Year: 2005

Some speculation, based on aparent coincidences concerning a series of earthquakes, whale beachings and oil industry seismic exploration around the Australian tectonic plate, that suggests the devastating earthquake and tsunami may not have been entirely natural. [Andrew Limburg of Independent Media TV via Robin Good].

Speculation only, but makes you think.

[Robin Good’s (Luigi Canali di Rossi’s) Master New Media is a feed I’ve been receiving only as an e-mail newsletter, but I’ve just added the blog link to the side-bar. He has a mind boggling number of different RSS feeds on many different topics.]

Last summarised here. I see the BBC is now reporting that

“The UN World Food Programme says it believes hundreds of Burmese fisherman died in the tsunami, unaccounted for in official government figures”

Recurring theme, here picked up from “Tripzine” by Corpus MMothra.

One quote relevant to the Pirsig story [Timeline, 1960] – [Quote] I had experienced with psilocybin mushrooms, or LSD. [DXM] was more like, “Here it is, this is the truth, do whatever you want with it”. [Unquote]

The full article ends with this [editor’s note: We have already contacted this individual and advised him to lay off the DXM for a while.] 🙂

Also like Corpus MMothras reminder from Mark Twain that truth also lies in madness (or vice versa) if you prefer – “When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.” ? Samuel Langhorne Clemens, AKA Mark Twain.

Or was it a case of synchronicity ? You may recall I linked to Mark Richardson earlier in summer 2004, when he was re-tracing Robert Pirsig’s “ZMM” motorcycle trip from Minnesota to California as part of researching a book he is writing.

Using his column in the Toronto Star, he’s just posted an uplifting little story from the trip. Enjoy.

Article by Howard Campbell at Twisp, brought to my attention by Ben Mack.

I’ve been using G-Mail as my main e-mail tool for a month or so.
It’s still beta but I’ve not had a single hitch – if Google can’t make it scale no-one can – and they’re offering a free Gig of mailbox space – it’s web-mail with POP3 capability and a neat threading interface – I love it.

I have 12 free GMail accounts to give anyway if anyone is interested.

Talking of beta connectivity – I just downloaded Grouper – like a personal VPN for file-sharing amongst groups using Napster / Kazaa style P2P approach. Anyone see any applications (beyond sharing music / pictures) and fancy giving it a try ?

(Use comments or e-mail on contact page if preferred.)

Another article at Adbusters, taken from New York magazine.

Good message – capitalism & corporations are not intrinsically wrong per se, it’s the global corporate “culture” that is stultefying. The objective bottom-line value systems on which such coporations operate are so narrow (even if they “account” for environmental issues), that the quality is all “static”, the dynamic quality is driven out, flattened.

Evolution to new species needs isolation, as well as a supportive environment. Total global communication of memes is not necessarily a good thing. Competing ideas need space to flourish as well as compete, not drowning at birth.

Reminded by Matt Bartlett of this poem (that I’d forgotten was Shelley !) that made a big impression on me at school.

Also picked-up on this Glen Colquhoun Link.

Also via Matt, this Vision of Christian Education – Our Cultural Context (1.7 Meg PDF link)

I like the contrasting Modernist and Post-Modernist “Apostle’s Creeds” that Matt extracts.

In Summary
Belief in progress through man’s scientific rationality vs belief in more than one context dependent truth, and science is not it.

Thanks Matt.

I met a traveller from an antique land,

Who said—”Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;

And on the pedestal, these words appear:

My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;

Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

Percy Bysshe Shelley