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2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 14,June,2004 | urlLink vedana.net - 'Pronounced VAY-dunna. What is vedana? It's a urlLink Pali word ...' After graduating from college in 2001 I traveled around the world for a year or so. I settled down in the SF Bay Area in 2003 and joined the awesome Blogger team at Google — You Power Blogger! |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 13,June,2004 | urlLink FREECULTURE.ORG - What is 'Free Culture?' Perhaps one could begin by asking, urlLink what does a free culture look like ? If you like our answers to that question, or at least find them intriguing, then maybe you'll be interested in reading our attempts at nailing down some concrete parts of a definition of free culture. Like everything else on this site, it is a work in progress... feel free to contribute! |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 09,June,2004 | urlLink HOKAI's BLOGUE - 'whatever new forms of spirituality arise in 21st century, they will hopefully be more inclusive and informed than anything extant. be they buddhist, christian, jewish, hindu, muslim or post-denominational, contemporary contemplatives must do their best to give rise to a new wave of mysticism, deeply involved with the living and evolving universe.' |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 04,June,2004 | urlLink Integral Awakening - 'consciousness unfolding in the blogosphere' - ' The ‘You write too much – shut up and blog!’ Version: This blog is dedicated to the awakening of integral within others and myself. On a relative level, we are constantly unfolding, sometimes slowly, other times quickly, sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously. What’s important is do this with as much awareness as possible, in the most comprehensive way – this literally affects who we are and how we engage the world, including: emotional well-being, spiritual practice, relationships, sex, humor, ethics, physical health, business, politics, education, etc. Integral provides us with the most comprehensive and inclusive map of the world’s truths from which we can begin to consciously embrace life.' |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 03,June,2004 | urlLink APOPHENIA - 'making connections where none previously existed' - 'My name is urlLink danah boyd and i'm a Ph.D. student at SIMS - UC Berkeley. I'm interested in how people manage social contexts and adjust their presentation of self accordingly; i'm particularly fascinated by the tension between the social and technology that supports it. This blog is my attempt to collapse a lot of my contexts in a public way. More precisely, it operates as a collection, revealing the variety of topics that i'm invested in thinking about, from social software to drug policy reform to gender theory.' |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 03,June,2004 | urlLink GOETHEA - 'An Online Notebook -- ...The idea is that it is a better place to put my thoughts than in old emails that will sit in personal folders on various corporate servers until I switch jobs, at which time they will vanish into the digital ether.' |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 03,June,2004 | urlLink HOLOSYNCHRONICITY - ' urlLink Holosynchronicity is a kosmic wormhole into the world of urlLink binaural beat technology . But as its name implies, this site will focus on the product known as Holosync.' |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 02,June,2004 | urlLink Numinous Non-Sense - ' Sitting at home with the flu, I decided to finally jump on the urlLink blog-bandwagon and begin the treacherous practice of blogging. Why you ask? Well, for the past 2 years or so, I haven't found a healthy medium for discussing or 'unloading' any of the experiences I've had concerning spiritual practice. Everytime I have an opportunity to do so, I find it's like an uncomfortable explosion of material that comes bursting from my mouth, always threatening to overcome the unsuspecting listener. I can't tell you how uncomfortable that is (for either of us).' |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 02,June,2004 | urlLink HUMANICIDE - 'A draft essay. A 21st Century Risk Profile For Humanity: Setting Priorities In The Face Of Global Predicaments.' 'This blog is essentially a cheapskates way of getting a recently written essay online for people to comment on. Its broken into sections, it’s a first draft, and its going to be re-written for publication (hopefully;) The contents are on the side bar to the right - I think it might help some people to read it in order, although you don't have to;) The notes and references aren't linked within the text sorry, but they are numbered, and some of the notes are extensive (for those who like clarity;)' |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 01,June,2004 | urlLink Anamnesis - 'Anamnesis is a term by Plato and means Recollection. The concept can be related to Mouravieff's collection of B-influences, Kierkegaard's remembering forward, Jung's individuation process and Assagioli's psychosynthesis... the process of remembering the future.' |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 01,June,2004 | urlLink MOBY.COM - 'Born September 11, 1965 in Harlem, New York City. Given the legal name Richard Melville Hall. Given the nickname 'Moby' at birth due to having Herman Melville as an ancestor. Lived in a basement apartment in New York City with James Hall and Elizabeth Hall and 3 pet lab rats, a dog named Jamie, and a cat.' |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 16,July,2004 | urlLink Watching Rats Abandon Ship - ' a little levity in samsara' |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 12,July,2004 | urlLink INJournals: Kenji Williams - 'Classically trained in violin since the age of 7, Kenji Williams is the founder and producer of ABA Structure. He creates live ethereal musical experiences, using his violin, laptop, and drum machine to transmit his unique style to the dance floor.' |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 11,July,2004 | urlLink INJournals: Ottmar Liebert - 'Virtuoso guitar player Ottmar Liebert is a platinum-selling recording artist who sparked a world music revival in the early nineties with the release of his groundbreaking debut Nouveau Flamenco, and currently stands as one of the world's most popular and compelling instrumental performers.' |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 11,July,2004 | urlLink INJournals.org - 'Integral Naked Journals (INJournals) is a trans-rational space in the blogosphere wherein selected guests are provided their own cyber-crib where they share the naked awareness of their interiors, as well as their exteriors, while making instantaneous connections where no Kosmic patterns have existed before.' |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 11,July,2004 | urlLink KenWilber.com - coming soon.... you can urlLink check this out for now. |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 08,July,2004 | urlLink Deep Links -- Deep Links is a group weblog featuring pointers to news articles and weblog posts that spark the interest of urlLink EFF [Electronic Frontier Foundation] staff members. We aim to provide a bit of on-the-fly commentary to help contextualize issues, as well as links to useful background resources. The topics we'll be exploring include intellectual property, privacy, free speech on the Net, technology and Internet architecture. The central questions driving these explorations: How does a particular development affect our rights? And how will it impact our future? |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 06,July,2004 | urlLink Nomen est Numen - 'About me? Like everyone, my life could be summed up by suffering, impermanence, and non-self.... I'm a tall, skinny, bookish, tea-drinking morning person. I couldn't live without libraries. I like wandering outdoors. I meditate. I appreciate the beauty in strange and little things. I have a thing for motorcycles, though I've only had the pleasure of being a passenger. I write, constantly, although this is more for my own sanity than the enjoyment of others. I miss having animals about the house.' |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 06,July,2004 | urlLink CREATIVE COMMONS -- Too often the debate over creative control tends to the extremes. At one pole is a vision of total control — a world in which every last use of a work is regulated and in which 'all rights reserved' (and then some) is the norm. At the other end is a vision of anarchy — a world in which creators enjoy a wide range of freedom but are left vulnerable to exploitation. Balance, compromise, and moderation — once the driving forces of a copyright system that valued innovation and protection equally — have become endangered species. Creative Commons is working to revive them. We use private rights to create public goods: creative works set free for certain uses. Like the free software and open-source movements, our ends are cooperative and community-minded, but our means are voluntary and libertarian. We work to offer creators a best-of-both-worlds way to protect their works while encouraging certain uses of them — to declare 'some rights reserved.' Thus, a single goal unites Creative Commons' current and future projects: to build a layer of reasonable, flexible copyright in the face of increasingly restrictive default rules. |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 03,July,2004 | urlLink stuart davis's blog nice to see the bald dude blogging again.... |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 03,August,2004 | urlLink Nobody Knows Anything - 'You ain't seen fair and balanced 'til you've read NKA.' Most notable essay, urlLink Why Web Journals Suck -- Why Web Journals Suck continues because web journals continue. They're proliferating like mushrooms after the rain, or perhaps bunnies after...bunnies. And I'll be the one to keep saying that most of them suck and suck hard. Staying quiet and being nice doesn't solve anything. |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 03,August,2004 | urlLink Soullog.com - Raymond's Soul Log(os) of creativity life and the work. |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 27,November,2003 | At Long Bets there is one bet concerning the type of graphical interface we might be using with our computers in years to come… The Clover Foundation has been set up to investigate, develop and promote the benefits of using a quadratic approach to information, similar to the one Coolmel introduces here , based in part on what Ken Wilber outlines here . The Clover Foundation state that the: 'Theoretical models drawn upon include Transaction Cost Economics, Complexity Theory, Social Network Theory, and General Systems Theory, with thinkers including Ackoff/Garajadaghi, R. Buckminster Fuller, Marshall McLuhan, Jurgen Habermas, Ronald Coase and Ken Wilber.' Not a small list by any stretch of the imagination… but about that bet. If I was just a Wilberian lost in the Wilberness , I'd probably leap up in enthusiastic support for the bet. Buuuut, I actually do think occasionally. It occurs to me that what is being projected is a very 2D view of where computer interfaces could be in the very near future. They're currently designing 3D holographic interfaces. But beyond the obvious technical oversight, I still like the idea. Besides, who knows, it may adapt better to 3D holographic style realities than any other information management system currently available:) From within an AQAL perspective however, it seems that IF masses of computer enabled people (two big Ifs right there;) do adopt a quadratic approach to information management, then they are also likely to: 1. Keep many existing categories like name/source, location, date, topic details; 2. Want to differentiate between levels and lines in the information; and, 3. Notice that most information will more likely break down into streams that cross numerous levels, as it already does – streams as in 'lines' above – which can respectfully be addressed within their own quadratic category analysis. The big IFs behind these kinds of developments are the analytical process required to determine the categories – let alone make them second hand easy to use. It infers that the majority of people will be able to cognitively operate at vision logic – currently a rare level of development when the majority of the world is struggling with stabilising a rational approach to life (sad but true:) But maybe the rapid up-take of computer technology, and a monumental acceleration in the average level of cognitive development can occur, simply by dint of the sheer amount of information that is challenging us to cope with it. Currently we don't have the cultural institutions that would allow such growth (in most of the world, including much of the west) let alone support rational and beyond. But maybe the web is the 'mother' cultural institution that could push us all to grow...and whether it’s a good thing to move so fast, or if we'll even make it that far, well, they're other debates... |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 26,November,2003 | Skype! is up and running, an internet phone call which costs nothing more than already being connected, and provides great quality free calls to any other user in the peer-to-peer network. I had seen references to it, but until Coolmel invited me to join in free, I hadn't been motivated to seriously consider its value. A revolution in technology? A real breakthrough? Social, cultural and economic consequences for all concerned? Perhaps….but maybe not. A while ago I got really excited about explaining the amazing transformative power of internet/network enabled communications technologies to, of all people, a computer programmer (who set up this site for his friends). He calmly assumed the look of 'easy does it grasshopper' and cooly explained that in his view, nothing revolutionary had been invented for some decades. In fact, all we had been doing, and are likely to do, is discover the myriad ways of using what we've already invented. All western networked societies have been doing is 'translating,' horizontally on a development spectrum so to speak, the possibilities of the breakthroughs we had already made. Of course, Luke, a senior policy analyst in the forward strategy section of Australia's National Office of Information Technology I spoke with just the other day disagreed completely, saying every new use of the internet was a radical transformation, it caused so many unheralded changes in social-cultural norms and business systems that it couldn't not be seen as transformation… So who's right? Who's wrong? What the hell is going on here? To get back to the topic, is Skype! really revolutionary? Well, I think the answer is both are right. It all depends on what we are analysing in the first place! In terms of technology – nothing new. In terms of software, well it has been done already, and while a new a potentially more robust version has been compiled, it's nothing particularly new either. Unless of course you consider combining two existing technologies, in this case peer-to-peer networking protocols with net-telephony, to be revolutionary. Which, lets face it, is like putting cheese on toast – no one in your house may have done it before, but it ain't exactly some creative leap forward, more a minor step of translation. Now the integrative activities of putting the cheese on toast, or P2P with net-telephony, is still something, but it holds to being a horizontal structural refinement rather than a qualitatively and quantitatively fundamental shift of significant emergent novelty. The basics of how it is enabled haven’t changed one bit: its still networked coding. With that said however, if we were to look at the transformative value of the consequences, not for the internet technology being used, but the meat-ware users, there may indeed be a transformation occurring. In fact there may be hundreds of flow on changes that spark needed emergent novelties for it to be integrated within our societies… Serendipitously capcoincidence was ranting yesterday about the radical transformation of blogging , but really, bogging ain't that novel, it's the changes in our psyches due to the ways we relate together that is… and this observation, in networking logic, links beautifully to providing a supportive warning to Coolmel's Project Trinity interpretation of the 'Sixth Wave' that really, there is a lot more going on, transformation and translation wise, than just some new technologically driven economic base for our societies. So while one claims translation, and another transformation, I guess they're both right, both wrong, and it's just a matter of getting the scale and target of analysis in sync so we can have a meaningful conversation in the first pace. Well, with the Integral insight of translation v's transformation transplanted into my minds debate for the day, I feel like I've solved that problem, but I'm not sure it helps anyone one jot… Oh, and to answer the question in the title, why has it taken so long? That's easy, one human invents something cool, and pregnant with transformational potential, while the rest of us spend a life time figuring out what the hell to do with it...like always... |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 26,November,2003 | I had the pleasure yesterday to celebrate the end of AFI's study year with a lecture from Barney Foran of the CSIRO's Sustainable Ecosystems division, National Futures Project . He presented an overview of the recently completed Futures Dilemmas Report , noting the challenging process it went through to arrive in the public arena (even though our government departments can request work it doesn't mean they want to hear the results;) While an astounding piece of work in its own right, there were also many sub-reports delivered, and related studies incorporated. It appears to me as the most robust and comprehensive futures activity undertaken in Australia, ever , and goes a long way to furthering a foresight strategy for Australia . In this regard it is heartening, inspiring and downright daunting to anyone in futures studies who follows. On the other hand, it is entirely objective, empirical research that turns everything and everyone into numbers. Further, its use of scenarios is really an insult to the meaning of the name in serious futures research , because it is simply an extension of standard economic forecasting where a single point trajectory is extended into high, low and middle ground possibilities. While useful and more readily digestible by current business and government group-think (although even these have trouble because they deal with anything beyond the immediate cash-flow, quarterly or yearly balance sheet and next election), they are bereft of any critical depth, insight and rigour . The strictly empirical types of studies and their ubiquitous forecasting projections fail to take into consideration anything to do with the human values , meanings, and so on that underpin the activities and resource usage that are being depicted. If a key value shifts, if one of the main assumptions underpinning the report's modelling changes due to emotional realities within our mediated culture, then radical changes can occur in our resource usage, and thus leave this report open to similar criticisms levelled at the original Limits To Growth study to which it is a long distant relative. From an Integral perspective , only half of the four quadrants are being addressed. Only the external, objective and inter-objective dimensions are being treated as real, assessable and important in shaping future consequences of current decisions. The other half of any situation or decision is the internal, subjective and inter-subjective realities, where our motivations, values and meanings can be approached. This is a common modernist mistake, where the truth value of the 'scientific' approach (limited physical empirical versions that is) is assumed to be the only reliable, trustworthy and good method (these last three description words are ALL left-hand, subjectively based assessment criteria btw;). For a balanced picture of reality, an example is here and is explained in context here . This observation is in no way meant to say empirical objective scientific approaches are invalid, on the contrary, they are equally a part of the puzzle, and should be a part of any sturdy report of future possibilities and probabilities. It is just that they are only half of the story…and obviously anything that only does half of a job only has half a chance to be of value from the outset... |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 24,November,2003 | I am annoyingly conceding to my self more and more that very few people will ever make a living out of talking about the future (in a rational, planned, critical and systematic way that is - ie fortune tellers and astrologers aside). If I'm wrong for some reason, please, let me know - you'll really brighten my day;) It is the rational modern, and some post-rational post-modern, approaches to futures that I have been learning at the Australian Foresight Institute this year, and it has really pushed me to grow. The hassle is in translating these growths, new understandings and so on, into valuable services that people will readily pay for. It's more a covert technology, than an overt saleable item. I suspect that most meta-level theory and fields of endeavour are doomed in the current cultural milieu to be this way. So I've taken on a 'real job' of late. Well not that real, since I only work part time, highly flexible hours on a small business that hasn't even really begun yet. But I have calculated hopes for the future of the business, what its amazing products can do - for what they can return everyone involved, including the customers and the broader society. I mean, making wood last longer, being able to repair old rot damaged wood , and generally having a product that does so better and more lastingly than any product before it - this has to be good right? It saves timber, it saves replacement cost...it simply saves a lot, and hopefully will continue to give me a job! (In Spiral Dynamics speak, 'green' and 'orange' value systems can work together here! Bring on the new 'green' economy I say!) Perhaps covert futures is a more viable way to go. Something akin to attending Sunday school for a while to sharpen one's sense of morals, human decency and the 'good life.' (It's worth noting that 'religion' class was the only one I consistently got told to leave while in high school - damn those youngsters who actually ask questions and know something about other religions, damn them straight to hell!) You don't want to go out preaching too much - people might set you on fire for that - but you can live from that worldview and principle base, and have people enjoy the uniquely considered value you can bring to most situations...hopefully;) PS - Maybe I should reserve the web domain 'covert futures'? But then being covert means no explicit sales right? Or does it? Pity I don't have the cash or I'd make the bet with the purchase...then again, 'covert futures' is possibly a good term to apply to the unconscious futures that we are creating through allowing a small bunch of pathological neo-conservatives run the worlds largest economy and sprout up sympathetically pathetic governments here at home down under...arrrgh. Enough for today, or you'll start to really get a sense of my politics...and that could be dangerous, I mean, anyone could be reading this...and with the new ASIO laws... |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 22,November,2003 | I struggle you know (okay, you can keep your comments about this to your self thanks!). I've struggled with the idea of doing a blog for over a year. The come along some friends who've made it look like, who cares? I'll say whatever, its really just fun! Then there are others who I have in mind who do it with fun, but man, the quality is just something else - it actually makes me want to read their posts - like every one of them! So now I'm struggling. What content to include in mine - what's just self serving, what might actually be of value to others, complete strangers who stumble across my site? What about future employers? What about... well, privacy is an issue. So too the illusion of safety created by the virtual space...keeping a public diary? I mean what's with that?! But then I kinda love the idea...making connections in a disconnected world... So while my personal jury is out, I'll stop the urge to go back 'in time' and post all sorts of interesting tid bits from my year. And simply start right here. Waiting now for interesting tid bits to happen. I don't want to be just another news summary - its gotta have some purpose, some value, at the very least for me when I look back over my concerns, interests and, at the very, very least, my free web based links list;) If you're reading this, because you do or don't know me, then heck, let me know what you think would be good content given all the links I've put forward as important... |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 22,November,2003 | Today has been quite an adventure – learning to build a blog. Having spent some 12 hours at the computer, I can safely say there is more to discover, more to master, and simply more to do with blogging than I was ever aware. I can also say there has to be a point where it just gets silly for no good reason. I could spend weeks mastering all the software features available. To do anything more tech than the re-colouring, basic listings and search/subscription features, I'll need to pay for it. And while I'm not against paying for it, I just can't justify it – yet;) If you've discovered any nifty code I could include – that would actually improve my blog (given its current style direction) – then ah, please, let me know! I'm tired and going off to bed – Exasperated – Educated. |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 22,November,2003 | In one of those coincidences that some people find meaningful, I was sent a blog about the death of futurists today by a friend , when I just finished writing a column for a new integral zine . Here's my article, its yet to be published, and quite frankly is way too serious sounding now that I know what the rest of the zine is about. Maybe my editor can tweak it, or perhaps, I should follow his suggestion and insert clichéd Aussie slang to give it an 'edge.' Me thinks not…for now… Professional Futurists? What’s the point? Ever made predictions about your future? Believed someone else's predictions about yours? Chances are you've done both, even if you don't recognise them as predictions. Professional futurists like Alvin Toffler , Robert Theobald and Wendell Bell counsel caution in making any sort of hard and fast predictions. They do agree however, that it is an inherent part of being a rational thinking person. The real issue, as far as this student of futures studies is concerned, is not about making predictions, but about the quality of the thinking behind them. Throughout each epoch of human history, thinking about the future has taken a different form. As different worldviews have evolved, so too humanity's preferences for facing the future. Once upon a time we were mainly mythical and magical in thought; the future a cyclical repetition of the seasons, stars and social events, effected by ritual petitions to the appropriate deities. The modern era brought forth rational scientific foresight, strategic planning in accordance with the laws of existence. More recently, in the aftermath of two world wars, a more critical approach to thinking about the future has emerged . One that is more concerned with the significant influence of values, beliefs and interpretation on our ability to choose and shape our futures. Perhaps integral futures will bring each of their gifts together? In a recent Integral Naked discussion professional futurist John Peterson , from the US Arlington Institute , described one possible 'big event' in the world’s future history . John was talking about the democratisation, or feudal fundamentalist regression, that could emerge in Saudi Arabia because of its fault-line like position in the Middle Eastern affairs, and the developed world’s oil markets. Two things struck me while listening to John and Ken speculate. First, damn I’m sick of hearing about oil – aren’t there more important issues than slippery money? Secondly, what John is pointing to is already well under way! He’s describing two extreme end-states of a process that even the Australian media is currently observing . Like, what’s that got to do with the future? Well, with reflection, I think there’s a clue here to what all futures thinking is based on – the past and the present. There’s no way around it really, the future doesn’t exist yet as far as most people are concerned, and in a sense, it never will. So what’s different between John's musings on the future and anyone else's? Sure he’s had more formal practice, but isn’t he just looking at what interests him? Or, more to the point, what it pays for him to express an interest in? On the one hand, I don't see any difference. There’s nothing fundamentally different between the girl I currently like, who’s a first year fashion student, learning about how to design her new range of clothes for the coming couple of years, in essence, to John looking over the political-economy and looking for the big shifts in the coming years. They’re both looking to what the major influences and patterns of change are currently, so that the decisions they take have a better chance of leading to relevant, desirable consequences. Is this logic really any different than a high school student picking their college courses? Is it that far from every parent’s dreams for their children? It seems each is equally concerned with hopes and fears of long-term consequences in a single area, a narrow focus. Yet John's paid for his musings, where as most of us aren't. So what difference do others see? To my mind it rests on consciously thinking about the long-term future consequences of every action in relationship with all the others being made. No small task. It means making the long-range a global parameter in every executable, every process, every routine, of our psychware. Do you think about the future everyday like you do the past? Do you think out into the future with more than just single point hopes, single frame fears? You do? Well good! If you do, it means you’re hitting on the real value in quality futures thinking, and the role of professional, paid futurists – thinking with depth and breadth as well as a long-now time frame. If not, hopefully you’ll give people like me a job like John's. It’s the depth and breadth behind John’s thinking that’s worth paying for. Its annoying to my greenie self that oil matters so much, but it does act as a focus point of the real issues: energy, social and political values, and regional robustness in national relationships. These issues, whether I like it or not, are shaping the contours of our collective lives, in more powerful and fast moving ways than most care to notice. But what about the girl I’m dreaming about? The careful trend analysis that’s guiding her creative efforts into the fickle fancies of future fashions? She is routinely scouring cultural artefacts from around home in Melbourne, and abroad in Europe, India and South America. She agonises over discerning the differences, the shifts and constants, in the values , needs and social forms as they will affect fashion, a personal political expression to the world. It's scary to admit, as a stye-less guy, but her thinking seems just as deep, just as broad, and is likely to be just as important in my social life as John's thoughts about oil. It certainly will if I want to get that date and haven’t slipped into the right style… Off to the shops I go then, thinking deeply about alternative energy sources , and how to evolve the nations of earth into values that will sustain humanity into my future, and how to relate all this to my fashion choices… My potential children will have a liveable earth, and do it in style, if I get my predictions right:) |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 12,November,2003 | A year ago I cut my social ties, got rid of half of my belongings (especially the expensive ones ), abandoned many long running projects and headed to Melbourne for a sabbatical. The results are in: this week three boring academic pieces that contribute to the creation of Integral Futures were published . At least it looks like I've been doing something productive;) |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 12,November,2003 | If it doesn't make sense, get used to it. Pressure from urlLink m - urlLink a - urlLink n - urlLink y virtual presences has finally brought me to this page. A new step in a new age blab la bla la bla. I'm here. I'll rant. I'll link. I'll emote. I may even demonstrate that I occasionally think. Perhaps if I fill the site with junk real fast, people won't notice that I've only just joined the band wagon… bring on contact in an age of isolation. |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 12,November,2003 | Life is not precious, without death. Light is not guiding, without darkness. Happiness is not special, without pain. In this time of epidemic choice, And, as ever, constant change, The wise choose the perspective, That is infinite in range. Happiness is a choice. To see the light is a matter of perspective. Life is simply, use or abuse. So which perspective do you choose? There is no win or loose, Only the fact of freedom, you choose! ----- Ownership is such a poison... Yet, it is all I have... 'Yet,' soothes a voice inside 'It is a choice of what to own, That can turn this world, From a prison, to a throne. Would you like to be King or Queen? Then you should know: The King doesn't own, he belongs. The King doesn't conquer, he rescues. The King is neither here, nor there, For, in his wisdom of Love, He is everywhere. Hail to the King! ---- The meaning, the reason and purpose, Are held within the singing. They are not at the end, after the song. They are its' melody, its' timbre, They are the players and, The instruments impossible to play wrong. My life, I am the song. I am the meaning, I am the choice of hearing, Right from wrong. Where in Truth, neither belong. I am, most simply and perfectly, The singing of the Eternal's song. ---- There is no doubt in my heart, That you are one of life's great pieces of art. And what science I can see, In the ways you enthral me. My brief time, so close to you, Has brought such sweet gifts to my door. You are an air so divinely rare, To God I sware: your heart's pure Love I could eternally bare. Do you know the sun and moon, Come and go within you? You are the support of all heavens; Your very being the play of, Everything one could think, say or do. |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 11,November,2003 | I make me laugh. Did you know? Have you ever stopped to wonder, who is your laughter? Who bounces through your door Arriving as your courts clown With the hat and boots for sure… Who is your laughter? Who takes your pain, And lets you see it fresh, and stupid again? Who lights your black holes? Who mocks your most serious roles? Who do you let? Whom have you choose For there lie your honesty, There lie your extremes There’s embodied all your truths And you know nobody knows what it means. Who is your laughter? For I am mine, and for me that’s just fine. I never run out, except when I’m half asleep. But then, who do you know that have only a smile to keep? I make me laugh. Did you know? Who is your laughter? For there is your lover. |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 01,November,2003 | My Kings of Chaos recuriting link... go ahead, join my army;) http://www.kingsofchaos.com/recruit.php?uniqid=k4vv4dk4 and, groundfly's army too! (my sub-y) http://www.kingsofchaos.com/recruit.php?uniqid=6cki9bmu |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 30,December,2003 | FICTION BOOKS were to order of the day for a few weeks (while moving and travelling). Neil Stephenson took centre stage in my mental world with Cryptonomicon and Quicksilver. Both over a 1000 pages, heavily based in history, and full of erratic tangents into errant facts and flights of mental functioning, I really enjoyed them. They even went past the common description given to the fiction I read (of being fairy-floss: sweet but with no nutritional value) because of the historical scholarship – no so much in exact facts, but in worldviews, value systems and proving an almost tangible access to the states of mind and times of life past that are our western inheritance. |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 20,December,2003 | TRAVELLING INTER-STATE FOR CHRISTMAS, like many others, I had what deserves to be described as the best Christmas week of my life - with my family - ever since I stoped getting Santa presents (and boy, do I have some childhood issues to work out with him!). My parents divorced a few yeas ago, and this traditional family season, I managed to fit in quality time with everyone, with joy, great food, excellent beverages and a real wholesome feeling. Quite a miracle. I also discovered my sister and her new husband have beat me to my teenage dream of owning just over a square kilometre of bush land, on the edge of a mountainous region over looking the 50 kilometres of farming plains due north of Canberra. Damns, a main house, two secluded artists studios, and no neighbours for miles, I know where I'll be going if I need to get away for a while… a self sufficient patch of privacy. Perfect (as long as I can afford to get a satellite internet connection;) Now I just need to break it to my sister that I'm going to be the property's care taker… |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 20,December,2003 | MOVING HOUSE is quite an exercise, especially when you've scheduled things in for a 39 degree day, and are moving your self to make it financially viable. It's always nice to discover where your absolute physical exertion limits are… somehow, I came away feeling more alive, while proclaiming to be dead. I now live with people again! (well, I believe they're people, and after 18 months as a happy hermit, its hard to tell what is real as far as humanity goes – just one of the benefits I guess;) The result? Fantastic house, great park (Edinburgh Gardens in Fitzroy North) across the road, and minutes from the city and cool café strips like Brunswick and Smith streets here in Melbourne. Cable internet, TV and other mod-cons I never had before…ahh luxury. Cheaper all round too:) |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 13,December,2003 | Several friends have asked me what I think about the current debate in France and Turkey regarding the Muslim Habib – the bit of cloth some women choose to wear over their head. So without referencing the links which you'll find a plenty, here's my thinking through of the issues involved. Okay, my Saturday morning analysis, off the top of my head, just out of bed and avoiding doing an uber exciting OH&S policy for a chemical using company which is just so far away from what I studied at school… We'll start with three points for the cloth, then move onto three points against the cloth, and mix in three points in analysis of why people are using a bit of cloth to exacerbate cultural wars the world over. I'll also intersperse Spiral Dynamics colours (see link on side) for those who want to simplify the argument latter with me. Firstly, if someone wants to wear a damned bit of cloth over their hair, so what? By all cultural standards, around the world that I am aware of, this implies nothing offensive, mean, nasty, immoral or corrupt about a person, nothing that is, in comparison to American proclivities to wear basically nothing at all, French habits of wearing berets and other stupid clothes, the British habit of wearing suits that well, really shouldn't be worn and the list could go on. Its just a bit of cloth. 1950's western women worn them too – it was the fashion. But basically, its quite practical if you lived in constant sun bathed territories (where it originated from). (an Orange pragmatic view) Secondly, in support of this bit of cloth, and its pragmatic origin, we can also note that the tribal city state cultures it really got going in have endowed it with lots of other possible meanings beside sun protection. There's the equality aspect for women not to be objectified. Something about modesty, not giving stupid desires men anything extra to work with and so on. If we looked to the west, we see the same meaningful habits with dress length and so on in a million other little cultural details. So nothing new or shocking here. (Red origins evolving into Blue habits) Thirdly, the real argument that will wash with western society, should be it is a freedom, a right, a choice, that if someone wants to cover them selves, or wear basically nothing, they can. They are also entirely free to assume any meaning for their activities they like, as long as they don't impinge on others rights to the same freedoms of choice. To teach children this is imperative for the maintenance of the society we cherish so dearly (apparently;) (This be Orange to Green level thinking) Now, on the other hand, many of the world's (particularly western) schooling and public institutions are run by a long established (read slightly un-evolved) mythic membership and conformity culture (full tilt Blue culture). Anyone remember going to a Catholic college? In these situations, which the majority of our societies still agree with, and from a developmental psychology point of view are mostly valid stage appropriate structures for youth, then there silly rules have a measure of okay-ness to them. I note for example, that the French aren't just banning head gear, their banning any overt and potentially provocative religiosity display – Christian crosses, Jewish caps etc. A fairly sensible effort in execution (Orange edge to Blue action), however I do personally think that you can supply the right kind of discipline without causing a rift and religious suppression, and essentially an identity rejection in the venerable youth who are struggling exactly to establish healthy, meaningful self identities and senses of culture. Now the French approach may seem harsh and divisive and counter productive because of this. But it could also be argued as quite ingenious in terms of levelling the playing field and forging a more homogeneous cultural identity (like they'll need to function in the same society together as they grow older), with differences celebrated I other ways and other places. (Orange to Green thinking) Further, the veil has quickly become a major symbol of fundamentalism, and no one wants to allow fundamentalism to take hold (it being a very unhealthy Red and Blue) – especially not a progressive, secular and freedom of religion promoting society like France (Orange but mainly Green in politics), and rightly so to a degree, because of the oppression that has been associated with it. The western countries, and even countries like Turkey who are also amongst a major cultural war involving a silly bit of cloth, are sane and healthy in their desire to eradicate anything they can that promotes fundamentalism (Turkey is fighting to establish the rational modernist Orange as the norm). They may be going a little far and acting fundamentalist themselves however, and the irony of that is plain for any sane person to see, although most won't notice it. Most in western countries will either be, 'damn right get rid of it, fundamentalists of that crazy heathen religion will kill us all otherwise, or at leats bring down the moral fibre of our society,' says the western Christian fundamentalist (Blue), or the western rational person might say 'well they should have the right to wear it (I have a bandanna for the right occasion and my mum used to wear head scarfs too), but um, there is something a miss here, because I still wrong about the nasty fundamentalism associated with it – how do we separate it?' (Orange) They are most likely to be a little unsure, and not able to decide (pure orange rationalism just doesn't cut the mustard in cultural decisions, just look at marketing in general;). Hence the current French debate, the current Turkish debate and so on… Now the third point in defence of banning a bit of cloth in schools and public institutions, is that it is deeply symbolic, and the main society is struggling to maintain its integrity with the massive influx of people from different cultures and at different levels of development and cultural expression. (So a healthy Blue activity to ensure that Orange thinking can stay the norm in the face of an influx of red/blue of different cultures). It can also be seen as a rational approach to removing anything that might cause problems. And why would anyone want to give teenagers and other public services the fuel to enrage people, create fear in people, and have them wearing symbols of suppression and lack of freedom? (as the cloth is seen in the evidence of fundamentalist association). Now personally, and considering all the analysis (full of debateable points I know) I think if you want to wear a bit of cloth, and you do so meaningfully, then great! Go right ahead! It’s a free society I like, and it's your right, and it doesn't hurt anyone! But if you're wearing it because you have to, because it isn't a choice, then we need to address that aspect of our society and say, that's not how it works in a free society, and instituting the removal of the veil could be a healthy counter point. I fear however that many are right that, in practice, it will add to the growth of separate cultural schooling, and people living in increasing isolation, fear and ignorance. As for the teenager's own healthy growth, I think it imperative they be able to express their cultural origins. Otherwise we'll end up with more of the western problem of youth ending up with weak self identity and meaning and loosing themselves in drugs and to suicide. If we promote cultural diversity and celebrate it, we will have a more richly meaningful society where people are able to be together on a common basis and also distinct without being overtly conflict promoting. So, the real issue in this for me? The real issue is to get everyone to decry fundamentalism of any persuasion, like we tried to do with dictators during their great rise in the 20th century (some argue rightly that we're still trying to get rid of dictators, fascism etc, but that's another story). If we did that women of other cultures would wear the head dress in fashionable support, and freely show how it can be easily on or off, healthy meaningful or with no real meaning, and we'll take our mass media weapons and bring down fundamentalism as soon as it pops its head up - which it will, continually. I should really do some work now… |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 11,December,2003 | A story, a story... A friend in a very unbusy public service job asked me fo a story. I obliged. You can suffer the consequences too, if you want to... A story...a boy was once hurt by 'the system' and subsequently bucked the system, yet then, after many hours, days, weeks, months and indeed years of tortured confusion and compassion growing (called 'surviving university' by the system), he decided to understand the system so he could help the system (all the while living off the edges of the system). He got it, finally, kinda, well a little bit at any rate, and then went to head back into the system to help (after many years of depression, rage, confusion, disgust and too many substances to alleviate said experiences, including healthy ones - this being called 'self-study' and 'self-development' by the system). The system however, doesn't like to be shunned. The boy shouldn't have turned down that $50K govt system job straight out of uni in favour of more study that he certainly shouldn't have dropped out of when he had just realised (very thankfully) he really didn't know shit about the system he'd just studied. So, upon trying to re-enter the system, now more knowledgeable and sober about the realities of the system, and actually having come up with many system acknowledging wonders of how to hep and run the system, especially about whole system future strategy (that's a system word right there), and even coining meaningful system buzz terms like 'competently incompetent'(TM) which he exemplifies, the system basically said, 'go and get fucked. You haven't remained ignorant and submissive to the system, so you must be made to acknowledge your debt of submission to the system. You must be humbled by humiliation. You, you, you (system in blithering tantrum as projected by the boy) just go and suffer without me - I'm THE system.' So the boy sat and wrote silly accounts of the system, as the little white men in the little white coats with their little white van and little white pills came along singing 'It’s a white Christmas' ... 'but its summer' said the boy, and showing aggression and agitation according to the system, he was knocked over the head with a white computer screen (one of the millions of handmaidens of the system) and went into a white tunnel which eventually turned into a very big black whole, 'just like I thought the system really was at heart' thought the boy, as he died. The end. Tune in next week when the boy is resurrected within the system at a new location - its total recall virtuosity dear Johnny nemonic, and you'll never experience the reality of the system the same ever again, once he tackles the question of system change? Do be 'in' or 'out?' THAT is the question... |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 05,December,2003 | It's funny how some children, especially sons, seem to either follow in dad's footsteps, or on the other hand, to do anything but as a matter of self defining existence - it becomes a matter of life and death. Well, Australia joined The Son of Star Wars yesterday. After a brief strategic canvassing earlier in the year, then nothing, a meeting over a 'Free' Trade deal between the USA and Australia, and then a month later, this . Interesting... Capcoincidence had a great idea. How about all those with the money to burn join in and set up this puppy, and then hand it over to UN control so that any ballistic missile will be stopped. Unfortunately, as he concedes, this is a hopelessly romantic suggestion, something with way too much sanity and consideration of future consequences. I probably don't need to go into why (well I hope I don't, otherwise you're reading the wrong site;) Try Znet or Disinformation for an education if this is the case... or simply open your eyes and ask a few questions about what the hell is going on and why in geo-politics. Other ideas are also possible, but not probable unfortunately. But what does te Son Of Star Wars mean for Australia, its regions and the worlds geo-political stability? Of course the proponents say it will make things safer, however I contend it will only make things worse. This of course, is ignoring why the problem started in the first place dear USA and Russia, but then again maybe its just human nature. The real danger for the future in my opinion includes the following: 1.Colossal waste of resources - a fraction of which could solve many of the underlying causes rather than inadequately treating the symptoms; 2.The 'solution' isn't even technically possible yet - and still seems a long way from being viable; 3.It simply encourages the proliferation of smaller tactical nukes - something the USA is currently pursuing apace. It is also something that suits small operators like terrorists perfectly; 4.There never has been a nuclear ballistic missile strike. Even if the program works, most governments aren't going to go there in the first place to justify the need, but it does reinforce their strategic imperative to go tactical and possibly rely on splinter terrorist groups or styled groups - something we have no real defence for except to address the causes; 5.It is only going to serve to piss off a lot of countries, alienate domestic populations and scare the hell out of everyone. If you can stop ballistic missiles - everyone buts yours (the largest stockpile in the world - how the hell is anyone else going to stop yours? No one else has the resources to burn. This increased fear and feeling of being dominated is likely to increase points three and four; 6.There are possibly many others, but for now, perhaps these basic strategic considerations would be enough to make sense to any rational forward thinking individual. A counter point is that this missile solution is being built to guard against North Korea and possibly China. Fair point. Relations are bad, and they have the technology. They also have a track record, particularly the North Korean's, of not playing sensible, and are more likely than anyone to push the go button. But on the other hand, these are exactly the countries the USA is going to make the most nervous, fearful and twitchy. Why go in to a rabid lions den and poke fire at him? Are you stupid? Well you do need to do something about the situation. How about diplomacy, arms reductions, and treaties? Compromise on a little face and save the human race. Doesn't sound too silly to me. And besides, the USA could do this to a phenomenal degree and still have more weaponry, economic power and political clout than any other region of the world. This is likely especially the case if they save the money on the defence budget, create untold political good-will and loyalty through providing viable and noble leadership (read survival for humanity) and be in an even better bargaining position economically with their 'free Trade' deals... Maybe I'm just a hopeless romantic. Maybe I'm naive. But I have thought about this topic a bit, especially writing a 40 000 word report for the Australian Defence Forces' futures planning project Oracle 2030 back in the late nineties - on how to use long range communication strategies to foster long term regional security and robust stability. So perhaps my perception has more than a shred of pragmatic truth to it. Perhaps the neo-cons are bunch of irrational scaremongering blood thirsty fools who are too institutionalised and self mythologising not only for their own good, but that of humanity as a whole as well. Wish I had a clear path of action for people to take to move their governments towards these more sane propositions of geo-political strategy, but I haven't the time at present, except to say, read Michael Moore's Dude Where's My Country and join his bandwagon and remove Bush, the Miserable Failure . |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 04,December,2003 | I've felt the need to celebrate Mark Latham's ascension to the captain role of Australia's real political underdogs – Labour. I'm short on analytical inspiration this evening after attending Melbourne's Ken Wilber Meet-Up group where we wet through a life boat moral dilemma situation, and ended up talking over pizza about sustainability, futures studies, and morality in business – all through a heavy handed Spiral Dynamics summary language approach (damn it can get misleading;). I can say however that at least Australian politics is going to be more entertaining over the coming months, and may even get to a point of involving decent debate, fresh policy decisions , or at the least decisive ones. Even though I might vermently disagree with some of Latham's likely policy positions (lets face it, I'm way left on a lot of things he's going to e further right than Howard our current PM is), I'm cheering for Latham all the way to the polls. God knows we need a change from the lying suck-up pathological orange-good-father-blue Howard (SD speak). Being lazy, here's a funny section from Crikey's review that exemplifies my hopes for entertainment and maybe even growth or simply real political debate in Australia. Latham at his best! His speech to the House of Reps during the parliamentary debate on Iraq was one of his best rants. It included this vivid description of the government: 'Mr Howard and his government are just yes-men to the United States, a conga line of suckholes on the conservative side of Australian politics. The backbench sucks up to the Prime Minister, and the Prime Minister sucks up to George Bush - and they have the hide to call themselves Australians. In my book, they are not Australian at all.' A very personal attack on the PM: 'In his statement to the parliament, the Prime Minister dismissed the opposition to war as 'just anti-American prejudice'. Imagine, the member for Bennelong lecturing us about prejudice: the same Member of Parliament who opposed sanctions against South Africa, who wanted to cut Asian immigration, who opposed the Mabo judgment tooth and nail, who welcomed Pauline Hanson's first speech in this place as an outbreak of free speech. He still refuses to say sorry to the stolen generation and, to this day, cannot bear to utter the word 'multiculturalism'. This bloke has a PhD in prejudice; he has no right to be lecturing anyone else.' And in the unlikely event that both George Dubya and Latham win elections next year how will they ever be able to work together after Latham stated 'Bush himself is the most incompetent and dangerous president in living memory.' There was plenty more, so check out the whole speech here . |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 29,January,2004 | Sometimes you find a real gem on the internet. Sometimes its just what you're looking for... and if you happen to be interested in globalisation, the 'global agenda' and anything else mainstream to the power brokers that parade on your television, then perhaps you'll really like to check out my recent reading list: 1. Book - ' Open World:/the truth about globalisation ' by 29 year old chief economist of ' Britain in Europe ,' Philippe Legrain . Not exactly the most academic or with arguments that capture any subtlety, but easy to read and equally cogent in the face of the likes of No Logo et al... somewhere, somehow, soon, I'll have read enough of this humbug about globalisation to magically internally combust and transform into a higher level of organisation that reconciles such differing perspectives - with an original style - and come out with a pithy essay that can help humanity save it self from it self... And get me a decent mark. In the mean time, this next source is really handy... 2. News List - a fortnightly global agenda happenings summary list - think mainstream, think global agenda/globalisation, think environmental scanning with hyperlinks, think easy to read, think free to read. If these are your kind of tings, check out Global Focus by One World Trust . Maybe, just maybe, after months of reading (global futures) and writing (local small business OH&S manuals and communication's products) I'll actually find time o write something meaningful, like an insightful analysis or something urbanely similar... then again, maybe I've unfortunately just found my form: as a whining news service;) |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 22,January,2004 | Well, I've been reading reading reading... The main thing in my scopes this week has been 'The Clash Of Civilisations and the Remaking of World Order,' by Samuel P Huntington. The original essay kicked off a huge debate, lecturing tour and round table discussions, so the book expanded on and gained from these to really be quite a brilliant novelty in International Relations theorising (chapter one for free here . Highly recommended reading. Beyond that, several new news sources have kept me entertained, and here's a lazy excert for you from a strategy zine on Iraq that I found worth the read (altough many might want to laugh or argue;): 'From the U.S. point of view, therefore, the next steps are obvious. First, having changed regime behavior in Saudi Arabia, it is now in U.S. interests to stabilize the situation there and prevent the fall of the Saudi government, or facilitate a shift to a more favorable regime. Since the latter is unlikely in the extreme, it follows that the next step must be a change in policy that is more supportive of the current regime but still rigidly opposed to al Qaeda. This will be difficult to achieve. Second, the United States must, at some point, liquidate the remnants of al Qaeda in the Afghan-Pakistani theater of operations. Ideally, the Pakistani army will bear the burden of moving into the tribal areas in the northwest and will do the job for the United States. In reality, it is extremely unlikely that the Pakistani military will have the ability or motivation to undertake that mission. Therefore, it is likely that the United States will try to close out the war with a final offensive into northwestern Pakistan, preferably with the approval of a stable Pakistani government, but if that is impossible, then on its own. We would be very surprised if the United States launched this offensive prior to its elections. The administration has no appetite for another military campaign until the election is finished. Therefore, we would expect the United States to be in a defensive mode until November 2004. It will seek to consolidate its position in Iraq and in the Egyptian-Iranian line. It will work to assist the Saudi government, while carrying out covert operations throughout the region to mop up identified remnants of al Qaeda. This could include increased operations in northeastern Africa and in Afghanistan. Until then, the task of General John Abizaid, head of Central Command, will be to focus on developing a plan for moving into al Qaeda's homeland, if you will, and terminating the war by liquidating the final command centers. Assuming that the preference is not to launch this campaign during the winter -- not necessarily a fixed principle -- the offensive would take place in spring 2005. Al Qaeda's mission is to prevent this end game. It has three potential strategies, all of which can be used together. The first is to intensify its operations in Saudi Arabia to such a degree that regime survival is in doubt and the United States is forced to intervene. We cannot help but note that in the rotation of forces into Iraq, an excessive amount of armor for the mission remains there. It is excessive for Iraq, but not if U.S. forces should be forced to move into Saudi Arabia. If al Qaeda can bog the United States down on the Arabian Peninsula, it might by time for itself in its redoubt. The second strategy is to completely destabilize Pakistan. It is no accident that two attempts have been made on President Pervez Musharraf's life. There will be more. There are powerful forces within Pakistani intelligence and military that oppose Musharaf's alliance with Washington and sympathize with al Qaeda. You can add to this number those who would oppose any American intervention in Pakistan under any circumstances. Invading the northwest while Musharraf is nominally in control of the country is one thing. Invading in the face of a hostile government or total chaos is another. The United States does not have the forces to occupy and pacify Afghanistan or Pakistan. It has what it needs to execute a large-scale raid against al Qaeda. Therefore, it is al Qaeda's strategy to protect its redoubt by intensifying operations in Afghanistan and in Pakistan. Finally, al Qaeda might seek to break U.S. will by conducting extreme operations in the United States, obviously focusing on weapons of mass destruction. Al Qaeda's initial read of the United States was that it didn't really have the stomach for this war. It is unclear how al Qaeda reads the current political situation in the United States. Indeed, that situation is not altogether clear. However, if al Qaeda determines that the United States lacks the will to prosecute the war in the face of massive U.S. civilian casualties, it might try to carry out an extreme attack. Certainly, Sept. 11 did not achieve what al Qaeda wanted. Therefore, another attack on the order of Sept. 11 is unlikely. It is not clear if al Qaeda can carry out a more extreme operation, or if it views such an operation as helpful, but the strategic possibility remains. We would, therefore, expect that between now and the U.S. elections, it will appear that Islamist forces have the initiative. They will press hard in both Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, and the United States will appear to be in a passive and defensive mode. In fact, during the next nine months, in our opinion, the United States will be engaged in intense preparations, coupled with defensive actions designed to shore up the Saudi and Pakistani regimes. The fundamental issue now is what al Qaeda and its Islamist allies can achieve between now and November. This is their open window and the period in which they must reverse the direction the war has taken. If the current trend continues, and the Saudi and Pakistani regimes survive, the United States will attack in Pakistan; Al Qaeda, an organization that took a decade to create, will be shattered. The Islamist movement will become a widely held sentiment rather than an effective politico-military force. Contrary to popular opinion, it is not really that easy to construct a group such as al Qaeda, which is effective and resistant to intelligence. Therefore, the United States has had an extremely good few months. It has recovered from its imbalance in Iraq -- and although the resistance has not been destroyed, it is in the process of being contained. The U.S. strategic position has improved markedly, to the point that it is actually possible to begin glimpsing the end game. But between the glimpse of the end game and the end, there is al Qaeda, which must move vigorously now to reverse its losses and regain the initiative. ' |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 14,January,2004 | A NEW TACT for this blog has emerged over the past few posts – the personal side. I just couldn't hold it back any longer. I guess this is the part that the title caption fortold of – 'occasionally going into fits.' It has also meant no links, so you'll just have to make up your own. Don't winge, they're cheaper than chips. Welcome to my life;) Ahh, now don't we all feel better with that relieved? Okay, whatever. I'll still be ranting – hopefully integrally – on things that get my goat, or where I see a boat of opportunity, but for now, I'm swamped in consumption mode – reading books, mulling things over, putting work orders into my subconscious like there's no tomorrow, and raggedly trying to make sure I get two hours of meditation a day to hep it all percolate away… I guess only time will tell if I get the recipe right;) |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 10,January,2004 | SCHOOLS BACK apparently – well, the notice that we had five days to choose our major essay topics for the first quarter of the year came as a small surprise – so too the 'You'll be giving a presentation within our 5 days of contact btw, plus the 7000 word paper. So integral + analysis/approach to + globalisation + its predicaments seems t be the theme so far… what sort of paper I'm actually going to write I have no idea, every time I scratch the research surface (a solid five days of my time so far) I only come up with PHD sized ideas…and while I could squeeze out a summary, the research and headache quality reading involved is a mildly exasperating – I’d so rather by at my sisters property meditating, fixing fence pots and generally being grounded while thinking up new essays that'll never get written, but possibly transposed into rock art, or fire light vocal jams... SO THE BOOKS I'VE BROKEN MY HEAD WITH to start the year (aside from online articles, booklets, books, treatises, rantings and other modern research paraphernalia like flash animations) are Thomas Friedman's 'Lexus and the Olive Tree' (LOT) and without a second to spare, Chomsky's 'Hegemony or Survival' (HS). A whole LOT of H(i)Ssssss-ing if you ask me. I've been torn between the attitude of 'that's it! I've got to move to the US of A to survive and thrive in the new age neo-liberal capitalist globalisation of reality' and desperately fighting the urge to paint a placard and walk down Brunswick street proclaiming 'The End Of The World Is Neigh.' Or maybe just 'revolution, revolution, death to any American Institution.' But I'm not sure either option are really going to help me, or the world. The latter option may mean I get to meet some interesting people, and save me a fortune in psychotherapy bills however… perhaps I'll leave it on the 'to be considered' pile… If anyone has any helpful hints about how to integrally analyse globalisation – meaningfully, originally and insightfully even – in 7000 words, please let me know. If you have any great overview references, I'm all ears as well. Currently, I trying to figure out how to advance my Need For Conflict paper's version of an Integral Conflict Theory into an applied analysis of at least one manageable aspect of globalisation…perhaps technology and security since it seems to cause me so many problems… hummmmm. |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 05,January,2004 | GETTING BACK TO REALITY was a real pain – my computer decided to break in several places due to being upset at being turned off for over a week (I didn’t dare start to tell it about MY sex life, but oh well). Getting into work was a miss-fire – everyone else I am contracting for is either sick, or going inter-state for a break after working through Christmas. Mental note, three Jewish people I'm currently working to don't celebrate Christmas. Oh well, I didn't really feel like diving back into the middle of an Occupational Health & Safety policy manual anyway. Soooo not my thing. But heck, it is doable and will keep me in beer and skittles, so next week, next week… |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 02,January,2004 | NEW YEARS EVE was a delightful experience – being dragged along to a friend of a friends' house party because I had thought the plan of a bottle of red and reading in bed alone sounded quite appealing… the kind strangers let me talk to them, in some depth I might add (which could have had something to do with the consumerable items on offer, but you never know, they might have actually been interested in talking:~) New years day however, was another story all together. As capcoincidence covers with more depth, 'summrdaze' was the event, music, people, dancing, from midday to midnight (by which time my body, brain and senses hurt – time to happily pass out). Another nice thing happened on the way to 2004, I realised that like no other year I can remember, my mid was readto sya, write and read '04' in place of '03' before the due date. Scuh a small relief, its always a pain to be into Feb of a year and still thinking its the year before... perhpas I'm finally living in the possibility space of the future? Perhpas however, just keen to start afresh... |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 28,February,2004 | ' REINTEGRATING MORAL RIGHTS INTO COPYRIGHT Kay Raseroka, president of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA), says that recent moves to expand copyright limitations on information serve to shrink the ability of libraries to perform their role as a public good. 'If libraries cannot afford to provide access to information that is needed and helps people to be alert, aware and develop themselves, then the information society's future is endangered,' says Raseroka. Copyright was originally established to benefit authors, but what's happening now is the major beneficiaries of copyright laws are publishers, whose business model is based on keeping works out of the public domain for as long as possible. 'We think that this wrong and unfair, because no information is created ab initio. People do not produce material from nothing, they use public good that is provided, for example, in libraries. And surely the moment copyright expires is the time to feed the products and research results back into the public domain. We are willing to wait for a certain period of copyright, a time span that enables authors to recoup their costs and generate profit. But the extension of copyright … is destroying the public good and distorting the original intention of copyright. Maybe it is time to reintegrate the moral rights into copyright or … to ask the question of what is morally right in the area of access to information?' ( IFLA World Summit on the Information Society 10-12 Dec 2003 )' One might extend sucha logical argument to patents especially biological, food, health care etc... |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 23,February,2004 | What a couple of days! I've just spent the past four days on course at AFI . The core content was presentations from the class participants on different topics involved in (mainly) globalised views of how the 21st Century may evolve… The diversity of riches in perspectives, adroit summaries, and inspiring insights was astounding. Not sure how many people liked, or even got, my presentation on an Integral Approach to the Global Predicament. I guess by taking recourse to the Fisher King myth as a logic of explanation for the past few hundred years of the rise of the West and its next hundred years of challenge, while basically saying there was no real predicament other than the fact that we (humanity) now have at our disposal the means to wipe ourselves out with real ease (Humanicide) didn't go over to well. Everyone else's presentations were basically on an aspect of the global predicament, many claming to be the main most important problem. Humm, I did say these issues should still be dealt with, I just commented that they were secondary to the fundamental predicament (if it is one it is of life and death writ large, species wide and final) that we aren't doing enough to stop ourselves from Humanicide… Oh well, it was fun at any rate;) It also made all the books of reading over the past moth seem worth it. My real joys over the weekend included going on my very first social experiment styled internet date. Met a wonderful lass, drank way to much and got whipped at pool. This could be the beginning of a decent friendship me thinks. New people in my life, oh my, I'm not sure the universe is ready for me to be messing with any more people's heads just yet… The internet dating continues in search of Miss Right however, with enough different games of email tag going that I really need a score card;) The REAL fun was a fellow student at AFI inviting me to play taxi driver for Don Beck from the airport to hotel – one of the originators of Spiral Dynamics . A great opportunity to meet a man whose work I greatly admire. I rudely hung about at the hotel to crash a four person sharing of a bottle of red and some nibbles for a few hours and talked the state of the world… Great fun. Don's travelling companion and av specialist is also a master with SD, and his observations about my own spiral activities provided great insights. Fantastic! I get to drink, meet fantastic people and get a free SD psychotherapy session! Does it get any better? The stupid grin on my face and the torrent of insights through my mind on the drive home kinda make me think that at the very least, it was well worth my time;) Don is presenting to my AFI class tomorrow…and then I have the fun with a fellow student of doing an Integral mapping exercise of the group's different presentations… should be quite an interesting challenge (nothing like having to apply your own version of the theory!) So many perspectives on often closely cherished presentations and with the bare minimum of integral understanding in the room… I can't wait for the well earned insights to come to me in the session's private post-mortuum. |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 21,February,2004 | As usual, Alex Burns is at it again: synthesising and summarising huge swaths of important writing. This time Alex covers off a dozen books to present an incisive 'state of play' in media style, audience relations and public policy makers through the 1990's and September 11th inspired wars… Anyone interested in the mediation of humanity's geo-political activities and national decisions should read this piece… Here's a snippet that is unpacked in this surprisingly short and accessible essay: 'After September 11 the geopolitical pundits, a reactive cycle of integration propaganda, pecking order shifts within journalism elites, strategic language, and mediated trauma all combined to bring a specific future into being. This outcome reflected the ‘media-state relationship’ in which coverage ‘still reflected policy preferences of parts of the U.S. elite foreign-policy-making community’ (Robinson 129). Although Internet media and non-elite analysts embraced Hallin’s ‘sphere of deviance’ there is no clear evidence yet that they have altered the opinions of policy-makers.' Read more… Alex Burns is Editor of the award-winning Disinformation , an executive editor with Black Box Magazine , and a research intern at the Australian Foresight Institute . |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 18,February,2004 | Well, many of us always thought it was true, other senior spooks and policy analysts have said as much – to the demise of their careers in some cases – and now the cat is really out of the bag about Australian awareness of the USA's claptrap over Iraq WMD. Is it still really an issue? It was so transparent to start with… I guess the point is blatant lying to the public, with many lives in the balance, not to mention the likely increase in world terrorism, a more instable region, a more recalcitrant Israel and may other alternative readings of consequences besides. We can now be even more certain that our Government Minsters and PM got the message straight from the top of intelligence, and that our suspicions of blatant deception, lies and political manipulation for personal and political gain where the nature of our involvement in the war in Iraq mark 2. Here' the well worded ABC news post in full that covers the DIO's head's recent remarks. Could he really have made a slip up? Or was it deliberate? Did he really expect students at a strategic defence studies course from different countries and walks of life to hold secrecy out of respect in the face of the national disgrace? Is he trying to cover up someone else's leaks because that alternative is even more damaging? Whatever the case, his words a very well crafted… Intelligence chief may be leak source The head of the Defence department's intelligence agency says he believes he is the source behind a newspaper report claiming the Howard Government was warned that the US had exaggerated the case for war against Iraq. Defence Intelligence Organisation chief Frank Lewincamp has made the claim at a Senate estimates hearing. He says last weekend's article in The Age was mostly based on a private lecture he had given at the Australian National University last September. Mr Lewincamp says the students were told the lecture was 'off the record' and he understood his comments would not be made public. Mr Lewincamp disputes aspects of the article. He has told the hearing he was authorised to make the presentation and the leak was inadvertent. 'I spoke in general terms on issues such as the independence of intelligence assessment, the difference between intelligence and policy response, the quality of intelligence, the lessons to be learned from recent events, the increasing scrutiny of intelligence and media reporting on intelligence,' he said. He has been counselled by the head of the Defence department. Wednesday, February 18, 2004. 7:40pm (AEDT) |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 16,February,2004 | Last weeks' major distraction has been over six years in the making. Why it took so long, I'll never know. Well I do, it just isn't interesting. The point is I can't believe I let my self wait to figure out how to use something like the Brain Wave Generator ! I originally listened to some of this , and the finally tried out these cd's last year. The first lot never really did that much, they just caused a light state change so that things were a little calmer. The second lot really did something, but nothing that amazing after a couple of weeks (or maybe I'm just greedy to have my mind blow;) and besides, they're prohibitively expensive considering they're basically copied cd's. The BWGen (and other stuff like it) sends specific audio signals in each ear to cause particular frequencies in your brain. So what? Well, certain frequencies have been shown to correspond to certain functional activities and subjective experiences . So what? Well, do you suffer annoying headaches? Do you have trouble sleeping? Do you have dreams of deep easy practically instant meditation and all the benefits that come wit it? Well these are just some of the possible benefits… Fantastic stuff IMO. I've finally done the research and put together what I hope is a really decent series of presets (programs of what I blast my brain with) to use on a regular basis – if I stick with what would be a sensible schedule of use it should take me several years to finish with them, but more likely I'll rush it…but then again, I'm yet to find out the long-term consequences of using these things…so anything is possible. My life as a lab rat, won't mum be proud? In short, if you've ever wanted to meditate, and just found it too damn hard given all your other time constraints, things that have to be thought about and so on, then maybe the BWGen is for you. At the very least, it's one heck of a lot of fun for me, and I'll assume, for anyone else who's sensitive to their internal state changes it could be a lot of fun, if not benefit too… One of my integral geek friends is also fascinated with what it can do, and what it means for humanity's future. His site is really worth checking out, if only as a portal to all the research on that is the background for programs like the BWGen . (Sorry about the geek call Coolmel , but ya gotta admit, its kinda true;) If you want to know how to get a full working copy of the BWgen – ask me;) Otherwise you can sill try out the basics for free – although they're really light on presets:) PS: Of course you can always use these technologies for evil too! |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 13,February,2004 | A new friend decided to surprise me with digging up some of my searchable past… ouch. To stave off painstakingly slow death by embarrassment, I figured I'd post the whole thing and get it over and done with for now. Go on, have a laugh on me;) The damn internet! This is SO going to be happening the rest of my/our lives… I had no idea a one pager I wrote on mental illness and health in Australia for some Government public relations youth consultation wank ever got published on line. It was the summary of eight months volunteer research on my behalf – interview after interview, book after book, article after article, free trip after free trip, lunch with politician after politician (well okay, only water, a shared hour or two, and weeks playing email softball with their advisors). Fascinating to read (for my ego anyways;) and what's scary is the conclusions and recommendations still add up. I guess that goes to prove the PR point a bit;) The really scary bit is the profile photo – the text is a complete laugh: I wish I had a commerce degree, I wish I could be back in Canberra for the future 9th Canberra International Film Festival (paid of course) I wish… I wish someone had managed to simply copy and past my original bio rather than re-write like a shmuck and get so many things wrong…come on people, its not that hard? Is it? And what about the actual report? Some twenty pages? Oh well, such is the price you pay for a good laugh a few years latter… man the hair cut! The writing mistakes don't extend to the standard political influence of the day of course…the one most valuable contact I made in government through the whole process – the only person to actually talk with me about what I was interested in, was Senator Kate Lundy. And here's the treatment she gets for being real about the youth consultation process! What was I really interested in talking about? Why Defence of course! I managed to get a great spread in the top three stories each bulletin for the morning drive three hours on the ABC's JJJ, Radio National and Canberra local (aptly named) 666 (where I latter worked!?!) on the morning of the presentations of findings at Parliament House. Unfortunately for posterities sake, you won't find a transcript on-line anywhere (unless you want to pay Rehame for your own words of course;) but for the desperately bored, I have paper copies… you'll need to buy me a bottle of red for the laughing privilege however! Oh brother, I really need to stop reminiscing, its making my head spin… |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 12,February,2004 | Ahhh, now this is more like it. That last post? Consider it well timed (and then there's always issue 11 of this ), because today a prime example of what might become a crucial vehicle for the success of the Integral Institute , and indeed any integral revolution, was launched. It seems until I get the money and the job or wife willing to sponsor me to move to the Rocky Mountains integral epicentre in the States (please, all emails for expressions of interest as a relevant service provider to chris/ dot/ stewart/ at/ pemanagement/ dot/ com/ dot/ au/ – and yes, we keep applications on file), I'll just have to concentrate on developing Integral Futures off the coat tails of Joe Voros and Richard Slaughter at AFI . Not toooo bad a deal all things considered, besides I get to live in Melbourne, one of the worlds regularly assessed 'most liveable cities.' (I do have to ask though, being the middle of summer, and with the solid rain maintaining a top temp of around bloody freezing, who actually assessed the liveability??? Bloody economists…no idea of priorities:-) Integral futures you say? Well, I'd tell you more but its still being developed… It's going to be more like an Integral Foresight Strategy from my perspective anyway, yeah, that's a better name (TM). Integral Futures, Integral Foresight Strategy, whatever I manage to get a job under the banner of you can rest assured that integral thinking, particularly AQAL, and looking forward are going to be the biggest two assets I contribute for my buck (except my lovely smile and warm demeanour under pressure that is;) Oh well, it looks like in the meantime I'm going to have to continue to develop my skills where I can: local community work. Most corporates it seems don’t actually want you to perform according to the selection criteria. The alternative? Take it to them…by betting them, luring them, cajoling them, whatever it takes… For now, how about an In-Town integral transformational development group in Melbourne? Broader public engagement education, networking and events group that bridges the Integral with the Foresight and delivers Melbourne, neigh Australia, oh heck, lets face it: THE WORLD – the best of both worlds, and with strategy/strategic studies (especially of the deliberately self-limiting 'defence' variety) thrown in (that's the other world we don't like to speak about but which pays the bills) we'll be producing something uniquely valuable, where its elements inherently compliment each other through dynamic tension, and damn could this be packaged and exported! So, an Integral Foresight Strategy, epicentre Melbourne, well, at least my head n' heart, and those of anyone else I can infect;) Whaddya say? Ya in? PS – can you tell that since I found that typing my name in finally brings me to the top of google (go on, click the link and have a look, I'm so proud of my marketing efforts:) I thought I'd get a few other terms up on the list as well…hence the really wordy last few posts;) You never know who I'll attract to throw flames at me if it works;) What FUN! |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 10,February,2004 | Did I mention the strange, slowly evolving reaction I've been having to my most cherished cultural context ? Or, for those with projection and pathology measuring sticks at the ready, exchange 'evolving reaction' with something like 'consciously considered and chosen positive discrimination concerning…' It’s a short story in my mind, but can be plumed for depth. Integral Naked : great idea, raises money, gives some young Integral hacks and geeks a buck and something else to do – extra purpose even – repeats core messages for the newly initiated and slow learners (like me), creates community, transcends national boundaries and, well, alienates lots of people. All good until the last point really. I get where Master Ken Wilber is headed with the 'naked' aspect – great visuals, meaningful associations and specific spelt out connotations, promotes a core issue that really needs healthy attention in our modern societies (sooo many modern humans a really screwed up in the screwing department, and anything vaguely associated with it – well, that's my view anyway, and if you're in doubt have a quick surf with any relevant, and even many not so relevant, buzz phrases;) and so on and so on, until we reach the part where it turns people away from participation with the epicentre of the proposed integral revolution, integral resistance, the integral underground, integral overground, integral trans-ground or should I say post-metaphysical post-post-modern, post-post-post-conventional, integrally transpersonal integral avant guard . (Or is it just integrally postal? Open mindedness people, open mindedness with integral critical awareness even;) A current fad within the emerging integral culture of integral thinking, integral theory and integral methodological pluralism as expounded by Ken Wilber and co, is to take the schema of values development (exemplified in Spiral Dynamics ), the worldview development associated with it, and any other correlation that seems most enlighteningly handy at the time, and apply a simplified – read 'short enough to grasp' – analysis of the types of reactions that people are having. Kinda like what happened in response to David Deida's essay 'Ken Wilber Is A Fraud.' Hell funny if you ask me, and also insightful and enlightening;) The analysis of responses was less fun, but very informative. I could, I guess, but I can't be bothered. I feel rather un-integrally inclined today and on this issue in particular. Perhaps I can claim to be doing my best to be coming from an integrally informed awareness (as the sub-title to this integral blog boldly proclaims) and thus bringing my integrally adjusted perspective, clear of the Willberness, and overtly Wilberian undue influences, into focus on some salient points. Perhaps stating an intention thus is actually getting ahead of my self – lets' see where my subconscious will lead, and then perhaps, comment on where I've found my mind. People – like me – could be turned off by their own unhealthy conditioning. Thus the sanctity of the nascent integral community is helped along by this little draw bridge funnel over a sexualised moat, sorry, yoni. Fair enough. It's also a fun way to have it happen. It could even engender contemplation in the duly perturbed. Quite beneficial -potentially. Perhaps there is another category of responses however, where there's no real lack of integral awareness and knowledge; no lack of a very healthy sense of humour; no lack of the ability to realise the non-dual implication (that can easily be interpreted as an extreme a-perspectival relativitism) that since its all sacred, its all okay as it is if it doesn't hurt anyone, especially their ability to realise the divine sacredness that can imply, nah, live this awareness; no lack, in short, of a good damn excuse not to be able to have a valid and relevant opinion, even critical assessment, of the positioning and style of the epicentres culture as seen not only through Integral Naked but also through other , closely related sites feeding off, as and for the integral revolutionary clique in the rocky mountain foothills. (These other sites often taking the original distinctive feature under analysis here a lot further into the line of fire of any conclusions reached here:) It needs to be remembered that in a fair appreciation of the real nature of any such integral revolutionary culture that many other websites and groupings have taken dramatically different positioning strategies and styles . Importantly they also embody more people, research, and so on than the Boulder based bandwagon. So, just contemplate – freely for a moment of entertainment if you will – that there are 'good integral type people' who actually think the over sexualisation of the rising integral culture is actually slightly counter-productive… It might be closing some people out, needlessly. Now if you consider Integral Naked by it self, there isn't any real reason for concern at this barrier to integral culture entry, at least entry to the 'epicentre' that is. It's when this edge is emulated and expanded upon as the key feature – extracted, abstracted, ideologised and thus sanctified – that it really becomes prohibitive and counter-productive, and in short, illustrative of a pregnant lack of 'skilful means,' in my opinion based on a limited perspective;) Now there's no doubt that, seen in context, the current sexy edge, is well sexy: damn, I like it! Give me more! Openness, meaningfulness, playfulness and so much more all at once – in short integral richness that I crave! And, just so, it's serving to attract, and entertain and engage the key people currently needed in the 'geeks' of the 'geeks and geezers' section of the Integral Institute . All good. But this 'pull' that it is exhibiting the close in-clique energy it is part of building and necessarily sustaining for the advent of the avant guard's integral revolution – kinda like a Fight Club-esk building of any army I'm told by members of the Melbourne Integral Salon –, is also closing out many sources of richness that might, just might, be inherently required for such a revolution to be viable, sustainable and to point, spreadable. So, after my little rant here, I guess my main points of reflection are that: 1. The current emerging integral culture that Master Ken Wilber is building really does need to actively be open to critical awareness – from inside and outside… this means an open and transparent dialogue of rich perspectives; 2. Other integral salons need to keep forging their own paths forward, and building the bridges to Boulder, with as much critical input as participation as is necessary – to wit, a hell of a lot more than current exists; 3. Sex, divinely maddening union even, is great! But there's many ways to resting integrally in Spirit, and these need to be honoured too. Closing people out because they haven't perfectly sorted out this area – and thus get the joke, or whatever – is to preclude most of the great divinely realised human beings of history and our current age. A sorry and unnecessary state of affairs in relationship with achieving the stated goal: an integral revolution! Does it really have to be a sware words, crass emphasis and sexual first revolution? Isn't such an outcome of form – intended or not – quite a tragically un-integral state of affairs? Let me know what you think… I'm just one disaffected soldier who's too poor to move to the epicentre… perhaps you have a more enlightening view of Ken Wilber's integral revolution? |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 09,February,2004 | For those interested in a follow up to my head scarf tirade , here's a really neat little future history from a relatively mainstream newspaper in Australia… I can only hope that such simple, yet informative and thought-provoking future history scenarios are played out more often for the benefit of public reflection and political pressure towards sanity… |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 08,February,2004 | I missed going to a meditation group session last night. I accidentally got intoxicated on really expensive and lovely beer, burnt my mouth trying to eat something to help me feel better in the morning, and now, are hung over and awake. Luckily I awoke to my house mates alarm going off. Really loud, on the second floor of the house, and swore to kill him once he got home, because in getting up to turn it off, I noticed an odd smell. It was very hard to breathe in my house. And it tasted bad too… GAS! Oh boy, we'd left the gas on when passing out last night, not a single window open, and thankfully no naked flames or little sparks in sight… It really could have been messy. More messy than I feel, hungover, lacking oxygen for several hours… I guess it just goes to show – I don't need to kill my house mate, well, not this time, because his carelessness, lead to me being able to care at all. Damn, it might have even saved my life! We did have very important conversations that make it all worth it in retrospect… the only problem is, I can't quite remember the detail, but my mind says that it sure felt important… |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 07,February,2004 | Alrighty guys – here's a website I wish we had for Australia… Its perfect match for politics ... I had a go, thought about it, and answered honestly. My top 6 candidate matches were Democrat (no surprise there) with the apparent preference order going like this: Sharpton 100% match Kuchinich 94% Kerry 93% Clark 92% Dean 91% Edwards 83% And for the record Bush 33% |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 07,February,2004 | I spent yesterday morning with the directors of i2igroup here in Melbourne with a couple of school buddies from AFI talking about the possibilities for foresight communications strategies - very interesting conversation, lots of insights, the biggest being unnoticed by anyone else. It was internal. I found my self - gasp - decrying the idiotic stances so many on the politically left take: the facts just don't hold up! I declared. The reality of the world is… I bemoaned. The real options before us are… I insisted. The basic nature of the economic systems and corporations and technology (etc) that WE, humanity, have created are there to serve us…I reasoned… to serve us, they're controlled by us, though our voting – political, economic, geographic and all the other little choices we use to define and express and fill our lives: the personal is political (I nearly fell over my own shock at that one;) – I reasoned on and on. Advertising, marketing, and communications generally, are the perfect avenues for leading corporations on the road they can actually take – if shown how and why – to a better, healthier, sustainable, fun, exciting, improving world… I came out pro-globalisation, pro markets, pro-integrated marketing communications, pro advertising for gods sake! Yet importantly, set within the context of providing a longer term view – like lets start with seeing one yea forward, then we can get to 10 – hopes for 50 to 100 were carefully kept shelved by situational relevance and rationality - pro government intervention and strong regulation and very Keynesian in general. Wow. Last month I was still 'bring down the corporate bastards, and the government, and, well, anything American' (except my lovely friends over there of course;) This whole reading new materials thing is really dangerous - I mean, I might keep changing my beliefs!!! I could keep having new thoughts, seeing new perspectives, and despite all the indoctrination – by the right as I grew up, by the left from the day I moved out of home into a uni-student-esk orbit right through working for the ABC (left right out of centre anyone?) – that, up until, well, yesterday, I was under the tortuous sway of. Something opened up in that corporate advertising agencies office. Something marvellous. Blue skies I think I should call it. Blue Skies. I've NEVER used that term before yesterday – and there I was arguing for the value of foresight in bringing the blue skies from the CEO's top floor office down to being the roof everyone works under. Blue Skies. Now all I have to do is cogently define it. Dangerous I say. Dangerous this reading, thinking and forming arguments out loud… You never know what kind of future it might lead to…it could even be integral...and besides, I might have to wear a suit every day! ARGHHHHHHHH! |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 04,February,2004 | THE STRATFOR WEEKLY 06 February 2004 The Geopolitics of Alliance Summary The United States has been less than generous in rewarding its allies for their political and military assistance in the 2003 Iraq war and its aftermath. The U.S. allies might have had high hopes -- and made very real sacrifices -- but the question for the United States remains: Who needs whom more? Analysis Australian Prime Minister John Howard warned Feb. 1 that the free trade agreement in negotiation with the United States still is 'very much in the balance.' Extending a visit originally scheduled to last a couple days, Australian Trade Minister Mark Vaile remained in Washington for what has become a 10-day marathon negotiation, running headlong into powerful U.S. agricultural lobbies. While U.S. lobbying groups have applied a full-court press to keep out Australian competition, Australia has made it clear that agricultural access is a deal-breaker. At week's end, a deal that was supposed to be wrapped up in 2003 still is far from certain, with just one day of talks remaining. The difficulty over the Australian FTA is just one example of problems that Washington is facing in rewarding its most loyal allies and in demonstrating the concrete benefits of that loyalty, particularly in terms of the Iraq war. Although being friendly with the only global superpower is clearly more beneficial than being at odds with it -- just ask Syria, North Korea or France -- there is the built-in expectation of a quid pro quo. If that expectation is not fulfilled, it creates public perception problems on the domestic political level that can limit the leeway that political leaders must enthusiastically support U.S. foreign policy. The failure of countries such as Australia, Poland, Spain and even the United Kingdom to turn support of the United States into concrete benefits -- both for the public and for political leaders -- could end up constraining key U.S. allies from offering support in the future. Stratfor previously wrote that the United States would give way to Canberra on the free trade deal despite opposition from the agriculture lobby, primarily because it makes sense geopolitically for Washington. Though Stratfor stands by that analysis, the domestic politics have become dicier, making it more difficult for the Bush administration to give in. On Feb. 4, Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota and two other senators sent a letter to U.S. President George W. Bush, requesting that beef be excluded from the Australian FTA. This is a particularly sensitive issue, considering the U.S. bovine spongiform encephalopathy -- 'mad cow' -- scare, and the fact that the Australians have been the primary beneficiary of it, with their beef replacing U.S. exports in key markets like Japan. Since Vaile's arrival in January, 32 U.S. senators and at least 40 House members have sent letters to Bush opposing the deal because of its potential cattle-industry impact. Any FTA deal must be approved by Congress. Then there is the big-spending sugar lobby, which is particularly influential in Florida, a state rich in both highly subsidized sugar producers and electoral votes. There is much more than domestic politics, or even economics, at stake for the United States in the FTA negotiations. Trade pacts under the Bush administration are a key part of a larger foreign policy toolbox, a highly prized reward for valued and cooperative allies such as Morocco, Singapore and -- arguably one of Washington's most loyal global buddies -- Australia. Failure to seal a deal would send a signal to Australians that their U.S. alliance is a one-way street. --- Unfortunately, from the viewpoint of dissatisfied allies, they need the United States more than the United States needs them. It is an unavoidable fact that the United Kingdom has been the most stable European pillar of NATO for decades, and its importance to U.S. foreign policy goes well beyond its military value. London has consistently maintained a policy of balance regarding Brussels and the European Union, attempting to integrate economically into mainland Europe without allowing itself to be subsumed into some sort of European polity. London sees its favored relationship with Washington as a lever and fulcrum in this balancing act. Maintaining close ties -- economic, political and military -- with the United States allows the United Kingdom to be part of Europe, while remaining just outside Europe. This allows London to use its American lever to sabotage European integration when London feels events are progressing too quickly (something Washington, always concerned that a single unity power could emerge in Eurasia, is happy to assist with) or to test the European waters as domestic politics allow. From the standpoint of the United States, the United Kingdom is the European Union's poison pill. Australia views its relationship with the United States as even more fundamental to its national existence. Since the de facto disintegration of the Commonwealth in the 1970s that accompanied the United Kingdom's entry into the European Union, Australia has found itself increasingly drawn into the U.S. orbit. Australia's mindset -- and geography -- allow for no other possibilities. Australia is cut off from Europe by EU tariffs and the tyranny of distance, insulated from Asia by a populace that fears drowning in a sea of Asians, and is able to consider tiny New Zealand only a geographically proximate cultural sibling. Canberra's choice is between becoming the junior U.S. ally in a military, political and cultural context in exchange for the ability to project power throughout its region while keeping its national identity intact, or watch with trepidation as the populous states to its north -- Indonesians alone outnumber Australians 10:1 -- gradually overwhelm it with sheer numbers. --- Such hard facts give the United States a tremendous ability to use -- and abuse -- its allies, since such geopolitical considerations will survive the downfall of individual governments. The United Kingdom always will see itself on the edge of Europe, even if Blair falls. Australia will always see the necessity of close alignment with Washington, even if Labor returns to power. And Poland, so long as there is a Germany and a Russia, will need to look beyond Europe in order to secure its independence. Of the four states that backed the United States most strongly in Iraq, only Spain -- by dint of its relative youth and geographic position -- has the ability to tell the United States 'no.' The distinction that U.S. policy is flirting with is turning these three states from 'friendly allies' to mere 'allies' -- changing them from states that are aligned with Washington because they want to be, to states that are aligned with Washington because they have to be. Stratfor cannot emphasize enough that the United States is not in any danger of losing the United Kingdom, Australia or Poland as security allies; but should Washington continue balking at rewarding them for their stalwart support, it risks losing their support on a wide range of finer, more discrete policies. U.S. foreign policy is more than hard security: It also is about market access, investment rules, political maneuvering and cultural expansion. The United Kingdom has a veto on the United Nations Security Council, wields influence globally via the Commonwealth and has the option -- which it exercises on occasion -- of partnering with major EU states in its foreign policy. Australia is perhaps Washington's most creative ally and repeatedly has proven instrumental in defusing the developing world's more outrageous charges against the United States, as well as in facilitating nonproliferation agreements and global trade talks from which the United States is arguably the largest beneficiary. Poland has become a powerbroker in its own right, and relishes its key role as a bridge between Russia and an expanding European Union. All three states use their various levers to support U.S. policy in myriad and subtle ways, but their public support is by far the most valuable. Even when the press refers to the United States as 'isolated' or 'backed into a corner,' these allies provide enough support to provide a believable veneer of international support, with Iraq being only the most recent obvious example. Should the United States continue to -- as these states see it -- abuse their trust, they will remain U.S. 'allies,' but there is little reason to expect them to sustain such background support outside of developments that affect their core interests. |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 02,February,2004 | [A little rant in response to the NY Times artilce in the post below] On the one hand Thomas Friedman: liberalised markets and democracy are the only way to go – the 'golden straightjacket' is the only saviour. Obviously he also loved Fukuyama's 'The End Of History.' On the other hand, Noam Chomsky's 'Hegemony or Survival' implicitly unravels the USA's (gov't agencies) practical understanding that liberalised markets and democracy just won't sit on foundations that can't support them: all sorts of barbarity are required to keep things 'favourable' and 'stable,' and it has been 'sanely' – and repeatedly - argued this is better than the self determining alternatives… Enter Huntington, and the insightful 'Clash of Civilisations:' unless America's 'Project For The New American Century' neo-cons achieve 'full spectrum dominance' over each other civilisation - and a whole bunch of other factors within Western civilisation (social/cultural mainly) luckily work in their favour (and if you accepted Fukuyama's 'The Great Disruption' thesis you'd conclude they will) - then American Western Civilisation is on its way out… kicked by Islam, here comes Confucius Sinic… In simplistic Spiral Dynamics terms, a third of the world at 'red' isn't going to suddenly evolve to highly developed 'blue/ORANGE' no matter how good the transplant surgery is. A child's body won't fit in adult organs, and even if it could be made to 'fit', the rest of the body has a disproportionate processing system…problems abound. Western nominal 'orange' centre of gravity, and offer to the rest of the world, isn't quite universalised enough to be workable as a surrounding system of lower, very active red, and nascent blue: this is actually asking it to be a healthy yellow to boot. It is also arguably a rather unhealthy and imbalanced Orange at that: we may have economic systems, but we don't have the political, cultural or psychological systems that can stably support worldcentric rational activity in a multitude of domains across the globe yet. And the distorted green which might be its corrective saviour, built like a leaning tower with skewed foundations, is of little use in rectifying orange's excesses into a healthy state: more akin to a multiplication of problems… So that leaves this little logical map heading straight to yellow as a necessary requirement for dealing with the world's predicaments, as seen through the lens of developing democracy… Something that is so far off, given the leadership – in all domains – of our species as a whole, that its merely a pipe dream at best. Clearly, in practical terms, democracy is not the next healthy step for most countries in the world. And even if the advanced 'technology' of democracy can be transplanted into red systems (in a (yellow) manner that rapidly develops skeletal Blue systems of law, social and economic institutions (ie banks, schools and police etc) and nascent Orange (higher learning and policy development and implementation capabilities), AND the cultural norms to at least work with them, if not foster them – no small accomplishment, one unheralded in human history at any level of development) THEN the 'powers that be' (ie neo-cons currently in the USA for example) face the very real problem that Huntington points out: democracy of politics and liberalisation of markets means the worlds majority is most likely to vote in radically different systems and values than the minority, imperial leftovers, of Western civilisation – particularly the American variety – that is currently held in such high esteem. The alternative to achieving such a monumental accomplishment - without starting world war three or increasing terrorism to the point where it actually does kill more people than our own car driving skills do in Western countries each year – is watching as the world bloodily sorts out its power relationships, as the west has done over the past 1000 years, but in a radically boosted time frame with far more powerful means at their disposal – regardless of any western 'full spectrum dominance.' A very scary reality that is already in progress. So, my personal conclusion about this article? True, democracy needs to be grown organically through its necessary precursor stages. Welcome to development insights 101. If this is achieved however, then the West will steadily decline in power and relevance to the majority newly powerful and ticked off about the past 1000 years. If it maintains dominance, and stymies what could be an unhealthy democratically introduced regressive Islamic law, for example in some countries, it will need to bend over backwards to promote healthy alternatives – economically, politically, culturally (which would require a momentous leap of average valued logic) - and regardless of any eventual success, will have to face the reality of directly stimulating the most technologically empowered clash of civilisations and nations the world has ever seen, and all in a highly sensitive nascent world system of inter-dependence. It seems that it’s a case of damned if they do, damned if they don't. None of this particularly worries me, mind you, in the face of history – with anyone's reading of it – because this is a natural continuation of how human societies have been doing things, and the struggles they've faced. What does worry me, and what I think the real global predicament is, involves the aspect of technologically empowered means. Nuclear weapons and other WMD, not to mention GM, cloning, nanotech and absolute resource depletion that could start chain reactions that wipe out the food chain and liveable ecologies, are the real problems thrown into the mix. It is with these that humanity's historical habits become humanacide: the very real potential for the extinction of the species – us. Can you tell I'm preparing for my essay in Outlooks for the 21st Century? I'd love to be taken to task on my little half baked rant here, so please, if you have the time… |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 02,February,2004 | The following article was posted to a news group of futurists today - it sparked quite a rant from me, which is included as the next post (I'm including all the text because not everyone can get access to the NY Times) January 31, 2004 On the Dark Side of Democracy By EMILY EAKIN To most Americans, the notion that free markets and democracy are essential to curing the world's ills is an article of faith. If only Iraq and Afghanistan, Cuba and North Korea, Syria and Rwanda would adopt both, their people, not to mention the world, would be safer and richer. Yet to Amy Chua, a professor at Yale Law School, such accepted wisdom is mostly evidence of a persistent and disturbing national naïveté. All too often, she says, bringing free markets and elections to developing nations leads not to stability or prosperity but to hate-mongering, discrimination and even genocidal violence. The idea that political and economic liberty could trigger such atrocities is heretical to many Western liberals. That, Ms. Chua says, is because people here are blind to ethnicity. 'I think it's kind of a taboo topic in the West,' said Ms. Chua, 41, during an interview at her office on the Yale campus. America, she said, doesn't like to talk about ethnic conflict: despite a long history of racial problems, assimilation is part of the national creed. But in much of the developing world, she argues, nations are starkly divided along ethnic lines. Disproportionately wealthy ethnic minorities - Ms. Chua calls them market-dominant minorities - exist alongside poor and resentful majorities. And in such cases, she insists, adding democracy and free markets can be disastrous. As she states the case in her recent book, 'World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability'(Doubleday, 2003): 'Markets concentrate wealth, often spectacular wealth, in the hands of the market-dominant minority, while democracy increases the political power of the impoverished majority. In these circumstances the pursuit of free market democracy becomes an engine of potentially catastrophic ethnonationalism.' And this, she adds, is precisely what is happening today in Indonesia, Sierra Leone, Zimbabwe, Venezuela, Russia and the Middle East.' With its volatile mix of Sunnis (the elite Muslim minority favored by Saddam Hussein), Shiites (the generally poorer Muslim majority) and Kurds, Iraq could soon join the list, Ms. Chua said. 'It's a big mess,' she said. 'You have a 60 percent Shiite majority that has long been oppressed and has just every reason to take back the country and re-establish its identity.' A Chinese-American whose family is from the Philippines, Ms. Chua says she has seen firsthand the destructive effects of free markets and democracy. Both arrived in the Philippines after its independence from the United States in 1946, benefiting the tiny, entrepreneurial Chinese community at the expense of the Filipino majority. Though they make up barely 1 percent of the population, she writes, 'Chinese Filipinos control as much as 60 percent of the private economy, including the country's four major airlines and almost all of the country's banks, hotels, shopping malls and major conglomerates.' Today ethnic tensions on the island are high. In November 2003, The New York Times reported that there had been 156 kidnappings so far that year - apparently a 10-year high. Most of the victims, some of whom were eventually murdered, were ethnic Chinese. In 1994, Ms. Chua's aunt was stabbed to death in her home by her Filipino chauffeur. He was never arrested. And though he stole money and jewelry from his employer, Ms. Chua writes, the motive listed in the police record was not robbery but 'revenge.' Longtime critics of America's markets-and-elections approach to the developing world are finding lately that the chorus of dissenting voices joining them has swelled. The optimism many analysts felt after the fall of the Berlin Wall has waned, dissipated by more than a decade of bloodshed and strife in Somalia, Rwanda, the Balkans and the Persian Gulf. And the theoretical model that experts relied on to predict orderly transitions from dictatorship to democracy is in shambles. That may be one reason Ms. Chua's book, which was published a year ago and released in paperback earlier this month, has received respectful reviews from magazines on both sides of the political spectrum, including The Nation, Mother Jones, The Weekly Standard and Business Week. Some analysts dispute her thesis, saying she exaggerates the prevalence of ethnic conflict, making, for example, too much of the fact that many of Russia's wealthiest moguls are Jewish. Still, her book has appeared briefly on The New York Times best-seller list and even garnered Ms. Chua an invitation to address a group at the Central Intelligence Agency. Today skeptics of America's democratization policies include scholars and commentators, liberals and conservatives, even if few of them agree with one another. Among the most influential are the Harvard political scientist Samuel Huntington, one of the first to question the wisdom of rapid democratization; the Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz; the journalist Robert D. Kaplan; and, most recently, Fareed Zakaria, the editor of Newsweek International whose latest book, 'The Future of Freedom' (Norton, 2003), argues that one way to curb the negative effects of too much democracy too fast is to allow countries to first pass through a period of gradually liberalizing autocracy. In a much-discussed article published in the Journal of Democracy in 2002, Thomas Carothers, a democracy specialist at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, declared that the 'transition paradigm' favored by pro-democracy advocates for the last 20 years had outlived its usefulness. 'Of the nearly 100 countries considered as `transitional' in recent years, only a relatively small number - probably fewer than 20' have made some democratic progress, Mr. Carothers wrote. He listed some of the creative terms that analysts have invented to describe countries in what he called the gray zone: 'semi-democracy, formal democracy, electoral democracy, facade democracy, pseudo-democracy, weak democracy, partial democracy, illiberal democracy and virtual democracy.' By using such labels, he wrote, 'analysts are in effect trying to apply the transition paradigm to the very countries whose evolution is calling that paradigm into question.' In a telephone interview, Mr. Carothers acknowledged that the field of democracy studies was in flux. 'We are coming to the end of one way of thinking about democratization,' he said. 'The questions that people are really agonizing about are: in countries where market reforms are not functioning very well, what's the solution to this? Was our market message wrong? Or was it just implemented wrong? It's still a matter of debate how much inequality has been produced.' Even so, he added, many of the problems that foreign nations face are the legacy of European colonialism, not United States policy. 'It's not true that ethnic conflict was created by the wave of democratization,' he said. 'Why should democracy get the blame for failed empire?' In his view, Ms. Chua's book 'is based on a straw man of U.S. policy, which says that America is constantly trying to force democracy down the throats of other countries.' In truth, he said: 'Many of the countries want to try democracy. We're rarely in the driver's seat.' Nevertheless, critics complain, America's approach is both precipitous and simplistic, encouraging political liberalization in nations that may not have the social and economic conditions necessary to sustain it. 'We're not prepared to understand, assess and respond to the complexities of other societies,' said the economist Jeffrey D. Sachs, who has served as an adviser to governments in Russia, Poland and Bolivia. Mr. Stiglitz agreed, saying that democracy experts tend to ignore social variables like ethnicity and gender. In Malaysia, for example, he said, the local government created a successful affirmative action program to benefit the indigenous Malay majority - and ward off ethnic conflict with the prosperous Chinese minority - over the objections of Western advisers. And in Rwanda, he said, the transition from customary to formal law put land formerly controlled by women under male ownership, an outcome Western experts failed to anticipate. Most critics are quick to stress that they are not against democracy, free markets or globalization per se; they merely object to the way these ideals have typically been pursued. 'I'm an optimist,' Ms. Chua said, summing up her position. 'In the last 20 years, we have done things in many ways so badly, so foolishly, often with the best of intentions - like dropping a stock exchange in Mozambique or xeroxing copies of the U.S. Constitution. I think we can do better.' In her book, she argues that one way to reduce inequality and ethnic tension in democratizing nations is for market-dominant minorities to share some of their wealth by making 'significant, visible contributions to the local economies in which they are thriving,' by which she means building universities, hospitals or recreational facilities, supporting local schools and employing members of the indigenous majority in their companies. It is an idea, Ms. Chua admits, that her wealthy relatives in the Philippines may not find appealing. But then, she says, she decided not to send them her book. 'I do not know what my extended family thinks,' she said. 'And I'm terrified to find out.' Copyright 2004 The New York Times |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 31,March,2004 | If you are in doubt about the REALITIES ofpeak oil and our unsustainable energy systems, you really should treat your self to reviewing some of the important facts...in 'Eating Oil' Dale Allen Pfeiffer has don a smooth job of pulling a lot of them together, he comments: 'This is possibly the most important article I have written to date. It is certainly the most frightening, and the conclusion is the bleakest I have ever penned. This article is likely to greatly disturb the reader; it has certainly disturbed me. However, it is important for our future that this paper should be read, acknowledged and discussed. I am by nature positive and optimistic. In spite of this article, I continue to believe that we can find a positive solution to the multiple crises bearing down upon us. Though this article may provoke a flood of hate mail, it is simply a factual report of data and the obvious conclusions that follow from it.' |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 29,March,2004 | I haven't posted for a few days...and the lats few were so abstract I likely lost any readership I might have had that aren't lost in the Wilberness completely... So here's what I've been up to this weekend, well, the introduction anyway...any feedback greatly welcomed - I've gotta finish the essay by the end of the week... 'The first challenge of Globalisation: understanding it enough to be able to approach it meaningfully.' In the entire sweep of human history few topics could rival the amount of writing and diversified debate falling under the name of globalisation. For the foreseeable 21st century, it's safe to say few will. Globalisation is a topic that no voice seems to have a definitive word on, no author appears to forward the most credible knowledge about, and no mind seems to be able to grasp and communicate in its entirety. The continuing debate about how to even define the word 'globalisation' is an example of the nature of the approach that the topic demands: multi-dimensional, for each dimension multiple perspectives, and each perspective multiple meanings for different contexts. Globalisation requires an approach that can embrace each of these expansive subtleties of difference. Globalisation's most common dimensions of reference include governance, economics, security, culture and environment. Many more dimensions will likely join these ranks in the decades to come. It seems as if every major system of knowledge and activity in humanity has something to say about globalisation, some way of relating to it, critiquing it, adding to it. Globalisation is, at the very least, global in its reach into human affairs. Any approach to globalisation needs to address this feature, and it is fair to say any competent consideration will also include, or at the very least need to leave room for including, as many of these as possible. This requires of globalisation thinkers the ability to consider not only a single discipline of knowledge, or even systems of systems of activity seen within one paradigm, but rather to be 'pluralistic,' or 'aperspectival' in not unduly privileging any particular partial perspective. The search for simplicity on the other side of globalisation's complexity awaits human kind. Many have contributed possibilities that attempt to embrace the many dimensions of globalisation. Few efforts are held in high regard however, across different disciplines, or in different human contexts. This aim for a common simplicity, for an acceptable understanding of the affairs of globalisation is an implicit theme in most writings on globalisation. There is a search for a map of globalisation that affords a meaningful logic to guide our thinking, decisions and actions in relationship to both global realties and potentialities. It appears any credibly comprehensive approach to globalisation needs not only to be pluralistic, or aperspectival, but also integrative. To grasp globalisation then, an approach that is 'cross-paradigmatic' or employs 'integral-aperspectivism' is required. To section off one dimension of globalisation and then draw on the multitude of issues in relationships of causality and prioritisation is the common integrative approach to date. These efforts always seem to be criticised for the same reasons however: they champion one knowledge disciplines' perspective over others, or they are in some manner, and usually concurrently, derisive of other valid positions. To achieve an integral-aperspectival approach to globalisation the thinker's disposition needs to global in its altruism. It needs to embrace concern for the entirety of humanity and its relevant concerns, and some well argue for all sentient and insentient life. It would require a personal identity that holds universal concern and care. A common theme in most writings on globalisation is an effort to define the most important predicament it presents, with its' cause/s and possible solution/s. Whether it is seen as being the degradation of the environment, the inequalities and dominance of economic rationality, an international governance crisis, rising cultural hegemonies, a lack of average personal development, or new forms of security challenges, in light of the criteria for globalisation thinking above it needs to be asked can any of these priorities adequately relate to, accommodate, and favourably influence the predicaments seen in the others? Is this itself the real global predicament? The implicit requirement presented by this theme is that approaches to globalisation need to address humanity's priorities. The globalisation agenda for discussion, decision making and action needs to be set at a global level. The purpose of this paper is to attempt to address these criteria and questions through an accessible appraisal of the development of globalisation and the predicaments it presents. As the most common site of discussion and target of action in globalisation debates (and inherently the recipient of the least of any negative effects) is 'western' countries a 'western' fashioned approach, and focus, will be taken. To simplify the important variables in the rise of globalisation as an issue, and allow readers to integrate others that will undoubtedly be missed in this formulation, a mythic story will be employed. The Fisher King myth, from the quintessentially western Holy Grail stories, will act as an explanatory logic in reviewing the past few hundred years of western development, situating its current relationship to perceived global predicaments, and drawing out avenues of continuing internal positive change. The core thesis of this paper is twofold: one, what are often considered key global predicaments are really a secondary concern, if they are predicaments at all; and two, the real predicament in the age of globalisation can be seen in a risk profile for humanity in the 21st Century: the edges of Humanicide can now be seen and defined – a new potential has emerged that could preclude any future for humanity at all. Integral theory will be used in an attempt to meet the above criteria and to orientate the use of myth to explain the current global situation and reveal the grounds of priority for Humanity's risk profile in the 21st Century. -------------- Thoughts? Comments? urlLink Email me;) |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 27,March,2004 | Noam Chomsky has a blog - Turning The Tide - what more do I say??? |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 25,March,2004 | Well, I can't say I'm surprised, and I can't say there won't be valid criticism of the position taken, but I can't say that I disagree with the logic, approach and necessarily blunt wording… Here's Ken Wilber on the critics' papers to be found at the World of Ken Wilber site ( mine included I guess, except I don't try to criticise Ken except on this little blog that hopefully few people will notice or remember;) Here's another take on my previous two posts on states, which in general, I actually agree with. It summarises my main point in two words: 'active' or 'passive' (entry into the realms/bodies). Not sure I get the All-American-Cultural-Hip-Hop lack of communicative ability, but I certainly hear the point on it being way too easy to get lost in abstractions… Quite arrogantly , I'm going to state for the record that while many people get confused with the detail of AQAL integral Theory, especially when it comes to application and integral methodological pluralism design, I'm yet to find major weaknesses in my presentations of the theory in relationship to the common critic mistakes – many mistakes that I have unleased pages of barely coherent rambling on pointing out to the rare few who were at one point interested in hearing it…funny, not many of them ask for more than a third helping, although they mostly say it helped clarify some issues;) |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 23,March,2004 | I received some good feedback from both Ray Harris and Mark Edwards about my states post. Not good as in 'we agree,' rather good as in 'you haven't thought of this and I've actually spent the time to engage you.' And, with all sincerity, I feel lucky they've both spent the time to help me... Ray introduced the concepts of manas and buddhi – the difference between the thoughts of the mind and the witnessing intelligence of those thoughts. Mark explained how he didn't think I'd really defended Ken's position at all, and neither had I actually managed to integrate anything… picking up on their responses, I'm going through my POV again. I won't post their responses because I haven't asked their permission (and so yes, you can assume I'm having an egotistical debate between my sub-personalties and simply coopting the names of nice guys to make it seem legit – it might still have some value however;) Okay, so my position from another angle, and some new comments;) I think Mark is saying that Ken is failing to apply the principles of the PFT2 and the transcend an include holonic rule consistently. I don't think that's the case, I think perhaps Ken's use of the term 'state' rather than something like 'unconscious experience of the subtle or causal bodies/realms' is the problem. If I translated Ken's use of the word 'state' in the quotes Mark includes in his piece about states (where Ken is referring to the ability of even children to access these realms every night), for the above stated meaning I get a consistent picture that doesn't violate the PFT2 or holonic stages of development. It depends of course, on seeing the three bodies as being already present, a priori, as part of being human. So, given that assumption, and new clarification in meaning, I believe I've corrected a sloppy semantic issue on Wilber's behalf and integrated Edwards' insights (see previous post). Both right, both needing a clarification IMO. Okay, to try explain my position further… I think the key point for me is I see the three main bodies/realms of self (or five sheaths) as pre-given in the sense of evolutionary acquired habits of being human. We are born (generally when healthy) with a body, emotions, mind (manas and sense of I) and intellect (buddhi). For me, both involutionary and evolutionary activity occurs within these three bodies/realms of self: the sleep cycle contains the most obvious involutionary activity, the agreered upon points about states/stages and development of identity and recognition of buddhi indicate the type of evolutionary activity which can be experienced in these bodies/realms. These bodies/realms are not strictly transpersonal in a developmental sense. The subtle body can and does interact on its level with others and in a sense can be seen as transpersonal even though there is no conscious development of identity into it as yet. For me this explains childhood experiences of deity communications that have a significant impact on one's psyche, yet aren't fully understood in terms of what, how or why. The causal body is also present, but again, unconsciously so. This again helps explain how a young person meditating at age 12 can loose consciousness (manas, and buddhi) in a causal void…in a manner utterly different to sleep until, many year latter they start to have moments where identification with buddhi is strong enough for the to remain present for short moments. So, to use this position to address childhood spirituality, it implies for me that yes a child can experience these bodies/realms – they're inherently part of their make up. Therealms themselves are not necessarily transpersonal – that happens with the structures that are evolved within them. The early experience of one's different bodies or sheaths is almost always going to be unconscious, and only vague impressions might be delivered to the waking mind (manas), but activity of both an involutionary nature and evolutionary nature can occur. Of course it is likely only to contain content from current levels of developmental identity and the current growth edges there of. The other aspect, spirituality as a line of development is fine with me. The trailing clouds aspect, well, I don't know much, but I've read a few books (mostly new age I guess) by doctors outlining accounts of such things…so I try to fit it in, but are completely open to better information;) I currently think this conception of the a priori bodies/realms allows for me to integrate Wilber's comments and Edwards'. Transpersonal proper is only evolved into consciously of course, but it doesn't mean that the bodies/realms aren't already there – the container is present, stuff is happening in them already, but the contents are also grown. The other position I hear from Edwards is that the bodies are grown as the stages evolve. At some point I think the physical and subtle bodies were grown, but the causal/buddhi/witness I think has been present all along, the face of Chitti in evolution finally being grown into. That's my person story of Kosmic creation, and is just that, a nice story so I can get on with my meditation practice and life…perhaps the buddhi is grown too, I haven’t really thought about that in a structured way until now. I think we grown into recognising it – but is this growing it proper, I don’t know… Does that make any more sense, or have I still not quite addressed Edwards' points? I'd love to hear from anyone else who has a passing interest in this issue and has read the background material;) Send me an urlLink email if you've got an insight;) |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 21,March,2004 | This is a little piece for those interested in Integral Theory as presented by Ken Wilber, and the stimulating additions and corrections recommended by Mark Edwards. It centres on Mark's two pieces last year on states of consciousness. So…the 'states debate'…Well, it would be a debate if there were dialogue, as an integral proponent would surely ascribe to…yet there isn't. Its monologues that go unheeded, hardly attended to and in the end present a tragic waste of brilliant efforts. Wilber's initiative of a critics circle is no such thing, and woefully un-integral from a multitude of points… Well, maybe it's not so dire. Maybe there are other integral tragics out there who read all this stuff and have the critical debate 'internally.' Fine, that's the place I put my self, but I find it incredibly lonely and decidedly difficult to get to the finer points…for me, dialogue is such a clarifier, a unique relational form that delivers benefits that thinking alone can not. So, my reading of Mark Edwards' careful and nobly intentioned contributions to Ken Wilber's position on states and stages of development? Well, it stands to integral logic that both are right, both are wrong. True but partial. And, despite the cries of heresy that may abound, I think it holds the clue to integrating the two different positions. It warrants emphasis that I think Edwards' uniquely insightful readings of KW's work demand a careful hearing from anyone seriously interested in using or even advancing the integral AQAL model. To summarise my reading of both of their positions, or, the elements of my personal integration of conceptions concerning states: 1.I agree with Edwards that the dreaming and deep dreamless sleep states represent for the majority of people – ie as naturally given – an involutionary process that is of stabilising value to the self system – restorative, digestitive. This needs to be heard and accommodated for its insightful value by any integralist. 2.I agree with Edwards that one has to be very careful not to fall into a PFT2 because of the broad sweeping nature of the word 'subtle' and that its use should be qualified (unless we come up with a better language schema) to indicate early subtle, subtle proper and late subtle, or something corresponding more meaningfully with the pre-modern conception of the 5 sheaths. 3.I also agree with Wilber however that the three states are broadly related to the body/realms of subtle and causal, and that these are given at birth. 4.I agree with both in saying that there is a strong system change influenced by state experiences – to either regressive or progressive. This can also include health and pathological as Edwards most valuably points out – and I think other integralists need to note in any relevant discussion on states and their role in development. 5.Further, I agree with both that the content of a state experience is provided through three main sources: one, trailing clouds of glory in infancy, which are more a memory/affinity than a sturdy phenomenological apprehension; two by the content of the current stages of development available to a person (adult or child); and three, through the iterative gradual expansion into the realisation of (initially) deeper structural potentials as one slowly turns an altered state experience into a tait of a developmental stage competency (something not really dealt with by Wilber that any integralist should surely sport as a necessary conception of the dynamics of development). Okay, so where does that leave me? With one whopping contradiction to sort out, and a whole bunch (surprise surprise!) of semantic labelling and definitions to get clear, that's where. The main contradiction I see is this: How can an involutionary process (as in the sleep cycle) of state changes co-exist with the correlation of the dreaming/subtle (general), and causal sleep cycle states conception? The clue for me is in sorting out the difference between 'body/realm' 'states' and 'stages.' It then requires us to remember the developmental significance of conscious/wakefulness in entering any of these states. The real source of dispute to my mind is understanding that the realms and basic bodies of the three main levels (or five for more clarity and to avoid the PFT2) of gross subtle and causal are a priori, given, as a part of the basic evolved nature of a 'human being.' The first important observation then is understanding that unconscious access to these is the normal condition. And thus we sleep and our developing self system cyclically centres within them. The second observation is that while this is an authentic experience of the realms, the content and its activity are provided by the developmental stage of the individual experiencing them – most commonly an other-than-conscious activity, involutionary in nature, of which only trailing clouds of impressions are filtered into the waking conscious afterwards. In addition, and quite significantly, only those progressing their conscious entry into these realms during the sleep cycle (through most commonly conscious wilful practice of entering into these states and evolving them into stages while in the waking state) are going to be having transpersonal stage experiences in addition to the involutionary natural functions that are occurring quite healthily. As Edwards' points out, transcend and include. To which I add, what for me is the most significant explanatory insight (arrogant or what?!:), the encompassing realms/bodies allow for increasingly subtler aspects of the full developmental spectrum to be active within them. It is here that the developmentally appropriate content is seen to be involutionarily processed – anything below the normal developmentally defined stage of conscious waking experience. Up until, that is, the stage where one consciously enters these realms/bodies during the natural sleep cycle. At this juncture one still needs and experiences the involutionary activity, but one can also wilfully engage in evolutionary activity (eg dream yoga), to consciously mess with the involutionary process (for better or worse;) and, of course as the pre-condition of the first two acquired capabilities, gains the freedom to basically pay around in the realm… think about the habit of people first eating and then sexing when first being able to lucid dream for example;) It is after the romance of lucid dreaming wears off, and the conscious witnessing of the causal realm becomes more attractive, that pelucide dreaming as Wilber calls it, often becomes the norm: one simply consciously witnesses the involutionary activity of the dreaming state and subtle body/realm experience. So, the outcome in my personal conception is to: 1.Acknowledge the a priori nature of these realms/bodies that we all enter into. 2.Acknowledge that they contain primarily involutionary and healthy activity and content as unconsciously experienced during the normal sleep cycle. 3.Acknowledge that the content is likely only from the stages of development that the individual has consciously entered into during their normal waking state experience of life, and that this content is of a fundamentally subtler but related order as one moves through each of the realms. 4.Re-affirm that we need to be careful with using the terms 'subtle' as it is painfully too broad and can lead to many misconceptions. 5.Highlight the crucial difference of the conscious entry into these realms during the sleep cycle as a developmental consequence of conscious waking state evolution and that it in no way means that it does away with the healthy and necessary involutionary activity of the sleeping cycle. What do you think guys a gals of the integral bent? Am I just dreaming? Or is there value in both Wilber and Edwards' approaches that might both benefit from being brought together with the emphasis I have given them here? For those who need references that all should blog posts should contain, here they are: Edwards, M. (2003) An Alternative View on States, Part One. Retrieved 21/03/04 from http://207.44.196.94/~wilber/edwards14.html Edwards, M. (2003) An Alternative View on States, Part Two. Retrieved 21/03/04 from http://207.44.196.94/~wilber/edwards15.html Wilber, K. (2000) The collected works of Ken Wilber: Volume 1-8. Boston: Shambhala. Wilber, K. (2002) Sidebar G: States and stages - Part I. The relation of states of consciousness and stages of consciousness: No model is complete without both. Retrieved 24/10/03 from http://wilber.shambhala.com/html/books/boomeritis/sidebar_g/part1 Wilber, K. (2002) Sidebar G: states and stages - Part II. States and stages in development. Retrieved 24/10/03 from http://wilber.shambhala.com/html/books/boomeritis/sidebar_g/part2 Wilber, K. (2003) On the nature of a post-metaphysical spirituality - Response to Habermas and Weis. Retrieved 24/10/03 from http://wilber.shambhala.com/html/misc/habermas/index.cfm/ Wilber, K. (2003) The Kosmos trilogy, Volume 2 - Excerpt G: Toward a comprehensive theory of subtle energies. Retrieved 24/10/03 from http://wilber.shambhala.com/html/books/kosmos/excerptG/part1.cfm/ Wilber, K. (2003) Waves, Streams, States, and Self--A Summary of My Psychological Model (Or, Outline of An Integral Psychology). Retrieved 24/10/03 from http://wilber.shambhala.com/html/books/psych_model/psych_model1.cfm/ Wilber, K. (2003) Sidebar D: Childhood Spirituality Retrieved 24/10/03 from http://wilber.shambhala.com/html/books/boomeritis/sidebar_d/index.cfm/ |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 20,March,2004 | Okay I want them . I need new shoes, they're cheap, got real values appeal and while partly childish in that it plays the counter-culture to the letter, it still pitches open to a transformation of culture, engaging community / grass-roots participation, and heck, it makes economic and style sense (to me anyways;) Jezz… that almost sounds integral? Whaddya think? Know of any Melbourne based distributors? Below is a great snippet about the clash within the ineffectual left wing politics of our modern day, and more insight into why I think the 'unswooshing' campaign is great value: (from this article ) 'Some of Lasn’s fellow activists are less than sanguine about the shift from a strategy of opposing corporations to one of beating them at their own game. Among the skeptics is Naomi Klein, author of the anti-corporate bible No Logo. 'Writers and publications who analyze the commercialization and privatization of our lives have a responsibility to work to protect spaces where we aren’t constantly being pitched to,' Klein told Canada’s Globe and Mail. 'This can be undermined if they are seen as simply shilling for a different, ‘anti-corporate’ brand.' Lasn has little patience for this attitude. 'Old leftists like Naomi Klein hang on to an old, ‘pure’ activism that hasn’t had any success for 20 or 30 years,' he says. 'There’s a lot of people now who want to jump over the dead body of the old left. We’ve decided to stop whining about Nike; why not make $10 million and use it to run a media literacy campaign instead? I’m really sick of the whiners.' Ironically, Blackspot may demonstrate the virtues of markets to activists on the left. 'There’s a certain undeniable power that capitalism and even free markets have,' says Lasn. 'My problem is with top-down corporate consumer culture. This way of activism is one way for people to take back their culture.' |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 18,March,2004 | Where to start… the weather's gotten cold in Melbourne, and being one who likes the window open, my hands are nearly frozen and not typing well… I'm sure the ridiculously cold beer doesn't help, but damn, some voice keeps saying (triumphantly) I need it! I've been…hang on, this is a personal post with no insightful comments re society btw, just in case you've actually come to expect analysis from me:) So… I've been up late each night with brain numbing data search and entry tasks trying to compile a list of Australian futurists, or people who use any of their tools, especially those with a natural resource management focus… tedious to say the least. Glad to know people are ut there doing it? You bet. Absolutely necessary IMO. All in all around 130 odd of them in fact, scraped from previous bids with Land and Water Australia , the Neville Freeman agency , the World Future Society Millennium Directory, the Global Foresight Network and contacts with the Australian Foresight institute . There's plenty of others who do futures work or strange and wonderful variants there of, but heck, they seemed too old (like 85 plus and likely out of the short run fast paced bidding game:), too bizarre (try bidding for a futures planning project from this ideological position ), or just plain too boring to include (well, okay not the one listed, but the others were so boring there was nothing respectable to list;). Professional discrimination, what can I say? I wondering about the value of setting up my own website, proper like instead of a blog… something that looks respectable enough to charge money through… might go with some other fellow students though and do the 'network consultancy' thing… save on the work load and trying to get Macromedia MX to do everything I want it to… damn this entrepreneurial spirit where you insist on trying to do everything you can your self to save money… In other news we've finally managed to get some net presence for the last company I wrote communications materials for, Senseal . Not their site yet – that's still in the works – but something. There's so many interesting things happening in the world at the moment, I hardly know where to start. The reaction to France's banning of religious symbols in schools (well no shock there!), the bombing in Madrid and the mightily significant response by the people who actually had an alternative party to vote into power (can't wait till Australia, Britain or the US get one of those;)...the abysmal way the Australian media have covered Mark Latham's (the opposition leader) comments on logging in old growth forests in Tasmania – for the record, he said save jobs and the forests…he's looking to integrate the two needs (oh my, what a revelation in Australian politics!) and look to sustainable forestry, tourism and all in all moving jobs not loosing them. He didn't say no to saving the forests. Our media are so stupid some times, and so can't see the forest for the trees , they have to insist its one way or the other rather than actually conceiving that policy might cover several needs and strategies at once. Either or thinking verses both and… they really should teach that in journalism courses you know… what hope do we have of informed policy debate when the media can't even repeat the basic one line message in the first place? Enough ranting, I'm sure you get the flavour of my mind by now and the fact its best to stop mouthing off half baked online;) |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 10,March,2004 | I've just returned from a jam packed tour of good old Canberra (travel time is just over 6 hours each way - so I didn't speed too much;). I managed to have at least five different meetings each day, with dinner and too many drinks thrown in for good measure on each night! It's amazing how generous Australian Futurists are with their time. Working with my mate Cate, we got about and interviewed three futurists for at least an hour and a half each ( Kate Delaney , Brett Peppler and Bronwynne Jones ), and had to rudely run way from one intent on a much longer conversation so that Cate could make her flight, dropped in for an intensely engaging chat about the world with three of the members of the CSIRO's Sustainable Ecosystems project (Barry Fordham, Dr Franzi Poldy and Dr Michael Dunlop -- writers of such light reading as the 'Future Dilemmas Report' ) and even managed to get the low down on the Business Council of Australia's scenario's for Australia to 2025 from the head honcho while we were at monthly public service futures network meeting. Fantastic insights, enticing prospects for collaborative work, and amongst it all, heart warming time with old friends, running into ex girl friends, attending younger friends' birthday parties, dropping in to support my brother-in-law and 12 year old niece do Reiki 1, and so much more… I may not have the money for rent next week, but heck, was it worth it! If I get the time between writing work proposals, researching essays and trying to catch up on my personal life in Melbourne before someone decides I really am a useless so and so, oh, and sleep – god do I need some sleep! – I'll write some more illuminating comments on the astounding similarities and radical differences between the futurists I talked with, some novel insights into the significant value of CSIRO research for futurists and a general critique of the BCA's scenarios – even before they are released (if I'm quick enough that is;) If you really ant to hear more – because life is likely to roll on with its inevitable inertia) then email or call me… |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 04,March,2004 | I've had so much I wanted to comment on this past 10 days its ridiculous. Welcome to a summary of my thinking and unfulfilled blogging urges (warning, you're about to get several weeks worth of posts in one hit – doctor Chris recommends digestion in moderation – you can feast on it all at once however if you're bored enough, should only take a full time week if you follow half the links;)…: * My continued involvement with random public performance art with a twist! ; * The developments from my rant on the over sexualisation of integral culture , and the background story of long emails and online chats explaining why and how the Manifest e-zine is changing tact; * Accounts of my experience on the AFI course last week, spending a morning with Don Beck ; * Where my current essay on the 'real predicament' of humanity: Humanicide is starting to head towards. I'm following a major rethink based around the concept of outlining a risk profile for humanity in the 21st Century; * Developments and conversations within the Ken Wilber Meet-Up group in Melbourne – and especially the discussion around consciously creating culture: second tier culture and what that might really take, feel, small, be like in the crucible of experience; * The success I've had with my recently completed OH&S policy – the length of any respectable thesis and involving more research than I'd ever bother to do for one;) * The fact that our house hold has a new tenant – albeit apparently for a brief period of a couple of months. That she's a lovely lass amongst the three Scorpion males of the house, and that she dances professionally apparently – we've been invited to watch, but well, housemates are house mates;) OH, and that brings to mind: * I could summarise an amazing discussion had with this guy about this excellent PBS doco and an Integral Naked forum (ie an integral approach to pornography), prior to my promising but failing to deliver on content for his 7 Days of Christ series …fascinating content all round;) * A major thesis forming in my mind about the emergence of the fundamentalist transformation and/or regression (depending on who you're talking about;) its antecedents, main causal factors, actors and a prospective overview of some of the possible outcomes over the 21 Century – our life times; * The amazing web-traffic you can get if you praise a fellow web writer's work and they scratch your back – a neat little network marketing analysis and sociological polemic trailing off into exciting and transformative future developments; * How I'm swamped with work this week on finishing off an extensively research intensive communications writing contract (Senseal), starting on a contract to pull together a database of Australian futurists for Land & Water Australia , madly smashing together the contents of a proposal for a heavy bit of futures and government policy options research report on fuel, technology and transport for the Victorian EPA ; * A rambling meditation on the meaning of life, purpose, meaning, illness and death launching off from my father's recent career change, kidney stones (lots of) and house moving, taking in my own obstinate smoking habit, drinking preference and addiction for meditation above all other activities (especially work;) * The fact I'm going to Canberra – and what this means when I finally get a chance to catch up with friends…and how it works really well to only see most of them every few moths (but we won't tell them that;), but there are some I'd wish would figure out how to use email or even a bloody phone to stay in contact… it seems some people just can't talk unless it's face to face – like, what quality of human contact are you going to have in the networked world???; * How I've entered into a deepening and ongoing contemplation after my Siddha Yoga meditation intensive on the weekend (just keeping up my average of one a year since 1993), about the nature of sleep and spiritual states (and stages of development), subtle transpersonal spiritual visions (sporadic or basically constant in any state!) based on my personal experience , Ken Wilber's writings and Mark Edwards' insightful analyses and Ray Harris' suggestion that Ken's confused about the difference of seeing the sleeping states as synonymous rather than analogous to the transpersonal spiritual states/realms/bodies and related phenomenology; * My fun using and the international contacts and discussions about the brainwave generator ; * How I've thrown together an amazing college class on business development planning that I have to deliver for a training teacher friend tomorrow before driving to Canberra – and I haven't been in a college class room presenting for years now!; * My reflections on internet dating, the ridiculous amount of email tennis that goes on between too many unknown people on the same day (damn I need a personals secretary! The amount of girls out there looks for a conversation is stupefying!) and my valuable finds re sex and dating advice over the years (and no you don't need to pay anything for the information if you're clever;) – OHHH, and I know, I know, you haven't seen the evidence…well YOU'RE not supposed to. I'm getting what I want;) * And sooooooo many other things, that well, nobody probably gives a shit about, but damn I'd love to express my self in a virtually private, virtually public fashion… if only so I can laugh at my self latter. Time, fun, engaging things to do, and hobbies… ain't life grand? I'll be back in a week, heck, maybe two… or maybe two days… damn you never know where you'll get the time with a net access these days…if only I had wi-fi on a laptop. |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 30,April,2004 | Here's an interetsing re-print of something you can't link to on the net unfortunately... THE STRATFOR WEEKLY 30 April 2004 Euphoria, Meltdown and China's Economy Summary New lending policies in China are triggering a fundamental rethinking of the stability of the Chinese economy. This time no amount of damage control can hide the fact that the myth of the Chinese economic miracle is finally -- and perhaps fatally -- breaking apart. Analysis Significant uncertainty erupted in Chinese banking circles this week as reports circulated globally that the China Banking Regulatory Commission had suspended all lending for three days. This would effectively create a lending moratorium for well over a week due to the upcoming May Day celebration. The story, which appeared in the Wall Street Journal and other media, was quickly denied. However, Western media, including Agence France-Presse, are citing specific examples of Chinese banking officials who claim to have seen the order. Officials at the China Merchants Bank said they received the order from the CBRC -- and that it was issued by the Chinese Cabinet. The issuance of the order -- which obviously could not be kept secret -- indicates one of two things. One, the Chinese government, alarmed at what it sees happening in the banking system, decided the situation was out of control and sought to take control with a moratorium that would buy some time for planning. When the international reaction started to roll in, they became alarmed at a collapse of global confidence in China's economy and pulled back. This would indicate a degree of panic. A second explanation is that Beijing, concerned with the banking system, issued an order it had no intention of enforcing -- in order to fire a shot across the bow of the banking system and generate internal discipline. Either explanation leads to the same conclusion, as Stratfor stated in its annual and quarterly forecasts: There are extremely serious problems with China's economy in general -- and with its banking system in particular. The only issue on the table is whether the behavior of China's authorities reveals deep concern or outright panic. That is an interesting question -- and not a trivial one -- but it does not cut to the heart of the problem, which is that China, contrary to popular perception or even its extremely high economic growth rate, is in serious trouble and is desperately searching for a soft landing -- a landing that might not be available. To understand China's problems, it is necessary to look at the structure -- and failures -- of other Asian economies. We have already seen two major systemic crackups in Asia during this generation. Japan went from being an economic superpower that was predicted to dominate the global economy in the 21st century to an economic cripple during the early 1990s. East and Southeast Asia, excluding China, similarly passed from economic miracles to economic catastrophes in 1997. In both cases, the striking characteristic was the speed at which overblown Western expectations turned into disappointment. It is our view that China, which got started later than other Asian economies, is on course to be the third Asian meltdown in this generation. The euphoria about China until very recently -- and China's assiduous attempts to stoke expectations -- tracks with what happened in the rest of Asia. The core problem in Asia -- a problem that the Chinese government is trying to address belatedly -- is that its banking systems do not allocate capital based on market forces. Loan decisions are made out of political and social considerations, and real interest rates vary depending on these relationships. Long-term business relationships in Asia receive favorable treatment from banks regardless of the actual business case to be made for a loan. Of equal importance, these are debt rather than equity driven economies. The major source of financing does not come from sale of shares in businesses, but from direct loans. There are two reasons for this. The legal structure of Asian corporations gives limited rights and protections to shareholders, who do not collectively control corporate boards. Therefore, maximizing shareholder value is not a driving consideration. It also means that a core measure of economic performance -- the rate of return on capital -- is not a critical variable. Cash flow is critical. The primary financial relationship of Asian -- and Chinese -- businesses is with banks. The primary interest of bankers, who have tremendous influence on boards, is the repayment of loans and interest. Cash flow is therefore critical to the system, while return on investment -- particularly in the long term -- is not a significant factor. Investment -- and a return on investment -- is more significant in China than in other Asian locations, but the general rule still holds. The Way It Works, or Doesn't In Asia, there are two interconnected processes that must take place. First, there has to be a forced savings system that channels money into the banking system at low consumer rates to generate cash for loans. This obviously limits domestic consumption; if you are saving for your retirement because of nonexistent or insufficient retirement plans, you are not in a position to buy a great deal. This leads to a second, linked process: export-oriented economies. If you must make bank payments, and your own market has constrained demand due to high savings rates, your only option is to sell overseas. In forcing exports, the focus is on cash flow rather than profit margins. This means goods are sold near cost -- and in extreme cases below cost -- in order to cover debt service. From the importing country's point of view, this can have a devastating effect because domestic companies driven by return on capital cannot compete in the short run with Asian imports that are indifferent to profit margins. Entire industrial sectors are taken out. At the same time, economic growth in the exporting country -- measured simply in terms of production and sales -- surges. But underneath these apparently astounding economic achievements, the Asian economy is actually hollowing itself out. The core problem is that, over time, the allocation of loans based on non-market consideration, means that the economy, lacking market disciplines, behaves in irrational ways. Most important, the disciplines of market economies -- from foreclosures to recessions -- don't happen. Essentially unhealthy businesses continue to grow due to the infusion of debt. The infusion of debt has a number of positive results. It maintains social stability, keeps the political system functioning and it allows banks to avoid non-performing loans. It also has a single devastating effect -- it creates an economy that is kept alive by pyramiding loans that undergird an increasingly dysfunctional system. Non-performing loans are avoided in three ways. First, there is the continual restructuring of debt and infusion of more money, designed to keep bad loans off the books and maintain confidence in the banks and the banking system. Second, companies implement aggressive export programs to generate cash flow. Finally, programs are put into place to induce foreign investors to put money into joint ventures, whose boards are controlled by Asian companies. This prevents foreign investors from really looking at the books of the Asian parent companies, but allows the boards to make decisions that transfer money from the joint venture into the parent company. In order for this latter process to work, the Asian countries create a sense of euphoria for foreign investors. Japan in 1990, East and Southeast Asia in 1995-1996 and China in 2003 all created nearly hysterical environments in which foreign investors felt they could not resist participating in various placements and industrial joint ventures. Western investment banks play a critical role in this process by overestimating Asian potential, while collecting fees on placements. This hollows out the banks. In Japan and Asia, it was the large financial institutions that first felt their foundations collapsing under them. At a certain point, the cash flow requirements outstrip debt service and export demand, and foreign direct investment can no longer make up for them. Non-performing loans begin to accumulate. The banks wind up with more hungry mouths than they can feed, and they scramble to maintain the system. The system erodes slowly but the perception of systemic failure comes suddenly -- making the management of the flow of financial information a critical issue. The banks, working with the government, hold things together until they can no longer do so. A crisis builds around the public realization that major financial institutions are failing, vulnerable to failure or can survive only through heroic measures. A period of sharp, intense crisis takes place, which does not solve any fundamental problems. A long period of malaise follows, as some recover and others fail. China Tries to Cope The Chinese government is trying to prevent the crisis from breaking out into the open, essentially by stopping the intensifying debt production process that banks are engaged in. Of course, if the banks stop making loans, the entire system can hit a brick wall. You can evade the wall if foreign direct investment increases, driven by confidence that the Chinese government is taking steps to control the situation. You can evade the wall if you can increase exports. But if exports are at the maximum -- simply because you can't produce more goods and foreign markets can't absorb them -- and global finance is thrown into a panic by suspending loans, then the entire system can crack. The Chinese government knows it has a major crisis on its hands. Its loan moratorium was designed to buy a week or so to try to sort through this problem. Somehow, it fantasized that it could keep the moratorium quiet. When the Wall Street Journal announced it, the Chinese realized that a global crisis of confidence was in the offing, so they officially suspended the moratorium. Saying 'never mind' is an interesting strategy, but essentially Beijing has let the cat out of the bag. The banking industry is out of control, and the government is not sure how to get it back under control without the very public airing of some very dirty laundry. In reality, the enormity of the problem is dawning on everyone. This is not a technical problem of managing a normal business cycle. This is a banking system nearing meltdown for which the government would like to find a technical solution that would allow the game to go on. Beijing had hoped a $45 billion bailout ahead of a series of initial public offerings (IPOs) of shares in two of its leading commercial banks would help keep the system afloat. IPOs for banks whose policies are so troubling that the government forces them to suspend lending are not likely to be a wildly successful. The system is crumbling. The problem is that, as with the rest of Asia before it, the game can't go on for China. On the other hand, the Chinese government can't possibly take the draconian steps that would be needed to begin the process of healing. There would be political chaos. Therefore, the Chinese government has signaled what it would do with political chaos by blocking elections in Hong Kong. Therefore, we have seen a major outflow of money from China by individuals and institutions that know the jig is up. Therefore, China's leaders have been signaling for the past week that there is a major crisis. They are trying to manage their way through it. But even if they do, the best they can hope for is Japanese- style malaise -- and China's political and social systems are not Japan's. Malaise is not a viable option. It is interesting to note that the Japanese and Asian meltdowns did not affect the rest of the world as one might predict. Certainly, investments there were devastated, and business plans based on 10 percent growth a year were shattered. But the United States in particular benefited from the meltdown, as panicky money fled its way. One could argue that the impetus for both the early 1990s surge and the late 1990s surge came from money fleeing Asia and moving into the United States. The sky is not falling for the global economy. It might be falling for China. Without a convertible currency -- this is why Beijing will not float and trade the Yuan -- China has some tools to handle the problem that Thailand or Indonesia did not. In the end, the economic game is ending and the political one is beginning. As China -- slowly or quickly -- decays economically, the political consequences will be the most important. Even if China avoids complete meltdown, avoiding malaise will be much, much harder. Stratfor thought all this would wait until 2005. Right now, the Chinese do not look so lucky. (c) 2004 Strategic Forecasting, Inc. All rights reserved. |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 23,April,2004 | I'm busy working out which alternative transport fuel and technologies show the most promise in greenhouse gas and air pollution emission reduction within a decade at the moment – so many variables, I think my head has gone pop at least twice this week. So in procrastinating I thought I best stick to something at least a little related…a wrap up about the high profile movie 'The Day After Tomorrow' from CCNET (a 'scholarly electronic network' by personal subscription only to Benny Peiser – contact me if you want the details, it’s a great review for information scanners:) Here's three highlights: In 'The Day After Tomorrow,' a $125 million disaster film set to open on May 28, global warming from accumulating smokestack and tailpipe gases disrupts warm ocean currents and sets off an instant ice age. Few climate experts think such a prospect is likely, especially in the near future. But the prospect that moviegoers will be alarmed enough to blame the Bush administration for inattention to climate change has stirred alarm at the space agency, scientists there say. -- Andrew C Revkin, The New York Times, 25 April 2004 So, NASA scientists will be available for interviews. What, then, is the whole fuss about? Is this just another case of hyped up journalism or simply an attempt to rouse controversy which is always an effective and cheap way to promote a bad film? Actually, there seems to be more to this mini-storm than meets the eye. It would appear that the New York Times failed to reveal the real scandal behind the story - the as yet undisclosed relationship between NASA and the film producers! --Benny Peiser, 26 April 2004 What these people forget is that if the melting ice caps disrupt the Gulf Stream and lower temperatures, this cooling will stop the ice from melting and the process will grind to a halt. When you look at ocean floor sediments, you see that the world has experienced temperatures far higher than those expected to be triggered by the greenhouse effect. When rises in temperatures occurred there was no sudden drop as the ice age enthusiasts predict will happen this time. --Doug Benn, St Andrews University, 25 April 2004 |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 23,April,2004 | Just in case you never understood what happened at the Chernoble disaster, and what the reality of the area is like now, checkout urlLink this crazy kid who went with a fast bike , dad pulling a few strings in the government to get her access, and a camera (and some good research and writing skills;) It is well wort th 20 minutes of gawking you'll do as you click through each page of photos and short punchy text... understand people, just how stupid humanity can be with our technology! |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 17,April,2004 | For those of us tired of 'eating oil' , and wasting a precious resource on things we can find alternatives for, where for plastics for example, we can't, here's a little piece to brighten your day… making hydrogen work for vehicle transport is not really practical any time soon…but perhaps things might go faster than we think… 'Schmitman, produces renewable hydrogen from purified seawater or fresh water using an electrolyzer -- which separates hydrogen and oxygen in water -- along with clean-energy power sources such as solar panels and wind generators, already common on sailboats. Regenerative electric drive motors turn the propellers and provide recaptured electricity, much like the braking systems of hybrid cars do, Schmitman said. 'For this application, we weren't competing against the price of an internal-combustion engine,' said Pierre Rivard, president and CEO of Hydrogenics, adding that fuel cells are the 'clear winner' when it comes to eliminating the noise, vibration and diesel-fuel odors that irritate boat owners. Whether fuel cells will be winners in the commercial shipping industry remains to be seen. Sailboats require far less energy for motorized propulsion than powerboats or ships, for which viable fuel-cell applications are tough to develop. Efforts to do so are under way, however.' |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 17,April,2004 | In light of Frank Visser being away and not updating his website of integral discourse , I thought it important to share Ray Harris' response to Ken Wilber's recent comments about the site as soon as possible…I've certainly found it enlightening, and with Ray's permission ' Yes, go ahead. I'm still debating whether to blog or not to blog - it could be a huge diversion, who would read it anyway…?' (good point;) I've included the full text here… It will likely be posted more formally in other locations soon… WHAT I REALLY MEANT TO SAY WAS.. Some critical observations about Ken's recent suggestions By Ray Harris April 2004 There was certainly a tone of frustration in Ken's recent post. I can only speak for myself so I can assure Ken the frustration is mutual. I guess I'm disappointed on two personal fronts. The first is that in stating that Frank's site is the source 'of the greatest concentration of distortions of my work that I am aware of.' Ken seems to condemn the good work Frank has done to advance integral studies. Frank's site is often the main gateway to Ken's work for many people. The 'Meetup' link has created discussion groups in dozens of cities around the world. The provision of ten language sections makes Ken's work accessible to many people outside the English speaking world. A service that is not offered at Shambhala or the Integral Institute's various sites. Ken might have acknowledged the positive contribution Frank has made. The second is that Ken adds my name to his list, thus 'tarring' me with the same brush. I will address this issue later. The Public Domain In its reaction against religious dogma the modernist revolution made a public virtue of free and fair speech. The modernist revolution helped define the standards of open intellectual discourse. Along with these standards came related rights and responsibilities that applied to 'all' parties. Ken is absolutely right to expect that people quote him correctly and make ethical use of his work. Ken also has the responsibility to do the same with other people's work. One cannot apply certain standards to oneself and then apply different standards to others. When Ken published his books he put his ideas in the public domain. Sure, the ownership of those ideas are protected by copyright. However, the idea of free speech gave rise to two related concepts and institutions: exceptions to the copyright laws that allow fair quoting for purposes of study and debate and the public lending library, where anyone can access information. Frank's site adheres to this principle and is somewhat like a public library. Why is this important? I'll return to it later. The problem with Ken is that he tends to play with the conventions of public debate. He has used fiction and journaling to express his ideas and he has published serious 'academic' works as well as populist digests (A Brief History). I have no problem with that. I'm all for creativity. But despite this Ken still has a responsibility to properly present his ideas for open debate. The frustrating thing for anyone wishing to engage him in critical debate is that he tends to make up the rules as he goes along. For example he has been criticized for his use of notes. I don't know about others but I always thought one should apply the standards written out in the various 'style guides'. I thought notes were designed to convey secondary material and that the substantive argument was to be presented in the body of the text. Yet Ken has sometimes complained that people failed to read the notes where he reveals what he really means. Ken took his use of notes to another level with 'Boomeritis'. I ran foul of this one. It turns out that the notes are published on the internet, but get this, the book doesn't tell you this, or give you the email address. Occult notes - a new device in serious publishing - sheesh. Now Ken has pulled another rabbit out of the hat - once you've mastered the notes that contain substantive points and the occult notes that exist on a website (bad luck to those who do not own a computer) - to fully understand Ken you must now be in dialogue with him. Interesting. Of course I can hear the wails of complaint from those who feel Ken misrepresented their work in SES, TOE or Boomeritis. Was Ken in dialogue with them before he used their work? Of course not - double standards - you bet. You can imagine my amusement over Ken's use of the example of dialoguing. It was a quote from a private conversation. This was not (it is now) publicly available. This is taking occultism to a new level. What Ken really means is now hidden away in private conversations - sheesh, gimme a break! The requirement that people be in dialogue places an unreasonable burden on public debate. I would argue that it is Ken's responsibility to publish his work in a way that promotes free and fair debate. In other words, his 'substantive' argument should be accessible by being openly published and unambiguous. The interesting thing about this dialogue demand is, what happens when Ken takes mahasamadhi and is no longer around to dialogue? Double Burden Ken really had me scratching my head on the double burden argument. I mean, I'm no expert on logic but I thought the thing that mattered was the individual proposition, not whether it was put into one or two sentences. Or did Ken mean to say syllogism? If A believes X and B believes Y then X = Y, true or false? Ken has a point only if he can show that his critics conflate his views with their own. Otherwise X and Y remain separate propositions. Come on Ken, don't insult the intelligence of your readers. You see, the double burden must apply to your work as well. If you make a false proposition about someone else's work, say in SES, does that make the whole book false and 'virtually worthless'? Clearly not. The real problem is whether or not Ken's critics have quoted him correctly and/or have excluded substantive material. Mark Edwards can defend himself but from what I've read he usually goes to some length to provide several quotes. Are these selective quotes? In which case Ken should simply provide Mark with the material he missed. But here we return to the difficulty of Ken defending himself with occult points of clarification - points made privately to a select few. It's hardly sportsman-like old chap! Ummm, X is completely wrong about me because I clarified my position when I was dialoguing with my friend over a glass of wine in my kitchen! The Tyranny of Distance Ken has raised this point and it's a good point. In my case I live in Australia and to be in dialogue with Ken has definite limits. I have met Ken (and others - some of my recent material is informed by, you guessed it, dialoguing). I made the journey and he was a delightful and generous host. But there has to be a way around this problem because the integral community is international now. It gives a natural advantage to people who can get to Ken, heck, it even disadvantages people who live on the East Coast of the US. The other problem is time. I actually think it is perfectly legitimate for Ken to be selective about responding. He can't be all things to all people - there ain't enough time in the day. I personally don't expect him to answer me directly - I know he has considerable demands on his attention. I just wished he'd used this particular opportunity more constructively. Who the Hell Am I? Ken makes some general comments about the double burden, dialoguing, misrepresentation - and then casually throws in my name as if I'm part of the same general problem. It puts me in the same category as 'people who outrageously distort my position'. Ahem, I'm afraid I kinda, well you know, sorta, respectfully disagree. For a start most of my writing on Frank's site is quite clearly my own opinion and is not a criticism of Ken's work. No double burden there. But the interesting thing about those articles which do contain criticisms of Ken is that he has never, ever, not once, said that I have misrepresented him. Well, except once, privately, by email (unless my memory is faulty, which is possible). That particular instance was in fact a dialogue between myself, Ken and Don Beck over my 'Rescuing the Green Meme from Boomeritis' article. This is where I found out about the notes to Boomeritis on the Shambhala website. Now Ken may feel that I have misrepresented him horribly, the trouble is he hasn't shared that with me. I haven't been able to apologize, or correct, or justify, or defend, or squirm out of it, because I haven't been informed. I reckon it's a bit unfair to be put into this reply of Ken's, as if I'm someone who has distorted his writing, without it ever being shown that I have. Have I? This is the interesting thing about dialogue - it's two-way. You tell me if I've misunderstood you and I tell you if you've misunderstood me, perhaps we've mutually misunderstood each others misunderstandings. Perhaps I didn't understand that what I said was contradictory and perhaps you didn't understand that what you said was contradictory. So Ken, how can you include me as someone who has misunderstood you without dialoguing with me about it? Perhaps it's not that I have misunderstood you but that I simply disagree with you on some points, for example, Blair isn't integral he's just a centrist with a good PR machine. Maybe you've just made a bad call on this, and on other issues? Ken, if you want to be treated fairly you must treat others fairly. And if I have treated you unfairly I'd like to know. At least then I can defend myself or crawl into a hole..otherwise don't imply that I have. You see, here's the thing. I've only been getting positive feedback. The only person to take issue with me has been Don Beck (I'm green btw, rofl) and you were privy to that exchange. No-one has jumped in to say 'you asshole, you've misrepresented Ken'. So maybe I'm under the delusion that what I've been saying strikes a chord and is appreciated. Maybe more people agree with me than you realize. The Integral University I'm actually no stranger to the IU. I might not have dialogued directly with Ken about it but I have dialogued with the folks at Foresight here in Melbourne, the 'futures' faculty, and I have dialogued with Greg Wilpert of the 'politics' faculty. I'm not saying they agree with everything I have said but many of the issues have been discussed and noted. I'm not exactly on the periphery. But what I want to say goes back to the idea of free speech and the idea of the public library - it's an important idea. The idea was to make knowledge available to those that could not afford to buy books or pay for university degrees, some great people have been self taught, Ken included. I'm guessing however, that if I want to cast my critical eye over the syllabus of the IU then I'll have to pay for the privilege? I hope that the IU casts its net wide and does not become yet another ivory tower. I hope the IU adheres to the well established rules of open inquiry. And I especially hope that the IU doesn't go down the road of conflating the institutional demands of running a liberal academy with running a business, a conflation that is eroding the academic standards of universities around the world. The advantage of Frank's site is that it is free. And according to the positive feedback I've been getting my message has been getting through to precisely the people I want it to get through to. You see, many of my posts are actually directed to the 'Integral community' in general. They are critiques of Ken for the consideration of the community. They raise questions and problems designed to get people to look at the issues at a deeper level. If you remember Ken, you once said you provided orienting generalizations - and that others needed to fill out the detail. This is the motivation behind my posts. And Frank's site offers me the only opportunity to do so. If integral theory doesn't deal with the questions and problems now then it will have to deal with them later, if not from me, then from others, if Ken doesn't respond, then others will. They are questions on notice. |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 14,April,2004 | QUOTE on U.S. military spending, cited by George Monbiot: “when you add together the $368bn for routine spending, the $19bn assigned to the department of energy for new nuclear weapons, the $79bn already passed by Congress to fund the war in Iraq and the $87bn that Bush has just requested to sustain it, you find that the US federal government is now spending as much on war as it is on education, public health, housing, employment, pensions, food aid and welfare put together.” |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 06,April,2004 | My things have been busy… work work work… here's an update on my projects on the boil lately: 1. I finished a nine and a half thousand word essay on Saturday (with 3000+ in notes;) for my AFI course: Outlooks for the 21st Century. The topic was 'A 21st Century Risk Profile for Humanity.' It was rough to say the least, but one I will definitely re-work and cut down in size… polish, polish, polish…a writers work is never done, it just gets printed occasionally;) I did get some nice feedback from the marker however who called the day after I submitted it to say it was one of the best pieces he'd read in years…a sucker for narrative apparently;) If you'd like a copy with spelling mistakes and all to provide comments on (please!) just email me;) An early copy of the intro is below . Apparently it's got a great summary of what globalisation is, where it comes from, and where we're possibly headed with it… 2 In other news the joint team through the National Centre for Sustainability whom I wrote a proposal for, won the bid!!! So I will be busy over the next two months learning everything required to complete the 'Future Transport Fuels and Technologies' report for the Victorian Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Nice. Hectic. But nice;) Overt paid futures work …based on an approach I made up last year (and other AFI students scoffed at because its 'just theory' not useful – ha!)…not futures work of the 'deep now' kind, but of the realistic kind that pays the bills…and a 'long now' is a good start, right? 3. I've started on a in-kind-services donated consultancy with three other students/alumni at the AFI with Renaissance Earth concerning a proof of concept for a TV show to be pitched to CEO and other high end corporate types for development sponsorship…the futures angle is significant as well as sustainability… I see a theme emerging here;) 4. Through a friend at AFI (man this starting to sound like a mafia connection agency;) I've gotten involved in the preliminary meetings for setting up and running a Melbourne Social Forum in October…big, involved, and trying to just skirt the edges and be helpful where I can;) 5. I'm also back on treading the boards for Senseal, the start up company I've been consulting to since August 03 except for the past month or so's break. Finalising their OH&S policy manual ready for implementation, managing their website development and proving the content of course and a few other time consuming tasks that will pay the bills. 6. The Land & Water Australia Futurists database project is coming along nicely, no bills paid by it yet, but it has certainly attracted a response – over 70 registrants to date, plus we've turned up quite a few more people to invite… The best part has been the face-to-face time with some of Australia's busiest futurists (that means they're good – people keep paying them to be busy for tem;) 7. The consultancy website is up and running and we're currently talking with several possible associates and members who would like to join… the site will be expanding rapidly (?) over the coming months if all our plans come to fruition;) Go on, check out 'Humanagon.' All in all, busy. And then a friend lends me a fascinating book – damn her – oh brother…there goes the good sleeping time;) So ahh, if I don't post for a while, or if I don't immediately respond to emails or phone calls you'll know why…possibly;) |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 25,May,2004 | Well, its been a while. I've been on course at AFI and generally letting new essay ideas marinate in my mind...'Integral Visioning' seems next... My most recent essay is now online (in blog form) for those who have the time and interest in a summary of the development of modern globalisation, the predicament it presents and the some trite options for the future. You are also keenly encouraged to provide any constructive feedback what so ever, as I will be collecting these comments and rolling them into the next draft, hopefully for a more traditional publishing exercise;) Go on, have a read of Humanicide . I know its long, but that's what you get around here every now and then – depth. And you never know, you might actually get something from my ramblings (fingers crossed;) |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 18,May,2004 | It's long, its a re-print, it's not something most of you might ever bother to read. But if you hav a interest in the intellegence community, geopolitics, and hearing a professional knowingly step beyond his proper bounds, this is a fasinating article. At the ver least, read the first five paras to get a sense of how a very important intel player in the corporateenvironment sees the current Iraq situation, and the natue of his job - foresight/business intel people you really want to read this!!!! (if only to debate it with me;) ----------------------------------------------------- THE STRATFOR WEEKLY 17 May 2004 Iraq: New Strategies By George Friedman Last week, Stratfor published an analysis, 'The Edge of the Razor,' that sketched out the problems facing the United States in Iraq. In an avalanche of responses, one important theme stood out: Readers wanted to know what we would do, if we were in a position to do anything. Put differently, it is easy to catalogue problems, more difficult to provide solutions. The point is not only absolutely true, but lies at the heart of intelligence. Intelligence organizations should not give policy suggestions. First, the craft of intelligence and state-craft are very different things. Second, and far more important, intelligence professionals should always resist the temptation to become policy advocates because, being mostly human, intelligence analysts want to be right -- and when they are advocates of a strategy, they will be tempted to find evidence that proves that policy to be correct and ignore evidence that might prove the policy in error. Advocating policies impairs the critical faculties. Besides, in a world in which opinions are commonplace, there is a rare value in withholding opinions. Finally, intelligence, as a profession, should be neutral. Now, we are far from personally neutral in any affecting our country, but in our professional -- as opposed to our personal lives -- our task is look at the world through the eyes of all of the players. Suggesting a strategy for defeating one side makes that obviously difficult. That said, extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures. We normally try to figure out what is going to happen, what other people are going to do -- whether they know it or not -- and explain the actions of others. At times, people confuse Stratfor's analysis for our political position. This time -- this once -- we will write for ourselves -- or more precisely, for myself, since at Stratfor our views on the war range even wider than those among the general public. The Mission The United States' invasion of Iraq was not a great idea. Its only virtue was that it was the best available idea among a series of even worse ideas. In the spring of 2003, the United States had no way to engage or defeat al Qaeda. The only way to achieve that was to force Saudi Arabia -- and lesser enabling countries such as Iran and Syria -- to change their policies on al Qaeda and crack down on its financial and logistical systems. In order to do that, the United States needed two things. First, it had to demonstrate its will and competence in waging war -- something seriously doubted by many in the Islamic world and elsewhere. Second, it had to be in a position to threaten follow- on actions in the region. There were many drawbacks to the invasion, ranging from the need to occupy a large and complex country to the difficulty of gathering intelligence. Unlike many, we expected extended resistance in Iraq, although we did not expect the complexity of the guerrilla war that emerged. Moreover, we understood that the invasion would generate hostility toward the United States within the Islamic world, but we felt this would be compensated by dramatic shifts in the behavior of governments in the region. All of this has happened. The essential point is that the invasion of Iraq was not and never should have been thought of as an end in itself. Iraq's only importance was its geographic location: It is the most strategically located country between the Mediterranean and the Hindu Kush. The United States needed it as a base of operations and a lever against the Saudis and others, but it had no interest -- or should have had no interest -- in the internal governance of Iraq. This is the critical point on which the mission became complex, and the worst conceivable thing in a military operation took place: mission creep. Rather than focus on the follow-on operations that had to be undertaken against al Qaeda, the Bush administration created a new goal: the occupation and administration of Iraq by the United States, with most of the burden falling on the U.S. military. More important, the United States also dismantled the Iraqi government bureaucracy and military under the principle that de-Baathification had to be accomplished. Over time, this evolved to a new mission: the creation of democracy in Iraq. Under the best of circumstances, this was not something the United States had the resources to achieve. Iraq is a complex and multi-layered society with many competing interests. The idea that the United States would be able to effectively preside over this society, shepherding it to democracy, was difficult to conceive even in the best of circumstances. Under the circumstances that began to emerge only days after the fall of Baghdad, it was an unachievable goal and an impossible mission. The creation of a viable democracy in the midst of a civil war, even if Iraqi society were amenable to copying American institutions, was an impossibility. The one thing that should have been learned in Vietnam was that the evolution of political institutions in the midst of a sustained guerrilla war is impossible. The administration pursued this goal for a single reason: From the beginning, it consistently underestimated the Iraqis' capability to resist the United States. It underestimated the tenacity, courage and cleverness of the Sunni guerrillas. It underestimated the political sophistication of the Shiite leadership. It underestimated the forms of military and political resistance that would limit what the United States could achieve. In my view, the underestimation of the enemy in Iraq is the greatest failure of this administration, and the one for which the media rarely hold it accountable. This miscalculation drew the U.S. Army into the two types of warfare for which it is least suited. First, it drew the Army into the cities, where the work of reconstruction -- physical and political -- had to be carried out. Having dismantled Iraqi military and police institutions, the Army found itself in the role of policing the cities. This would have been difficult enough had there not been a guerrilla war. With a guerrilla war -- much of it concentrated in heavily urbanized areas and the roads connecting cities -- the Army found itself trapped in low-intensity urban warfare in which its technical advantages dissolved and the political consequences of successful counterattacks outweighed the value of defeating the guerrillas. Destroying three blocks of Baghdad to take out a guerrilla squad made military sense, but no political sense. The Army could neither act effectively nor withdraw. Second, the Army was lured into counterinsurgency warfare. No subject has been studied more extensively by the U.S. Army, and no subject remains as opaque. The guerrilla seeks to embed himself among the general population. Distinguishing him is virtually impossible, particularly for a 20-year-old soldier or Marine who speaks not a word of the language nor understands the social cues that might guide him. In this circumstance, the soldier is simply a target, a casualty waiting to happen. The usual solution is to raise an indigenous force to fight the guerrillas. The problem is that the most eager recruits for this force are the guerrillas themselves: They not only get great intelligence, but weapons, ammunition and three square meals a day. Sometimes, pre-existing militias are used, via a political arrangement. But these militias have very different agendas than those of the occupying force, and frequently maneuver the occupier into doing their job for them. Strategies The United States must begin by recognizing that it cannot possibly pacify Iraq with the force available or, for that matter, with a larger military force. It can continue to patrol, it can continue to question people, it can continue to take casualties. However, it can never permanently defeat the guerrilla forces in the Sunni triangle using this strategy. It certainly cannot displace the power and authority of the Shiite leadership in the south. Urban warfare and counterinsurgency in the Iraqi environment cannot be successful. This means the goal of reshaping Iraqi society is beyond the reach of the United States. Iraq is what it is. The United States, having performed the service of removing Saddam Hussein from power, cannot reshape a society that has millennia of layers. The attempt to do so will generate resistance -- while that resistance can be endured, it cannot be suppressed. The United States must recall its original mission, which was to occupy Iraq in order to prosecute the war against al Qaeda. If that mission is remembered, and the mission creep of reshaping Iraq forgotten, some obvious strategic solutions re-emerge. The first, and most important, is that the United States has no national interest in the nature of Iraqi government or society. Except for not supporting al Qaeda, Iraq's government does not matter. Since the Iraqi Shia have an inherent aversion to Wahabbi al Qaeda, the political path on that is fairly clear. The United States now cannot withdraw from Iraq. We can wonder about the wisdom of the invasion, but a withdrawal under pressure would be used by al Qaeda and radical Islamists as demonstration of their core point: that the United States is inherently weak and, like the Soviet Union, ripe for defeat. Having gone in, withdrawal in the near term is not an option. That does not mean U.S. forces must be positioned in and near urban areas. There is a major repositioning under way to reduce the size of the U.S. presence in the cities, but there is, nevertheless, a more fundamental shift to be made. The United States undertook responsibility for security in Iraq after its invasion. It cannot carry out this mission. Therefore, it has to abandon the mission. Some might argue this would leave a vacuum. We would argue there already is a vacuum, filled only with American and coalition targets. It is not a question of creating anarchy; anarchy already exists. It is a question of whether the United States wishes to lose soldiers in an anarchic situation. The geography of Iraq provides a solution. Click here to see Potential U.S. Basing Locations The bulk of Iraq's population lives in the Tigris and Euphrates valleys. To the south and west of the Euphrates River, there is a vast and relatively uninhabited region of Iraq -- not very hospitable, but with less shooting than on the other side. The western half of Iraq borders Saudi Arabia and Syria, two of the countries about which the United States harbors the most concern. A withdrawal from the river basins would allow the United States to carry out its primary mission -- maintaining regional pressure -- without engaging in an impossible war. Moreover, in the Kurdish regions of the northeast, where U.S. Special Forces have operated for a very long time, U.S. forces could be based -- and supplied -- in order to maintain a presence on the Iranian border. Iraq should then be encouraged to develop a Shiite-dominated government, the best guarantor against al Qaeda and the greatest incentive for the Iranians not to destabilize the situation. The fate of the Sunnis will rest in the deal they can negotiate with the Shia and Kurds -- and, as they say, that is their problem. The United States could supply the forces in western and southern Iraq from Kuwait, without the fear that convoy routes would be cut in urban areas. In the relatively uninhabited regions, distinguishing guerrillas from rocks would be somewhat easier than distinguishing them from innocent bystanders. The force could, if it chose, execute a broad crescent around Iraq, touching all the borders but not the populations. The Iraqi government might demand at some point that the United States withdraw, but they would have no way to impose their demand, as they would if U.S. forces could continue to be picked off with improvised explosive devices and sniper fire. The geographical move would help to insulate U.S. forces from even this demand, assuming political arrangements could not be made. Certainly the land is inhospitable, and serious engineering and logistical efforts would be required to accommodate basing for large numbers of troops. However, large numbers of troops might not be necessary -- and the engineering and logistical problems certainly will not make headlines around the world. Cutting Losses Certainly, as a psychological matter, there is a retreat. The United States would be cutting losses. But it has no choice. It will not be able to defeat the insurgencies it faces without heavy casualties and creating chaos in Iraqi society. Moreover, a victory in this war would not provide the United States with anything that is in its national interest. Unless you are an ideologue -- which I am not -- who believes bringing American- style democracy to the world is a holy mission, it follows that the nature of the Iraqi government -- or chaos -- does not affect me. What does affect me is al Qaeda. Al Qaeda is trying to kill me. Countries such as Saudi Arabia permitted al Qaeda to flourish. The presence of a couple of U.S. armored divisions along the kingdom's northern border has been a very sobering thought. That pressure cannot be removed. Whatever chaos there is in Saudi Arabia, that is the key to breaking al Qaeda -- not Baghdad. The key to al Qaeda is in Riyadh and in Islamabad. The invasion of Iraq was a stepping-stone toward policy change in Riyadh, and it worked. The pressure must be maintained and now extended to Islamabad. However, the war was never about Baghdad, and certainly never about Al Fallujah and An Najaf. Muqtada al-Sadr's relationship to Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani and the makeup of the elders in Al Fallujah are matters of utter and absolute indifference to the United States. Getting drawn into those fights is in fact the quagmire -- a word we use carefully and deliberately. But in the desert west and south of the Euphrates, the United States can carry out the real mission for which it came. And if the arc of responsibility extends along the Turkish frontier to Kurdistan, that is a manageable mission creep. The United States should not get out of Iraq. It must get out of Baghdad, Al Fallujah, An Najaf and the other sinkholes into which the administration's policies have thrown U.S. soldiers. Again, this differs from our normal analysis in offering policy prescriptions. This is, of course, a very high-level sketch of a solution to an extraordinarily complex situation. Nevertheless, sometimes the solution to complex situations is to simplify them. (c) 2004 Strategic Forecasting, Inc. All rights reserved. |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 13,May,2004 | urlLink A little of what my mind wants for my weekend...;) urlLink |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 12,May,2004 | Here’s an adroit excerpt from Znet's 'Open Letter to Our Troops' by Stan Goff about the prisoner abuse 'situation.' (not avaliale online anywhere I can find it) It is long, but the article is longer - and fittingly so for the depth of the issue and the West's (that's you with a computer and me with one too;) ignorance and unwillingness to correct systematic institutionalised pathologies...IMHO:) Its worth the read if you don't know much about the psychology of the situation, and how we DO know better... '.............In 1971, Stanford University Professor of Psychology Phillip Zimbardo designed an experiment that would come to be known as the Stanford Prison Experiment. Subjects were recruited and paid a modest stipend, whereupon they were separated into 'prisoners' and 'guards,' and placed in a mock prison built in a Stanford basement. The prisoners were stripped, deloused, shackled, and placed in prison clothes, while the guards were given authoritative uniforms, sunglasses, and batons. Long story short -- within two days there was a near prison riot, psychosomatic illness began to break out, white middle-class kids in the role of guards became rapidly and progressively more sadistic and arbitrary, and the two-week experiment had to be abandoned after only six days... before someone was badly hurt or killed. The experiment seemed to support the truism that 'absolute power corrupts absolutely.' But that conclusion serves as a description, not an explanation. It describes what happens to the individual, but it fails to account for the role of rationalization that legitimates the domination, and it completely fails to account for institutional support of that domination. When one uses the term 'systemic,' she is saying that the source of this abuse is not individual moral failure, but a predictable expression of the system and its structures. The abuses of detainees, by US troops, by CACI International and Titan Corporation mercenaries, and by the CIA in Iraq, is 'systemic.' But in the same way that the system found an expression in the thoughts and emotions of Ali Tehrani, in the same way that the structure of domination and subjection pushed him to rationalize away his shared humanity with his Haitian captives, we can now see in the leering grins of the Abu Ghraib prison guards, who are regular people -- like the experimental subjects in the Stanford Prison Experiment -- who quickly learned to behave as sadistic torturers. The military has admitted that 60% of these detainees are neither combatants nor threats. As this is written, the US military is about to release hundreds of detainees who fall in that category, and there will be more horror stories coming, because it was systemic. People were not only humiliated and forced to pose in degrading positions with each other naked. They were forced to masturbate in front of taunting guards. Some were sodomized with foreign objects. It appears that some were also beaten to death during interrogation -- one whose body was put on ice for a day then carted away the next on a litter with a faked intravenous infusion in the arm. Now the cover stories are being spun out like webs. We are being asked to believe that: (1) The only abuse that occurred against anyone detained by American forces in Iraq was photographed and reported. (2) No abuses occurred anywhere that were not photographed or reported. (3) The one percent of US troops who are the 'bad apples' all happen to serve together in the same unit... the unit that is the only one guilty, and that happened to get caught because of the photographs. (4) The aggressive investigation now being proclaimed by everyone from George W. Bush to CENTCOM, about abuses that were already on record in the military (an internal investigation had already been launched in February by Major General Antonio M. Taguba, but was kept from the public), would have happened had the photographs and story not been aired on national television. (5) The military was not attempting to cover up their own investigation, and that they would have informed the public of these abuses even had Seymour Hersh not put the whole miserable episode into print. (6) The military did not cover anything up in the two weeks between the time CBS warned them that they were going to air an expose and when they actually did air it. (7) No one in the chain of command above Brigadier General Janis Karpinski is responsible for the failure to halt these abuses, even though Lieutenant General Ricardo S. Sanchez was informed of the investigation of these abuses, complete with sworn statements and photographs, by General Taguba last February. Other abuses and violations of the Geneva Conventions and Laws of Warfare are already on record, some with videos available on the web, such as: (1) Shooting people who are clearly not armed and who are engaged in no threatening behavior. (2) Shooting into ambulances. (3) Shooting wounded people who are not armed. (4) Shooting wounded people who are obviously no longer capable of fighting. (5) Shooting into crowds. There has never been a Stanford Military Occupation Experiment to complement the Stanford Prison Experiment, unless we just count the military occupations themselves. There is a structured, systemic antagonism between an occupying military and the people whose land they occupy. And there will be no investigations of any of it, because there never are, unless and until the American public is confronted with them. The National Command Authority and its cheerleaders cannot say out loud... this is what we are doing, and it can't get done unless we dehumanize the occupied. This reality, this system, will express itself in the thoughts and emotions of you, the troops who carry it out, because this military occupation is in a sense making a prison of Iraq and making you, the troops, its turnkeys. It will only be those exceptional individuals among you in the military who refuse to surrender their humanity -- no matter how little you may understand the big picture -- and who will witness. You who do break with the system and witness are very important people, important to history, because your refusal to surrender your own moral integrity to the system may lead to our collective salvation by ending this felonious occupation. The troops who filed reports about the abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison were such exceptions. So were Tom Glen and Ron Ridenhour. In The Culture of Narcissism, Christopher Lasch wrote in 1979 about US leadership during the occupation of Vietnam: Success in our society has to be ratified by publicity... all politics becomes a form of spectacle. It is well known that Madison Avenue packages politicians and markets them as if they were cereals or deodorants; but the art of public relations penetrates more deeply into political life... The modern prince [an apt turn of phrase for the current member of the Bush political dynasty] ... confuses successful completion of the task at hand with the impression he makes or hopes to make on others. Thus American officials blundered into the war in Vietnam... More concerned with the trappings than with the reality of power, they convinced themselves that failure to intervene would damage American 'credibility...' [They] fret about their ability to rise to crisis, to project an image of decisiveness, to give a convincing performance of executive power... Public relations and propaganda have exalted the image and the pseudo-event. What these images of the Abu Ghraib humiliation and torture have done in the United States is collide with the 'exalted image and the pseudo-event' of the Bush propaganda apparatus, just as the images of the My Lai massacre did in 1969. That collision between the reality and the real image of war startles civilians here in the La-La Land of wide screen TV and suburban SUV's, and it shakes them out of their opiated shopper dream-state.'' |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 12,May,2004 | urlLink A little of my current mind.... urlLink |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 11,May,2004 | A new film in the US about new science and consciousness is causing a stir with integral types…What the Bleep Do We Know is radical in structure as well as content – a dramatic story starring Children of a Lesser God star Marlee Martin – plus a dozen leading edge scientists, 2 mystics and state of the art special effects – all put to the task of conveying the huge mysteries gradually unfolding in our very lives. urlLink An impression... What the @?bleep%! d we know??? urlLink The film – made by top professionals but completely outside the Hollywood system – opened quietly in Portland in February and, 11 weeks later, is still playing – okay, so maybe the mystics don't fit my bill, but they're interesting sorts nonetheless… check it out (the trailers are interesting…), and if you get a chance to see it, I'd love to know your thoughts… |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 10,May,2004 | I spent a good part of last week working up some simple scenarios for a ten year period concerning transport… The driver selection and definition process was part of the deep structure of the project, receiving some 40,000+ words of concise analysis… yes, concise;) At the end of the day we were looking at the hopeful transition to hydrogen as the long shot, which many are holding out as THE way to go, a status quo situation, and two variations of which one happened on the weekend – oil prices shot though the roof, driven by political instability in Saudi Arabia… Now, with a ten year planning horizon, have we simply failed to look deep enough into the future? Or did the analysis of the variables/drivers in the preceding month kick up one of the most high impact and uncertain eventualities, that well, just decided to prove us right in its import, and right to a degree about its uncertainty – we had no idea if it would happen two days earlier, but there it was, front page news – oil prices rise dramatically… Comments? Thoughts? Futures seems so much about the now sometimes, I wonder why the even call it futures. How about simply deep now analysis? Yeah, okay, that sounds to new-agey useless…but… |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 06,May,2004 | A New Scietist urlLink link because, well, its just plain weird in my book. Oh, and so you had something a little more fresh to look at;) 'New research has revealed a molecular basis for the “Mozart effect” – the observation that a brief stint of Mozart, but not other music, may improve learning and memory. One theory on the Mozart effect is that the particular rhythmic qualities of Mozart’s music mimic some rhythmic cycles occurring in human brains. According to new research, rats that heard a Mozart sonata expressed higher levels of several genes involved in stimulating and changing the connections between brain cells. The results of this research will help in the development of music therapy treatments for people suffering from neurodegenerative disesases such as Alzheimer’s.' |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 06,May,2004 | Author: G. John Ikenberry, in Foreign affairs april 2004 - The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic. ByChalmers Johnson. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2004, 400 pp. $25.00 - Colossus: The Price of America's Empire. By Niall Ferguson. New York: Penguin Press, 2004, 368 pp. $25.95. -Fear's Empire: War, Terrorism, and Democracy. By Benjamin R. Barber. NewYork: Norton, 2003, 192 pp. $23.95. - Incoherent Empire. By Michael Mann. New York: Verso, 2003, 284 pp. $25.00. - After the Empire: The Breakdown of the American Order. By Emmanuel Todd.New York: Columbia University Press, 2003, 192 pp. $29.95. In The Sorrows of Empire, Chalmers Johnson advances the disturbing claim that the United States' Cold War-era military power and far-flung base system have, in the last decade, been consolidated in a new form of global imperial rule. The United States, according to Johnson, has become 'amilitary juggernaut intent on world domination.' Driven by a triumphalist ideology, an exaggerated sense of threats, and a self-serving military-industrial complex, this juggernaut is tightening its grip on much of the world. The Pentagon has replaced the State Department as the primary shaper of foreign policy. Military commanders in regional headquarters are modern-day proconsuls, warrior-diplomats who direct the United States' imperial reach. Johnson fears that this military empire will corrode democracy, bankrupt the nation, spark opposition, and ultimately end in a Soviet-style collapse.n In this rendering, the American military empire is a novel form of domination. Johnson describes it as an 'international protection racket: mutual defense treaties, military advisory groups, and military forces stationed in foreign countries to 'defend' against often poorly defined, overblown, or nonexistent threats.' These arrangements create 'satellites' -- ostensibly independent countries whose foreign relations revolve around the imperial state. Johnson argues that this variety of empire was pioneered during the Cold War by the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe and the United States in East Asia. Great empires of the past -- the Romans and the Han Dynasty Chinese -- ruled their domains with permanent military encampments that garrisoned conquered territory. The American empire is innovative because it is not based on the acquisition of territory; it is an empire of bases. Johnson's previous polemic, Blowback, asserted that post-1945 U.S. spheres of influence in East Asia and Latin America were as coercive and exploitative as their Soviet counterparts. The Sorrows of Empire continues this dubious line. Echoing 1960s revisionism, Johnson asserts that the United States' Cold War security system of alliances and bases was built on manufactured threats and driven by expansionary impulses. The United States was not acting in its own defense; it was exploiting opportunities to build an empire. The Soviet Union and the United States, according to this argument, were more alike than different: both militarized their societies and foreign policies and expanded outward, establishing imperial rule through 'hub and spoke' systems of client states and political dependencies. In Johnson's view, the end of the Cold War represented both an opportunity and a crisis for U.S. global rule -- an opportunity because the Soviet sphere of influence was now open for imperial expansion, a crisis because the fall of the Soviet Union ended the justification for the global system of naval bases, airfields, army garrisons, espionage listening posts, and strategic enclaves. Only with the terrorist attacks of September 11 was this crisis resolved. Bush suddenly had an excuse to expand U.S. military domination. September 11 also allowed the United States to remove the fig leaf of alliance partnership. Washington could now disentangle itself from international commitments, treaties, and law and launch direct imperial rule. Unfortunately, Johnson offers no coherent theory of why the United States seeks empire. At one point, he suggests that the American military empire is founded on 'a vast complex of interests, commitments, and projects.' The empire of bases has become institutionalized in the military establishment and has taken on a life of its own. There is no discussion, however, of the forces within U.S. politics that resist or reject empire. As a result, Johnson finds imperialism everywhere and in everything the United States does, in its embrace of open markets and global economic integration as much as in its pursuit of narrow economic gains. Johnson also offers little beyond passing mention about the societies presumed to be under Washington's thumb. Domination and exploitation are, of course, not always self-evident. Military pacts and security partnerships are clearly part of the structure of U.S. global power, and they often reinforce fragile and corrupt governments in order to project U.S. influence. But countries can also use security ties with the United States to their own advantage. Japan may be a subordinate security partner, but the U.S.-Japan alliance also allows Tokyo to forgo a costly buildup of military capacity that would destabilize East Asia. Moreover, countries do have other options: they can, and often do, escape U.S. domination simply by asking the United States to leave. The Philippines did so, and South Korea may be next. The variety and complexity of U.S. security ties with other states makes Johnson's simplistic view of military hegemony misleading. In fact, the U.S. alliance system -- remarkably intact after half a century -- has helped create a stable, open political space. Cooperative security is not just an instrument of U.S. domination; it is also a tool of political architecture. But Johnson neglects the broader complex of U.S.-supported multilateral rules and institutions that give depth and complexity to the international order. Ultimately, it is not clear what the United States could do -- short of retreating into its borders or ceasing to exist -- that would save it from Johnson's condemnation. In Colossus, Niall Ferguson argues that the United States is indeed an empire and has been for a long time. To Ferguson, however, it is a liberal empire that upholds rules and institutions and underwrites public goods by maintaining peace, ensuring freedom of the seas and skies, and managing a system of international trade and finance. The United States is the imperfect but natural inheritor of the British system of global governance; it is open and integrative and inclined toward informal rule. Accordingly, Ferguson's worry is not that the world will get too much American empire but that it will not get enough. U.S. leaders, for all their benign intent, have unusually short attention spans and tend to go 'wobbly.' In Ferguson's view, the United States shares many characteristics with past empires. Like Rome, it has remarkably open citizenship. 'Purple Hearts and U.S. citizenship were conferred simultaneously on a number of the soldiers serving in Iraq last year, just as service in the legions was once a route to becoming a civis romanus,' Ferguson writes. 'Indeed, with the classical architecture of its capital and the republican structure of its constitution, the United States is perhaps more like a 'new Rome' than any previous empire -- albeit a Rome in which the Senate has thus far retained its grip on would-be emperors.' The spread of America's language, ideas, and culture also invites comparison to Rome at its zenith. But Ferguson is even more taken by parallels with the British Empire. U.S. presidents, from Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, and John F. Kennedy to Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush, have put their power to work promoting the great liberal ideals of economic openness, democracy, limited government, human dignity, and the rule of law -- a 'strategy of openness' that is remarkably similar, Ferguson argues, to the aspirations of the British Empire in the second half of the nineteenth century. After all, it was a young Winston Churchill who argued that the aim of British imperialism was to 'give peace to warring tribes, to administer justice where all was violence, to strike the chains off the slave, to draw the richness from the soil, to place the earliest seeds of commerce and learning, to increase in whole peoples their capacities for pleasure and diminish their chances of pain. ... ' Most of Colossus retells the familiar story of the rise of U.S. global dominance as an exercise in liberal empire. What is distinctive about American imperialism, according to Ferguson, is that it has been pursued in the name of anti-imperialism. For each phase of U.S. history, Ferguson nicely illuminates the tensions between republican ideals and the exercise of global power and shows how those tensions are often resolved. The Cold War -- and George Kennan's doctrine of containment -- provides the ultimate example of this fusion of anti-imperialism and hard power. Security, openness, democratic community, political commitment, and the mobilization of U.S. power went together. The core of U.S. global rule involved the enforcement of rules of economic openness, but the United States was also willing to act forcefully to integrate countries into the liberal order. Ferguson's most interesting claim is that the world needs more of this liberal American empire. This argument stems in part from the uncontroversial claim that the current international order needs enlightened leadership and that only Washington can provide it. (Ferguson holds little hope that Europe will ever overcome its preoccupation with the internal contradictions of its enlargement.) It is especially the wider system of sovereign but failed states that needs imperial supervision by Washington. In vast swatches of Africa, Asia, and the Middle East national self-determination has led to much grief. Ferguson argues without qualification that 'the experiment with political independence -- especially in Africa -- has been a disaster for most poor countries.' To Ferguson, the extension of liberal empire into these regions (even involving some form of colonial rule) is necessary. What precisely these imperial arrangements would look like, however, remains unclear. When Ferguson says that he is 'fundamentally in favor of empire,' he is tosome extent pulling a conceptual sleight of hand. What Ferguson means by 'liberal empire' scholars have previously called 'liberal hegemony': a hierarchical order that is still very different from traditional forms of empire. By virtue of its power, the liberal hegemon can act on its long-term interests rather than squabble over short-term gains with other states; it can identify its own national interests with the openness and stability of the larger system. The United States thus shapes and dominates the international order while guaranteeing a flow of benefits to other governments that earns their acquiescence. In contrast to empire, this negotiated order depends on agreement over the rules of the system between the leading state and everyone else. In this way, the norms and institutions that have developed around U.S. hegemony both limit the actual coercive exercise of U.S. power and draw other states into the management of the system. Ferguson's case for the virtues of American empire hinges on his claim that in the aftermath of the Soviet Union's collapse, the world could have gone one of two ways: international order organized around independent nations or an American imperium. He maintains that a world of decentralized, competing states, many of which are not democracies, would result in chaos. This may be true; he is certainly right that stability and open markets are not easily sustained without the support of powerful states. But the notion of liberal empire conflates very different types of U.S.-led order. One in which Washington coerces other states into obedience is very different from a system of multilateral rules and close partnerships. The challenges of peace and economic development that Ferguson identifies are best pursued by advanced democracies working together. Ultimately, such a cooperative order would require that Washington transcend the atavistic habits of empire rather than pursue a more complete realization of it. In the end, Ferguson finds invoking the image of empire useful for political reasons. Unlike the British, Americans do not believe that they operate an empire. As a result, the United States makes a flighty and impatient imperial power (in contrast to the British, who acquired a cultural mentality for global rule). Ferguson thinks that speaking honestly about the reality of American empire will foster understanding of its duties and obligations. Yet precisely the opposite is true. The United States does not need to view the world as its Raj and deploy a colonial service to the vast periphery; it needs to find ways to exercise its power in sustained, legitimate ways, working with others and developing more complex forms of cooperative international governance. It is also extremely doubtful that the American people would accept such a massive imperial undertaking: last September, as soon as President Bush revealed the price tag for occupying Iraq, public support plummeted immediately. Benjamin Barber's Fear's Empire presents a case against the recent unilateral impulses in U.S. foreign policy. According to Barber, empire is not inherent in U.S. dominance but is, rather, a temptation -- one to which the Bush administration has increasingly succumbed. In confronting terrorism, Washington has vacillated between appealing to law and undermining it. Barber's thesis is that by invoking a right to unilateral action, preventive war, and regime change, the United States has undermined the very framework of cooperation and law that is necessary to fight terrorist anarchy. A foreign policy oriented around the use of military force against rogue states, Barber argues, reflects a misunderstanding of the consequences of global interdependence and the character of democracy. Washington cannot run a global order driven by military action and the fear of terrorism. Simply put, American empire is not sustainable. For Barber, the logic of globalization trumps the logic of empire: the spread of McWorld undermines imperial grand strategy. In most aspects of economic and political life, the United States depends heavily on other states. The world is thus too complex and interdependent to be ruled from an imperial center. In an empire of fear, the United States attempts to order the world through force of arms. But this strategy is self-defeating: it creates hostile states bent on overturning the imperial order, not obedient junior partners. Barber proposes instead a cosmopolitan order of universal law rooted in human community: 'Lex humana works for global comity within the framework of universal rights and law, conferred by multilateral political, economic, and cultural cooperation -- with only as much common military action as can be authorized by common legal authority; whether in the Congress, in multilateral treaties, or through the United Nations.' Terrorist threats, Barber concludes, are best confronted with a strategy of 'preventive democracy' -- democratic states working together to strengthen and extend liberalism. Barber's overly idealized vision of cosmopolitan global governance is less convincing, however, than his warnings about unilateral military rule. Indeed, he provides a useful cautionary note for liberal empire enthusiasts in two respects. First, the two objectives of liberal empire -- upholding the rules of the international system and unilaterally employing military power against enemies of the American order -- often conflict. As Barber shows, zealous policymakers often invoke the fear of terrorism to justify unilateral exercises of power that, in turn, undermine the rules and institutions they are meant to protect. Second, the threats posed by terrorism and weapons of mass destruction are not enough to legitimate America's liberal empire. During the Cold War, the United States articulated a vision of community and progress within a U.S.-led free world, infusing the exercise of U.S. power with legitimacy. It is doubtful, however, that the war on terrorism, in which countries are either 'with Us or against us,' has an appeal that can draw enough support to justify a U.S.-dominated order. Michael Mann also warns of a dangerous, and ultimately unsustainable, imperial turn in U.S. foreign policy. This 'new imperialism,' he argues in Incoherent Empire, is driven by a radical vision in which unilateral military power enforces U.S. rule and overcomes global disorder. Mann believes that this 'imperial project' depends on a wildly inflated measure of American power; the United States may have awesome military muscle, but its political and economic capabilities are less overwhelming. This imbalance causes Washington to overemphasize the use of force, turning the quest for empire into 'overconfident and hyperactive militarism.' Such militarism generates what Mann calls 'incoherent empire,' which undermines U.S. leadership and creates more, not fewer, terrorists and rogue states. In his distinguished scholarly work on the history of social power, Mann, a sociologist, has argued that four types of power drive the rise and fall of states, nations, empires, regions, and civilizations: military, political, economic, and ideological. Applying these categories to the United States, Mann concludes that it is, in a jumble of metaphors, 'a military giant, a back-seat economic driver, a political schizophrenic, and an ideological phantom.' Mann acknowledges that the United States is a central hub of the world economy and that the role of the dollar as the primary reserve currency confers significant advantages in economic matters. But the actual ability of Washington to use trade and aid as political leverage, he believes, is severely limited, as was evident in its failure to secure the support of countries such as Angola, Chile, Guinea, Mexico, and Pakistan in the Security Council before the war in Iraq. Moreover, Washington's client states are increasingly unreliable, and the populations of erstwhile allies are inflamed with anti-Americanism. American culture and ideals, meanwhile, hold less appeal than they did in previous eras. Although the world still embraces the United States' open society and basic freedoms, it increasingly complains about 'cultural imperialism' and U.S. aggression. Nationalism and religious fundamentalism have forged deep cultures of resistance to an American imperial project. Mann and Barber both make the important point that an empire built on military domination alone will not succeed. In their characterization, theUnited States offers security -- acting as a global leviathan to control the problems of a Hobbesian world -- in exchange for other countries'acquiescence. Washington, in this imperial vision, refuses to play by the same rules as other governments and maintains that this is the price the world must pay for security. But this U.S.-imposed order cannot last. Barber points out that the United States has so much 'business' with the rest of the world that it cannot rule the system without complex arrangements of cooperation. Mann, for his part, argues that military 'shock and awe' merely increases resistance; he cites the sociologist Talcott Parsons, who long ago noted that raw power, unlike consensus authority, is 'deflationary': the more it is used, the more rapidly it diminishes. The French essayist Emmanuel Todd believes that the long-term decline predicted by Mann and Barber has already started. In a fit of French wishful thinking, he argues in After the Empire that the United States' geopolitical importance is shrinking fast. The world is exiting, not entering, an era of U.S. domination. Washington may want to run a liberal empire, but the world is able and increasingly willing to turn its back on an ever less relevant United States. Todd's prediction derives from a creative -- but ultimately suspect -- view of global socioeconomic transformation. He acknowledges that the United States played a critical role in constructing the global economy in the decades after World War II. But in the process, Todd argues, new power centers with divergent interests and values emerged in Asia and Europe, while the United States' own economy and society became weak and corrupt. The soft underbelly of U.S. power is its reluctance to take casualties and to pay the costs of rebuilding societies that it invades. Meanwhile, as U.S. democracy weakens, the worldwide spread of democracy has bolstered resistance to Washington. As Todd puts it, 'At the very moment when the rest of the world -- now undergoing a process of stabilization thanks to improvements in education, demographics, and democracy -- is on the verge of discovering that it can get along without America, America is realizing that it cannot get along without the rest of the world.' Two implications follow from the United States' strange condition as 'economically dependent and politically useless.' First, the United States is becoming a global economic predator, sustaining itself through an increasingly fragile system of 'tribute taking.' It has lost the ability to couple its own economic gain with the economic advancement of other societies. Second, a weakened United States will resort to more desperate and aggressive actions to retain its hegemonic position. Todd identifies this impulse behind confrontations with Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. Indeed, in his most dubious claim, Todd argues that the corruption of U.S. democracy is giving rise to a poorly supervised ruling class that will be less restrained in its use of military force against other democracies, those in Europe included. For Todd, all of this points to the disintegration of the American empire. Todd is correct that the ability of any state to dominate the international system depends on its economic strength. As economic dominance shifts, American unipolarity will eventually give way to a new distribution of power. But, contrary to Todd's diagnosis, the United States retains formidable socioeconomic advantages. And his claim that a rapacious clique of frightened oligarchs has taken over U.S. democracy is simply bizarre. Most important, Todd's assertion that Russia and other great powers are preparing to counterbalance U.S. power misses the larger patterns of geopolitics. Europe, Japan, Russia, and China have sought to engage theUnited States strategically, not simply to resist it. They are pursuing influence and accommodation within the existing order, not trying to overturn it. In fact, the great powers worry more about a detached, isolationist United States than they do about a United States bent on global rule. Indeed, much of the pointed criticism of U.S. unilateralism reflects a concern that the United States will stop providing security and stability, not a hope that it will decline and disappear. CONCLUSION OF THE REVIEWER Is the United States an empire? If so, Ferguson's liberal empire is a morepersuasive portrait than is Johnson's military empire. But ultimately, the notion of empire is misleading -- and misses the distinctive aspects of the global political order that has developed around U.S. power. The United States has pursued imperial policies, especially toward weak countries in the periphery. But U.S. relations with Europe, Japan, China,and Russia cannot be described as imperial, even when 'neo' or 'liberal' modifies the term. The advanced democracies operate within a 'security community' in which the use or threat of force is unthinkable. Their economies are deeply interwoven. Together, they form a political order built on bargains, diffuse reciprocity, and an array of intergovernmental institutions and ad hoc working relationships. This is not empire; it is a U.S.-led democratic political order that has no name or historical antecedent. To be sure, the neoconservatives in Washington have trumpeted their own imperial vision: an era of global rule organized around the bold unilateral exercise of military power, gradual disentanglement from the constraints of multilateralism, and an aggressive effort to spread freedom and democracy. But this vision is founded on illusions of U.S. power. It fails to appreciate the role of cooperation and rules in the exercise and preservation of such power. Its pursuit would strip the United States of its legitimacy as the preeminent global power and severely compromise the authority that flows from such legitimacy. Ultimately, the neoconservatives are silent on the full range of global challenges and opportunities that face the United States. And as Ferguson notes, the American public has no desire to run colonies or manage a global empire. Thus, there are limits on American imperial pretensions even in a unipolar era. Ultimately, the empire debate misses the most important international development of recent years: the long peace among great powers, which some scholars argue marks the end of great-power war. Capitalism, democracy, andnuclear weapons all help explain this peace. But so too does the unique way in which the United States has gone about the business of building an international order. The United States' success stems from the creation and extension of international institutions that have limited and legitimated U.S. power. The United States is now caught in a struggle between liberal rule and imperial rule. Both impulses lie deep within the American body politic. But the dangers and costs of running the world as an American empire are great, and the nation's deep faith in the rule of law is undiminished. When all is said and done, Americans are less interested in ruling the world than they are in creating a world of rules. Ultimately, the empire debate misses the most important international development of recent years: the long peace among great powers, which some scholars argue marks the end of great-power war. Capitalism, democracy, andnuclear weapons all help explain this peace. But so too does the unique way in which the United States has gone about the business of building an international order. The United States' success stems from the creation and extension of international institutions that have limited and legitimatedU.S. power. The United States is now caught in a struggle between liberal rule and imperial rule. Both impulses lie deep within the American body politic. But the dangers and costs of running the world as an American empire are great, and the nation's deep faith in the rule of law is undiminished. When all is said and done, Americans are less interested in ruling the world than they are in creating a world of rules. |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 04,May,2004 | Science needs to learn how to deal with increasingly sensationalist mass media. Because scientific rationalism is a key tenet of contemporary policy it is crucial that politicians and policy-makers are informed by a balanced assessment of scientific knowledge and not popular perception created by commercially driven media. Departures from rational objectivity risks undermining public trust in natural sciences and could play into the hands of anti-environmentalists. This places responsibilities on both scientists and journals to ensure fair and accurate reporting of their work. --R.J. Ladle, P. Jepson, M. B. Araujo, R. J. Whittaker, Oxford University, UK Antarctica is likely to be the world's only habitable continent by the end of this century if global warming remains unchecked, the Government's chief scientist, Professor Sir David King, said last week. He said the Earth was entering the 'first hot period' for 60 million years, when there was no ice on the planet and 'the rest of the globe could not sustain human life'. --Geoffrey Lean, The Independent, 2 May 2004 Film-makers have to choose a horror scenario and not an educationally valuable piece of enlightenment. Neverthless, I went very far in order to provide viewers with lots of scientific information. We've also decided not to conclude the film on a happy ending. It would be unrealistic to suggest that the Gulf-stream could be restarted and the world would simply thaw. Fortunately, we didn't develop the idea with a big Hollywood studio. They would have demanded a hero who prevents the apocalypse. For moral and political reasons I have decided to do without a world saviour. This is because my hidden dream is that this film will force politicians to act. I've got a message which is that well-known that it isn't a real message anymore: We're not allowed to destroy our planet. The U.S. is the mightiest country in the world. And with George W Bush they have a president who cares for nothing but oil. How different would the world be today if the democratic eco-politician Al Gore had won the precidency? For me as a German, all of this is very difficult to tolerate. I never want to become an American. --Roland Emmerich, Director of The Day after Tomorrow, Spiegel Online, 2 May 2004 |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 03,May,2004 | I've always been mildly open to the concept that more is going in our daily connections between levels of reality – physical, emotional, mental, transpersonal etc – than meets the common western suspicion. New age bulldust aside however, Dean Radin's The Conscious Universe , a book based on the hard science, blew my mind last year. Picking up from a theme he observed in ESP research, is this project : The Global Consciousness Project 'A GLOBAL NETWORK of random sources shows deviations linked with events that affect millions of people. The results challenge common ideas about the world, but independent analyses confirm the unexpected behavior, and also indicate that it cannot be attributed to ordinary physical forces or electromagnetic fields. The Global Consciousness Project (GCP) is an international collaboration created in 1998 to study the subtle reach of human consciousness in the physical world. We maintain a network of random event generators (REGs) with nodes in more than 50 locations, from Alaska to Fiji, on all continents, and in nearly every time zone…' |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 28,June,2004 | I just got rated... urlLink urlLink Go on, get your site rated by the experts... |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 27,June,2004 | The Cech and Pakistani PM's fall in one day, and take a good part of their government with them, but this idiot gets to stay? I mean, come on, can't humanity make it a magical 3? Call the election you fool, I'm sick of your tiny smirk. (Then again, I'd be just as happy if the Bush dynasty was knocked off the perch;) urlLink Idiot |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 25,June,2004 | In light of the past two posts, this is a little more interesting... I do wonder however if it does actually involve the majority of the world's religions – I mean, how about that fundamentalist Wahbi group from Saudi Arabia? 'Since its inception in 1893, the Parliament of the World's Religions has held a conference every five years in which leaders from many different spiritual and religious traditions come together in dialogue, seeking solutions to specific issues and actively working to create a better world. Over 10,000 people will be attending this year's Parliament.' |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 23,June,2004 | I mean, come on, are you for real? Open Futures reports that these people are serious though… ' The World Parliament Experiment (WPE) aims to create a virtual world parliament as a precedent for a truly democratic world order. It is an alternative vision for a fully democratic world, 'in which every one will take a part and have a say'. It strikes at the current undemocratic world economic system, in which economic and social decisions are made by a relatively small financial and technocratic elite, which in turn effect billions of people.' Then again, there's also this , which I signed up for (if only in a pipe dream hope;)… ' A Declaration of the Value of Global Governance WE hold these truths to be self-evident, — that the world can be made a better place through the evolution of consciousness and culture, — that we each have a responsibility of care and compassion for others and for the natural and cultural environments in which we live, — that in order to fulfill these responsibilities and to secure the blessings of world peace, justice, and prosperity, it is necessary to institute a new form of global governance deriving its just powers from the consent of the governed, WE, the free citizens of planet earth, thus affirm the need for a system of global governance founded on the values of integral consciousness, which include: The value of the universal family of humanity; The value of individual freedom and personal autonomy; The values of decency, honesty, and respect for traditions; The values of progress, prosperity, and economic development; The values of multiculturalism, environmentalism, and egalitarianism; The value of the channel of evolution as a whole -- the system through which individuals and societies develop. WE, the undersigned, therefore solemnly publish and declare our intent to work toward the establishment of a limited, democratic, federal, integral world government; so that through this organization, we can begin to solve the global problems of war, hunger, poverty, disease, injustice, terrorism, environmental degradation, unfettered corporate globalization, ignorance, and despair.' Do you care enough about planet earth, the human species, and the exprience of your life to actually do something about it? |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 22,June,2004 | The bald Yanking philosopher speaks , I quible about terminology in definition, but he has a point... 'Throughout history, religion has been the single greatest source of human-caused wars, suffering, and misery. In the name of God, more suffering has been inflicted than by any other manmade cause. Does that strike you as odd? And if that statement is true, does it not follow that “peace on earth, good will toward men” demands the death of God?' urlLink Is this your god? 'An integral approach to spirituality takes that assertion very seriously.' Read on... |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 22,June,2004 | From the ABC today... 'A Thai Buddhist monk agreed to strip corporate sponsorship logos from his famous Bangkok temple today after the brash advertisements caused an uproar in the deeply religious kingdom. Thai television showed images of monks holding large ceremonial fans bearing advertisements for the 'MK' restaurant chain and the BTS mass transit system, as well as prominent sponsorship signs above rows of golden Buddha statues. The head monk of Samiennaree temple, Prakru Uthaithamarat, said the advertisements were merely a sign of gratitude after 1 million baht of corporate money was pumped into a new pavilion for the temple, but agreed to bow to popular opinion and remove them. 'It does not violate any Buddhist rules but if Buddhists say it is inappropriate, I will change it,' he said. The use of logos on monk's ceremonial fans, which usually carry reflective passages on the nature of death during traditional Thai funerals, drew particularly harsh criticism. A furious Thai woman who attended a funeral at the temple told the Thai Post newspaper that whenever she looked up for words of comfort she instead saw a sign enticing her to eat at 'MK'. ' |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 20,June,2004 | Here's one reason why I love the free world and modern personal international diplomacy... urlLink Bag Tag... 'A label from a laptop computer bag that is made by a small American company for overseas customers: Here is the translation from the French: Wash with warm water. Use mild soap. Dry flat. Do not use bleach. Do not dry in the dryer. Do not iron. We are sorry that our President is an idiot. We did not vote for him .' Found via Corpus Callosum , the label is on a computer bag made by Tom Bihn . |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 19,June,2004 | It's basic, but it works. My father's new website is up and running (mostly;) Check it out at urlLink Quantum Healing . I can safely say that one of the worst things to learn by doing is web design using Macromedia. Ouch. All I knew before I opened the program was enough html to get my blog working, and what do I know now? I'm a hell of a lot more likely to bribe my gee friends to do a website on the cheap in future – I'm sure they could have done it in under the four or five days it took me. Any ideas on how to actually improve it – ie you know the code that would work just right – would be greatly appreciated;) (And for those in the integral know, it isn't pure boomeristis, but I've had to have the machete out a few times to cut things into a workable size;) |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 13,June,2004 | Hey guys, I've go a few Gmail invites left... some people are bvuying themon e-bay , but heck, first in, first served...send me an email: chris[dot]stewart[at]gmail[dot]com ;) |
2,362,981 | male | 27 | Consulting | Scorpio | 09,June,2004 | Several friends have made a journey south of the boarder from the capital, to a city with life. My fevered attempts to stop their pressing needs for partying unfortunately wound up as useful as this sign... urlLink Copyright David J. Nightingale 2004 Ouch, my head hurts. |
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