, founded on the West Coast in 1948, is that rarest of chain restaurants: one with a cult following. Exalted both by hamburger fans and those who normally shun fast food, it has built its reputation on the rock of two beliefs: fast food should be made from scratch, and the whims of the customer should be entertained."

Salon on Steve Earle: "Anyone who listens to the song knows that I'm not telling you to send your kids off to the Taliban. Taking it out of context, listening to snippets of it and then railing about Jesus and patriotism is just sort of silly."

[via Matt "I need to start a weblog ASAP" B. ;) ]

W.R. McDougall, Open Letter to America from a Canadian: "Go get your ten-billionth burger, America. Fatten your already fat asses with bacteria-and-hormone-ridden meat and do nothing as you sit stupefied before your mind-numbing television sets awaiting the next episode of sad families being humiliated on "Cops."

...

"If you had your druthers, you would right now gather your courage, take to the streets and march on Washington D.C in the millions. But I know you will do no such thing. The vast majority of you are spiritually, emotionally and intellectually dead."

Doc Searls: "Hardball politics isn't guys in makeup yelling at cameras on Crossfire. It's right here, where bloggers are digging holes under icons that are falling like statues of Lenin."

Go Doc Go!

Robert Fisk: "After all, if the Bush administration is so keen on war, it better work out the difference between Hollywood and the real thing. Yet what we've been getting is a movie version of reality, a work of fiction to justify the prospect of "war without end". It started, of course, with all the drivel about "crusades" and "war against terror" and "war against evil", the now famous "they hate us because we are a democracy", and the "axis of evil."

Rick Mercier: "We'd have leveled a number of countries--including Israel--a long time ago if we were really interested in enforcing the will of the U.N. Heck, for that matter, we'd be contemplating a pre-emptive strike against most American conservatives, too."

...

"But here's a news flash for you luminaries: We don't go to war with a tyrant simply because he brutalizes his own people. When Hussein gassed the Kurds, not only did the Reagan-Bush administration not go to war against him, it retained him as a valuable ally."

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"The weak arguments in favor of invading Iraq have obscured an embarrassing truth that the attack-Iraq crowd doesn't want to confront--namely, that if we were serious about targeting the countries that support the terrorists who really threaten us, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan would be at the top of our list. But they're not. Instead, they're both key allies in the 'war on terror.'"

BBC News, re: Arundhati Roy: "To be an anti-national suggests that you are against that nation and therefore pro some other nation. I am deeply suspicious of nationalism. I am terribly worried about flags." [via Sieburg]

CSMonitor: "Like political candidates, judges who have to run for office need to raise money – and more of it than ever before. Between 1996 and 2000, state supreme court candidates, on average, doubled the money they spent on races. In Ohio, the race for chief justice cost $100,000 in 1980. In 2000: $2.7 million."

Sean Gonslaves: "The root of the humanitarian crisis in Iraq is the lack of adequate water and electrical supply systems, which were intentionally destroyed in the Gulf War by U.S. bombs. With the sanctions blocking the contracts and materials needed to repair Iraq's infrastructure, thousands of innocent Iraqi children die each month of easily treatable, water-borne diseases in a country whose health care system was so advanced prior to the sanctions regime that the biggest problem facing Iraqi pediatricians was obesity."