urbanmonklife

please imagine some really well worded disclaimer that explains anything i've written in a really acceptable way,

Friday, March 31, 2006

“Power properly understood is nothing but the ability to achieve
purpose. And one of the great problems of history is that the
concepts of love and power have usually been contrasted as
opposites-polar opposites-so that love is identified with the
resignation of power, and power with the denial of love. We’ve got
to get this thing right. What is needed is a realization that power
without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is
sentimental and anaemic. Power at its best is love implementing
the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting
everything that stands against love. It is precisely this collision of
immoral power with powerless morality which constitutes the
major crisis of our time.”
– Martin Luther King Jnr.

Friday, March 24, 2006

I have been thinking about PEACE.

It is something that everyone (apart from arms companies), seems to want.

But we have a range of approaches to how we seek it.

One of the most common in the world today, is the quest for security..

From the kindly man in the Israeli settlement, hoping for peace by making it absolutely impossible for the desperate palestinian suicide bomber to get close.
To the responsible people who ordered the 400+ CCTV cameras to watch everyone in and out of Kings Cross station.
To the concerned officials who insist on having the right to arrest and detain anyone they choose to suspect of being a danger.
To the governments who want to declare war on anyone who might one day in the future gain the capabilities to be a threat.


I would just suggest that perhaps it is Justice, that has a closer relationship with Peace, than Security does.

I dont have easy answers, I just think this deserves some consideration.
And that it is always worth thinking twice before acting from a motivation that is fearful.

Thursday, March 23, 2006

"In everyday use, learning has come to be synonymous with 'taking in information'.. Yet taking in information is only distantly related to real learning.. Real learning gets to the heart of what it means to be human. Through learning we re-create ourselves. Through learning we become able to do something we were never able to do. Through learning we repercieve the world and our relationship to it. Through learning we extend our capacity to create, to be part of the generative process of life."
-Peter Senge

Tuesday, March 21, 2006

Some of our friends are even barred from Lidl.

Monday, March 20, 2006

More BEARS.
I haven't done a shout out to an animal for a while, but I've just recieved a phone call about this one..

The Water Bear

"They are apparently the World's Toughest Animal. You can shoot them into space, take them to the deepest ocean depths and let them go, deprive them of air, water, and food for years and they don't care. Send them into the core of nuclear reactor. They'll be fine."

They are about a millimetre long and the nearest one to you, is probably in your nearest piece of moss or lichen. (though they live in a lot of places)

See entry in wikipedia for more
or this video
Thanks John! !

Tuesday, March 14, 2006

"War speaks to our most fundemental sense of identity: there is an 'us' and a 'them', and no possiblity of confusing the two. When though, enemies shake hands, who is now the 'us' and who the 'them'?
Peace involves a profound crisis of identity. The boundaries of self and other, friend and foe, must be redrawn."
-Jonathan Sacks

Tuesday, March 07, 2006

If you watch sleet in reverse: it collects itself, peeling from the pavement, and then launches itself skywards.

Get onto LiviMS radio show with the greatest presenter of them all.

Monday, March 06, 2006

In a world of time-distance compression. I have an idea for anyone who is craving space.
(ok bear with me on this, and listen more to the thoughts you have while reading, than what I am actually writing)

To explain:
200 years ago, Australia was months away from France, but now it is about a day away.
London and Glasgow used to be several days apart, and now they are a few hours apart.
The world has been getting progressivly, though not uniformly, smaller over time. There are still places that take days to get to, places you have to trek through mountains or rainforests to reach.. and some of these are a lot nearer as the crow flies, than other places that can be reached much more quickly.. (if you draw maps using this measure of distance it is interesting and looks weird).

So all we need to do to suddenly have vast acres of terriotory to be used are to create places that take ages to get to.. eg you could build in your garden a really windy path with things to climb through and under and over, that is the only way to get to the other end of your garden.. you could concievably design a garden that is about an hour long each way, without needing the grounds of a stately home to fit it in. Or in your house you could have a corner of a room, that you are only allowed to enter after waiting for 20minutes outside it.. Even if you flew from Russia, you would still have to add 20mins to your journey time to get to that part of your flat.

Or if you ban yourself from using air travel, the world suddenly expands in size by several times.
Or if you ditch your car, and walk everywhere in town, then town is suddenly a far bigger place to explore.

Maybe this could be like some kind of counterbalance to the way our worlds will get smaller because of how many national borders we might be prevented from crossing due to our governments pissing people off.

What if people got claustrophobic from being confined to one planet? Then perhaps we would be forced to find another way to deal with issues than running away? And to living lives of exploration and discovery that aren't based solely on looking at new things with the same ways of seeing.

I still think the universe is infinite, and plausibly expanding..

You could walk the streets of London for a lifetime, and not SEE everything there.

Sunday, March 05, 2006

With a sunset exploding over the forest behind us, we stood high above the surrounding snowy plains; trying to predict the way we would be thrown by shapes of the slopes below. And would we be launched into the rocks or the trees? But sometimes, surely the best thing to do is to get in that black bin bag and throw yourself off the edge?

Thoughts about the schooling of neon tetras.

And the things you can buy in the subterranean world of the tunnels beneath the tower blocks.

The tastiness of yellow mushrooms found in the forest.

And tracks.