New Blog URL

Made some changes... moved the blog to a new URL + a new title...

If you followed In the Course of Events, (or even if you didn't,) then please consider following Peace is Possible (peacepotential.blogspot.com). Please check it out, it's the same in some ways, and a little different in other ways!

By the way, I was impressed with the transferability of posts and comments from the old URL to a new one. Google: strong and powerful technology - impressive.

I do remember getting burned the last time I changed URLs by someone who took the opportunity to make a mean comment after securing my former URL, so that I could not use it to re-direct traffic.

Global Village Slideshow

I received this great slideshow today from my Mom. Thanks Mom! Check it out:



Regarding the information contained in the above power point; we, as a humanity, can do better. I know it.

There is no good reason why 80% of human beings (or any human beings) need to live in poverty.

Have a good day,
-Berd

In the Absence of the Sacred: The Failure of Technology and the Survival of Indian Nations, by Jerry Mander

I am plugging this book because it is important, and it has significantly influenced my view of the world. In the book the author, Jerry Mander, delivers a skillful critique of technological culture and industrialized society. The basic thesis is that society lacks the philosophical underpinnings to be appropriately skeptical of the effects of technology - and therefore also lacks the perspective to be appropriately protective of itself (and of individuals) against the harmful effects of technology (and industrialization.) Modern industrialized society has taken the sacredness out of our social and individual relationships with the Earth. This has been detrimental to ourselves, to our societies, and to the Earth...

It doesn't have to be like this. Another way is possible. Check it out!

In the Absence of the Sacred: The Failure of Technology and the Survival of Indian Nations, by Jerry Mander.

Here's a link to an interview that appeared in a 1991 issue of The Sun Magazine: "The Sun" interview with Jerry Mander, author of In the Absence of the Sacred

That's all for now.

Some Brief Thoughts on The Richest Man in Babylon

Today I finished reading The Richest Man in Babylon, by George Clason. Very interesting book, it is a fable, apparently based on some clay tablets, about the principles of gaining and controlling wealth (aka gold.) I have mixed emotions about the book. While it definitely delivers sound financial advice and principles, it leaves a lot to be desired when viewed from my perspective of concern about social and economic justice. I believe that hard work is important. Saving is important, and so is re-investment in socially responsible / life-serving activities. But the book has a decidedly "ends justify the means" approach to investing, that does not account for the present day realities of destructive technologies.

Although the ancient babylonians were (according to Clason's account) not a conquesting sort of people (and good for them!), they were not impervious to severe oppression, to dealing in slaves, and to amassing personal financial empires. I don't think that slavery can ever be rightly justified. No matter how much ambition, desire and determination a person has to succeed - it does not make it right to hold other human beings as property, to be ordered and subjugated in whatever way seems necessary or expedient toward amassing wealth. Dealing in human beings as a commodity is a very injurious and low-down way of economic operation.

This, of course doesn't absolve myself, (or anyone else) as an individual from working. It doesn't mean that as people we oughtn't take the initiative in order to provide for ourselves.

A lot has changed in the thousands of years since Babylon was an active and thriving society. The world is a very different place. While there is still great opportunity in the world, including the opportunity to gain wealth, there is a new need based on the ever increasing environmental impacts of a human population grown large, and grown powerful with technology, to ensure that our economic activities are not having a detrimental effect on others.

It's a new age. A new world. It is time for a new system of ethics. This is the Age of Aquarius. A new age. An age of humanitarian ethics. An age of innovation, invention, and tremendous opportunity - not to blindly pursue economic self-interest - but instead to pursue the common interests that we all share as part of the human family. This planet Earth is a beautiful and wonderful place. It is full of magic. We, as human beings, have important decisions to make about how we will choose to live in the future. Will we live in ways that are harmful to the planet and each other? Or will we live in ways that are beneficial, uplifting, and life-serving?

I believe that we, as a society, can make a transition to a culture that does no harm. And not only that! I believe that we can have a society that actually serves to improve upon our environment, promoting bio-diversity, ensuring for all that there will be healthy water to drink, healthy air to breathe, healthy earth to grow food and play... This is not too much to ask. This is only the right path.

Space Junk

Satellites Collide in Low Earth Orbit

Down to Earth

I saw this as part of the new Disney movie "Wall-E". I won't critique the movie here, though I liked it - it was very thought provoking, it raises all kinds of questions and ideas about humanity and society... I definitely recommend seeing it. Okay, a little critique. I guess my main problem is how it glorifies and romanticizes technology as being capable of solving all of the problems of humanity. Robot heroes.

The story goes like this: after destroying the Earth, humans leave in a space ship, where they live for 700 years while they wait for the atmosphere on Earth to return to a hospitable state. A robot returns to Earth and finds a plant - a sign of life. She develops a love interest, and all the qualities of a human, with a 700 year old trash compacter named "Wall-E". They live happily ever after. Despite what is, in my opinion, a flawed and romanticized portrayal of technology as the savior of humanity, it actually has some good moral messages (of course the moral grounding just makes the main, subversive, thrust - promoting the idea of robots as benign artificially intelligent beings - more potent.)

I am looking forward to picking up a copy of the album or single for this song, "Down to the Earth" by Peter Gabriel.

bert