Californication meets Tranpacificism

In searching for the exact wording of the Cicero quote “Freedom is participation in power” I came across this extremely interesting page.  It’s about power, but not in any way that I have seen it talked about before.  He quotes different views on power, somehow seems to dismiss them all, but also talks about the power of our perspectives, the way we talk about “helping” others, and more.  It impacted me in giving me a slice of perspective from the world of the blind, but I want to say it wasn’t, and isn’t, about that — it’s more.

After all, anything worthwhile has to be more thoughtful, deep and meaningful than the obvious meaning.  Here’s a quote from the piece and a link to it, I thought it was amazing, and it really captivated me.  What do you think?

Power denotes the ability to do what the person, organization, or country wants done at the time and in the way that the entity possessing power wants it done with minimal inconvenience. It is neither morally corrupt nor spiritually invigorating. It is neutral.

via Leadership and the Matrix of Power.

PS: Happy Holidays everyone! 

  

(Okay, so I don’t actually believe those commercials that people should feel obligated or responsibility for other people and their actions, but it makes a catchy title.

But honestly. The polls show the majority of people in this country are against the Iraq war. I’ll assume (without any empirical evidence) that largely applies to my FB friends. So, why vote for a War candidate? I’m afraid that we often let the media write history for us, rather than remembering what had actually happened.
By that, I mean we have had (except possibly Carter?) nothing but war presidents since WW2. Lest we forget one of the most famous leaders (who was of course shut up, because people largely shutdown when they are left leader-less) in our country, he said:

The greatest purveyor of violence in the world today — my own country. – Martin Luther King Jr.

But I’m not the best spoken or most thoughtful, so check out this video which touches on social movements and the future of our country.
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  Updated: Nov 29, 2008

Cool, added paragraphs to this post and Wordpress Auto-save did _NOT_ work. Ar! So I start again.. This post was going to be my thoughts before my trip, but unfortunately I didn’t make it, so! Here’s what I did, and could have done, but back-dated. I flew from SJ to O’Hare and took a Coach USA bus to Milwaukee, WI to visit some family (mom’s sis+her fam), and saw Downtown while I was there. It was interesting to see they had a a riverwalk as well, which was kinda cool, not too many interesting things on the way though. It was generally chill (and cold by the lake , I wouldn’t have guessed that they had such a happening downtown! Maybe everyones downtowns put San Jose to shame, dunno! And I took the public/city bus to get there, I always enjoy a nice ride on public transit–especially when I’m feeling less shy..

Unfortunately I didn’t do anything for Earth Day/wk but sleep/hang out in the burbs, there was cool stuff going on in Chicago, as I found on a (live earth-related) Earth Day website, ranging from events at UoC, interfaith discussions, hikes, Mt. Trashmore at Northwestern(!), and a park cleanup. Alas.. Next year? I visited Milwaukee, Chicago and the burbs in this trip though, what was in downtown you ask– (BTW, Just uploaded all my Chi and Mil pix)

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  Updated: Oct 29, 2009

You ask?  Okay, maybe not, but if you were.. Well, basically, I found an easy way to upload my pics to flickr (plus I found out I was able to get a Pro acct for no extra charge), so I decided to upload all my pictures from India there, so at least they’re SOMEWHERE that they’ll be visible to folks.

But, “how/why are they showing up in your blog’s feed?”.  Why Not?  How - I added a “Photo splicer” to my feed, that it would include 1 (new only)  picture tagged “India.” so everytime I upload a batch (usually < 100/time) of pics, it includes one of those new pics.  I’ve been trying to do one batch/day, hence almost 1 pic/day showing up in this feed each day.  But I’ve only got 8 or 9 more days to go before it starts to slow down, so hopefully you’re not getting too bothered.  I rather thought you might enjoy it, since I’ve been so laggard with uploading my pics in any organized fashion to my own, personal website.  There’s a lot of irony here, I won’t go into that..

All for now..

  Updated: May 21, 2008

I could have blogged about my time at the WTS, or in Delhi generally, but this was interesting (and important?) enough that I thought I’d just make sure it was online+accessible to folks. To see my pictures though, you can check on Flickr. Oh, and after typing this out I realize that it’s already online! Eh, maybe i’ll add more to this post or change it later on.

“Following a successful World Toilet Summit-2007 (WTS 2007) it has been noted that there is a need to accelerate the progress on achieveing the MDG on sanitation by 2015. The participants advocate to reconfirmation of the pledge that nations took at Johannesburg in 2002. WTS 2007 adopts the Delhi Declaration on Sanitation- 2007:
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  Updated: Nov 29, 2008