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so I've had this nagging feeling for the past month or so that there are people who used to read my blog here who may at one time or another wanted me to send them copies of The Christian Radical. Since I've lost touch with virtually everyone I once read and conversed with here I've also forgotten how to reach many of you. If you want to you can write me at i.am.using.the.internets (at) gmail (dot) com if you are someone who months and months ago wanted to get copies of the zine but never recieved them and would like to just ask and I'll start sending you copies and direct you to where you can read back issues. Just specify if you want to get the online edition or the printer-friendly version. I hope everyone on here is doing well. I miss you all.
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the rumours of my death have been greatly exaggerated
This blog won't be deleeted however I am never posting in it again. I have a new blog which I will be using from now on. You can read it if you care to, it's at http://wasp-water.blogspot.com/ cheers, |
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The Long Goodbye
I have spent all of yesterday thinking hard about the questions I raised for myself in my previous post and the answers I came up with aren't ones that please me. I've never denied my own dependance on the internet but I have never done anything to reign it in. As a result what I wanted to leave benhind by getting rid of my TV I embraced instead in the form of a wireless connection. I don't like what it has done to my free time or how it has shaped my relationships with the real world and with those friends and family members whom I love. I becomes too easy to direct people towards a blog instead of actually answering the question "so what's new in your life" and it becomes too easy to spend the best hours of the day fully absorbed in a world of text and meaningless entertainment. That's not to say that my experience here as been meaningless, on the contrary I've met some truly amazing people on Live Journal, and many of you read this blog. I guess what I'm saying is that I can't keep this up any longer and feel good about my life at the same time. I'll be keeping the blog up for the next week while I save various things I like to my hard drive but intend to delete this account on the 20th. I won't be severing all my ties with the www however because I have things, like the radical and spartacus books which require that I maintain an e-mail account. this is the adress where you can e-mail me, I hope to be able to stay in touch with as many of you as I can, you are all my friends and I hope we don't lose contact. i.am.using.the.internets at gmail dot com you can also send mail to 103-2239 west 1st ave Vancouver BC Canada V4L 2H7 sayonara Who once was broken_anthem but now knows better. |
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the internet is killing comunication (if the medium is the message what are we saying?)
Hi, find it interesting sometimes how my general frustrations with people are always the strongest when related to internet and text based forms of comunication. I fancy myself a fairly personable individual most of the time and when I am in a conversation with somebody face to face oftentimes I find comunication easy and am fairly good at resolving conflict. I think this could be said of most people, when they are meeting face to face things work on a more civilized wavelength but as we start comunicating more and more through media which reduce our intrapersonal contact, our shared sense of amiabillity and openmindedness, or our civility and our ability to relate becomes stunted. If 90% of all comunication between two people is non-verbal then already with the popularization of telephone and cellphone technology we have taken 90% of our ability to comunicate effectively and thrown it out. So assuming, liberally perhaps, that 5% of the last 10% of our ability to comunicate is done with inflection, stresses and tone of voice then, with technologies like Livejournal or messenger or sms our ability to talk to one another meaningfully is reduced by another half. What does this mean? this means that for all the time I spend online be it on msn, or on lj, or writing e-mails, or participating in forums, I am actually barely intelligable, and so is everyone I converse with. I think that ultimatly this is going to wind up causing very serious long term problems for every net-dependant person in the world. With the popularisation of text based comunication and abbreviaton based slang and other text-based slangs like 1337 and it's decendents we are forgetting how to relate to one another personally. The internet is like a big mascarade ball where we hide behind fabricated personas and handles and where even our most meaningful internet relationships lack the warmth and compassion that one recieves from actual human contact. We are losing our ability to comunicate and are desperatly trying to reinvent the wheel with text. Originally I was going to use this as a preface for a rant that I posted to Anarcho_Folk about how our divisions and internal conflicts, exacerbated by text-based frustration and flame wars are keeping us ineffective as activists and as people, but I'm starting to think that what I'm writing now is more pertinent though totally interrelated. What kind of threat does a mass movement exert on authority if the movement is entirely online? What use is trying to share ideas and complex theory or difficult problems if we can only use 5% of our ability to comunicate? How could it do anything but cause conflict when two people who differ strongly on a topic (or believe that they do) come to loggerheads with oneanother on the internet? With only text to comunicate with the natural first reaction is to assume that one is being attacked by the opposing view. We have no other way to guage things, it's a dissagreement, our judgment which in person or even over the phone might allow us to react differently, now gives us only two options: fight or flight. Most people not wanting to back down from their position if they feel strongly enough about it will naturally fight. So one person responds in a manner that is offensive or abusive or just mean and that sparks the flame war. With only a goofy image to designate that there's even another person there at all it becomes second nature to let loose with no reservations. After all, even though intellectually you are perfectly aware that you are talking with a fellow human being, possibly even someone who if you had met at a party or a protest might become a friend, your emotional side sees nothing but the goofy picture and a bunch of words, and the words are cold, or insensitive, or hurtful. These words make you feel worse, sad, depressed, angry and hurt and so you retalliate. And even if what you reply with is compassionate, albeit stressed out, even if you try and counter emotion with reason, there's no way for the other person to tell for sure that that's what you're doing and there's no way for you to tell for sure that their words were intended to be as malicious as they struck you. So I ask again though a little rhetorically, what is the use? I always get to thinking about this after getting into some kind of internet scuffle but it does bare thinking about. What kind of world do we each want to live in? The text based one here in cyber-land surfing between one website and another like we used to surf channels desperatly looking for things to entertain us, to keep us amused or to satisfy our own fascinations? Or is the real world better? Are the relationships we create with people online any more or less important than those bonds of friendship we have fasioned in our towns, neighbourhoods or sceenes? Are they of equal importance? And how should I prioritize these new relationships I find myself a part of? How should any one? If the old addage is true and a people united can never be defeated then what can be said of a people who are only united over the internet and only on the condition that we can all agree upon what it is we are saying to one another? Are we just as united when we take part in an internet forum as we are when we march in protest? Are we in a comunity when we share our blogs with one another in the same way that our parents and grandparents were in a comunity when they went to block parties or borrowed eggs or flour from the folks in the house across the street? How many of us know the names of the folks who live across the hall from us? Or the name of the guy who vacuums the carpets in that same hallway? How often do you visit your friends without planning it days in advance? I for one have rarely visited someones house just because I was in the neighbourhood without calling first I'd wager it's the same with you reading this. I could probably go on but it's late I'm tired and I'm sure you get what I'm saying... all 5% of it.
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grrrroar
I really really really wish people didn't act like they need an intellectual babysitter to nurse them and coddle them and do all the hard thinking for them. why is it so difficult to encourage critical thinking?
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If you've recieved this more than once you've got an awsome social concience
Please forward widely HATE SPEECH IS NOT FREE SPEECH The Toronto Coalition to Stop the War is calling on all its members and supporters to join a rally against hate and Islamophobia this weekend to protest the publication and distribution of deliberately racist and Islamophobic images in Denmark and around the world. Far from upholding the principle of freedom of speech, these images have targeted a community already experiencing increased racism, discrimination, harassment and, in some cases, violence since the tragic events of 9/11. In addition, these images have only helped to bolster a generalised Islamophobic sentiment that has been cultivated to justify the so-called 'war on terror.' We make a special appeal to all our non-Muslim members and supporters to demonstrate to our friends in the Muslim community that they are not alone in their opposition to the distribution of such offensive and insensitive images. An attack on one community is an attack on all of us. The Toronto Coalition to Stop the War is opposed to all forms of racism and has consistently mobilised against Islamophobia, anti-Semitism and racism since we came together as a coalition. Join us on Saturday to show your support and solidarity. RALLY AGAINST HATE AND ISLAMOPHOBIA Please note: the rally will take place on the NORTH side of the street, opposite the Danish Consulate. Endorsed by TCSW is Toronto's city-wide anti-war coalition, |
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pre recording jitters
So in the late morning/early afternoon I'll be heading over to Todd's place for day one of recording a folk album. I've got 12 songs (10 mine and two by Lead Belly) I've got some basic idea of how I want things to sound and all the instruments I should need to accomplish the sound. I've even got an album name and a name for the project. I played through the list of songs right before coming on LJ to write this and I should have gone to bed an hour ago but I'm really excited, I'm also trying to reign my ego in... it's neat to be able to say that I'm going into a studio to record an album and I'm very pleased with all of my songs, but if they don't come out well or if nothing more comes of it than none of it really matters. I've always had ego problems, when I was in highschool I sufered from a very inflated sense of self importance and egotism and it did me very little good, actually it did me no good at all. I have no idea what I'm going to do with this thing once it's been done and burned. It's not like I'm on a label or even really part of the scene, I can count the number of shows I've played with these songs on one hand and have no real way of getting any more in the near future, unless I book and promote one. I guess I'll just have to shop the CD around a bunch and see what happens. Regardless I'll be getting a buskers liscence soon that will at least ensure I get a lot of practice. I restrung my guitar tonight, I should have probably done that a few days ago but I forgot to. Anyway I need to get to sleep I have a big day ahead of me.
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everyone and their dog's getting in on the islamic opinion train
I have read a number of opinion pieces recently on the cartoons published by a Danish newspaper satirizing (poorly) the prophet Muhammed. Anyway I got this in my e-mails today and of all the things I've read by anyone these folks unsurprisingly have the best handle on the situation, if the world listened to the voices of people like these folks more instead of allowing their own judgement to be clouded over by rage, bigotry and retribution (on all sides) then I think we'd all be a lot better off. anyway you can ( Read more... )
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Obligatory lame post, making myself vulnerable, but it's true so here goes... If there is someone (or if there are someones) on your friends list who makes your world a better place just because they exist and who you would not have met (in real life or not) without the internet, then post this same sentence in your journal. |
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Oh man, I've been really on point as far as song writing goes lately. I've been firing them off quite often and just getting better and better at it. I don't mean for this to sound gloaty or anything, it's mostly that for four years I put my guitar down and told myself that there was no point any more and that I was never going to ammount to anything musically. It was a hard thing to do and my life was very boring and sad, I tried really hard to avoid being reminded of my days of playing and writing every day and then about a year or two ago it just started coming again and now I've got my callusses back and all the music I've been learning and writing has been so good. There is more to it than just me picking up the guitar again. I have been praying about this for so long, I think in a lot of ways without realising it, and then after coming back to Christ I actually did start deliberatly praying about it. It probably sounds strange to some of you reading this and it isn't intended as proselytization but I can feel God's hand in my music and making it fills me with such joy. These days I listen to music by people like Nick Drake or Johnny Cash or Cat Power and instead of feeling empty and remorseful I find it hard to keep sitting and not get up and start making music of my own, and it's beautiful.
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the search continues...
for the true successor to the small brown bike. I am having my doubts about finding the bike of my dreams. I seem to want something that if it does exist is hard to come across. I went to look at this road bike that I've been interested in but it hurts my back to ride it and that makes it impractical. I need a bike that's got speed and comfort, something that I could ride easily from UBC to Burnaby with no physical discomfort aside from sore legs, A bike that I can cruise with and that I can go down steep hills quickly and enjoyably, and up them easily. I would preffer something that has carrying capacity or the potential for it and that I could take on unpaved paths and trails if I so chose. Perhaps something in a chopper style but not heavy and cumbersome like most choppers and with tires that aren't too big for the bus bike racks. I'm also thinking of taking another look at BMX and, though my experience tonight didn't sell me on them, I'm not ruling out a touring bike. I think that this search is going to take me a lot longer than I had at first thought, and I'm going to be picky, I'm not buying anything unless I fall in love and have the time to sleep on it before making a decision. In the mean time I'm selling the bike I've already got. If there are any takers, it's a 24" black Haro BMX I've had it for three months and it's in excellent condition I bought it for $500 I'm selling it here for $300 obo. comment here or e-mail me at Also, if you happen to know of a bike for sale which fits my description please let me know. Cheers. |
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in this installment Chris Rooney gets excited about theology.
I got a copy of "A Theology of Liberation" by Gustavo Gutierrez today from my friend Barrett. I've been meeaning to read up on Liberation theology for quite some time now. Last year about this time there were a couple of weeks where the subject seemed to come up in conversation a number of times with different people and I think that the biggest reasion I'd not yet picked this one up was the cost of new books. Anyway I got it for free and I just finished reading the first chapter, this book is probably the most exciting piece of theology that I've read since Ellul's "Anarchy and Christianity". I'm finding it to be not only very uplifting and confirming in regard to the importance the author places on praxis in the Christian life and it's realtion to theology but I'm also finding it a lot more challenging than Ellul. I can understand how it has rubbed some on the church the wrong way, Gutierrez doesn't pull any punched and Marx is brought up almost from the start. I'm not yet sure what to make of that aspect of it, I could understand how that would shut some folks off and I'm trying to restrain my own biases until I get a sense of where it's leading and how he develops his analisys. But that aside I am very excited by this book. It is saying things which I only wish were more often remarked upon in my church. Perhaps it's just that Vancouver is a very conservative dioscese or perhaps it's the generally pro-status quo attitude of many of my fellow Christians which prevents many lay and religious people from taking greater risks with their theology. Or I might just not know what I'm taling about. I don't have many Catholic friends and most of the Christians I'm friends with I know from the internet, I often find myself wondering if my views on theology, and anarchism, and Christian life as an expression of ones faith are aberrent or uncommon. I wonder how many people my age see their religion as a radicalising and revolutionary force for good?
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Rally on Wednesday in support of Jeremy Hinzman and Brandon Hughey who's refugee cases are being reviewed by Canadian Federal Court: Wednesday February 8th - 5 pm – 6 pm Robson St. Vancouver, beside the Courthouse, between Howe & Hornby Show your solidarity, hand out leaflets, gather support for the War Resisters! |
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Pat Robertson
Is a dangerous, liar who is disgracing the gospels which he was as some point ordained to preach. That this man who calls himself a "revrend" and is in the eyes of many a representative of Christianity should find it easy or even a good idea to assert on multiple occasions that it is morally justifiable to kill or kidnap anyone for any reason is a disgrace. everyone should watch this http://movies.crooksandliars.com/Hannit if only so that they can tell the face of deciet when they see it. |
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you'll pay for the whole seat but you'll only need the edge
She's a man crazy blond, he's a man framed for a crime he didn't commit... in space. See John Carradine in his strongest role since that other one, join him on a manhunt for a lady killer, in the jungle, the female jungle. A movie that will make you fall flat on your face.. with horror. Dr. Phil McGraw in... Killer Angel Zombies from beyond the planet Mars.
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Urgent Action: Protest the illegal Sale of Palestinian Property
Prevent Israeli expropriation of Hebron Market; Honor the 1997 Hebron Protocol Agreement ( Read more... ) |
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a Catholic at Presbyterian Vespers
I went to my friend Barrett's church tonight for a Celtic vespers service which he and his wife Sarah hold every thursday. Their church is presently doing something that I don't believe is common practice in many protestant congregations, because of their vespers service they are probably the only Presbyterian church in Vancouver which offers a weekly eucharist. Participating in this intimate and unique celebration of the sacrament was remarkable. The group who meets for vespers each week is very small, including myself and the pastor there were only seven people present. Also the communion was shared in a circle, with each person communicating to the one beside them. Also I was pleasantly surprised at the level of social concience expressed by my Protestant brothers and sisters. Durring the prayers and intercessions, there was a definite sence of social concern and empathy expressed which I have found sadly lacking in the liturgy at my parish. Perhaps this was due to the small size of the prayer service. With most everyone there sharing a belief in the social teachings of our shared faith it must be easier to pray for the poor and for an end to war and millitarism than it is in a large congregation of people with possibly convergent views on such things. Thinking of it in those terms though fills me with a sadness. In the intercessions a prayer was made for the CPT members held hostage in Iraq, among them a founder of the Toronto Catholic Worker community, Zaccaeus House, yet since their abduction in November not once have they been mentioned in the liturgy or intentions at my church. At the end of the service and after communion we all stayed arround the wooden altar and talked and ate the rest of the loaf of bread, and there was a wonderfull feeling of community, of something shared. One of the themes of a recent Mass at my church was Christian unity, this is something that I deeply hope and pray for, that one day the table will be open to any and everyone who wishes to sit and eat. Barrett often comes to mass with me and, when he can get away with it, he will communicate on the sly, sharing the body and blood of our saviour with me and my parish, though the roman eucharist is barred to protestants. And at his church this Vespers service is the only time he can regularly take communion in his denomination. One day I know we will both be able to approach the same altar without hiding, and on that day we really will be one holy, universal, and apostolic church.
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LJ Interests meme results
Enter your LJ user name, and 10 interests will be selected from your interest list. |
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Walking to Guantánamo By Frida Berrigan In These Times Wednesday 01 February 2006 Peace marchers aim to keep the abuse of 'enemy combatants' visible. It was tough getting used to being a spectacle, but that is exactly what we were - a motley gaggle of gringos walking through Cuba in short pants and matching gray T-shirts that read "Witness Against Torture: A March to Visit the Prisoners at Guantánamo." Wearing straw hats and sunglasses, we trailed clouds of sunscreen and bug spray. Our journey did not start on a Cuban road. We had met and prepared for months to get to this point. Our conversations started as an exploration of ways to resist the "war on terrorism" and respond to the suffering of its victims - and ways to do that as Christians in the tradition of the Catholic Worker movement. Dorothy Day, one of its founders, is famous for having called privileged Catholics out of their church pews and into the streets, where they put the works of mercy - feeding the hungry, housing the homeless, visiting the prisoners - into action. Day also emphasized resisting what she called the "filthy rotten system" of war and injustice that keeps people poor and homeless. When men imprisoned at Guantánamo Bay Naval Station went on a hunger strike this summer, we knew what to do: walk from Santiago - Cuba's second largest city - to the U.S. base with the intention of visiting the prisoners. We figured we were only taking up an invitation President Bush made to European Union leaders last year in response to allegations of torture and human rights abuses there. "You're welcome to go down yourselves ... and tak[e] a look at the conditions," Bush said. By walking, we would deal transparently and openly with the Cuban government and we would draw strength from the rich history of nonviolent marches for social and political change - from Gandhi's salt march to the Selma - Montgomery March to the Continental Peace March. Of course, it was illegal for us to go to Cuba and Cubans themselves cannot march in protest without permission from their government. But it is no coincidence that the torture and abuse at the U.S. prison camp are hidden in a far corner of a foreign territory. The site was chosen with the cynical expectation that the prisoners would be beyond the reach of international law and investigation. Behind borders, and fences and oceans, their suffering would also be muted and remote. So, we went. Our walk began in Santiago de Cuba on December 7 and over five days we walked about 70 miles, camping on the side of the road at night. Sometimes we walked in silence, meditating on the stories of prisoners in Guantánamo. I walked, thinking about Mohamed and Murat. Mohamed el Gharani was 14 when he was arrested in an October 2001 raid on a religious school in Pakistan. Transferred to Guantánamo a few months later, he was subjected to routine and terrible abuse. According to his lawyer, Clive Stafford Smith, the Chad - born teenager had been singled out for mistreatment because he vocally objected to being called "nigger." Mohamed is not the only juvenile imprisoned at Guantánamo Bay. Eight more teenagers are detained and five others have been released. Murat Kurnaz was born to a Turkish family in Bremen, Germany. After September 11, 2001, he traveled to learn more about Islam in Pakistan, where he was arrested. He was eventually sent to Guantánamo where he remains in legal limbo. As the son of "guest-workers," Kurnaz does not have German citizenship, even though he was born there. For a long time, Turkish officials maintained that Kurnaz was German and not their problem. Even after conceding their responsibility, Ankara has not pressured Washington to release Kurnaz. His mother begs "for a sign that my son is alive, that he is being treated justly, that he has not been tortured." After reflecting on the nightmares Mohammed and Murat have lived for more than four years now, I would resurface to marvel at the beauty of the countryside. As we walked, Cubans shared greetings, encouragement and most often incredulous exclamations like "a Guantánamo, caminando? A pied? Es bien lejos!" "Walking to Guantánamo? On foot? It is really far!" On Sunday, December 11, after a long day's walk on a busy road, we came to La Glorieta, a dusty little town near the end of our journey - the Cuban military checkpoint. The road forked and we were not sure which way to go. To the right, we could see the road blocked by a gate guarded by uniformed men. With Cuban television cameras rolling and the whole town out to watch us go by, we regrouped, forming two lines for our walk to the checkpoint. I tried to be solemn as we approached the gate, but it seemed rude not to acknowledge all the people who had gathered. But as we got closer, I grew more serious. We planned to make a formal request to the Cuban military to be allowed to proceed through their checkpoint to the military territory it protected so we could hold our vigil closer to the American security perimeter. It was an enormous and improbable request. The U.S. base at Guantánamo is a source of anger and fear for the Cuban people and their government. The United States annexed the 45-square-mile territory during the Spanish-American War and has held it ever since. Even if the Cuban military allowed us through their gate, there was still a mined no man's land between us and the American naval base. As we got closer to the gate to make our formal request, we saw a big sign next to the gate that says "Jao Sal." It was a salt refining complex, not the military checkpoint. Oops. The serious, intrepid American activists who had come so far had to parade through the whole town again as we tried to find the real military checkpoint. A half-mile farther down the road, we found a sturdy fence guarded by soldiers, men and women dressed in dark camouflage, their faces hidden below brimmed hats. We walked to the line of soldiers and read out loud an account of the hunger strike at Guantánamo from The Independent. We requested entry to address the crimes of our own government. The captain firmly refused to allow us through, but invited us to cross the white line separating civilian and military territory "as a gesture of solidarity with your cause." Inside the huge base, which straddles both sides of the Guantánamo bay, is Cuba's only McDonald's, a state-of-the-art recreation and sports facilities for American soldiers and their families, two airstrips, and a desalinization plant, because Cuba had cut off the base's water supply. Somewhere in this far-flung slice of stripmall Americana are Camp Delta, Camp Echo, Camp Iguana and Camp V, where Murat, Mohammed and 500 other men are imprisoned. We set up our camp along the Cuba fence, five miles from the prison, closer than Mohamed's father or Murat's mother have been to their sons in years. The dust and scrub brush next to the fence was our home for the next four days as we prayed and fasted. There, I thought of the scores of men on hunger strike. The only way to draw attention to their plight is to deepen their own suffering. Our fast was not a hunger strike, but it was long enough that cravings for food turned to actual hunger, and hunger turned into a peculiar light-headedness and clarity. It was long enough to realize that hunger is a violent act against biology, to reflect on the depth of powerlessness and despair - as well as the intensity of will and defiance - that informs the decision to fast to death. The authorities at Guantánamo reported that on Christmas the number of men refusing to eat had doubled to 84. Our principal aim in going to Guantánamo - walking, vigiling and fasting - was to let the prisoners know that they were not alone. Despite the reflexive fear Americans have been inculcated to have toward the so-called "worst of the worst" held in Guantánamo, coverage of our witness in the U.S. press was positive and extensive. Our march and fast received widespread attention in the international press, including Arabic language outlets. All of that, combined with a network of lawyers representing prisoners who brought news of our proximity and solidarity to the men, means they knew we had tried, and are still trying. While we await notice from the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, the agency responsible for violations of the ban on travel to Cuba, we will not be idle. On March 1, those of us who marched to Guantánamo are organizing an action in Washington, D.C., to make the prison and its victims visible to those who are responsible for the torture and abuse. We continue to meet and plan, working to build a campaign to close Guantánamo, free those prisoners who are innocent of any crime and bring the United States back into accordance with international law. Join us. ------- Frida Berrigan is a senior research associate with the Arms Trade Resource Center, a project of the World Policy Institute.
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morose