An Answer in Search of a Question

"We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time."

The fifth stanza of T.S. Eliot's poem Little Gidding- which opens Tom Tykwer's 1999 film Run Lola Run (Lola Rennt).

Flowing into the memorable opening monologue,

'Mankind, probably the most mysterious species on our planet. A mystery of open questions. Who are we? Where do we come from? Where are we going? How do we know what we believe to know? Why do we believe anything at all?

'Innumerable questions looking for an answer, an answer which will raise the next question and the following answer will raise a following question and so on and so forth.

'But in the end, isn't it always the same question and always the same answer?'

LINK

Democratizing Criticism

Blogger has been giving me fundamental errors when I've tried to post in the last week- until Dody performed surgery. Women want to know him, men want to copy his drink.

I would criticise blogger for being unreliably clunky, but "blogger rocks" googles ten-times the hits of "blogger sux" so I'll go with the majority.

Meteorologists predict furious worldwinds of blogging over the next week.

Doubt and Confidence

Sitting in an Indian restaurant last night, as the sound of a sitar gently beckoned the falling dusk on my street outside. I decide to pen some thoughts on doubt and confidence concepts that have been frequently bubbling up into contemplation. Below is the transcript from my notebook.


What is the role of confidence if all knowledge is fallible?
Confidence in what is, the confidence that our beliefs and the world-view model they form is. Just that, with all it's inherent imperfections and most definitely not to be relied upon as absolute reality. To be closed to confidence is to to deny what is clearly manifest, though illusory, to deny this illusion as part of reality is to refute consciousness itself.

Then what is the role of doubt?
Doubt is the reminder that our experience is illusory, that there exists a deeper reality that is the source of our illusion, but closed to us- unknowable. Doubt propels us to an ever closer approximation- freeing us from false ends. To be closed to doubt is to be lost in a sea of illusion.

Both doubt and confidence should be cultivated, this means both should be nourished and pruned- depending on the season. These are the twins from which the art of our consciousness is born; doubt the tool that shapes the clay of confidence.

Massive Disaster Aid a "Convenient Illusion"

"Massive public appeals by aid agencies in the wake of disasters are wrong and should stop, a senior Medicines Sans Frontieres (MSF) official said.

Gorik Ooms, head of MSF-Belgium, said such appeals did more harm than good and were based on a "convenient illusion" of benefit shared by nongovernmental organisations and the donating public.

Emergency donations are too late to be of use, and swiftly turn to poison as they encourage incompetent interventions by NGOs desperate to dispose of earmarked cash, he said during a debate at the London School of Economics.

"If we take this money we end up doing things we shouldn't do," he said. "Many NGOs don't have real disaster relief capacity but they go for an appeal because it is a source of funding. NGOs that have real capacity are crowded out by those that don't."

Ooms urged NGOs to have the bravery to debate whether they should appeal for vast sums after emotive disasters." Reuters AlertNet

Earth without Humanity

"Imagine that all the people on Earth - all 6.5 billion of us and counting - could be spirited away tomorrow... Left once more to its own devices, Nature would begin to reclaim the planet, as fields and pastures reverted to prairies and forest, the air and water cleansed themselves of pollutants, and roads and cities crumbled back to dust..."


"All things considered, it will only take a few tens of thousands of years at most before almost every trace of our present dominance has vanished completely. Alien visitors coming to Earth 100,000 years hence will find no obvious signs that an advanced civilisation ever lived here...

Ocean sediment cores will show a brief period during which massive amounts of heavy metals such as mercury were deposited, a relic of our fleeting industrial society. The same sediment band will also show a concentration of radioactive isotopes left by reactor meltdowns after our disappearance. The atmosphere will bear traces of a few gases that don't occur in nature, especially perfluorocarbons such as CF4, which have a half-life of tens of thousands of years. Finally a brief, century-long pulse of radio waves will forever radiate out across the galaxy and beyond, proof - for anything that cares and is able to listen - that we once had something to say and a way to say it.

But these will be flimsy souvenirs, almost pathetic reminders of a civilisation that once thought itself the pinnacle of achievement. Within a few million years, erosion and possibly another ice age or two will have obliterated most of even these faint traces. If another intelligent species ever evolves on the Earth - and that is by no means certain, given how long life flourished before we came along - it may well have no inkling that we were ever here save for a few peculiar fossils and ossified relics. The humbling - and perversely comforting - reality is that the Earth will forget us remarkably quickly."

Extract from Imagine Earth without people, Bob Holmes, New Scientist, 12th October 2006.
Graphic from The Times Online, via Treehugger and BoingBoing.

Silienced Majority

"Not all journalists get killed by assassins; soldiers rarely refuse unjust wars at the cost of their own lives. But those who do have definitely something in common. Call it moral integrity.

If we allow the silenced majority to eliminate those voices, we will all be living in silence and exile within our own homes -- wherever in this world those homes may be."

- Jasmina Tesanovic on the assassination of Anna Politkovskaya, full piece on BoingBoing.

The assassination of Anna Polikovskaya has been temporarily splashed across our collective consciousness. Yet another step on the path towards a totalitarian Russia produces visible signs of outrage that will too soon fade into the milleau of appeasement and indifference. "She was the conscience of Russian journalism," and without conscience who shall reign-in Putin's New Russia?

"Yes, stability has come to Russia. It is a monstrous stability under which nobody seeks justice in law courts which flaunt their subservience and partisanship. Nobody in his or her right mind seeks protection from the institutions entrusted with maintaining law and order, because they are totally corrupt.

Lynch law is the order of the day, both in people's minds and in their actions. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth."

- Anna Politkovskaya, Putin's Russia, BBC News.

When such a life is so cruelly cut short something inside of me cries out in solidarity; that part of me and mine also lies sprawled upon the ground- dignity and rage fallen silent in empty death. She was a journalist, a hostage negotiator, award-winning human rights activist and polemic author. May many in the sorely needed new generation be inspired by both her hopes and fears.

"Als sie mich holten,
When they came for me,
gab es keinen mehr, der protestieren konnte."
There was no one left to speak out.

- Pastor Martin Niemöller, First They Came

J-Five Rocked the Party

Yesterday, I was nodding my head in sweet anticipation of checking Jurassic Five- a few hours later I was in the packed Paradiso main hall with hundreds of other fans, bouncing up and down, as J-Five absolutely rocked the party. Jurassic Five are a good to great crew to listen to- but where they come into their own is the live communal experience- the very place where hip hop came from.

If you have not seen live hip hop, then it's hard to understand the way a great hip-hop crew can engage a crowd; talking up the crowd, building energy with classic material, busting in new selections, freestyle and scratching to mix it up and all brief reprieve only to return to loftier peaks, all in all getting everyone in the room nodding and rocking in time. J5 did all this with the tight professional edge of a band that's been tieing together their harmonies for 13 years , yet kept it fresh with genuine energy and humility to simply rock the party.



I'm skeptical when asked to raise my fist in the air- too many overtones of populist struggle and crowd mentality, but last night I had both in the air for "Freedom".

"What mean the world to me is bein' free
Live and let live and just let it be
Love peace and harmony, one universal family
One God*, one aim and one destiny

Hold on to this feelin', Freedom, Freedom!"

*I'm down with interpreting "One God" anyway you like- Allah, God, the Tao, Brahma, strings and space time, whatever the name- it's the oneness that underlies all things.

Nihilism- XKCD

XKCD. Written by Randall Munroe- a guy who is too smart, it hurts.

Big, Bad and Bold B-Boys of Old

Tonight I kick off a huge month of premium Hip-Hop with Jurassic Five from Los Angeles. Featuring MC's Chali 2na, Akil, Soup, Mark 7even, and DJ Nu-Mark they form one of the world's best crews- and one from the conscious side of Hip Hop. I'm already nodding my head in sweet anticipation.

"I transmit, transcripts, transcontinental lyrics

Deeply rooted in your spirit"

- Akil

"Interviewer: Has September 11th made you feel like you have to explain what being a Muslim is about?... Do you feel that as an artist you have to help break those stereotypes?

Chali 2NA: I feel like the stereotypes have always been here in America. You have president up on top of presidents who are really trying to befoul the whole Middle Eastern situation. Not because of religion but more so because of political gain and oil and things of that nature.

I’m a Muslim, first and foremost, I love God and respect God and respect the fact that there is nothing without him. Finding myself having to explain that? I have never been one to try to push what I believe on somebody on that level; you know what I’m saying. My love is for God and God Only. For instance my wife and me got married and I didn’t even invite my momma or nobody to the wedding. It was about her, God and me...

There is a word in Arabic its called da`wah, which is the spread of information, it’s the spread of information by example more so than by preaching or trying to shove it down a persons throat, you know what I’m saying. I just try to live by example man, if a person feels that their comfortable with how I am or if they’re attracted to a certain part of me, the explanations come forth."

Interview by Nick Huff on Davey B's Hip Hop Corner.

Coming up later in the AJ's Month of Hip Hop; The Roots and the Dilated Peoples. Also check out the Hip Hop show on the world's best radio and webradio station- Australia's Triple J.

Jon Stewart Interviews President/General Musharraf of Pakistan

Video Link for Stewart/Musharraf Interview

Conflict History: Pakistan

Some succinct and neutral background information from the ICG.

"Pakistan joined U.S.-led “war on terror” following 11 September 2001 attacks, promoting Musharraf’s image abroad as secular reformer and U.S. ally. But at home he has given Islamists free-hand, neutering political parties and doing nothing to address Pakistan’s unregulated network of madrasas. Alliance of six major religious parties won majority in two provinces bordering Afghanistan October 2002, promising enforcement of Sharia law and prompting fears of alliance with Afghan jihadists. Musharraf amended constitution 2003 enabling him to dissolve parliament and dismiss prime minister; parliamentary vote 2004 extended his mandate until 2007".

"Once again the country is ruled by the military and much needed reforms to its economy and government have faltered. Religious extremists play an increasingly important role in providing education and other services to the poor, resulting in the radicalisation of areas of the country. The elections due in 2007 should provide important indications of whether Pakistan will continue on this path, or whether more moderate forces will be able to assert themselves."

"The International Crisis Group Conflict History: Pakistan.

Still, Light

 

Wikizen

"When first visiting Zen temples and centers, people who are familiar with iconoclastic stories of medieval Zen master encounters are sometimes surprised by the conservative and ritualistic nature of the practice. For example, when Philip Kapleau first encountered Soen Nakagawa, a Japanese priest, at his temple, Kapleau was disturbed at the sight of Nakagawa bowing to a statue of an earlier Zen master. Kapleau exclaimed, "The old Chinese masters burned or spit on Buddha statues! Why do you bow down before them?", to which Nakagawa replied,
"If you want to spit, you spit. I prefer to bow."

from the wiki-dharma

Guantanamo

The gates of Guantanomo Bay, aired on the Daily Show last week. Symbols of the history unfolding around us in the 21 century.

Politics of Fear

Some people mentioned they missed this in my extended post, so here it is again- the Republican party propaganda machine at the work.


Which inspired me to write this piece On Propaganda, Terrorism and the danger of the Noble Lie.