Sunday, July 27, 2008

FILMS !

Films

+ American Beauty
+ Brazil
+ Blade Runner
+ Benny and Joon
+ But I'm a Cheerleader
+ Boys Don't Cry
+ Casablanca
+ Close Encounters Of The Third Kind
+ A Clockwork Orange
+ Eraserhead
+ Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
+ The Favour the Watch and the Very Big Fish
+ Firefly (Tv episode - with great symbolisms and connections to US history)
+ Fight Club
+ Garden State
+ Girl Interrupted
+ Gone with the Wind
+ The Graduate
+ The Kite Runner
+ The Matrix 1, 2, and 3
+ My Summer of Love
+ The Meaning of Life
+ Notorious
+ Psycho
+ Pulp Fiction
+ Requiem for a Dream
+ Rushmore
+ Slaughterhouse-five
+ Spun
+ The Sound of Music
+ Thirteen
+ The Virgin Suicides
+ Waking Life
+ Wings of Desire
+ The Yellow Submarine
+ Young Frankenstein

Foreign Films
+ Amelie - Fren.
+ Everything is Illuminated - Ukrainian
+ Mar Adentro - Span.
+ Machuca - Span.
+ Man Facing Southwest - Span.
+ Pan's Labyrinth - Span.
+ Life is Beautiful - Italian and German
+ Wild Strawberries - Swedish

Saturday, July 26, 2008

Ghandi and collectivism


Why is he revered as so great?
"I claim to be a humble servant of India and humanity..."

I am just now attempting to learn of what this man did, I was always told that he was a "champion" of the poor- fighting to raise taxes of the few to close the gap between poor and wealthy, that life is about compromising, not your values or religion, but into submission for majority. Doesn't seem something that I revere.



"Lovers of peace at any price save that of Truth."

He deigns even the breath of man as a violence, honoring (?)ahmisa as truth as A is A. He honors non-violence as the path- are not taxes a violence, are not being self-sacrificers a violence of the self? What good are you as a lost entity - with only a purpose to serve your brother whom holds his only purpose to serve his brothers- you have lost the only thing there to save.

"Non-violence in its dynamic condition means conscious suffering...It does not mean meek submission of the will of the evildoer, but it means putting of ones whole soul against the will of a tyrant. ...[to]lay the foundation for the empires fall or regeneration."

"Before I can preach Universal non-violence, I must be wholly free from passion, I must be wholly incapable of sin."

His opinion of God is that we are all representations of God - so he serves God by serving Humanity.

"And is this Power benevolent or malevolent? I see it as purely benevolent. For I can see, that in the midst of death life persists, in the midst of untruth truth persists, in the midst of darkness light persists. Hence I gather that God is Life, Truth, Light. He is Love. He is the Supreme Good."


Yet he only holds that divinity when we are together as a whole:
"I am a part and parcel of the whole, and I cannot find Him apart from the rest of humanity."

Which makes me think of another such belief, “For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them.” Matthew 18:20. "We must guard our faith, and one of the keys to arming ourselves in the world is to remain in fellowship with others. A Christian is called ... to fellowship."Life as a Christian woman (Blog)

"We must ever fail to perceive Him through the senses, because He is beyond them. We can feel Him if we will but withdraw ourselves from the senses. The divine music is incessantly going on within ourselves, but the loud senses drown the delicate music, which is unlike and infinitely superior to anything we can perceive or hear with our senses." (H, 13-6-1936, pp140-1)


Is Ghandi presenting "the delicate music" as being whole and one with humanity and that you must drown ones own wants/needs in order to achieve such a feat?

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Criticize by creating

Critique by creating or, criticize by creating.


Criticizing by creating is literally the creation of a standard for what you are attempting to change and how, in the context of the whole. In other words, when you create something new you imply, or expect, that what you have created has potential to satisfy a group of individuals more than what is already in existence. Example- Clayton (need last name) created a company in Austin, Texas called Sweet Leaf Tea on the claims that
“he and his friends couldn’t understand why bottled tea never tasted as good as homemade. Inspired by the homemade tea that Clayton’s grandmother used to make, he began tasting teas from all over the world and brewing countless batches in his kitchen. With all $10,000 of Clayton’s savings and an old delivery van, Sweet Leaf Tea was born. Soon after David Smith… joined him in their quest to create the best tasting, highest quality bottled tea on the planet.”
(sweet Leaf Tea “Our Story”). A business that has now been, according to the same source previously given, steadily increasing in its profits over the past few years. Though Clayton’s ends may not be to achieve better tea for himself, he has provided it for those whose wants are better tea in return for something he may value more highly. Clayton is a great example of criticizing by creating. When you branch out with your ideas and standards of quality for anything, you are making the assumption that because you have searched for something “better” than what was already around you, that you will succeed in fulfilling the social need. Thousands of entrepreneurs do this everyday (I hope!), creating market competition- it is how a society continues to grow upwards in quality and expectation. It is how the peoples of America achieved and live the change “luxuries into necessities”. The market, rather, the people making up the market of consumers will let you know if you have succeeded in creating something more valuable (“meets their [an individuals] myriad values best”: Dylan Miller) then what is already out there (even if it’s a niche just large enough to sustain you). I spoke with a local, Dylan Miller, in regards to his opinion on “Criticize by creating”:

“…a clever title for a method or process for meeting social needs as an alternative to non-profit…With the aid of the incentive and communication system of the market; you are able to create a sustainable, accountable, effective institution that can operate whether or not all the people involved share your values or goal….It’s more sustainable and has the ability to allow people with local knowledge regarding the problem to play a role in the solution…at this point, [those working in the institution] their social goal, and the (clerk’s) self-interest and knowledge and possibly his social goals as well, coincide to effect change. … Social entrepreneurship has an end goal in addition to, or other than profit; the social need is the reason for the institutions existence.” (Interview source)



“Profit won't cure those ills, but it's becoming a bigger part of more solutions.” (Social Entrepreneurship “The 2008 Social Capitalist Awards”).

Interacting with creation is the most powerful tool of feedback in our nation. Your interactions: your dollar votes, over-coffee-conversations, your questions, are the tools that create the world you live in. You are the answer to question: "Why are things this way and how can they change?"