Thursday, December 23, 2010
Monday, December 20, 2010
Re-Inventing Christmas to save it
We adults are free to re-imagine Christmas in a way that pleases us. We are allowed to not buy anything. We may go to church or not, go to the in-laws or not, get a tree or not.
When you are a kid, you live amidst the rituals of your family and society, and there's little wiggle room. But as adults, it's completely pleasing to accept and reject the traditions that we love or hate.
I am agonized by the gluttonous consumption. Much of my distaste for Christmas comes from the TV ads, who snort all the beautiful holy and true and cough out tinsel to hang on their products. So I reject the consumerism and the buy-buy-buy. I saw a study that said people rarely had stuff they bought a year later, and Christmas gifts were even less likely to be retained. It's a small planet, people, we can't afford to be whole-hogging the resources that we don't need.
But as much as I hate the the corporate consumerist Christmas, and I groan at that season's arrival every year, so too, every year I am seduced by Christmas and it's ability to expose a deeper humanity.
Christmas is the one seasonal holiday in America that's really still observed society wide, everything closes, things slow down, people are nicer to each other because it would be dickish to be so douschy so near Christmas.
This year I've been going to Dorset's congregational church. It's a beautiful marble building, made in 1784, filled with tastefully psychedelic stain-glass windows. Further, the Holy Spirit is in the room there, one can feel it, a pulsing current, a deep hum. Last week they did a sweet Christmas pagent, with twenty kids playing the parts: sheep, wisemen, Mary, everybody. I like singing the hymns that somehow automatically catapult your consciousness into relationship with the Divine.
There are few young people in church these days. Perhaps if they felt more freedom to reinvent the traditions in a way that worked for them, they'd be more into it.
When you are a kid, you live amidst the rituals of your family and society, and there's little wiggle room. But as adults, it's completely pleasing to accept and reject the traditions that we love or hate.
I am agonized by the gluttonous consumption. Much of my distaste for Christmas comes from the TV ads, who snort all the beautiful holy and true and cough out tinsel to hang on their products. So I reject the consumerism and the buy-buy-buy. I saw a study that said people rarely had stuff they bought a year later, and Christmas gifts were even less likely to be retained. It's a small planet, people, we can't afford to be whole-hogging the resources that we don't need.
But as much as I hate the the corporate consumerist Christmas, and I groan at that season's arrival every year, so too, every year I am seduced by Christmas and it's ability to expose a deeper humanity.
Christmas is the one seasonal holiday in America that's really still observed society wide, everything closes, things slow down, people are nicer to each other because it would be dickish to be so douschy so near Christmas.
This year I've been going to Dorset's congregational church. It's a beautiful marble building, made in 1784, filled with tastefully psychedelic stain-glass windows. Further, the Holy Spirit is in the room there, one can feel it, a pulsing current, a deep hum. Last week they did a sweet Christmas pagent, with twenty kids playing the parts: sheep, wisemen, Mary, everybody. I like singing the hymns that somehow automatically catapult your consciousness into relationship with the Divine.
There are few young people in church these days. Perhaps if they felt more freedom to reinvent the traditions in a way that worked for them, they'd be more into it.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Spring Him: The Gospels According to Ocean's 13
Peter had the idea at first but it was Thomas who really ran with it. Peter was sort of daydreaming and said “What if we bribed the Roman guards?” And Thomas snapped out of his morose mood and was into a military planning mood in about two seconds flat.
“Holy One, God of the angels, look after your children in the here and now and please, please bless this endeavor” Thomas said, with a quick and sincere Inward turned invocation to the Divine. You know, first things first.
Then he turned to Peter, and said, “Good idea, brother. We are absolutely going to pull this off. God willing.”
The mood in the room changed pretty fast after that. We’d been a morose bunch since the Garden of Gesemany when the Romans had yanked Our Brother, with dogs barking and people crying. The religious elites and the Romans and the Banksters had conspired to put on that shady show trial. He was jail right then and set to be executed tomorrow. We had been feeling more than a little blue. But in an instant all that changed. A disciplined energy came over the team. We had been through some tight scenes before, and had pulled through, and that spirit had returned suddenly.
Everyone pulled up to the table, and started talking at once for about five seconds until Thomas yelled “shut up!”
Then we made the plan, and debated tactics and strategy as swift and orderly as we could.
“My sister grows the herbs that we can us to stop the bleeding on his hands. Comfrey, calendula flowers, rosemary. She probably knows a few others” I said.
“Good, Simon” said Thomas, “Get the herbs, but be cool about it. Don’t let her know what they are for. We can’t have the whole town knowing that this is going down, or the Romans will get tipped off.”
“How am I supposed to ask her which herbs to give us without telling her, Thomas? ‘Ah sis, so just hypothetically speakin, if I wanted to stop the bleeding gushing out of big holes in the center of somebodies hands, what herbs might be good for that?’” I said.
“Is she trustworthy?” asked Thomas.
“Yes” I said.
“OK, tell her but swear her to secrecy and she’s not to come tomorrow. The less people who know what we’re up to at the event, the better” said Thomas. He continued, “Bribing the Romans. Not an impossible task” hands in prayer position, beneath his lips, but eyes far-off in thought, thinking aloud, “A lot of those guys got stolen from their families by the Emperor’s army, and don’t give a damn about anything but wine and women, and maybe going home someday.”
“But, the officers, not so much” said John. “They can be a disciplined bunch. They have stuff to lose. Mostly they’re literate.”
We debated it for a while. In the end, we decided to bribe the soldiers and work around the officers. It seemed a better plan. The officers might not go for it or might demand more money than we could pull together. Besides, the trial was big news all over Judea, the elite were watching close. The money swine were still grumbling about the way Jesus turned over the tables at the temple. But we figured the soldiers would be more pliant. (As a backup plan, we decided to keep a big bag of gold in case we need to bribe the officer.)
We decided to offer them all gold coins worth 3 months of their pay upfront, to be followed by 20 gallons of wine and another 3 months pay if it went off. It was Peter, the fisherman, who had bribed a few Romans before, he worked up the deal. He was a hard-living guy before he got spiritualized. But you know how it is, the Lord turns your talents towards His purposes as He sees fit.
Luckily Our Brother had made some rich friends as he walked around healing everybody. Lazarus’s uncle had offered him a 10 acre fig plantation, but he had said just laughed and said “Thanks, but I’m into different fruit.” He made poor friends too, he just was a sort of a charming walking love factory. One of his main disciplines was a rich merchant, and he also had a cave outside of Jerusalem, that we agreed would be the perfect place to get Him well again afterwards.
We were a psyched and happy bunch that night. It seemed possible that we could get away with it. The Romans were notoriously easy to bribe. We could just get them to turn the other way at the last minute, and then boom, whisk him down, off we go, let him rest up for a few days, and then disappear back to India, where he could live out his days until he was a happy, old man with a big grey beard and some wrinkles but that same big smile. Maybe a few children running around, who knows?
A lot of it fell into place pretty quickly and with general agreement. Who to get the loot from, where to get the herbs, where to get the opium to knock him out with.
There was only disagreement about whether to tell Mary or not. Peter said “we just can’t tell her. She’s sweet. She won’t be able to fake it.
“It will break her heart if we don’t. We have to tell her.
“No! She’ll blow it. She’s an innocent, she’s not actor, she won’t put it off.
The debate got fierce.
Peter won in the debate in the end. Mary shouldn’t know, if she got super emotional at the event, it would help the show. Besides, she’d understand later.
We also decided to keep it under raps even from some of the other disciples. We were not the most trusting bunch after what happened with Judas. It’s true, he’d always been a bit of an outsider. Yashua had let him hang around because he wanted us to stretch our hearts. He said that if God wanted to redeem this guy, then who were we to say no.
Peter had never liked Judas and had given a lengthy discourse on how he was going to gut him like a fish and disembowel him. But by then, it wasn’t necessary. Sad, that whole thing. Betrayal. A backbiter. Bad ally etiquette. You gotta be a good ally to your friends. Stick with ‘em. Stick together. It’ s hard enough to get things done in this world, without the egomaniacs who don’t know how to work together.
So we decided to try and tell as few people as possible. The people who were at the first meeting were the one’s who know. It was about half. The others we’d let act as decoys.
There was debate about whether to tell Yeshua himself. We all knew the story of Socrates. That great teacher was condemned to death by hemlock and for the sake of truthfulness had taken it!
We decide to tell him. We figured that if he thought he was really dying he might hold out, but if he knew he was faking, he could just go into deep prayer and meditation and make the body like a corpse. He had learned some really super tricks in India. He could make his heartbeat slow way down. He could turn inward so deeply that you could poke him with a stick and he’d gaze at you with peaceful eyes. He’d be soon entranced in union with the Divine that the body was like toy boat on the surface of a deep, deep ocean, and he was identified with the ocean.
When to tell him, though? We decided to try and get him the message as soon as possible. We didn’t want to risk passing
information along through the jail. We’d figured we’d try to get him the message when he was carrying the cross through Jerusalem. If not, we’d say something at the hill when we fed him the opium drink.
Peter agreed to arrange from a doctor friend for a hefty dose of opium, a big pain killer, mixed with some kava kava root from the spice traders. That should keep him peaced out hopefully stop the trauma and shock from settling into his flesh. But also hopefully conscious enough so that he could meditate and do his super-samadhi trick.
We ended our meeting with one of the most intense prayer sessions of my life. Everybody was filled with sincerity, in part because we wanted it so bad and perhaps in part because we remembered Yashua telling us “A Sufi teacher named Ibrahim once told me ‘God hears all sincere prayers.’ And in my experience that has been true.”
The next day everybody reconvened over a working lunch of bread, olives, oil.
Peter said “It’s funny, when I first got the idea to spring him, it came in a sort of daydream. The idea was fully formed, complete and perfect, all filled in, nothing missing. I feel it was a kind of Divinely guided dream. In this vision, Yashua came to me and said, ‘what about pulling a sly one on the day? I’ll do my deep meditation yogic sleep technique and appear dead. You can convince the guards to pull me down early. The bigwig rabbis will race off for shabbat because of sunset, and then you’ll have a reason to pull me down. We can drag out the walk though town, making it a late arrival so sunset is closer. Down I go, and back to India. We have gotta win our victories.”
“But what if it’s God’s will?” said John.
“What do you mean?” said Thomas.
“What if it’s God’s will that he be sacrificed? You know, like say, as some kind of sacrificial lamb, a perfect sacrifice to atone for the sins of all mankind” said John.
“Our Brother is not a sacrifice animal. Besides, if God’s will that he dies, then we won’t get away with it tomorrow. And anyway, “I and the Father are One”, right?” said Thomas. “ Humanity and Divinity can reach union where they are of united will. Thy Will be done. We are surrendered fully, fully in service to God, and we want this, so why wouldn’t Our Father want it for us?”
The next day, John had gotten the herbs from his sister. The rich disciple with the cave had come up with the loot.
The Romans had Him walk through town with his cross. Peter approached him, slipped him the medicine, whispered “it’s all set up, just drag out the walk, deep meditate on the cross, and we’ll pull you down.” Yashua said “A fine plan. Thanks for listening” and winked.
When the first nail went in, He said “oh, that’s going to leave a mark!”
By the time he was on the cross the sun was setting. The crooked rabbis were there to see their dirty work was done, but as soon as the first nail went in, they turned and left for the shabbat meals and rituals. Perfect.
The Roman guards happily took our money. We pulled him down shortly after.
Putting the limp body into the wagon, and rolling away, when we were out of site of the Romans, Thomas whispered, “Are you with us brother?” Yashua smiled a little opened one eye and said “Is God good?” We shared a moment of intense happiness that was contained in a tight box of our acting sad still.
We took him up to the cave. He rested and got feed great food for 2 days. His hands were as big as melons, wrapped in bandages made of comfrey leaves.
Then Mary cut his hair and beard and we took him north to Galilee semi-hidden in the back of a wagon.
The funny thing was, the other disciples saw him on his way out of town, it was a dusty road, twilight, but they didn’t recognize him until afterwards. And then the tomb was empty, and there was a little bit of a stir about that. But nobody really thought much about it.
He was around for a few weeks, making a pass to say goodbye to a few beloveds.
He left town in a horse drawn cart, partying in the back with couple of us. I was playing the drum, Thomas the lute, He was chanting the holy names. When we got to the last knoll where you could see Jerusalem, He stood up on the back of the rolling cart and said “Goodbye Jerusalem, I love you. And you Romans and religious phonies, I got one word for you... Suckerfish!” We all laughed.
Some of the disciples followed him to India, to beautiful mountains and lakes of Kashmir, where He lived a long and happy life.
“Holy One, God of the angels, look after your children in the here and now and please, please bless this endeavor” Thomas said, with a quick and sincere Inward turned invocation to the Divine. You know, first things first.
Then he turned to Peter, and said, “Good idea, brother. We are absolutely going to pull this off. God willing.”
The mood in the room changed pretty fast after that. We’d been a morose bunch since the Garden of Gesemany when the Romans had yanked Our Brother, with dogs barking and people crying. The religious elites and the Romans and the Banksters had conspired to put on that shady show trial. He was jail right then and set to be executed tomorrow. We had been feeling more than a little blue. But in an instant all that changed. A disciplined energy came over the team. We had been through some tight scenes before, and had pulled through, and that spirit had returned suddenly.
Everyone pulled up to the table, and started talking at once for about five seconds until Thomas yelled “shut up!”
Then we made the plan, and debated tactics and strategy as swift and orderly as we could.
“My sister grows the herbs that we can us to stop the bleeding on his hands. Comfrey, calendula flowers, rosemary. She probably knows a few others” I said.
“Good, Simon” said Thomas, “Get the herbs, but be cool about it. Don’t let her know what they are for. We can’t have the whole town knowing that this is going down, or the Romans will get tipped off.”
“How am I supposed to ask her which herbs to give us without telling her, Thomas? ‘Ah sis, so just hypothetically speakin, if I wanted to stop the bleeding gushing out of big holes in the center of somebodies hands, what herbs might be good for that?’” I said.
“Is she trustworthy?” asked Thomas.
“Yes” I said.
“OK, tell her but swear her to secrecy and she’s not to come tomorrow. The less people who know what we’re up to at the event, the better” said Thomas. He continued, “Bribing the Romans. Not an impossible task” hands in prayer position, beneath his lips, but eyes far-off in thought, thinking aloud, “A lot of those guys got stolen from their families by the Emperor’s army, and don’t give a damn about anything but wine and women, and maybe going home someday.”
“But, the officers, not so much” said John. “They can be a disciplined bunch. They have stuff to lose. Mostly they’re literate.”
We debated it for a while. In the end, we decided to bribe the soldiers and work around the officers. It seemed a better plan. The officers might not go for it or might demand more money than we could pull together. Besides, the trial was big news all over Judea, the elite were watching close. The money swine were still grumbling about the way Jesus turned over the tables at the temple. But we figured the soldiers would be more pliant. (As a backup plan, we decided to keep a big bag of gold in case we need to bribe the officer.)
We decided to offer them all gold coins worth 3 months of their pay upfront, to be followed by 20 gallons of wine and another 3 months pay if it went off. It was Peter, the fisherman, who had bribed a few Romans before, he worked up the deal. He was a hard-living guy before he got spiritualized. But you know how it is, the Lord turns your talents towards His purposes as He sees fit.
Luckily Our Brother had made some rich friends as he walked around healing everybody. Lazarus’s uncle had offered him a 10 acre fig plantation, but he had said just laughed and said “Thanks, but I’m into different fruit.” He made poor friends too, he just was a sort of a charming walking love factory. One of his main disciplines was a rich merchant, and he also had a cave outside of Jerusalem, that we agreed would be the perfect place to get Him well again afterwards.
We were a psyched and happy bunch that night. It seemed possible that we could get away with it. The Romans were notoriously easy to bribe. We could just get them to turn the other way at the last minute, and then boom, whisk him down, off we go, let him rest up for a few days, and then disappear back to India, where he could live out his days until he was a happy, old man with a big grey beard and some wrinkles but that same big smile. Maybe a few children running around, who knows?
A lot of it fell into place pretty quickly and with general agreement. Who to get the loot from, where to get the herbs, where to get the opium to knock him out with.
There was only disagreement about whether to tell Mary or not. Peter said “we just can’t tell her. She’s sweet. She won’t be able to fake it.
“It will break her heart if we don’t. We have to tell her.
“No! She’ll blow it. She’s an innocent, she’s not actor, she won’t put it off.
The debate got fierce.
Peter won in the debate in the end. Mary shouldn’t know, if she got super emotional at the event, it would help the show. Besides, she’d understand later.
We also decided to keep it under raps even from some of the other disciples. We were not the most trusting bunch after what happened with Judas. It’s true, he’d always been a bit of an outsider. Yashua had let him hang around because he wanted us to stretch our hearts. He said that if God wanted to redeem this guy, then who were we to say no.
Peter had never liked Judas and had given a lengthy discourse on how he was going to gut him like a fish and disembowel him. But by then, it wasn’t necessary. Sad, that whole thing. Betrayal. A backbiter. Bad ally etiquette. You gotta be a good ally to your friends. Stick with ‘em. Stick together. It’ s hard enough to get things done in this world, without the egomaniacs who don’t know how to work together.
So we decided to try and tell as few people as possible. The people who were at the first meeting were the one’s who know. It was about half. The others we’d let act as decoys.
There was debate about whether to tell Yeshua himself. We all knew the story of Socrates. That great teacher was condemned to death by hemlock and for the sake of truthfulness had taken it!
We decide to tell him. We figured that if he thought he was really dying he might hold out, but if he knew he was faking, he could just go into deep prayer and meditation and make the body like a corpse. He had learned some really super tricks in India. He could make his heartbeat slow way down. He could turn inward so deeply that you could poke him with a stick and he’d gaze at you with peaceful eyes. He’d be soon entranced in union with the Divine that the body was like toy boat on the surface of a deep, deep ocean, and he was identified with the ocean.
When to tell him, though? We decided to try and get him the message as soon as possible. We didn’t want to risk passing
information along through the jail. We’d figured we’d try to get him the message when he was carrying the cross through Jerusalem. If not, we’d say something at the hill when we fed him the opium drink.
Peter agreed to arrange from a doctor friend for a hefty dose of opium, a big pain killer, mixed with some kava kava root from the spice traders. That should keep him peaced out hopefully stop the trauma and shock from settling into his flesh. But also hopefully conscious enough so that he could meditate and do his super-samadhi trick.
We ended our meeting with one of the most intense prayer sessions of my life. Everybody was filled with sincerity, in part because we wanted it so bad and perhaps in part because we remembered Yashua telling us “A Sufi teacher named Ibrahim once told me ‘God hears all sincere prayers.’ And in my experience that has been true.”
The next day everybody reconvened over a working lunch of bread, olives, oil.
Peter said “It’s funny, when I first got the idea to spring him, it came in a sort of daydream. The idea was fully formed, complete and perfect, all filled in, nothing missing. I feel it was a kind of Divinely guided dream. In this vision, Yashua came to me and said, ‘what about pulling a sly one on the day? I’ll do my deep meditation yogic sleep technique and appear dead. You can convince the guards to pull me down early. The bigwig rabbis will race off for shabbat because of sunset, and then you’ll have a reason to pull me down. We can drag out the walk though town, making it a late arrival so sunset is closer. Down I go, and back to India. We have gotta win our victories.”
“But what if it’s God’s will?” said John.
“What do you mean?” said Thomas.
“What if it’s God’s will that he be sacrificed? You know, like say, as some kind of sacrificial lamb, a perfect sacrifice to atone for the sins of all mankind” said John.
“Our Brother is not a sacrifice animal. Besides, if God’s will that he dies, then we won’t get away with it tomorrow. And anyway, “I and the Father are One”, right?” said Thomas. “ Humanity and Divinity can reach union where they are of united will. Thy Will be done. We are surrendered fully, fully in service to God, and we want this, so why wouldn’t Our Father want it for us?”
The next day, John had gotten the herbs from his sister. The rich disciple with the cave had come up with the loot.
The Romans had Him walk through town with his cross. Peter approached him, slipped him the medicine, whispered “it’s all set up, just drag out the walk, deep meditate on the cross, and we’ll pull you down.” Yashua said “A fine plan. Thanks for listening” and winked.
When the first nail went in, He said “oh, that’s going to leave a mark!”
By the time he was on the cross the sun was setting. The crooked rabbis were there to see their dirty work was done, but as soon as the first nail went in, they turned and left for the shabbat meals and rituals. Perfect.
The Roman guards happily took our money. We pulled him down shortly after.
Putting the limp body into the wagon, and rolling away, when we were out of site of the Romans, Thomas whispered, “Are you with us brother?” Yashua smiled a little opened one eye and said “Is God good?” We shared a moment of intense happiness that was contained in a tight box of our acting sad still.
We took him up to the cave. He rested and got feed great food for 2 days. His hands were as big as melons, wrapped in bandages made of comfrey leaves.
Then Mary cut his hair and beard and we took him north to Galilee semi-hidden in the back of a wagon.
The funny thing was, the other disciples saw him on his way out of town, it was a dusty road, twilight, but they didn’t recognize him until afterwards. And then the tomb was empty, and there was a little bit of a stir about that. But nobody really thought much about it.
He was around for a few weeks, making a pass to say goodbye to a few beloveds.
He left town in a horse drawn cart, partying in the back with couple of us. I was playing the drum, Thomas the lute, He was chanting the holy names. When we got to the last knoll where you could see Jerusalem, He stood up on the back of the rolling cart and said “Goodbye Jerusalem, I love you. And you Romans and religious phonies, I got one word for you... Suckerfish!” We all laughed.
Some of the disciples followed him to India, to beautiful mountains and lakes of Kashmir, where He lived a long and happy life.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Cancun climate talks off to beautiful start on-line. Have a Watch Party!
Check out great video on-line from the U.N. climate negotiations in Cancun, Mexico. The UNFCC.int event website has live streaming from the event, and yesterday’s events available on demand.
Watching climate negotiations in Cancun online can be pretty inspiring, like a TED Conference video binge meets planetary survival think-tank/diplomat theater.
On-line you’ll find the Climate Action Network gave a good summary of what’s on-the-table at negotiations. “Cancun can be be the calm after Copenhagen’s political storm, a calm where we can get some real progress made for poor people” said Tim Gore of Oxfam, who notes that the UN process allows poor countries to be heard.
Look for the inspirational nature video, (about 46:30 minutes into the very interesting Opening Plenary/ Welcoming Ceremony.)
So why not play five hours of this content while you clean your kitchen. Or better yet, invite friends over for a watch party!
To spice it up, play the Cancun Watch Party Drinking Game. Suggested rules: gather friends and favored beverages. Watch the event on-line and drink when you hear the word “mitigate” “transparency” or “350 parts per million.” Drink every time you feel patriotic. Drink if you have lovin' feelings for the U.N.. Make a toast to Mother Earth every time you hear “Rights for Mother Earth.” And so forth.
Seriously, though, people should watch the Cancun process, because the more public attention that is on this process, the more our political leaders will want to do something. Like it or not, these UN proceedings is the most serious forum for dealing with the climate crisis at the moment. We need an educated citizenry on the Climate issue, so please gather and tune in!
Here are some of the topics being negotiated. UN climate chief Christiana Figueres talked about four places to make a deal: climate adaptation measures, clean technology transfer to poor countries, forestry protection, and creation of an international climate fund.
Cancun is a U.N. meeting of countries that signed the Kyoto Protocol to assess what can be done to make it work better. Or according to the official website jargon, “COP16/CMP6 is the 16th edition of the Conference of Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP) and the 6th Conference of Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties of the Kyoto Protocol (CMP). “Parties” refers to all the national states that signed and ratified both the international treaties...”
The meeting is being held at a big resort in Cancun, on the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico. Delegates and media are meeting at the Moon Resort, while other events happen around the city. Civil society will be given space to get their ya-ya’s out, in a 5000 person auditorium billed as an Expression Zone. That’s an improvement to many international meetings where the public and NGOs are kept away by barricades and tear gas.
Still, it’s a private party compared to Cochabamba. The Cochabamba Summit was far more vital and interesting than Copenhagen. Held in April 2010 as a response to Copenhagen, the World People’s Summit on Climate Change and Rights for Mother Earth was a model of inclusive participatory democracy and open process.
Cochabamba created the vast, intelligent and radical Cochabamba Accords that Bolivia is trying to include into the negotiations this year in Cancun. The Cochabamba Accords call for a goal of temperature increase as 1 or 1.5 degrees, rather than 2 degrees, as industrialized nations favor. (We have 1 degree increase already and have seen lots of change. So I agree, let’s aim low, 1%!!!!)
The Cochabamba Accords also passed the Resolution on the Rights of Mother Earth. Bolivian President Evo Morales is the world’s first indigenous president. He is a sturdy voice in climate leadership and in bringing indigenous thinking into the political sphere. It may seem dreamy to talk about granting Rights to Mother Earth, but some view this as a central idea to healing humanity’s relationship with the Earth. We must see the Earth as alive, worthy of respect and protection. Follow this discussion on the lively blog at pwccc.wordpress.com.
I hope for positive movement of the Rights for Mother Earth in Cancun. I hope the US delegation supports this language. It would not cost anything and would be a place to compromise in a culturally respectful manner.
I hope some good progress comes from Cancun. Yet it’s hard not to feel dissatisfied by that this is the best government can do. Humanity’s survival hangs in the balance, and they struggle to agree on un-ambitious actions that won’t stop the problem. Politicians don’t deal with the approaching climate Tsunami, because it’s terrifying effects are in the future, while economic concerns nip at the heels this moment. US politicians are particularly irresponsible, especially since the US is the number one carbon polluter in historical terms. Unfortunately, the US congress has yet to pass Climate Legislation, and so the US remains “all talk and no walk” in terms of having legal obligations to cut carbon emissions. Time for the US to get on it!
The annual climate negotiation’s most useful function may be the annual focusing of the world’s scattered ADHD attention on the Climate Crisis. Earthlings take an annual moment to thinking about the Big Problem That May End Us All. Last year at this time, the world’s media was abuzz about a summit in Copenhagen. That gathering disappointed many, and made association with the process a political liability. Who knows, maybe they’ll get more done this year with calmness and less political hubbub.
We must stop the Climate Crisis, or everything we love is destroyed. The Sermon on the Mount will go into nonexistence! So does Glee! Runaway climate change means the end of the world as we know it and probably human extinction! So let's get on it, people!
People of the world want action on the Climate Crisis. Check out incredible aerial art made by 350.org and thousands of people as evidence. May we witness solutions to Climate Crisis in Cancun and in our own lives.
Watching climate negotiations in Cancun online can be pretty inspiring, like a TED Conference video binge meets planetary survival think-tank/diplomat theater.
On-line you’ll find the Climate Action Network gave a good summary of what’s on-the-table at negotiations. “Cancun can be be the calm after Copenhagen’s political storm, a calm where we can get some real progress made for poor people” said Tim Gore of Oxfam, who notes that the UN process allows poor countries to be heard.
Look for the inspirational nature video, (about 46:30 minutes into the very interesting Opening Plenary/ Welcoming Ceremony.)
So why not play five hours of this content while you clean your kitchen. Or better yet, invite friends over for a watch party!
To spice it up, play the Cancun Watch Party Drinking Game. Suggested rules: gather friends and favored beverages. Watch the event on-line and drink when you hear the word “mitigate” “transparency” or “350 parts per million.” Drink every time you feel patriotic. Drink if you have lovin' feelings for the U.N.. Make a toast to Mother Earth every time you hear “Rights for Mother Earth.” And so forth.
Seriously, though, people should watch the Cancun process, because the more public attention that is on this process, the more our political leaders will want to do something. Like it or not, these UN proceedings is the most serious forum for dealing with the climate crisis at the moment. We need an educated citizenry on the Climate issue, so please gather and tune in!
Here are some of the topics being negotiated. UN climate chief Christiana Figueres talked about four places to make a deal: climate adaptation measures, clean technology transfer to poor countries, forestry protection, and creation of an international climate fund.
Cancun is a U.N. meeting of countries that signed the Kyoto Protocol to assess what can be done to make it work better. Or according to the official website jargon, “COP16/CMP6 is the 16th edition of the Conference of Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP) and the 6th Conference of Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties of the Kyoto Protocol (CMP). “Parties” refers to all the national states that signed and ratified both the international treaties...”
The meeting is being held at a big resort in Cancun, on the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico. Delegates and media are meeting at the Moon Resort, while other events happen around the city. Civil society will be given space to get their ya-ya’s out, in a 5000 person auditorium billed as an Expression Zone. That’s an improvement to many international meetings where the public and NGOs are kept away by barricades and tear gas.
Still, it’s a private party compared to Cochabamba. The Cochabamba Summit was far more vital and interesting than Copenhagen. Held in April 2010 as a response to Copenhagen, the World People’s Summit on Climate Change and Rights for Mother Earth was a model of inclusive participatory democracy and open process.
Cochabamba created the vast, intelligent and radical Cochabamba Accords that Bolivia is trying to include into the negotiations this year in Cancun. The Cochabamba Accords call for a goal of temperature increase as 1 or 1.5 degrees, rather than 2 degrees, as industrialized nations favor. (We have 1 degree increase already and have seen lots of change. So I agree, let’s aim low, 1%!!!!)
The Cochabamba Accords also passed the Resolution on the Rights of Mother Earth. Bolivian President Evo Morales is the world’s first indigenous president. He is a sturdy voice in climate leadership and in bringing indigenous thinking into the political sphere. It may seem dreamy to talk about granting Rights to Mother Earth, but some view this as a central idea to healing humanity’s relationship with the Earth. We must see the Earth as alive, worthy of respect and protection. Follow this discussion on the lively blog at pwccc.wordpress.com.
I hope for positive movement of the Rights for Mother Earth in Cancun. I hope the US delegation supports this language. It would not cost anything and would be a place to compromise in a culturally respectful manner.
I hope some good progress comes from Cancun. Yet it’s hard not to feel dissatisfied by that this is the best government can do. Humanity’s survival hangs in the balance, and they struggle to agree on un-ambitious actions that won’t stop the problem. Politicians don’t deal with the approaching climate Tsunami, because it’s terrifying effects are in the future, while economic concerns nip at the heels this moment. US politicians are particularly irresponsible, especially since the US is the number one carbon polluter in historical terms. Unfortunately, the US congress has yet to pass Climate Legislation, and so the US remains “all talk and no walk” in terms of having legal obligations to cut carbon emissions. Time for the US to get on it!
The annual climate negotiation’s most useful function may be the annual focusing of the world’s scattered ADHD attention on the Climate Crisis. Earthlings take an annual moment to thinking about the Big Problem That May End Us All. Last year at this time, the world’s media was abuzz about a summit in Copenhagen. That gathering disappointed many, and made association with the process a political liability. Who knows, maybe they’ll get more done this year with calmness and less political hubbub.
We must stop the Climate Crisis, or everything we love is destroyed. The Sermon on the Mount will go into nonexistence! So does Glee! Runaway climate change means the end of the world as we know it and probably human extinction! So let's get on it, people!
People of the world want action on the Climate Crisis. Check out incredible aerial art made by 350.org and thousands of people as evidence. May we witness solutions to Climate Crisis in Cancun and in our own lives.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Reading into the Signs at the Rally to Restore Sanity
Many people carried funny protest signs at the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear on Washington DC’s National Mall. On a sunny late October Saturday, thousands of silly signs bobbed in the massive crowd called to Washington by comedians Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. .
Some signs were insightful into the political landscape, like cloud watching for signs of approaching weather.
On Obama: “Sanity: Knowing that it takes longer than 2 years to fix an eight year disaster!”
“Yes we can- but it’s not going to happen overnight.”
“I see you went half-black and are deciding whether or not to go back.”
Many signs spoke to the rally’s main theme: “Take it down a notch, America.” The American body politic has been getting riled up in a dangerous way that historically has led to violence. Recently, a zombie-like volunteer for Rand Paul assaulted MoveOn’s Lauren Valle. The Nazis started by finger pointing at the different: Jews/Roma/gays etc. America has a proto-fascist movements afoot, so this comedy serves a serious healing function at a serious time.
“Radicals for moderate discourse”
“Endless outrage is a form of mental illness, not a form of gov’t.”
“You are mad as Shell and I’m not going to take it anymore.”
A highbrow statement from Thomas Jefferson was given more snap by being held by a very cute young woman, “Let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty and even life are but dreary things.” Imagine! Jefferson predicted the theme of the rally over two hundred years ago!
Jefferson, an early adopter of interracial babymaking, would have appreciated the healthy modern views on sexuality on display:
On Christine O’Donnell: A sign said “I’m You* (*but I masturbate.)” On another sign was a picture of a sheep saying “I’m not a witch. I ewe.”
Some signs were against all extremism, like this war cry from a Unitarian Sunday school:
“If you aren’t with us, well, you may have an equally valid worldview to consider.”
and:
“The center: getting stuff done since 1776.”
Some signs winked at the act of carrying signs.
“I have a sign”
“I have a really big sign”
“I like this sign”
“This sign doesn’t say anything.”
“My political views cannot be summarized on a pithy sign.”
“Americans for... OH LOOK! A puppy!”
“Who farted?”
The doctors were more straightforward.
“Young doctor for universal health care.”
“More doctors, less jails.”
Some signs called for civility:
“Beat your pitchforks into sporks”
Some signs called to evolution:
“Men: Liberate! Ditch the tie!”
“Fear high-speed trains! They save energy.”
Something about the cultural superiority trip and masturbatory Reaganism of Sarah Palin really sets this crowd on edge.
One sign had a picture of Palin and “Keep fear alive.”
and: “You don’t have to hunt a moose to be a real American.”
“I can see America from my house!”
“Pray for secular gov’t”
Redheads gathered to get a picture with a sign that read: “Redheads for reason: we’re on fire for sanity”
On moderation:
“I’m moderate as hell.”
“I’m with sensible.”
“Death to nobody!”
“Nonviolence by any means necessary!”
On interfaith religious tolerance for Muslims:
“Muslims are nice people.”
“Beards are evil” carried by a bearded man.
The rally had a healthy, Muslim-friendly atmosphere that is a beautiful, godly improvement on the Vibe of recent days. America is stronger and wiser because of our interfaith tolerance. Hyper-partisan religiousness is almost always a tool of secular people to bad trip sincere religious people.
I love Sufi poetry, the poems of Rumi and Hafiz, and the ugliness of a decade of Islamophobia was put in perspective when suddenly, Islam was included in the circle of the cool. I want to live in the Jon Stewart’s America: tolerant, multi-ethic, and islam-friendly, so Kareem Abdul-Jabber can stop by.
For me, the rally’s most heartwarming moment was when Cat Stevens came on stage. This man suffered greatly for following his spiritual path where It lead. When Ozzie came out, it was grotesque counterpoint, but dynamic theater. But, hey, that’s America: the sublimely spiritual and Loud People must share one big stage.
The phenomenon of a self-selecting crowd is always interesting to observe. The crowd for the rally seemed like educated, politically aware, liberal people with a sense of humor. A quarter million people who like jokes! Yes, 250,000 is the semiofficial estimate on numbers, reported by Politico.com, based on 50 people’s estimates. To compare, Glenn Beck’s rally was 87,000, from the same source.
One new friend said he “just felt they should come, an inner call to stand up for something, albeit vague.”
One sign expressed why so many came:
“Thanks, guys, for keeping me sane during the Bush years”
The Daily Show has kept people sane while enduring the deceitful Bushite political theater. The rally felt healing to the national mind of America. Clear thinking and being grounded in reality is healthy. Tolerance, justice, and goodness are healing. Dark thoughts of anger and racism make us sick. The American media is creating a dark, propagandized mindscape.
The media isn’t helping us think together and act rationally. We haven’t yet gotten political will to solve the Climate Crisis because oil-companies are out propagandizing Dr. James Hansen. So we are destabilizing the structure of our sky! This situation threatens humanity’s survival, but try to get that heard through the punk band racket of the Fox Noise Machine.
This allows Climate Denial to be nearly prerequisite for Republican Senate candidates.
Humanity must learn to think straight on the science of the composition of our atmosphere in this delicate, thin terrarium, or we are no place. But that’s my private soapbox. Note: I did not see one sign about the Climate Crisis, nor hear one comment from the stage. We need a climate movement, and we don’t have one sign.
In closing, the day felt like it might be DC’s best day ever. DC is town of spooky impressive stage set theater buildings. It needs the good vibes off the American people. Americans need to be in DC more, that our tolerant goodness can rub off. At the very least, we should gather annually so that the Mythbuster guys can lead is in a progressively sillier group antics, like when they got everybody to jump and measured for an earthquake.
On Oct 30, 2010, the lonely, unheard masses gathered, this underrepresented american majority: liberal, tolerant, with a sense of humor.
They came, they laughed, maybe they voted.
Some signs were insightful into the political landscape, like cloud watching for signs of approaching weather.
On Obama: “Sanity: Knowing that it takes longer than 2 years to fix an eight year disaster!”
“Yes we can- but it’s not going to happen overnight.”
“I see you went half-black and are deciding whether or not to go back.”
Many signs spoke to the rally’s main theme: “Take it down a notch, America.” The American body politic has been getting riled up in a dangerous way that historically has led to violence. Recently, a zombie-like volunteer for Rand Paul assaulted MoveOn’s Lauren Valle. The Nazis started by finger pointing at the different: Jews/Roma/gays etc. America has a proto-fascist movements afoot, so this comedy serves a serious healing function at a serious time.
“Radicals for moderate discourse”
“Endless outrage is a form of mental illness, not a form of gov’t.”
“You are mad as Shell and I’m not going to take it anymore.”
A highbrow statement from Thomas Jefferson was given more snap by being held by a very cute young woman, “Let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty and even life are but dreary things.” Imagine! Jefferson predicted the theme of the rally over two hundred years ago!
Jefferson, an early adopter of interracial babymaking, would have appreciated the healthy modern views on sexuality on display:
On Christine O’Donnell: A sign said “I’m You* (*but I masturbate.)” On another sign was a picture of a sheep saying “I’m not a witch. I ewe.”
Some signs were against all extremism, like this war cry from a Unitarian Sunday school:
“If you aren’t with us, well, you may have an equally valid worldview to consider.”
and:
“The center: getting stuff done since 1776.”
Some signs winked at the act of carrying signs.
“I have a sign”
“I have a really big sign”
“I like this sign”
“This sign doesn’t say anything.”
“My political views cannot be summarized on a pithy sign.”
“Americans for... OH LOOK! A puppy!”
“Who farted?”
The doctors were more straightforward.
“Young doctor for universal health care.”
“More doctors, less jails.”
Some signs called for civility:
“Beat your pitchforks into sporks”
Some signs called to evolution:
“Men: Liberate! Ditch the tie!”
“Fear high-speed trains! They save energy.”
Something about the cultural superiority trip and masturbatory Reaganism of Sarah Palin really sets this crowd on edge.
One sign had a picture of Palin and “Keep fear alive.”
and: “You don’t have to hunt a moose to be a real American.”
“I can see America from my house!”
“Pray for secular gov’t”
Redheads gathered to get a picture with a sign that read: “Redheads for reason: we’re on fire for sanity”
On moderation:
“I’m moderate as hell.”
“I’m with sensible.”
“Death to nobody!”
“Nonviolence by any means necessary!”
On interfaith religious tolerance for Muslims:
“Muslims are nice people.”
“Beards are evil” carried by a bearded man.
The rally had a healthy, Muslim-friendly atmosphere that is a beautiful, godly improvement on the Vibe of recent days. America is stronger and wiser because of our interfaith tolerance. Hyper-partisan religiousness is almost always a tool of secular people to bad trip sincere religious people.
I love Sufi poetry, the poems of Rumi and Hafiz, and the ugliness of a decade of Islamophobia was put in perspective when suddenly, Islam was included in the circle of the cool. I want to live in the Jon Stewart’s America: tolerant, multi-ethic, and islam-friendly, so Kareem Abdul-Jabber can stop by.
For me, the rally’s most heartwarming moment was when Cat Stevens came on stage. This man suffered greatly for following his spiritual path where It lead. When Ozzie came out, it was grotesque counterpoint, but dynamic theater. But, hey, that’s America: the sublimely spiritual and Loud People must share one big stage.
The phenomenon of a self-selecting crowd is always interesting to observe. The crowd for the rally seemed like educated, politically aware, liberal people with a sense of humor. A quarter million people who like jokes! Yes, 250,000 is the semiofficial estimate on numbers, reported by Politico.com, based on 50 people’s estimates. To compare, Glenn Beck’s rally was 87,000, from the same source.
One new friend said he “just felt they should come, an inner call to stand up for something, albeit vague.”
One sign expressed why so many came:
“Thanks, guys, for keeping me sane during the Bush years”
The Daily Show has kept people sane while enduring the deceitful Bushite political theater. The rally felt healing to the national mind of America. Clear thinking and being grounded in reality is healthy. Tolerance, justice, and goodness are healing. Dark thoughts of anger and racism make us sick. The American media is creating a dark, propagandized mindscape.
The media isn’t helping us think together and act rationally. We haven’t yet gotten political will to solve the Climate Crisis because oil-companies are out propagandizing Dr. James Hansen. So we are destabilizing the structure of our sky! This situation threatens humanity’s survival, but try to get that heard through the punk band racket of the Fox Noise Machine.
This allows Climate Denial to be nearly prerequisite for Republican Senate candidates.
Humanity must learn to think straight on the science of the composition of our atmosphere in this delicate, thin terrarium, or we are no place. But that’s my private soapbox. Note: I did not see one sign about the Climate Crisis, nor hear one comment from the stage. We need a climate movement, and we don’t have one sign.
In closing, the day felt like it might be DC’s best day ever. DC is town of spooky impressive stage set theater buildings. It needs the good vibes off the American people. Americans need to be in DC more, that our tolerant goodness can rub off. At the very least, we should gather annually so that the Mythbuster guys can lead is in a progressively sillier group antics, like when they got everybody to jump and measured for an earthquake.
On Oct 30, 2010, the lonely, unheard masses gathered, this underrepresented american majority: liberal, tolerant, with a sense of humor.
They came, they laughed, maybe they voted.
Friday, October 29, 2010
I dare you to praise Obama for something!
This is a test of your ideological flexibility!
Can you praise President Obama for a success in the last two years?
Progressives probably can't and conservatives probably won't.
Therefore, the progressive blogging community is partially responsible for the 'Enthusiasm Gap' in the Democratic base that may lower voter turn-out and may throw the Congress to the GOP. Meanwhile, the GOP's inability to see the good is creating a delusional, hysterical, traitorous Disloyal Opposition.
Try this exercise that illustrates my point: I dare you to praise Obama for something.
I will take my own challenge to demonstrate.
I appreciate Obama getting the military into reverse on both of Bush's stupid wars. The new Bob Woodward book "Obama's Wars" shows Obama and Biden wisely recognizing Afghanistan as another Vietnam, and creating the conditions for ending the war. The book shows Obama standing up to the generals, demanding a six page letter of terms, after the military kept trying to roll him on things they'd already decided. Now this is pretty "Inside Baseball" talk, but it provides reassurance to anti-war base voters. After the Afghanistan decision to escalate, there was a widespread deflating in the base. Obama is on the way to fulfilling the promise to get us out of these wars and he deserves credit for that work in process. May these movements towards peace be successful.
I think we naturally don't want to be cheerleaders for power, and this is a healthy instinct. And also we live in a time of national madness, when the group thinking machine of the media is completely delusional. We are suffering under a Fox propaganda culture that's winning over Reality (where facts about carbon-dioxide exist!) So it's up to us people, to tell the truth as we see it!
Or how will the public know what has gone well?
The Obama Administration is up to some cool stuff, but you'd never know it. They just haven't telling their story that well. Www.Whitehouse.gov is pretty cool as blogs go, but it is like a museum: quiet, scholarly, under utilized, careful. Obama's new media hasn't gone very deep into the Net-roots or youth Facebook culture. Then add the noise: Fox is a GOP mouthpiece and only talks smack. Then add the silence: progressives are alienated or very quietly supportive. Suddenly Obama is the Invisible Man, an Unsymbolizing Symbol.
So let us celebrate the victories of the Obama Administration so far and help them out.
I say: Overall, I believe Obama is a good guy in a very hard job, and he has done a pretty good job so far.
I liked the 42 nation summit on Non-Proliferation of nuclear weapons.
I liked that the Attorney General allowed Medical Marijuana to advance in California.
I like the organic garden and the anti-obesity/whole foods campaign of Mrs. Obama.
I like that they are putting solar panels up on the White House!
I liked that the international banking system didn't do a 1929 meltdown. (That was good, right GOP?)
I like the anti-bullying GLTB work they've done lately.
I like that they are moving on 54 high-speed rail projects in 23 states that will get $2.4 billion dollars.
I like that they haven't pushed "free trade" deals.
I appreciated the Cairo speech's outreach to the Muslim world.
I liked that Credit Card companies can't jack your rates without telling you.
And so on.
Try this exercise. I double-dog dare you. It pushes some buttons in the psyche but please stretch yourself.
Because the Republican Climate-Denying Zombies are at the door of Congress and if they get in, we'll never get the Climate Legislation necessary for planetary survival!
On the November 2nd election, I stand with the President Obama and the Democrats and I hope you will too.
May truthful words build a sustainable world.
Can you praise President Obama for a success in the last two years?
Progressives probably can't and conservatives probably won't.
Therefore, the progressive blogging community is partially responsible for the 'Enthusiasm Gap' in the Democratic base that may lower voter turn-out and may throw the Congress to the GOP. Meanwhile, the GOP's inability to see the good is creating a delusional, hysterical, traitorous Disloyal Opposition.
Try this exercise that illustrates my point: I dare you to praise Obama for something.
I will take my own challenge to demonstrate.
I appreciate Obama getting the military into reverse on both of Bush's stupid wars. The new Bob Woodward book "Obama's Wars" shows Obama and Biden wisely recognizing Afghanistan as another Vietnam, and creating the conditions for ending the war. The book shows Obama standing up to the generals, demanding a six page letter of terms, after the military kept trying to roll him on things they'd already decided. Now this is pretty "Inside Baseball" talk, but it provides reassurance to anti-war base voters. After the Afghanistan decision to escalate, there was a widespread deflating in the base. Obama is on the way to fulfilling the promise to get us out of these wars and he deserves credit for that work in process. May these movements towards peace be successful.
I think we naturally don't want to be cheerleaders for power, and this is a healthy instinct. And also we live in a time of national madness, when the group thinking machine of the media is completely delusional. We are suffering under a Fox propaganda culture that's winning over Reality (where facts about carbon-dioxide exist!) So it's up to us people, to tell the truth as we see it!
Or how will the public know what has gone well?
The Obama Administration is up to some cool stuff, but you'd never know it. They just haven't telling their story that well. Www.Whitehouse.gov is pretty cool as blogs go, but it is like a museum: quiet, scholarly, under utilized, careful. Obama's new media hasn't gone very deep into the Net-roots or youth Facebook culture. Then add the noise: Fox is a GOP mouthpiece and only talks smack. Then add the silence: progressives are alienated or very quietly supportive. Suddenly Obama is the Invisible Man, an Unsymbolizing Symbol.
So let us celebrate the victories of the Obama Administration so far and help them out.
I say: Overall, I believe Obama is a good guy in a very hard job, and he has done a pretty good job so far.
I liked the 42 nation summit on Non-Proliferation of nuclear weapons.
I liked that the Attorney General allowed Medical Marijuana to advance in California.
I like the organic garden and the anti-obesity/whole foods campaign of Mrs. Obama.
I like that they are putting solar panels up on the White House!
I liked that the international banking system didn't do a 1929 meltdown. (That was good, right GOP?)
I like the anti-bullying GLTB work they've done lately.
I like that they are moving on 54 high-speed rail projects in 23 states that will get $2.4 billion dollars.
I like that they haven't pushed "free trade" deals.
I appreciated the Cairo speech's outreach to the Muslim world.
I liked that Credit Card companies can't jack your rates without telling you.
And so on.
Try this exercise. I double-dog dare you. It pushes some buttons in the psyche but please stretch yourself.
Because the Republican Climate-Denying Zombies are at the door of Congress and if they get in, we'll never get the Climate Legislation necessary for planetary survival!
On the November 2nd election, I stand with the President Obama and the Democrats and I hope you will too.
May truthful words build a sustainable world.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Sane Suggestions for Traveling to DC for the Stewart/Cobert Rally
My friend Anna said "I think the Rally is going to be a generational event, like MLK speaking or something, something that we'll remember." It does feel like it's going to be huge. A mass gathering of sane Americans arising as antidote to Fox mania! And then a crazy Halloween party weekend in the capital. So come! Here are some suggestions on how to get here and stuff to do.
Washington D.C. is a beautiful, great and strange town. Everybody talks smack about Washington, but that's just because the politics are lame and entrenched while the world burns. But DC is a brilliant town to ramble around in. Internationalism, intelligence and prosperity mix to create seemingly endless novelty, as if we were riding the cresting waves of Terrence McKenna's Novelty Wave towards the Eschaton.
To get to DC, Amtrak trains travel to DC's Union Station. From there it's a short metro or long walk to the event. Drivers can drive until outside city and then catch the Metro in. Several bus companies are organizing trips to the event, with links on the Rally To Restore Sanity's website. The event is in front of Congress's building on the Mall, so take Metro stations Smithsonian or Capitol South.
DC's public transport is the best in the country. The Metro is fast and, more importantly, clean. Public transport is more pleasant when not grimy. (NYC, I'm lookin' at you!) Buses go everywhere the subway doesn't. Be careful, though, sometimes two different color train lines can arrive on the same platform.
DC is a town that can be feel tough to navigate until you get it. Here's the city's design. DC is arranged into quarters around a city center, so streets have a quadrant designation. This allows for the numbers to stay low, counting up from the center. Remember to check this NW/SW/NE/SE designation or you might be aiming for the other side of town, though in practice it doesn't factor in that much. Street names go up alphabetically from the center. Shorter syllable words are closer to the city center than longer syllable words.
During the day, the National Mall has dozens incredible museums to amble about. And they are all free! Literally, miles of hallways, so wear comfortable shoes. The cops are chill, though their metal detectors won't like corkscrews or swiss army knives at the museum door. The Smithsonian's Freer Gallery has some incredible Asian art. National Air and Space Museum's got a 3D movie about the Hubbell Telescope that looks cosmic. The new Native American Museum looks like the Anasazi cliff dwellings of the American Southwest. Integrating natural themes like water and sky, it celebrates native sensibility brought into architecture, as with the Mohegan Sun Casino in CT. This museum has the best food on the Mall, from buffalo stew to veggie chili, arranged in a food court based by different geographic food sheds. The Mall is a bit of "food desert", where it can be easy to be hungry even with money in your pocket. In theory the Smithsonian has a cafe, if you consider a $3 Coca Cola digestible.
For evening adventures, DC is has a lively bar culture, embodied at the Tune Inn (331 Pennsylvania SE). In the Du Pont Circle area, Afterwards Cafe serves good food inside a terrific bookstore. The best dive bar I've ever been was the Raven, gritty and brilliantly human-scale, with rock star pictures on the wall and a surly bartender who will serve you well, (from DuPont Circle metro, bus 42, 3125 Mt Pleasant Ave NW). For dinner in DuPont Circle, a great salad factory is Sweetgreens. Nearby is the nation's first certified organic restaurant, Nora, pricey but wholesome.
For accommodation, there are many youth hostels online, though most seemed booked for the weekend. (Try the William Penn House, $40 a night.) Hotels available by Metro are plentiful. DC is a fairly easy place to just sneak off into the greenery with a sleeping bag. Rock Creek Park is home to a beautiful river with miles of biking trails.
DC is filled with brilliant architecture. For two hundred years people have sought to increase the prestige of their organization by having a really impressive building in the Big Town. The embassies near Du Pont Circle are so beautiful, though they seem to have witnessed unhappiness. The city is stuffed with public space treasures, like the beautiful little park on Embassy Row dedicated to Khalil Gibran, at 3100 Massachusetts Ave NW.
DC feels pretty safe. It's a prosperous town, so perhaps government doesn't suffer recession. In the words of Brother Cornell West, DC is an chocolate city. There are half-a-million Ethiopians here, the most outside of Ethiopia. Due to the international schools and embassies, there are people from all over the world, creating a great gumbo of ethnicity, and America's most international city.
DC is a also a place where the military/industrial complex takes out ad campaigns for their new tank, with full page ads in Post, and subway billboards. The metro stop before the mega-mall at Pentagon City is always good for unintentionally funny ads. Check out the billboards at Capital South metro, where cleanskies.org has the most egregious green-washing campaign ever: using climate change facts to justify getting "natural" gas by hydrofracking the shale beds of NYC's water-supply. Please take a moment to publicly mock these ads.
Capital South metro station is the stop to take to go to the Democratic National Committee building, 430 South Capital Street, an orange building near some sort of factory, where you can stop by after the rally and make some phone calls for the upcoming election. And afterwards, check out the nearby Tortilla Coast mexi-cafe and see where Capital Hill staffers eat chips after a day of difficult legislation.
For Friday night, at the Rock n Roll Hotel, there's a Masquerade Party with 3 bands, (5$ or free with Mask!) at 1353 H St. NE. On Saturday, there's a costume rally afterparty the Eighteenth Street Lounge at 1212 18th NW Street.
DC, our capital, let's restore it's sanity with a one big sane weekend.
Washington D.C. is a beautiful, great and strange town. Everybody talks smack about Washington, but that's just because the politics are lame and entrenched while the world burns. But DC is a brilliant town to ramble around in. Internationalism, intelligence and prosperity mix to create seemingly endless novelty, as if we were riding the cresting waves of Terrence McKenna's Novelty Wave towards the Eschaton.
To get to DC, Amtrak trains travel to DC's Union Station. From there it's a short metro or long walk to the event. Drivers can drive until outside city and then catch the Metro in. Several bus companies are organizing trips to the event, with links on the Rally To Restore Sanity's website. The event is in front of Congress's building on the Mall, so take Metro stations Smithsonian or Capitol South.
DC's public transport is the best in the country. The Metro is fast and, more importantly, clean. Public transport is more pleasant when not grimy. (NYC, I'm lookin' at you!) Buses go everywhere the subway doesn't. Be careful, though, sometimes two different color train lines can arrive on the same platform.
DC is a town that can be feel tough to navigate until you get it. Here's the city's design. DC is arranged into quarters around a city center, so streets have a quadrant designation. This allows for the numbers to stay low, counting up from the center. Remember to check this NW/SW/NE/SE designation or you might be aiming for the other side of town, though in practice it doesn't factor in that much. Street names go up alphabetically from the center. Shorter syllable words are closer to the city center than longer syllable words.
During the day, the National Mall has dozens incredible museums to amble about. And they are all free! Literally, miles of hallways, so wear comfortable shoes. The cops are chill, though their metal detectors won't like corkscrews or swiss army knives at the museum door. The Smithsonian's Freer Gallery has some incredible Asian art. National Air and Space Museum's got a 3D movie about the Hubbell Telescope that looks cosmic. The new Native American Museum looks like the Anasazi cliff dwellings of the American Southwest. Integrating natural themes like water and sky, it celebrates native sensibility brought into architecture, as with the Mohegan Sun Casino in CT. This museum has the best food on the Mall, from buffalo stew to veggie chili, arranged in a food court based by different geographic food sheds. The Mall is a bit of "food desert", where it can be easy to be hungry even with money in your pocket. In theory the Smithsonian has a cafe, if you consider a $3 Coca Cola digestible.
For evening adventures, DC is has a lively bar culture, embodied at the Tune Inn (331 Pennsylvania SE). In the Du Pont Circle area, Afterwards Cafe serves good food inside a terrific bookstore. The best dive bar I've ever been was the Raven, gritty and brilliantly human-scale, with rock star pictures on the wall and a surly bartender who will serve you well, (from DuPont Circle metro, bus 42, 3125 Mt Pleasant Ave NW). For dinner in DuPont Circle, a great salad factory is Sweetgreens. Nearby is the nation's first certified organic restaurant, Nora, pricey but wholesome.
For accommodation, there are many youth hostels online, though most seemed booked for the weekend. (Try the William Penn House, $40 a night.) Hotels available by Metro are plentiful. DC is a fairly easy place to just sneak off into the greenery with a sleeping bag. Rock Creek Park is home to a beautiful river with miles of biking trails.
DC is filled with brilliant architecture. For two hundred years people have sought to increase the prestige of their organization by having a really impressive building in the Big Town. The embassies near Du Pont Circle are so beautiful, though they seem to have witnessed unhappiness. The city is stuffed with public space treasures, like the beautiful little park on Embassy Row dedicated to Khalil Gibran, at 3100 Massachusetts Ave NW.
DC feels pretty safe. It's a prosperous town, so perhaps government doesn't suffer recession. In the words of Brother Cornell West, DC is an chocolate city. There are half-a-million Ethiopians here, the most outside of Ethiopia. Due to the international schools and embassies, there are people from all over the world, creating a great gumbo of ethnicity, and America's most international city.
DC is a also a place where the military/industrial complex takes out ad campaigns for their new tank, with full page ads in Post, and subway billboards. The metro stop before the mega-mall at Pentagon City is always good for unintentionally funny ads. Check out the billboards at Capital South metro, where cleanskies.org has the most egregious green-washing campaign ever: using climate change facts to justify getting "natural" gas by hydrofracking the shale beds of NYC's water-supply. Please take a moment to publicly mock these ads.
Capital South metro station is the stop to take to go to the Democratic National Committee building, 430 South Capital Street, an orange building near some sort of factory, where you can stop by after the rally and make some phone calls for the upcoming election. And afterwards, check out the nearby Tortilla Coast mexi-cafe and see where Capital Hill staffers eat chips after a day of difficult legislation.
For Friday night, at the Rock n Roll Hotel, there's a Masquerade Party with 3 bands, (5$ or free with Mask!) at 1353 H St. NE. On Saturday, there's a costume rally afterparty the Eighteenth Street Lounge at 1212 18th NW Street.
DC, our capital, let's restore it's sanity with a one big sane weekend.
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