Love this Speech
I love this. The speech is from Charlie Chaplin’s 1940 film ‘The Great Dictator’ .. it’s as relevant today as it ever was .. maybe even more so now than it was then.
Responsibility
“You are only responsible for what you say and do .. not for what others understand.”
Interesting thought as usual from Calming Your Inner Storms and true to a point .. the point at which we accept our responsibility as teachers.
“If you allow people to make more withdrawals than deposits in your life, your emotional bank will become overdrawn… Know when to close that account!”
This is another thought about responsibility .. some accounts can never be closed because of the debts we owe or the contracts we’ve made. And maybe the Source of our funding is enough to accommodate any withdrawal.
SSH and Putty
I found this video a very useful introduction to SSH and Putty when I needed to zip and download files on my websites. I had previously been doing it the long way using FTP. The SSH Commands site also helped a lot.
Just Another WordPress Site
I use Artisteer to design themes for my three main sites which are WordPress driven .. While I’m satisfied with the results I notice that they all have the same basic look – header, horizontal menu, two or three columns. I’m satisfied with this site and the Netstorms one but I should make the NYPO one look different, not so dark but not white.
Artiseer is great for designing templates that work but the problem is making them look different.
Related Sites:
- reflectingthedesigner.com/wordpress has some expert tips on design using Artisteer.
Game Over
This short video is like a dream sequence. It more deserves to go viral than Kony 2012. But one thing that Kony 2012 showed was the way we are connected on the web. Perhaps we can use that factor to build a more truly global peace movement.
I reach for the sky
“No, it is not easy or hard. It just is. I mean, I reach for the sky and the world just falls away. I’m not thinking of anything; I’m just in the moment…
Kal-el, instead of trying to force the noise out, why don’t you just focus on one thing, like that butterfly? Live inside that one noise. Make it your whole world.â€
My favourite scene. “I reach for the sky and the world just falls away…” is one of these phrases that just resonates with me.
Nice the way writers sometimes sneak Zen into popular culture … I’m thinking that I need to remember that teaching right now.
Diaspora
Either these guys are really that geeky or they’re really good at acting geeky .. Anyway they come across as a likeable bunch. I agree with the points they make and think their project is both exciting and hugely needed. Diaspora purports to be an Open Source alternative to Facebook. It does not lay claim to members’ content the way FB does and, being open source, anyone with the ability to do so can contribute to its development. I’ve signed up on one of the Diaspora ‘pods’, at diasp.org. It links to Facebook and can import your list of FB friends so there is a convenient escape route for when FB becomes too oppressive. Even if it’s not an FB killer I think it’s going to be an environment than some of us will relate to better. It’s still in early beta but I would definitely recommend having a look.
Dominating Africa
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Yg6kPY7QC3M
The film Kony 2012 put Africa on the front page of international consciousness for at least a short while.
Keith Harmon Snow is an independent journalist. In this video he gives context to the Kony story relating it to the efforts of the US/UK governments to dominate Africa and appropriate her resources.
Stoning Campaign
Last week a woman representing Amnesty International phoned to ask me to support their campaign against stoning women in Iran by raising my monthly contribution. I told her that after 25 years of supporting Amnesty I was considering not doing so any longer. I asked her if she was aware that Amnesty had helped spread the false propaganda that the Gaddafi government was using mercenaries against their people and that as a result of the intervention black people in Libya were being tortured and murdered. She apparently hadn’t been aware of this. I asked why the campaign was being run at this time when pressure was being put on Iran over their nuclear programme and why were stonings in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere not being highlighted too. She said that she would really like to continue talking to me but had to move on.
I was reminded about this conversation by this article in the Daily Mail Online: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2112960. Remember that it was NATO that put the current Iraqi regime in power.
Obvious Conclusions
One of the things that annoys me most when I listen to the news is that way that obvious conclusions fail to be drawn from known facts. Point in case is the Libyan intervention. It is known that the grounds for the intervention were based on false evidence. It is known that NATO exceeded the remit of its mandate to protect civilians by taking the side of one faction in a civil way. It is known that the result of the intervention is continuing unrest in Libya and the displacement, torture and murder of sections of the Libyan population. Flawed in rationale, execution and result the Libya intervention has been a disaster so why are the leaders who took the decision to intervene not held to account for the consequences and why are they given any moral credence when they call for future interventions?