January 2008 archive

An Open Letter To America

Happy New Year America! I hope you are enjoying the holiday season and I really don’t want to harsh your hangover or anything, but there are a few things I want to say to you. I don’t want to come off sounding superior, or even suggest I am condemning you…I’m not.

I know how consuming and complex life in the 21st Century is, I know how hard you are working, I know how many errands you have to run and how hard it is to keep up with the housework and the kids schedules and how your weekends are eaten up by the all the chores around the house. I know you don’t have much time to relax…let alone time to think about stuff that is just…well…. unpleasant to think about.

And that is what I am going to ask you to do for a few minutes in this letter.

Not Necessarily Stoned, But Beautiful…

James Marshall Hendrix would have been 65 years old on November 27, 2007.

What great music would he have given us since 1970 if he had stuck around a bit longer?

This is, IMO, the best song he ever wrote and played, and is the epitome of his guitar virtuosity:

Happy late birthday, Jimi…

If you can just get your mind together

Uh – then come on across to me

We’ll hold hands and then we’ll watch the sunrise

From the bottom of the sea

Trumpets and violins I can – uh, hear in the distance

I think they’re callin’ our name

Maybe now you can’t hear them,

But you will, ha-ha, if you just

Take hold of my hand

Ohhh, but are you experienced?

Have you ever been experienced?

Not necessarily stoned, but beautiful…

Can I move back to 1970 now?

Barack Obama will change the system part 3



photo courtesy of SEIU International on Flickr used under this Creative Commons license.

So far I have wrote about Barack Obama’s strong stands on public financing of elections and media reform. Today I am going to talk about his work making government more transparent and more ethical. These are area’s were he has gotten the most bills passed into law so hopefully this should be a interesting post.  

The Army’s Other Crisis

cross-posted from Daily Kos

is the title of an important piece in Washington Monthly, subtitled “Why the best and brightest young officers are leaving”.   Written by Andrew Tilghman, it provides the statistics that let us understand that the leadership of the Army is effectively broken, now and for the future.

Consider the following:  of the West Point Class of 2002, 58% left the Army upon completion of their minimum 5 year commitment.  Or on a larger scale, consider this:

In the last four years, the exodus of junior officers from the Army has accelerated. In 2003, around 8 percent of junior officers with between four and nine years of experience left for other careers. Last year, the attrition rate leapt to 13 percent. “A five percent change could potentially be a serious problem,” said James Hosek, an expert in military retention at the RAND Corporation. Over the long term, this rate of attrition would halve the number of officers who reach their tenth year in uniform and intend to take senior leadership roles.

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Finding Light in the Darkness

My wife, Leslie, and I both read Buhdydharma’s essay yesterday on Circles and Cycles, Light vs. Dark and The Biggest Picture. We thought it would be appropriate to post an entry Leslie wrote for our blog about how we use faith and light and faith in the light as the focus of our family Christmas celebrations.  The Sahaj Marg meditation practice my wife and I have both subscribed to for years uses Divine Light in the heart as the object of meditation. Interestingly one of the suggestions for deepening meditation is to meditate an hour or so before sunrise, i.e. at the night’s darkest and coldest point. The reason for this is that the strongest connection that someone can make to their internal light is when the heat is withdrawn from the external world and it is at its darkest and coldest. It is easier to see the light inside when it is as its darkest outside.

Material woes and miseries offer special opportunities for a person to progress spiritually.  When darkness is encompassing the world as it is these days, this gives the collective human population a great opportunity to evolve spiritually. The darkness gives us an opportunity to go within, find the inner light and allow it to shine. The darkness creates a sense of urgency and a craving for light.  In any life, it is the difficulties and how one responds to those difficulties that defines that life. An artist who can turn his or her suffering into art is considered a great artist. An athlete who mounts a four quarter comeback against all odds, snatching victory from defeat, defines their career in these challenging moments.

The world is now entering a very dark phase. There will be suffering but there will also be unique opportunities for our species to spiritually evolve so that in the end we may have a society of saints and Masters. My wife and I are working according to this belief to guide our children in many areas for this eventuality.

This past Christmas I posted an essay here about our Christmas in the Barn. My wife posted a companion essay on our blog called “Our Christmas Eve ‘Faith in the Light’ Celebration” that talks about how we incorporate discussing faith in the return of the light with our children during the dark winter holidays. The Christmas Eve we celebrated together was quiet, meaningful and bolstered us to face the rest of the winter (both in the microcosm and in the macrocosm) with calm strength.

who wants to live forever?

What is this thing that builds our dreams yet slips away from us

Who wants to live forever  

Who wants to live forever?  

 

I watched as you passed by and thought I felt your breath for just a moment on my face, a gentle faerie vapor in the still air of the night. I brushed your hand in my dreams with my hand, an ethereal transfer of warmth from my flesh to spirit to your incorporeal flesh. That moment of space between life and death was filled, again, too briefly with transient comfort of your presence.  

But touch my tears with your lips

Touch my world with your fingertips

And we can have forever

And we can love forever

(also published in modified format at Dailykos)

Pony Party, 2008

Happy New Year

Happy New Year Comment Graphics

Comments & Glitter Graphics for Myspace, Hi5, Orkut, Friendster

Happy 2008 From Docudharma

This is a New Year

New Years Headlines: An Odd Couple With Big Influence: It’s Huckabee on offense, or not: After Ruling, Groups Spend Heavily to Sway Races: Race to save moulding Lascaux cave paintings: 2008: The year a new superpower is born

Doctors Cite Pressure to Keep Silent On Bhutto

By Emily Wax and Griff Witte

Washington Post Foreign Service

Tuesday, January 1, 2008; Page A01

RAWALPINDI, Pakistan, Dec. 31 — Pakistani authorities have pressured the medical personnel who tried to save Benazir Bhutto’s life to remain silent about what happened in her final hour and have removed records of her treatment from the facility, according to doctors.

In interviews, doctors who were at Bhutto’s side at Rawalpindi General Hospital said they were under extreme pressure not to share details about the nature of the injuries that the opposition leader suffered in an attack here Dec. 27.

Muse in the Morning

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Muse in the Morning

Pains

The Damage Done

Aches and pains

of muscles and bones

of nerves and organs

are bearable

when old injuries

to the psyche

have been soothed

when the twinges

of a fragile confidence

the throbbing

of squandered initiative

and the millions of stings

that punctured

a too slim veneer

of self-esteem

have been given

tender care

–Robyn Elaine Serven

–March 4, 2008

Muse in the Morning

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Muse in the Morning

The muses are ancient.  The inspirations for our stories were said to be born from them.  Muses of song and dance, or poetry and prose, of comedy and tragedy, of the inward and the outward.  In one version they are Calliope, Euterpe and Terpsichore, Erato and Clio, Thalia and Melpomene, Polyhymnia and Urania.

It has also been traditional to name a tenth muse.  Plato declared Sappho to be the tenth muse, the muse of women poets.  Others have been suggested throughout the centuries.  I don’t have a name for one, but I do think there should be a muse for the graphical arts.  And maybe there should be many more.

Please join us inside to celebrate our various muses…

01/01/08

Want to Impeach? Here’s “The Year in Evidence”

Somebody send this to Wexler:

2007: The Year in Evidence

This is from AfterDowningStreet.org, and it’s a mind-blowing list of the massive evidence of high crimes and misdemeanors from the Bush administration in 2007 alone.  

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