Links and Top Tweets of the Week: August 1, 2009

BLOG Links of the Week: August 1, 2009

now do you see why i want to fly?: piwakawaka (nz fantail) — photo by pete mcgregor

Shirking Our Personal Responsibility: Jason Godesky is back in great form in a brilliant essay that pillories the rhetoric that we’re all personally responsible for our own story, our own history and our own success or failure. This cult-of-individual self-help rhetoric is used to subjugate and shift the blame onto the poor, the sick, the addicted, struggling nations and colonized peoples. The victim-blaming of governments, corporatists and right-wing ideologues is a massive con job. We cannot be other than who we are, and it’s time for the exploiters of our human “weaknesses” to be held responsible for their crimes.

This Is How the Human Race Does Business: Gwynn Dyer, who is predicting that climate change will provoke major global warfare, recaps the ongoing failure of politicians everywhere to do more than they can to address the problem, and explains why this is not nearly enough to prevent climate catastrophe.

Ramen Profitable = Organic Financing: The process of funding an enterprise internally instead of ceding control to investors (organic financing), outlined in my book, gets a new name (ramen profitable) by Paul Graham, but it’s still a great idea. Thanks to Jerry M for the link.

Why the Transition Movement Scares Corporatists: Jay Griffiths in Orion explains the brilliance and power of the Transition Movement’s approach.

Polyamory Gets MSM Review: A surprisingly balanced report on the only lifestyle choice that recognizes that no one can be all things to another. Thanks to Jon for the link.

US House Committee Excludes Abortion From Essential Health Services: The battle for women’s reproductive choice never ends.

Oregon-Washington-BC-Burning Man Travelling Bicycle Music Festival: Be there, Aug 15- Sep 7. This is awesome, a meme on wheels. Thanks to Tree for the link, and the one that follows.

Joanna Macy Visits the Alberta Tar Sands: The environmental holocaust gets even worse, devastating an area the size of Florida. “Canada is becoming the the first nation to use nuclear energy not to retire fossil fuels but to accelerate their exploitation.”

For Fun and Inspiration:

T-Shirt by John Slabyk (from Theresa)

More Great T-Shirts:

</patriarchy>
jackson 4 (thanks Colleen)
resist peer pressure

Music Meets Art: Wait for this to download, and then use the pencil to do your own art accompaniment to the music. Thanks to Jerry M for the link.

Thought for the Week:

By Susan Browne:

BUDDHA’S DOGS

I’m at a day-long meditation retreat, eight hours of watching my mind with my mind,
and I already fell asleep twice and nearly fell out of my chair, and it’s not even noon yet.
In the morning session, I learned to count my thoughts, ten in one minute, and the longest
was to leave and go to San Anselmo and shop, then find an outdoor cafe and order a glass
of Sancerre, smoked trout with roasted potatoes and baby carrots and a bowl of gazpacho.

But I stayed and learned to name my thoughts, so far they are:
wanting, wanting, wanting, wanting, wanting, wanting, wanting, wanting, judgment,
sadness. Don’t identify with your thoughts, the teacher says, you are not your personality, not your
ego-identification, then he bangs the gong for lunch. Whoever, whatever I am is
given instruction in the walking meditation and the eating meditation and walks
outside with the other meditators, and we wobble across the lake like The Night of the Living Dead.

I meditate slowly, falling over a few times because I kept my foot in the air too long,
towards a bench, sit slowly down, and slowly eat my sandwich, noticing the bread,
(sourdough), noticing the taste, (tuna, sourdough), noticing the smell, (sourdough, tuna),
thanking the sourdough, the tuna, the ocean, the boat, the fisherman, the field, the grain,
the farmer, the Saran Wrap that kept this food fresh for this body made of food and desire
and the hope of getting through the rest of this day without dying of boredom.
Sun then cloud then sun. I notice a maple leaf on my sandwich. It seems awfully large.

Slowly brushing it away, I feel so sad I can hardly stand it, so I name my thoughts; they are:
sadness about my mother, judgment about my father, wanting the child I never had.
I notice I’ve been chasing the same thoughts like dogs around the same park most of my life,
notice the leaf tumbling gold to the grass. The gong sounds, and back in the hall,
I decide to try lying down meditation, and let myself sleep. The Buddha in my dream is me,
surrounded by dogs wagging their tails, licking my hands.

I wake up for the forgiveness meditation, the teacher saying, never put anyone out of your heart,
and the heart opens and knows it won’t last and will have to open again and again,
chasing those dogs around and around in the sun then cloud then sun.