joined on 02/08/07
last updated 10/30/09
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...and styling in it as the three birds (an African Grey and two Green-cheeked conures) travel with me from Alaska to Hawaii via Seattle during the next 24 hours. The Anchorage house is 99.9% packed up already and shipped but last night I was going through a box of what I had thought was all junk mail and discovered inside a discreet white Tyvek mailer envelope (postmarked 26OCT2009, so it has been laying in the box alongside my desk for awhile now) this wonderful tribal teeshirt -comple...
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After almost twenty years of life in Alaska (with some short stints overseas and in the Black Rock Desert sprinkled throughout) the magnificent arctic feels very much like home. So beautiful, really. It has been my good fortune to live and work (hopefully making a worthwhile contribution) in a number of American Indian and Alaska Native (Eskimo) villages along the Yukon River and Bering Sea as well as in Fairbanks and Anchorage during these last two decades. Many civil rights issues have...
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Did you know some lightning flashes produce particles of antimatter? This is news to me. Apparently some lightning bolts generate positrons, which are electrons with a positive instead of negative charge to them. When the positive (antimatter) and negative (regular matter) electron particles meet one another they mutually annihilate such that a burst of gamma rays arises from the event.
Signature of Antimatter Detected in Lightning
www.sciencenews.org/view/gen...288/ti...
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One type of insane is the sad sort which resulted in a fellow afflicted by schizophrenia stabbing my friend Eric in the heart. Uncool, yet as an organic disease this malady does not seem to be quite as hideous as another sort of crazy about which I've recently been noticing more and more reports: willfully batshit-crazy insane behavior on the part of those who have no reasonable excuse for such.
For example:
"Body parts of albinos are sought in some regions of Tanzania and other A...
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Having missed being brained by a chunk of steel and whipping cables on the Bay Bridge (which snapped and collapsed into the exact lane I'd passed across only 35 minutes earlier) I made it through to SF just before the resulting emergency closure. So thankful to not have been stuck in the monster traffic jam which immediately piled up solid for miles and miles, spending hours working around the Bay to either the Golden Gate or San Mateo Bridge; it would have been midnight before reaching ...
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Today in San Francisco a huge turnout of hundreds attended Eric's memorial service; it overflowed the mortuary. The memorial was not a religious service, nor was it a "celebration of life" per se but rather a somewhat somber commemoration. After the formal setting and heartfelt addresses given at the funeral home many of the family and friends gathered at Eric's old high school nearby, which had kindly opened the cafeteria for a gathering with food, his favorite music playing, and his fa...
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Several years ago I heard him speak at the annual gathering (at Asilomar, every year) of the United Centers for Spiritual Living. Bishop Spong has only grown stronger as he has grown older. Admirable.
walkingwithintegrity.blogspot.com/2...ml
Thu, October 22, 2009 - 1:08 AM
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1 comment
April 26, 2009
I'd sum up Steven with two words: mischievously classy. What I mean by that is that Steven doesn't do anything without a certain air of dignity and regality attached to it. Things are always well thought-out and above and beyond what you'd expect. But with classiness comes the stereotype of stuffy, which Steven isn't. There's always an element of playfulness and edginess to Steven as well... a mixture of "Boy this is fun!" and "Wait, is this legal?!". So that's how I'd put it. Mischievously Classy. And definitely worth getting to know. I'm glad he's my friend.
April 21, 2009
Steven is amazing.
I don't say this lightly. He has grace and charm. He has wit and wisdom. He is articulate and generous. He is scientific and spiritual. He has attained the finest attributes possible for a human being.
I am constantly delighted to find out what he is up to and what he has planned. I am always eager to see his council requested as it never fails to provide insight, compassion, and appropriately applied humor.
He sees the big picture but he also sees the tiny miracles that make it possible. He is smart as the day is long and, rather than make you feel like a simpleton, he uses his smarts to help make you feel smarter too.
I am a better person for having met and known Steven. I consider myself lucky to call him a friend.
April 16, 2009
Smart, funny, supportive...all the things you'd want in a fellow. If you want to talk politics, religion, or other things of content he's good for that too.
Everything ever said by Dave Barry ( www.korpisworld.com/Quotes/D...Berry.htm ), plus:
"There never was a good war or a bad peace."
Benjamin Franklin
"Naturally the common people do not want war, neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”
Hermann Göring
"It would be some time before I fully realized that the United States sees little need for diplomacy. Power is enough. Only the weak rely on diplomacy… The Roman Empire had no need for diplomacy. Nor does the United States."
Boutros Boutros-Ghali
"Whate'ers begun in anger ends in shame."
Benjamin Franklin
"American perestroika really boils down to this: we have to rescale the activities of daily life to a level consistent with the mandates of the future, especially the ones having to do with available energy and capital. We have to dismantle things that have no future and rebuild things that will allow daily life to function. We have to say goodbye to big box shopping and rebuild Main Street. More people will be needed to work in farming and fewer in tourism, public relations, gambling, and party planning. We have to make some basic useful products in this country again. We have to systematically decommission suburbia and reactivate our small towns and small cities. We have to prepare for the contraction of our large cities. We have to let the sun set on Happy Motoring and rebuild our trains, transit systems, harbors, and inland waterways. We have to reorganize schooling at a much more modest level. We have to close down most of the overseas military bases we're operating and conclude our wars in Asia. Mostly, we have to recover a national sense of common purpose and common decency. There is obviously a lot of work to do in the list above, which could translate into paychecks and careers -- but not if we direct all our resources into propping up the failing structures of yesterday."
James Kunstler
kunstler.com/blog/2009/0...ng.html#more
"Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence."
John Adams
"Sell not virtue to purchase wealth, nor Liberty to purchase power."
Benjamin Franklin
"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote."
American Proverb
"It is not our part to master all the tides of the world but to do what is in us for the succor of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till. What weather they shall have is not ours to rule."
J.R.R. Tolkien
"Whenever I despair, I remember that the way of truth and love has always won. There may be tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they may seem invincible, but in the end, they always fail. Think of it: always."
Mohandas K. Gandhi
! *Survival Cache* !,
! Gold Star Tribe !,
808 State!!,
A New Earth BY Eckhart Tolle,
A Queer Tribe,
African Grey Parrots,
Alaskan Burners (and BRC expats),
Alaskan Political Parrot Tree,
Alaskan Progressives,
![[moderator]](http://images.tribe.net/tribe/images/redesign/moderator_icon.gif)
Alphaville & Marian Gold,
Amiga Geeks,
An Anxious Life,
Anchorage Shamanic Drumming Circle,
Anchorage, Alaska,
Aquaponics,
Ask a Moral Philosopher,
Bamboo,
Bees,
Big Island Drummers,
Big Island Gatherings,
...
about me
My partner, kids, and I are among those folks who wave at passing traffic, hold signs, and drum during peace demonstrations here in Anchorage. We attend the potlucks, picnics, and fundraisers of the various progressive local groups from PFLAG and GLSEN to the local schools' and candidates' houseparties -as well as taking a turn with hosting such. At the annual Burning Man event in the Black Rock Desert we supported and camped in Kidsville when the kids were younger but now camp and work with the BRC Post Office and crew for the Big Round Cubatron art installation. In general we are fairly well organized, not all that wild/crazy/drunken/rowdy, and are fairly mellow folks (except when pissed off about some stupidity or other of BushCo, a subsidiary of CheneyCo, or by narrow-minded and short-sighted local Alaska prejudice and corruption in government). It is sometimes tough to find the levity on some issues of the day yet also important to retain a sense of humor.
Michael Emerson - Headed for the Finish Line
(in LOST - ABC TV)
In the Honolulu airport while awaiting a flight from Oahu to the Big Island I came across this (rather good, imho) interview of Michael Emerson in a local paper. FYI, here is a link to "Headed for the Finish Line" by Katherine Nichols in the 17NOV...
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discussion post on Fri, December 11, 2009 - 8:07 PM
Re: Loving my new tribe tee-shirt!
(in ! Gold Star Tribe !)
Here's a link to a snapshot I took in Anchorage of the graphics emblazoned on the chest of the tee-
people.tribe.net/d5aa5d5e-...e696b481b4...once my cybergear arrives and I am se...
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discussion post on Mon, December 7, 2009 - 9:16 PM
Loving my new tribe tee-shirt!
(in ! Gold Star Tribe !)
Last night while going through a box of what I had thought was all junk mail I discovered, inside a discreet white Tyvek mailer envelope (postmarked 26OCT2009, so it has been laying in the box alongside my desk for awhile now), a wonderful tribal ...
read more
discussion post on Wed, November 18, 2009 - 2:41 PM
Re: LOST Bifurcating Choices, Mandelbrot, and Julia Sets
(in LOST - ABC TV)
Horace Mathematician, meet Smokey.
www.skytopia.com/project/f...lbulb.html
(Be sure to scroll down at the site. No, _way_ down; you have to scroll downscreen past the header "Resulting Renders" before you reach the impress...
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discussion post on Fri, November 13, 2009 - 3:17 AM
Re: hello: Inspiring to me.
(in earthen men)
Small world! Once upon a time my beautiful guy and I were starving students living in an old apartment in Highland Park while attending Rutgers in New Brunswick. Good times, hard times; ah, youth. One winter while on foot crossing the bridge ove...
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discussion post on Fri, November 13, 2009 - 2:43 AM
Re: hello: Inspiring to me.
(in earthen men)
Approximately where in Nhu Joisey, Pedro? I was at Rutgers in grad school; met my much-beloved and dearly departed first partner there. Still have high regard for the astounding ultraviolet minerals of Franklin/Ogdensberg, the remarkable Glass M...
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discussion post on Sun, November 8, 2009 - 10:41 PM
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