diarRHETORICS.com

you touched on something that i have been thinking about and resonates with me and larger issues which i touch on in my doc “Who’s Wearing the Emperor’s New Clothes” - we the customer, client, voter, patient etc are the enemy - they spend a fortune to get customers and spend a fortune to lose them and the reality check is that they is us and these organizations (gov, biz, media, religions etc) by their very nature look at life very primitively - organizations are first interested in staying in power, their own survival and reproduction and we the people as in we the people are just soldiers that they who are us treat like toilet paper - our leaders are not leaders they are maintenance people who often are not the founders of organizations, they just don’t care as you point out in not so many words - its more about much ado about nothing and looking busy and not losing their jobs and paying their mortgage and feeding the organization - napoleon realized he was invincible when he saw that people would die for a piece of ribbon (flag) that insight among other reasons is why we have wars, violence, fear and propaganda machines - and why organization use their members up like soldiers and throw them away like so much toilet paper - look at iraq and all the wars and workers and employees who are us - this organizational mind set is self defeating and in the end self destructive and why the gate keepers of organizations such as in the story you wrote about are in trouble and why we find that our traditional approach to management - top down management by fear is in a revolving door state of mind and is in trouble even though it is all that we know and all that we have been taught and coincidentally driven us since before the beginning of recorded time and it is/has been killing us and destroying us little by little - but we stick to this revolving door because we are afraid of power and the power of fear and the fear of not belonging - on top of all that what we learn from history is in fact the fiction of facts or faction that one sides propaganda machine wants to spin - anyway the biz model and environment ecology is a self fulfilling prophecy that needs to be re-invented to reflect the times “they are a changing” - we live in a parallel universe - the converging of the so called real world with the internet nation that we all belong to that has no boundaries or borders - we need to flap our wings and fly above this manufactured chaos and idiotcracy and take back the future and take back our humanity too - food for thought

geo

commentary: on Jeff pulver blog “Thoughts when asked: “What do YOU do?”

when people ask me what do i do it seems that lately what falls out of my mouth and mind is that i am a dreamer - i use to tell people i was a recovering artist but they looked at me somewhat strangely and lately i find myself in a state between dreaming and thinking and thinking i am dreaming and dreaming i am thinking and dreaming i am dreaming and thinking i am i think and then again sometimes i find that i am just thinking about the world and things and at other times i find myself dreaming about what a wonderful world it could be and then i wake up to find it was all too real and i go back to dreaming - hmmm row row row your boat life i but a dream

commentary: seeds of invention - jeff pulver twitter: The Ham Radio (two way radio) of Todayi

how we often need to look backwards to understand and see the seeds of invention and the future - the internet is a social sculpture family and twitter is ham 2 way radio and facebook poke is saying hi and txt sms messages are smoke signals and email is a letter via “air” mail and web pages are news and blogs are public diaries and facebook is a nation and ebay is horse trading and itunes is the radio/tv/movies and prime time rewind is tv reruns and seesmic is a video telephone call and skype is voice on the net and amazon is book sellers on steroids and youTUBE is anything you can imagine and myspace is somebodies space presence and tv on the radio with pictures is yesterdays radio and sound/photo portraits is yesterdays photography and online news is yesterdays print and tomorrows views

food for thought

commentary: shelly palmer end of broadcast tv

hmmm shelly - i think we have to ask ourselves also who is wearing the emperor’s new clothes? - i think the traditional media - tv broadcasting world and governements and biz included have been believing in their own propaganda for so long they can’t believe it ain’t reality and now with the internet and broadband they don’t know what to do - today i read the outrageous amounts the media is getting from the election process its not a bottom line affair - we are re-inventing ourselves and we the people are taking back the future and what i think Thoreau said “we need to learn what we need to teach” and what i believe we need to learn from the so called social sculpture - social media movement is that the we vs them is fractured and that we are them and them are we and social media resonates with “we” as in we the people - the traditional goal keepers, gatekeepers goal is control while the “we” goal is engagement being involved, we the people get this intuitively - and so it’s not only the end of broadcast tv its traditional top down management by fear that is threatened

Winston Churchill once said, “The farther you look back, the further you can see into the future.”

“ We are to guard against ourselves; not against ourselves as we are, but as we may be; for who can imagine what we may become under circumstances not now imaginable - Thomas Jefferson to Jedidiah Morse 1822 ”

geo

Commentary: Power of culture - response to PFAW Kathryn Kolbert
excerpt of email to kathryn kolbert

response Kathryn Kolbert on ways we PFAW (People for American Way) can creatively
use culture to make social and political change

hi kathryn

hope all is well

kathryn the quick response to your ways we can creatively
use culture to make social and political change is first we
as in we the people need to stop pretending that we are
zombies and go along to get along - because we all know that
our leaders of the world are changing the facts to fit their
needs and that things are not what they appear to be - we
need to change the conversation from we vs them to just “we” -
and to do that we have the courage to be creative and be
like the butterfly flapping its wings can change or create a
storm - the creative use of culture to effect change is what
i call the power of one person to make a difference - we
need to re-invent ourselves and ask ourselves what the
future will say about us and then try and change that -

the longer side of the above including the above
usual i just plant these seeds with ron feldman and
sometimes they get carried to who knows where

but in your request for feed back on ways we can creatively
use culture to make social and political change

>>>i joined with the thought that if we are going to
have a more human and creative society artist needed to be
part of the dialog and not just spectators and in essence we
artist need to be more engaged then just commentators about
the state of how bad things are - one of the masters of
cultural in-sightfulness and in-citefulness was leon golub
you can see a 3 min and 19 min segment i shot of leon
golub as part of MyOwnPrivateRevolution documentary in
progress about people who are challenging the status-quo,
the imagination and themselves too -
http://myownprivaterevolution.com/

but aside from that i have been getting your newsletters for
years and every once in a while i would think that there was
something missing and though i am sympathetic with the
mission of pfaw i have always felt that the problem is we
are in a conversation with ourselves preaching to the
converted i know that is its progressive purpose to have a
voice for the people and i often quote thomas jefferson- .
“We are to guard against ourselves; not against ourselves as
we are, but as we may be; for who can imagine what we may
become under circumstances not now imaginable - Thomas
Jefferson to Jedidiah Morse 1822 .
http://emperorsnewclothesproductions.com/jefferson/

the problem i have with pfaw as i see it is that it is not a
conversation with all the stakeholders but often a reaction
to what i call the we vs them syndrome - if we are going to
every stop this revolving door we as in we the people need
to take back the future not take sides or have a position or
even a reactive progressive position but a more inclusive
comprehensive position - and by i think we need to not
look at sides but the whole and we are all in this
together and we all want the same thing we all need the
same things -

the thing as i see it is that we are addicted to fear and
have lived in a top down management by fear society since
forever and keep repeating the same wars, violence, fears,
propaganda since before forever and here we are - it is our
turn and look what we are doing and why - and i ask myself
in you what can we as individual do to make a difference
locally - and i ask myself in you what will the people of
the future say about us today - the people of the future
wonder not only who they are but who we are/were too and
what we a mess have left them to deal with

so i have issues with the concept of culture and culturalism
some times we think it brings us together but often it tears
us apart and is used as a propaganda tool to perpetuate the
myth of history into the future - history is the fiction of
facts a faction - even thought i think of myself as a social
sculpture and suffer from a social conscious i realize that
cuturalism is along with the other isms of schism what
creates the division of we vs them - but then again to echo
saul bellow “we are so shock resistant that maybe the only
thing that can touch us is poetry (art)” and yet to me art
cares for our imagination - as individuals and collectively
as a peoples

food for thought

Commentary: blogging revolution by Roy Greenslade - guardian.co.uk

my comment response to Roy Greenslade - Why journalists must learn the values of the blogging revolution as posted in the guardian online - June 25, 2008 9:02 AM - click here to go to article

i think of blogging as the power of one is more then the power of none and is more akin to the flapping of butterfly wings which can not only change the direction of a storm it can cause one - the media and journalism has lost a lot of credibility as Thomas Jefferson said he would rather see a strong press then a strong government -

blogging represents the voice of the people of the future of what one might call an internet nation that has no leaders, no borders, no gatekeepers not driven by top down management of fear or censorship or at least its one person who feels compelled to respond to something and say it to whom ever might stumble on it at any point in time -

i resonated with your secular priests commentary and how journalist and the media owners have not only “dominated the conversation” but i believe often help make up the so called news which has become the views and the conversation too -

we have a short attention deficiet dis-order for news because the media rarely keeps the conversation alive more then a short news cycle - plus we are addicted to fear and to the fear of not belonging - thanks to the media we get out daily dose - but i ask myself in you do we really know what is going on - do we trust the media to give us the info and let us decide - but what the media and government and our leaders don’t know is that we are only pretending we are zombies to go along to get along and others like bloggers for now are able to speak their thoughts - but we all know inside ourselves that we know we are not fools and fooled - we know that things are not what they appear to be -

or as i like to put it - we call this a democracy but maybe its more an idiotcracy where big biz is king, gov is queen and media and religion are the mistress - they go where ever power goes - but when i asked michael wolff of vanity fair what he thought of that he said they are all one and the same and as danny schechter in his film and book WMD - weapons of mass deception - are an indictment of media as co-conspirators in the war on iraq in the USA were i presently reside - but i wonder what people of the future will say about us too

to echo your quote below

“…journalists, especially print veterans like me, are so suspicious of bloggers. We have spent our lives dominating conversations. No, that’s wrong of course. We did not converse at all. We lectured. We provided the information that people feasted on in order to hold their own conversations.”

as a doc filmmaker doing a number of doc including on the media and propaganda called Who’s Wearing the Emperor’s New Clothes - if so many people believe in something how can it be wrong - i often ask people what is not propaganda? and as a doc filmmaker i also realize we all have a point of view and bloggers though part of the uncontrolled mass are more likely to represent at least their own point of view rather then the owner or the media’s or biz or gov or religions agenda

but actually while we are at it in our present oil flexing its muscles crisis - oil dictatorship world coup we are all hostage to big oil and the oil brokers who make the prices too - as long as we are dependent on one product to power our world we are all hostages even the holy idiotcracy has a big brother watching over them

food for thought

i think we need to re-invent ourselves sooner then later and maybe the blog-oh-sphere will lead us to the promised land of dreams

be well

geogeller
diarRHETORICS.com

comentary: oh my god! Pew survey 92% of Americans believe in God or a universal spirit

my note: i am not sure about what god would say about this and if he/she/it/them/we/hmmm would agree or disagree or be pleased or displeased or remain silent to protect the innocent or or and but then again -who are we and who are we going to be and what will people of the future say about us today and what if and what if if and then again i take the fifth and the sixth and all the rest and if if i/you/me/we/them/us are right or wrong or something in between - oh my god!… and then again i am doing a documentary of sorts called Madness and God - and then again maybe we are all just going along to get along - and then again - maybe everybody knows and nobody knows at the same time - what time it is? - and well we worship time and carry it around on our wrists so maybe its gods time or time is god or god is time or maybe maybe we just don’t know what we don’t know - geo
end of note - article and link to la times

Californians, however, are less likely to consider religion ‘very important.’ Of the 36,000 people surveyed, 42% said they think Hollywood is a corrupting influence.
By Duke Helfand, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
9:22 AM PDT, June 23, 2008

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/politics/la-me-faith24-2008jun24,0,4300244.story

Americans overwhelmingly believe in God and consider religion an important part of their lives, even as many shun weekly worship services, according to a national survey released today that also found great diversity in religious beliefs and practices.

Ninety-two percent of those interviewed for the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey said they believe in the existence of God or a universal spirit, and 58% said they pray privately every day. But California, like other states along the country’s two coasts, resisted the prevailing national tendencies.

Graphic: Survey resultsPew survey results
Mixing fashion and faith at Forever 21
More in U.S. jump to new faiths, poll finds
Californians are less likely than other Americans to consider religion “very important” in their lives or to be “absolutely certain” in their belief in God.

Californians pray less than others in many parts of the country. They are less inclined to take the word of God literally. And they are ready to embrace “more than one true way” of interpreting their religious teachings.

Fifty-nine percent said that homosexuality should be accepted by society, compared with 50% of people nationwide who hold that view.

“The West Coast generally is less religiously observant, less certain about religious beliefs,” said John Green, a senior fellow with the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, which produced the survey.

“The West Coast was settled last,” Green added. “It has been growing fairly rapidly and has a unique amount of dynamism in [its] societies.”

Meanwhile, one of California’s signature industries and locales — Hollywood — appears to be a corrupting influence, at least in the eyes of some Americans. Forty-two percent said they feel their values are threatened by the entertainment capital; 56% were not threatened.

The survey, based on interviews in English and Spanish during 2007 with more than 36,000 people, is the Pew forum’s second report this year.

An initial survey in February found that Americans are switching religious affiliations in ever-growing numbers or cutting ties to organized religion altogether. The study also found that Protestants, who hold a majority status in the United States, are close to becoming a minority.

duke.helfand@latimes.com

Commentary: Manufactured Oil Chaos, Bush Proposes Lifting Offshore Drilling Ban

The Future wants to know who we were and who protects us from those who say they are protecting us?

Bush Proposes Lifting Offshore Drilling Ban (see below) The reason for the recent manufactured chaos oil crisis was one of his last gifts to us of lifing offshore drilling ban and I mistakenly thought it was world domination through oil - silly me - but we are learning the lesson if you control the flow of oil you control the world. The oil dictatorship wanted to scare us, the congress (well maybe not the congress, maybe some knew this was part of planning of creating an IdiotCracy or Pax (peace) Americana) and force the world into peace the American way via oil submission. (but we don’t control the worlds oil last time i looked - oh well )

Einstein said he “didn’t know how World War III was going to be fought, but WW IV would be fought with sticks and stones”, but maybe, maybe World War III will be fought with oil, water and food - food for thought - and the real question: the future wants to know how long will we continue going along to get along and pretending we are zombies and don’t know what is going on ! and who’s wearing the emperor’s new clothes, now

g-oh

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 18, 2008
Bush Proposes Lifting Offshore Drilling Ban
Senator John McCain said on Tuesday (http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/06/17/mccain.energy/?iref=hpmostpop) that states, not the feds, should decide whether oil companies can be allowed to drill offshore.

President Bush will reportedly ask Congress Wednesday (http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5juoNspsulD1ZE8LPtWQI_6JtIVqwD91C4RK80) to do exactly what McCain suggests — give states the power to allow or deny drilling.

commentary: anonymous sources - in response to ask ny times

—– Message Text —–
my email response

as a documentary filmmaker working on a doc called Who’s
Wearing the Emperor’s New Clothes - if so many people
believe in something how can it be wrong - i also wonder
about the question of anonymous sources as a weapon of mass
deception and how easy it is to make up propaganda in the
name of anonymous sources -

through out history we have been repeating the same
anonymous sources weapons of mass deception to hide behind -
we have been having the same wars violence and fear since
before forever

we call this a democracy but maybe it’s becoming more and
more of an idiotcracy where the news spews out fear and has
become the views and is seen by many as the co-conspirators
with business and government in their war on truth justice
and the American way or is it a war on we the people - do
you, as the media think we are so naive that we the people
don’t know what is going on, you might think we are zombies
but actually we are pretending we are zombies and we all
know inside ourselves that the media, gov, business
and religion has its own agenda and that the owners of media
use the media for their own agenda

do you/i/we really think that media conglomerates aren’t
intimidated or intimidating propaganda machine - anonymous
sources are so easy to quote - the traditional media is has and
always will be the mistress to the king and queen business
and government - the media and religion are the mistress and
heaven forbid the thought and wash my mind out that the
owners of the media, government, business, religion all
share the power of fear and fear of power in common -
anonymous sources have their own propaganda points of view -
even though we often change the facts to fit our need give
us the information the facts as they occur and let us decide
it, is best case scenario - everybody has a point of view
but the news is not supposed to be the views but just the
facts and nothing but the facts so help us and let us decide
what to think don’t tell us what and how to think -

food for thought - the wake up call for traditional media is
you are losing audiences because of credibility issues and
we are tired of pretending we are zombies
lways will be the mistress to the king and queen business
and government - the media and religion are the mistress and
heaven forbid the thought and wash my mind out that the
owners of the media, government, business, religion all
share the power of fear and fear of power in common -
anonymous sources have their own propaganda points of view -
even though we often change the facts to fit our need give
us the information the facts as they occur and let us decide
it, is best case scenario - everybody has a point of view
but the news is not supposed to be the views but just the
facts and nothing but the facts so help us and let us decide
what to think don’t tell us what and how to think -

food for thought - the wake up call for traditional media is
you are losing audiences because of credibility issues and
we are tired of pretending we are zombies

commentary: jeff pulver note on facebook - Avoid the Temptation to Join the Status Quo

in response to jeff pulver note on facebook

we are born with fearless passion as young children we are scientist born to be curious in awe with our big eyes curious about everything and nothing and everything in between - a fearless passion where everything is a journey adventure but as we get older we tend to be driven by fear not fearlessness and so we come to the end of the line end of life where many of us not only have joined the status-quo but forgot not only to live but how to live - food for thought - we are who we dream we are
g-oh

read jeff pulver complete facebook note here

Commentary: game of hints, promises and deception

editors note -
in reading in ny times article
Myanmar Rulers Still Impeding Access

i am caught by the revolving door that all point of view, agenda driven propaganda including but not limited to political and religious motivate comments all tend to be about promisses and deceptions - in my doc in progress “Who’s Wearing the Emperor’s New Clothes” if so many people believe in something how can it be wrong - i ask the question what is not propaganda what is it that we keep repeating the same endless game of hints, promises and deception

—————————

excerpt from article link
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/03/world/asia/03myanmar.html
a game of hints, promises and deception that it has used successfully over the years to deflect criticism from abroad.

“In all these crises that the Burmese face, there always is the teaser to take the pressure off the government,” said Josef Silverstein, an expert on Myanmar at Rutgers University.

“They seem like they are going to cooperate, and just as soon as comment dies down, anything that is going to be useful dies with it,” he said. “Look back at the ‘saffron revolution,’ when they made all kinds of promises about what they were going to do and nothing happened.”

He was referring to a peaceful uprising led by monks that was crushed in September. The junta’s promises included a dialogue with the democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, but it dropped the idea after international attention had moved on.

excerpted from email i sent to some of my friends romans and filmmakers

Subject: knock knock food for your imagination -  Reporter Gives up Everything  to Tell a Story
yo and so

this piece of the rainbow of possibilities is from al tompkins of poynter institute - see below below
(editors note:) what got my attention is not only the compelling filmmakers doc and back story and passion but also maybe the lines between the line the short form docs including, aka journalism, and long form docs are being blurred as people who are interested in something lead the story line by following the story as it winds its ways down the yellow brick road of their imagination and dreams - and maybe what we really need to be thinking of is how we are going to experience the media in the future and to prepare to re-invent ourselves and the future and how we think and look at the future; where individuals are not limited by the sound bytes and spin of the gatekeepers as todays traditional news becomes more and more a media-ah-cracy and somebodies views and agenda - we need to take back the media take back the future or as danny schechter in his own private revolution and in my doc MyOwnPrivateRevolution and danny’s auto-me-oh-my-graphy that i shot maybe 15% of says “we have to put “me” back in Me-dia i think we need to put “WE” back in MEdia or WEdia and take out the Weeds out of wedia - oh well, i digress or regress or something like that - enough of my thoughts see for yourself what i mean and if you don’t see yourself or wish you saw yourself in the story below well read it again until you do (end note)

read below

be well

geo

 art of living is making your life an art

 art = caring for the imagination
from al tompkins

   TV Reporter Gives up Everything to Tell a Story

In these days of newsrooms “downsizing,” I hear so many journalists searching for a higher purpose. They wonder if the work they have done to this point has been worth the strains it puts on families and even their own health.

I want to tell you the story of TV reporter Barry Simmons (http://www.journalismfellowships.org/fellows/2006/spring/simmons.htm) , who gave up a solid steady job at a fine TV station, WTVF (http://www.newschannel5.com/)  in Nashville, Tenn., to chase a story that he felt the world needed to see and hear. Along the way, Simmons learned a lot about himself, about prioritizing and about the meaning of life.

This is how Simmons describes the story on the project’s Web site (http://www.sonsoflwala.com/) , which features a documentary trailer:

 Milton and Fred Ochieng’ are two brothers from Kenya whose village sent them to America to become doctors. But after losing both parents to AIDS they are left with a heartbreaking task: to return home and finish the health clinic their father started before getting sick. Unable to raise enough money on their own, the brothers are joined by students, politicians, and a rock band who launch a fund raising drive among young people across the United States. “Sons of Lwala” follows Milton and Fred on their incredible journey as they find a way, despite all odds, to open their village’s first hospital.

 I interviewed Simmons via e-mail to learn more about the project:

Tompkins: How did you meet Milton and Fred?

 Simmons:  I met Milton at a Nashville coffee shop while I was still a reporter for WTVF-TV. I thought at the time he’d make a great feature, but as I learned more about his story I realized I’d never be able to fit the scope of his journey into a minute-thirty package. It was during that initial meeting, actually, that I first considered leaving my job and seeing where the story might take the two of us.

 What was it about them that you saw as more than a daily story by a local TV station?

 Simmons:  I saw a lot of different textures in their story that you just can’t cover in a news piece. There was grief and pain, but yet there was also courage, nobility and even a little hilarity. The thing I love about this story is that it plays against the stereotype that all Africans are miserable back home and would jump at the chance to get out. Yet the Ochieng’ brothers  long for home, and even though they’ve been embraced by everyone from Sen. Bill Frist to Bruce Springsteen, at the end of the day they’d just as soon spend time with their family in Lwala. They understand community in a way that most Americans do not, and I think they offer us poignant models that we would do well to follow.

 The other reason I chose the documentary format is that it would allow for a larger audience to see it and afterward, perhaps, join Milton and Fred on their journey to provide alternative health care in Kenya. The documentary is, in essence, a fund-raising platform for the brothers to keep the clinic open. This was my contribution: I’m not a doctor, so I can’t heal their village directly; but I am a storyteller, and I can inspire people to donate enough money to hire doctors who can! We as journalists wield an extraordinary tool to motivate people — through words and pictures. As I turned 30 I realized that, come what may, I wanted my legacy as a reporter to be one of finding redemption in the mess and heartbreak of everyday life.

 How did you make the decision to quit your journalism job and follow this story? What did you envision it would all lead to?  Simmons:  I envisioned, quite rightly, that it would lead to poverty. Even with the partnership with my old station, I took a lot of expenses on the chin. What got me started, though, was a fellowship called the International Reporting Project (http://www.journalismfellowships.org/)  at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C., which allowed me to spend two months researching and then travel to Kenya for five weeks of filming. This fellowship made it a little easier to walk away from my job. But after the three-month fellowship was over, I was on my own. And once I returned to Nashville, I had to scramble to find money: applying for foundation grants, taking some freelance production work and dipping deeper into savings.

I’m still digging out of debt, but my primary concern is funding the clinic. Last week — after a year of planning — we hosted an extraordinary preview screening of the documentary attended by an audience of 1,800 that raised over $200,000 for the clinic. One day when my son asks me what I did with my early career, I’d much rather tell him that I served people in need than that I made a bunch of money and won awards. Of course, now that I think about it, I suppose it would be nice to be able to tell him both.

 It seems to be next to impossible to capture American attention about issues involving Africa unless a celebrity is involved. How is this story different? How has the public responded to this story?

 Simmons:  When you inject a celebrity into a story it tends to overshadow the real characters and shatter the intimacy of the true story. With Milton and Fred, I had all the material I needed to put the hook into audiences: these brothers are so funny, so endearing, so heart-breakingly earnest that you find yourself pulling for them throughout the film. People love stories about people, and I was careful to make this story about Milton and Fred –  not necessarily about Africa, poverty or global health. Those elements are certainly in the film, but only as they relate to the brothers and their journey. That’s how you make people care about these important issues: you place them within the context of a good story and the lives of characters that you come to love.

 Now that you have completed the documentary, what’s next? How do you get this story in front of a national or world audience?

 Simmons:  I’m looking for the next story. Until then, I’ll be taking the documentary to film festivals, beginning with the Nashville Film Festival
(http://www.nashvillefilmfestival.org/)

later this month. I’d love to find a distributor to share the story with a television audience. There’s also been considerable interest from about 20 colleges and universities to bring the film on campus to show students. I’ll begin manufacturing DVDs soon to sell on our Web site so we can begin a sort of grassroots distribution.

 What did you learn about yourself, about journalism and about humankind while working on this project?

 Simmons:  So many lessons learned, but one thing that stands out is the realization that humility is a prerequisite for service. It is one thing to sweep into a village, dig a well in the spirit of pity, fly out before you’ve even met anyone and say you’ve saved Africa. This doesn’t work: the continent is littered with the detritus of those efforts because no one bothered to actually ask these villagers what they wanted in the first place. What I observed — and what I tried to capture in this documentary — is the spirit of partnership between Lwala and those raising money in America. By allowing the villagers to build the clinic themselves and to decide how the money would be spent, the partners in the West empowered them to save themselves and retain the dignity they deserve as our brothers and sisters.
You can contact Barry Simmons at:  barry@sonsoflwala.com .

What happens now for Zimbabwe?

wake up people we are living in an idiotcracy - we need to stop pretending we are zombies and don’t know what is going on in Zimbabwe, many places in africa, around the world, the USofA are heading for melt down - our leaders of the world care only about staying in power at any cost. We the people are addicted to fear and afraid of not belonging so we go along to get along - whats going to happen in zimbabwe is predictable just like kenya, rwanda, darfur - more propaganda mixed with blood - gg

Comentary: Defining the un-definable ? “Digital Performance” 

 stumbled on online Defining “Digital Performance” (see below) 2003

 and well i have issues with defining the un-definable but the title
tickled my imagination and thinking about digital performance is something i wonder about in not those terms - well digital is such a cold term like USER and loser and user generated content irks me since its functional but heartless and we are not numbers, users, etc… anyway we are in an conversation & engaging revolution not digital revolution so digital performance is not very exciting in itself - but the potential to me of experiencing a non-linear multi-dimensional crossing and criss crossing polination with audience participation between the real and the unreal mixing film and live elements and virtual and the otherness and suspending ones mind to imagine the unimaginable - and bringing it all to life - now that just might be something to think about as well as what the future might look too - and i wonder to myself in you how we are going to experience the future in the future - just some things i am percolating with as i think aloud

 read below if you are intersted in some other person thoughts on

Defining “Digital Performance”

http://www.digitalperformance.org/node/1
 

Commentary: quotable quotes even if i didn’t come up with them 

Sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast - Lewis Carroll  

Perhaps in time the so-called Dark Ages will be thought of as including our own.
- Georg C. Lichtenberg
That which the dream shows is the shadow of such wisdom as exists in man, even if during his waking state he may know nothing about it… We do not know it because we are fooling away our time with outward and perishing things, and are asleep in regard to that which is real within ourself.
- Philipus Aureolus Paracelsus

————-

There is only one thing more powerful than all the armies of the world, that is an idea whose time has come.
- Victor Hugo

Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.
- Albert Einstein, in The New Convergence

Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power.We have guided missiles and misguided men.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance.
- William Faulkner, in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech

The whole history of science has been the gradual realization that events do not happen in an arbitrary manner, but that they reflect a certain underlying order, which may or may not be divinely inspired.
- Stephen W. Hawking

When I despair, I remember that all through history the ways of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants, and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall. Think of it - always. - Mahatma Gandhi
If quantum mechanics hasn’t profoundly shocked you, you haven’t understood it yet.
- Niels Bohr

The warrior steps forth to accept the unknown and challenge disbelief, for if it lies in mind it Is, by God!
- Ramtha

If those who lead you say to you, “See, the Kingdom is in the sky,” then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they say to you, “It is in the sea,” then the fish will precede you. Rather, the Kingdom is inside of you, and it is outside of you. When you come to know yourselves, then you will become known, and you will realize that it is you who are the sons of the living Father. But if you will not know yourselves, you dwell in poverty and it is you who are that poverty.

Your theory is crazy, but it’s not crazy enough to be true.- Niels Bohr
To know that we know what we know, and to know that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge. - Copernicus

Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions.- Albert Einstein

…the sense of being which in calm hours arises, we know not how, in the soul, is not diverse from things, from space, from light, from time, from man, but one with them and proceeds obviously from the same source…. Here is the fountain of action and of thought…. We lie in the lap of immense intelligence. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Do you remember how electrical currents and “unseen waves” were laughed at? The knowledge about man is still in its infancy. - Albert Einstein
It gives me a deep comforting sense that ‘things seen are temporal and things unseen are eternal.’ - Helen Keller

The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible. - Oscar Wilde
You cannot see anything that you do not first contemplate as a reality. - Ramtha

The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitudes. - William James

Time is not a line, but a series of now points. - Taisen Deshimaru

The birth of a man is the birth of his sorrow. The longer he lives, the more stupid he becomes, because his anxiety to avoid unavoidable death becomes more and more acute. What bitterness! He lives for what is always out of reach! His thirst for survival in the future makes him incapable of living in the present. - Chang-Tzu
The dissenter is every human being at those moments of his life when he resigns momentarily from the herd and thinks for himself. - Archibald MacLeish

The mystery of life is not a problem to be solved but a reality to be experienced. - Aart Van Der Leeuw
Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you’ve imagined. As you simplify your life, the law of the universe will be simpler. - H.D. Thoreau

Cease from practice based on intellectual understanding, pursuing words, and following after speech, and learn the backward step that turns your light inward to illuminate your self. Body and mind of themselves will drop away, and your original face will be manifest. - Dogen

Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes. - Carl Gustav Jung

I can see, and that is why I can be happy, in what you call the dark, but which to me is golden. I can see a God-made world, not a manmade world. - Helen Keller

The gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing knowledge. - Albert Einstein

Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but usually manages to pick himself up, walk over or around it, and carry on.- Winston Churchill

Everything you see has its roots in the unseen world. The forms may change, yet the essence remains the same. Every wonderful sight will vanish; every sweet word will fade, But do not be disheartened, The source they come from is eternal, growing, Branching out, giving new life and new joy. Why do you weep? The source is within you And this whole world is springing up from it. - Jelauddin Rumi

All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.
- Galileo Galilei
That which the dream shows is the shadow of such wisdom as exists in man, even if during his waking state he may know nothing about it… We do not know it because we are fooling away our time with outward and perishing things, and are asleep in regard to that which is real within ourself. - Philipus Aureolus Paracelsus

When a man undertakes to create something, he establishes a new heaven, as it were, and from it the work that he desires to create flows into him… For such is the immensity of man that he is greater than heaven and earth.
- Philipus Aureolus Paracelsus

The universe on a very basic level could be a vast web of particles which remain in contact with one another over distance, and in no time. - R. Nadeau and M. Kafatos

Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.- Chief Seattle

Know thyself. - Socrates

I want to know how God created this world. I am not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know His thoughts; the rest are details.
- Albert Einstein

Suddenly, from behind the rim of the moon, in long, slow-motion moments of immense majesty, there emerges a sparkling blue and white jewel, a light, delicate, sky-blue sphere laced with slowly swirling veils of white, rising gradually like a small pearl in a thick sea of black mystery. It takes more than a moment to fully realize this is Earth…home. My view of our planet was a glimpse of divinity. - Edgar Mitchell, Apollo 14 astronaut and founder, Institute of Noetic Sciences

All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force… We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent Mind. This Mind is the matrix of all matter.
- Max Planck, Nobel Prize-winning Father of Quantum Theory
Mind and intelligence are woven into the fabric of our universe in a way that altogether surpasses our understanding. - Freeman Dyson
A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life depend upon the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the measure as I have received and am still receiving. - Albert Einstein

The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them. - Albert Einstein

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness, in a descending spiral of destruction. The chain reaction of evil must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation. - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

In the century now dawning, spirituality, visionary consciousness, and the ability to build and mend human relationships will be more important for the fate and safety of this nation than our capacity to forcefully subdue an enemy. Creating the world we want is a much more subtle but more powerful mode of operation than destroying the one we don’t want.
- Marianne Williamson

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo Galilei

To put the world in order, we must first put the nation in order; to put the nation in order, we must put the family in order; to put the family in order, we must cultivate our personal life; and to cultivate our personal life, we must first set our hearts right. - Confucius

The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is. - Winston Churchill

We shall not cease from exploration. And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time. - T. S. Eliot

Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion. - Democritus of Abdera

All great truths begin as blasphemies. - George Bernard Shaw

What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters to what lies within us.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

What we are looking for is what is looking. - St. Francis of Assisi

Commentary: Neutralizing the Net - NYTimes - Net Neutrality Hearing - Feb 25 2008

article in NYTimes online

My Comments on NYTimes web site

net neutrality is about neutralizing us - we need to wake up and liberate ourselves from fear - “we the people” came running to this country, to this internet nation too, we came from all over the world to escape fear and propaganda and violence, but here we are again and again addicted to fear and those same people, who are us too, are again feeding and saying the same old things - that they are protecting us from fear and at the same time feeding us what they want us to believe - that the internet is better protected by the fox who guards the chickens - the real question i ask myself in you is “who protects us from those who say they are protecting us?” - and what will the people of the future say about us? - and maybe its time we stop pretending we are zombies and say it like it is - net neutrality issue is another way of neutralizing us and keep us safe from freedom and safe for those in power, and those who use their freedom of expression to suppress the freedom of others - we need escape the politics of poverty this revolving door of poverty of the mind and body and take back our future before its too late - each one of us need to be like the butterfly and flap our wings and change the direction of the storm we are in - food for thought - geo from TakeBackYourFuture.org

the following is a message to the members of Facebook Nation group on facebook that i started to see what mischief we the people could make

 dear facebook nation et and al

as we again have the american s-Election process - we have to ask ourselves who are we and who do we want to be and how can we the people and the people of facebook nation make a difference - and as we live in an global society maybe its time we re-invent ourselves and think globally rather then tribally - and mabye there is more to this then meets the eye - so again i ask myself in your what kinda of a global world do we the people want to live in and i for one want to live in a world with out fear - what kinda of a world do you want to live in?

be you

geo

the art of living is making your life an art

P.S. sorry for my lack of communications for last month plus - seems that i have fallen through the gap and been juggling the unimaginable - but that is another issue

<

Me - photographed by Jeff Pulver -Philly 1-31-08

Commentary: Robert Scoble conversation with FacebookZuckerberg at davos jan 26 08
my comment on scobleizer blog

interesting piece - would have loved to get more on Musharraf’s comments and if maybe zuckerberg and musharraf realized they both had maybe more in common then we can imagine - musharraf, a give me a break, totalitarian leader (president?) of pakistan and zuckerberg un-elected leader of facebook nation of 68 million people - as an independent doc filmmaker i would have liked to hear more non-tech stuff on how zuckerberg sees himself, how he saw facebook then and now and in the future - and what he sees facebook’s potential as leading a social movement, social sculpture in the social/conversation revolution we find ourselves in - how his life and image of himself has changed, what his passions are -  how he spends his days, how much he sleeps, etc - food for thought, what will people of the future say about us today? and how will the social media conversation change the future - geo geller