mélange de tout

Vitera, Ruben V. & Del Castillo at Sam's Burger Joint - November 27, 2010

2010-11-25T11:23:00.000-06:00

Incredible Show! So many talented guitarists.

**** You Ryanair!!!! (ryanair.com)

2010-08-22T05:15:00.015-06:00

Another Ryanair victim who I had never met before this flight. She had no problem expressing how she felt about the airline.

Europe has come a long way in terms of customer service in the last ten years -- people go out of their way to be helpful and to be polite. Unfortunately, Ryanair has not. It is an airline that prides itself for providing low fares between European cities, but it should really advertise itself as a company hellbent on screwing travelers out of useless money by assessing ludricous fees. It should also be known as an airline who displays a general lack of concern or sympathy toward anyone choosing to fly with them. Flying with Ryanair is literally like going back in time.

At the Paris - Beauvais Airport they charge you 40€ to print a boarding pass. So if for some reason preeceding your flight you happen to be busy, or do not have access to a printer because you were traveling, they will screw you over with 40€ charge to print a boarding pass. Ask yourself: Do you really want to fly with an airline that cannot afford their own paper????

The 8€ they charge for "priority boarding" is just another scam. There is no priority boarding whatsoever. If you get to an airport early enough you stand in line first. That pretty much sums up the priority boarding concept!!! That was the case at the Beauvais-Paris Airport.

They also charge you to check in luggage but you must check in any suitcase if you so happen to travel with lotion, or shampoo, or perfume, or hell, a bottle of wine. If your carry on weighs more than 10 kilos you'll pay 40€. At that point it is no longer considered a carry on and you may as well check it in, hell you just paid 40 €.

If you happen to lose the extra kilo on the leg back they don't really care, they will reasses the 40€ charge all over again, no questions asked. I paid 40€ for my luggage on the trip back and it weighed 9.5 kilos, i.e. less than the allotted 10 kilos. So in reality when you book a flight on this airline you are paying 80€ just to transport your luggage. Ask yourself: Do you really want to fly with an airline that charges you 80€ just to transport your clothes?

The Beauvais Airport Security personnel was rude, ill informed and was more interested in chatting amongst themselves than help you make your flight on time.

And while in flight they constantly bombard you with opportunities to purchase "duty free" items. At the end of the flight I was sitting with 4 different sheets of paper with duty free items for sale, ranging from wine to perfume to smokeless cigarretes to watches and cosmetics to lottery tickets. Yes, RYANAIR LOTTERY TICKETS!!!! Who gets the proceeds, some Ryanair Mafia?

I don't know what is more infuriating - the lack of intelligence of the Ryanair personnel, or their acute lack of sympathy. I will never fly Ryanair again. I'd rather pay the extra 100€ to use another airline. This way I'd at least be treated with a little respect.

Favourite Hipstas from the Summer Time!

2010-08-21T14:28:00.000-06:00

My Doggie....

2008-05-13T12:00:00.006-06:00

Cool Photos!

2008-04-16T09:43:00.008-06:00

It's time for me to invest in a camera!

Artist Date.

2008-04-11T12:02:00.006-06:00

I had an Artist's Date today; I just crossed the street and there is was, Henry Brun and the Latin Playerz jamming out at the park during my lunch break while I sat under the shade and breeze and listened. It was so relaxing given my recent 70 hour work weeks - Henry Brun rocked the conga and the trumpet player was pretty amazing as well. Very nice! I have had an artist date every day this week thanks to Jazz Appreciation Month and being conveniently situated on the other side of Travis Park. I wish all days were like today - breezy and full of live music. Too bad I only have one hour for lunch and not two. :-(

The Jazz Market
Weekdays 11:30 am - 1:30 pm

Travis Park (April 7-11)

Main Plaza (April 14-18)

In case of rain, the concert will be held at the Farmer's Market

The Musicians Society of San Antonio and the Music Performance Fund proudly presents a brown-bag lunch series of jazz events at the Main Plaza in downtown San Antonio. The series will feature 10 different local jazz acts in a two hour concert every weekday from April 97through April 18. Pack a lunch and join the Musicians Society of San Antonio for two weeks of daytime live jazz in the plaza. Event sponsors include: The Music Performance Fund, American Federation of Musicians, San Antonio Office of Cultural Affairs, Krazy Kat Music, Alamo Music Center, Independent Insurance Services, sambe.org, DV International Architects, and KRTU 91.7 FM.

On April 12, The Southwest School of Art and Craft will host the Jazz Market Exchange, with a performances from The Regency Jazz Band, featuring Danielle King, Katchie Cartwright, and Shelley Murray. The Program will take place from 12:00-5:00 and will feature local artists playing the music of the masters.

April 7 - John Magaldi Quintet
April 8 - David Chenu Quartet
April 9 - Regency Jazz Band
April 10 - Judi DeLeon
April 11 - Henry Brun and the Latin Playerz
April 14 - D Groove
April 15 - Bett Butler and Joel Dilley
April 16 - Nobuko
April 17 - Joe Posada
April 18 - Ron Wilkins 4 Tet

http://www.krtu.org/events/jazzmarket.htm

http://www.krtu.org/events/JAM.htm

http://www.smithsonianjazz.org/jam/jam_start.asp

http://www.richportenterprises.com/photo_album.html

Too funny! I am cracking up.

2008-04-08T08:52:00.009-06:00

In an Absolut world Americans have read the history books! But apparently not enough Americans have read their history books otherwise why so pissed off at a map depicting Mexican borders pre-1848? Santa Ana was, afterall, one of the first and finest corrupt Mexicans that stole from the country for personal gain, and thus, began a long line and tradiotion of subsequent corrupt and greedy Mexican generals/presidents up until the year 2000 when there was finally a "democractic" election. And as far as I remembered, the point of advertising and marketing is to evoke and stir. And in this sense Absolut Vodka succeeded! And the advertisement goes something like, "If you consumed enough Absolut Vodka you would start to day dream/fantasize/hallucinate (I guess it depends on how much vodka you do decide to consume) of a time when California did in fact belong to Mexico."

Yoga TODAY!!

2008-04-07T16:01:00.000-06:00

Relaxing at the Crossings, Austin, Texas.

2008-04-03T08:27:00.004-06:00

Haven't had a weekend off for about 2 months --thinking of heading to the Crossings to take advantage of the pool overlooking the Hill Country, the hiking trails, the food, and maybe even a massage! I will stay OUT of the bookstore.

http://www.thecrossingsaustin.com/property/

Cornell Club and All-Ivy Club - Screening of "The Unforeseen", Sun Apr 6

2008-04-03T08:13:00.002-06:00

The Unforeseen is an award winning, critically acclaimed documentary about the complex history of Barton Springs and Austin real estate development, directed and produced by Yale graduate and Austinite, Laura Dunn. Laura has generously helped arrange an All-Ivy+ discount for a screening of the film. She will introduce the film and conduct a Q&A session afterwards.

WHAT: Screening of The Unforeseen
WHEN: Sunday, April 06, 4:10 PM
WHERE: Alamo Drafthouse, South Lamar Location1120 South Lamar Blvd.Austin, TX 78704

TICKETS: $6.25 with All-Ivy+ Discount

Provide the discount code "IVY" if buying tickets at the box office.
Tickets can be purchased online at http://www.original alamo.com/ Show.aspx? id=5240. The Sunday screening time is not up yet, but when it is, select the "Student/Senior/ AFS Discount" option.

More about the film:
"An ambitious west Texas farm boy (Gary Bradley) with grandiose plans tires of living at the mercy of nature and sets out to find a life with more control. He heads to Austin where he becomes a real estate developer and skillfully capitalizes on the growth of this 1970s boomtown. At the peak of his powers, he transforms 4,000 acres of pristine Hill Country into one of the state's largest and fastest selling subdivisions (Circle C). When the development threatens a local treasure, a fragile limestone aquifer and a naturally spring-fed swimming hole, the community fights back. In the conflict that ensues, we see in miniature a struggle that today plays out in communities across the country."

* Winner, Independent Spirit Award, 2008 *

View the trailer at: www.theunforeseenfi lm.com

I saw the movie myself last Friday evening, and I highly recommend it. It's a gorgeous, haunting, and nuanced work. It definitely has a message, but the individuals and communities involved in the events of the film are presented in a very non-judgmental way. The film is, in one sense, about the fight over the soul of Austin, but it's also about bigger themes of ambition, hubris, chance, and the American Dream.Ramey KoSocial Programs CoordinatorYale Club of Austin.

Overload: Needing a RAM UPGRADE for ONE SLOT

2008-03-31T09:45:00.025-06:00

(The Weekend Poem dedicated to a stressful week, weekend, and to challenging friendships!)

Live music Wednesday promises to dispel anxiety
Red curtains
Dim lights
“European connection” has panic attack
Recovers, and
Intergrates into the ‘crap’ band
Is the nauseauting Argentinian still speaking about himself?
FYI: Che Boludo, you've been tuned out!
($5.00 to hear Jai Lopez play, $6.00 for a glass of shiraz, and leaving your house in pj's is still stupid.)

And so it begins,
The faint sound of the conga accompanied by two acoustic guitars and the…
Pleasing, seductive sound of the curly-haired, Caribbean muse
with deep laugh/smile lines and deep, hypnotizing gaze
Whispers into the microphone, barely audible,
“and I want everything...."
Reggae solo
Delicious hug
Ah, delicious hug!!!

Stress induced hives
Fatiguing testosterone levels
Male friends blurring boundaries
Exhaustion from re-asserting boundaries
What is friendship anyway?
Tiredly,
Too many men and women with too many “needs” requiring too much attention
I am tired.
Can I please attempt to sleep?
Can you please call someone else?

The black, titanium American Express card
$900 on an ipod and ALL the relevant accessories
Getting yelled at by your wife for impulse shopping: priceless
"14 day return policy, 10% restocking fee..."
blah blah blah blah
"Why can't you spend your own money at Apple?"

Apple employee steal "my" digits
What is stalking anyway??
"You were talking to that customer for too long."
Disbelief sets in, "Wow, he is a pyscho!"
Need a new phone service anyway
HR webpage? What the hell is that?

Where are all the female friends?
At the bars and clubs (yawn),
And Cabo San Lucas (NICE!)
the yoga parties with the jacuzzi (yawn),
Baby Bake,
The View….
I,
at the politically charged film festival (YAWN!!!!)
How was the jacuzzi party?

Confused and worried
Oh, yes, back to male drama
(telenovela style)
Heart beating fast
Heart beating too fast
Heart beating too fast for too long!
Restful sleep out the window
Forgot to say, "thanks for that."
Solemn and worried faces of overindulgent parents
No words of consolation to offer them
Incredulous chain of events,
Illogical, irrational, emotionally charged
Clarification necessitated: Woman beater v. woman biter!
Why did you bite her?

A Day of Therapy: Weed-pulling Sunday
Or in Rio Platense, "chou chou"
Italians with high food and wine standards
Inspiration Hits: the tiramisu run….!
Boys fetch ingredients
(Men belong in the kitchen )
Weed pulling women
Amazing therapy in the yard
Faint sounds of jazz music
Tapas and conversation, anyone?
Banana nut bread G O N E
Cheese and wine run!
GIRLS fetch ingredients
Cherry cheese? (Yuck!)
Emmentaler never disappoints
SPICY Italian Salami
Everyone contemplates a bite
Dig in already
It's Sunday and we aren't arresting anyone today,
(Not as long as there is enough tiramisu to go around)

Bite Me!

Don't Miss the 4th Annual CINEMUJER Film Festival at the Esperanza Center

2008-03-28T10:15:00.008-06:00

@ ESPERANZAPeace and Justice Center
922 San Pedro, San Antonio Texas 78212
(@ W Evergeen, 1/2 mile north of downtown)Call 210.228.0201 for more info.
http://www.esperanzacenter.org/

A Little Story.

2008-03-06T15:01:00.005-06:00

When I was in the third grade we were in 'Social Studies' class, or what I like to call, indoctrinization class. And we were studying about American Politics, i.e. how the President gets elected. I remember the students had to take turns reading the various paragraphs out loud. After all the reading was said and done I raised my hand and said,

"I don't understand this. Can you repeat it?"

The teacher asked, "Michelle, what don't you understand?"

I said," I don't understand how the President gets elected. First we talk about the definition of 'democracy' and then we talk about how the President gets elected. It makes no sense. Can you please explain it again?"

The teacher looked at me confused and robotically re-read the definition of 'democracy'.

So I raised my hand again and asked, "Okay, so if the President does not get elected by getting more votes how is that 'democracy'?"

Needless to say, the teacher NEVER answered my question. But instinctly I remember thinking and feeling like the system was stupid and broken and ..... didn't make any sense to me.

What the idiot should have told me is that we go around the world preaching 'democracy' and supposedly taking 'democracy' to other parts of the world and yet in our OWN country we don't have direct democracy, i.e. popular vote being superiour to the mess and mix up of the delegates and now talk of the super delegates. In conclusion, my brain hurts from having to figure out the ratio of delegates to popular votes and then I think about how Al Gore lost the election and I feel just as confused as when I was in the third grade and the other students wanted to move onto the next chaper overlooking what was to me the most important chapter. And read the email below from Barack Obama and your brain will hurt as well. Maybe the lesson on delegates v. popular votes should have been taught in Algebra class, and not Social Studies class. It would have made more sense as a math and/or logic problem. In my case, however, more like a lack of logic problem, hence the problem.

_________________________________________________

Michelle --
Our projections show the most likely outcome of yesterday's elections will be that Hillary Clinton gained 187 delegates, and we gained 183.

That's a net gain of 4 delegates out of more than 370 delegates available from all the states that voted.

For comparison, that's less than half our net gain of 9 delegates from the District of Columbia alone. It's also less than our net gain of 8 from Nebraska, or 12 from Washington State. And it's considerably less than our net gain of 33 delegates from Georgia.

The task for the Clinton campaign yesterday was clear. In order to have a plausible path to the nomination, they needed to score huge delegate victories and cut into our lead.

They failed.

It's clear, though, that Senator Clinton wants to continue an increasingly desperate, increasingly negative -- and increasingly expensive -- campaign to tear us down.

That's her decision. But it's not stopping John McCain, who clinched the Republican nomination last night, from going on the offensive. He's already made news attacking Barack, and that will only become more frequent in the coming days.

Right now, it's essential for every single supporter of Barack Obama to step up and help fight this two-front battle. In the face of attacks from Hillary Clinton and John McCain, we need to be ready to take them on.

Will you make an online donation of $25 right now?
http://my.barackobama.com/page/m/f6c10d702b7052c7/RjwGhA/VEsH/
The chatter among pundits may have gotten better for the Clinton campaign after last night, but by failing to cut into our lead, the math -- and their chances of winning -- got considerably worse.
Today, we still have a lead of more than 150 delegates, and there are only 611 pledged delegates left to win in the upcoming contests.

By a week from today, we will have competed in Wyoming and Mississippi. Two more states and 45 more delegates will be off the table.

But if Senator Clinton wants to continue this, let's show that we're ready.

Make an online donation of $25 now to show you're willing to fight for this:
http://my.barackobama.com/page/m/f6c10d702b7052c7/s0Hnub/VEsE/

This nomination process is an opportunity to decide what our party needs to stand for in this election.

We can either take on John McCain with a candidate who's already united Republicans and Independents against us, or we can do it with a campaign that's united Americans from all parties around a common purpose.

We can debate John McCain about who can clean up Washington by nominating a candidate who's taken more money from lobbyists than he has, or we can do it with a campaign that hasn't taken a dime of their money because we've been funded by you.

We can present the American people with a candidate who stood shoulder-to-shoulder with McCain on the worst foreign policy disaster of our generation, and agrees with him that George Bush deserves the benefit of the doubt on Iran, or we can nominate someone who opposed the war in Iraq from the beginning and will not support a march to war with Iran.

John McCain may have a long history of straight talk and independent thinking, but he has made the decision in this campaign to offer four more years of the very same policies that have failed us for the last eight.

We need a Democratic candidate who will present the starkest contrast to those failed policies of the past.

And that candidate is Barack Obama.
Please make a donation of $25 now:
http://my.barackobama.com/page/m/f6c10d702b7052c7/MUaiQO/VEsF/
Thank you,
David
David PlouffeCampaign Manager

Obama for America

2008-03-05T14:41:00.000-06:00

by Sheyna Steiner Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Financial sinners won't have to wait for the afterlife to be punished for their various misdeeds. Plenty of consequences await in the here and now.
Presented with choices daily, human beings can lead chaste and charitable fiscal lives. Or they can succumb to fleeting temptations and fatal traps.
So choose to commit these deadly sins -- or work to bring a little temperance into your spending.

7 deadly debt sins:
Envy
The rich and famous luxury items are accessible now more than ever -- and without the wealth they once implied. With more and more people sporting expensive goods, it's easy to feel left out and far behind.

"The income disparity has gone up considerably, and what has happened is that it has changed our consumption patterns," says Ronald Wilcox, professor of business administration at the Darden School of Business, University of Virginia and author of the upcoming book, "Whatever Happened to Thrift? Why Americans Don't Save and What to Do about It."
Envy colors our perceptions. "What we decide is reasonable to consume is what we view being consumed around us," he says. "But because income disparities are so incredibly unequal, what we view around us really is beyond our ability to afford."
Consumers can get caught up trying to keep up with the Joneses or the upper-middle-class families they see on TV, believing they should own the same things others own.
"The problem with this scenario is that living like the rich doesn't last that long. And if you consider appearing in bankruptcy court as being famous, then you have achieved half your goal," says Terry Rigg, editor of Budget Stretcher, a Web site for the frugally minded.

Forget that pride goes before a fallPride can get in the way of preparing for worst-case scenarios.
People tend to feel overly optimistic about their ability to pay back debt, stay out of harm's way and maintain perfect vehicular performance indefinitely.
All human beings suffer from overconfidence -- but Americans more than anyone, says Ronald Wilcox, author of the upcoming book, "Whatever Happened to Thrift? Why Americans Don't Save and What to Do about It," and a professor of business administration at the University of Virginia.
"Our nation has seen great benefits from the confidence to take risks. Risk-taking built Manhattan. But there is a dark underbelly," he warns. "There are some winners and they do great things, but there are a lot of losers. And one of the risks that people take is spending all their money now and not saving for a rainy day."
Incredible though it may be, cars do sometimes need repairs, cavities need to be filled and surgeries may be required that insurance doesn't completely cover.
"We hear it all the time, but everyone has got to have an emergency fund. It's not if it happens, but when," says Gail Cunningham, senior director of public relations for the National Foundation for Credit Counseling.
Be slothful with financesFinances tend to be complicated and require some mental manipulation of the most dreaded of all things: numbers. Failure to pay attention to loan terms and due dates can have severe consequences.
A survey for Bankrate.com's Financial Literacy series last year revealed that 34 percent of homeowners had no idea what type of mortgage they had -- whether it had a fixed or adjustable rate.
"I like to use the term 'financial complacency' to describe people that never really take the time to get the big picture of their finances," says Terry Rigg, editor of Budget Stretcher Web site and newsletter.
We prefer the term "sloth."
Avoidance is easy; paying attention is hard, especially when confronted with unpleasant facts like a hefty credit card bill or struggling to learn something new like investing basics just to enroll in a company-sponsored retirement plan.
"Americans don't really understand parts of those plans," says Wilcox. "This is probably due in part to Americans' reduced interest in mathematics relative to the rest of the world. Americans don't study it as intensely and they don't really understand the benefits of compound interest."
Get greedy when borrowingWhy buy an economy car when you can get a loan for twice as much and ride around in style?
Over-buying (read: greed) is a trap into which consumers can easily stumble.
A dollar is not always a dollar in our minds, says Ronald Wilcox, professor of business administration at the University of Virginia and author of the upcoming book, "Whatever Happened to Thrift? Why Americans Don't Save and What to Do about It." Some days a dollar will be more valuable to you than others.
Often when making big purchases, the price seems so overwhelmingly high that smaller add-ons or upgrades start looking like great deals in comparison.
"What you're doing is pairing the smaller purchase with the bigger number and all of a sudden it looks reasonable in comparison when on any other day you would recognize this as a really bad deal," says Wilcox.
"Marketers are aware of that, so they will add on lots of small items -- like warranties for instance -- things that have huge margins that they can make a lot of money on," he says.
Rationalizations could include, "Well I'm already borrowing $10,000, so what's another $3,000?"
"Learn not to buy on impulse and plan every purchase carefully. If you don't have the money now -- save until you do," says Terry Rigg, editor of Budget Stretcher, a Web site and newsletter.
Feel wrathful at everyone but yourselfBlame others for your own financial missteps. That way you never have to learn anything new.
To the peril of individuals, lenders won't cut you off when you've had enough. Criminal nondisclosure of loan details aside, lenders aren't in the business of making sure you save money and don't overspend.
"The savings crisis and the household debt crisis are directly related to each other," says Ronald Wilcox, author of the upcoming book, "Whatever Happened to Thrift? Why Americans Don't Save and What to Do about It," and professor of business administration at the University of Virginia.
"We wouldn't see foreclosures go up as quickly if people had a cushion of savings."
So wrath, when targeting others, is often misdirected. Developing a strategy for your finances is a personal responsibility, says Wilcox.
"On the corporate side of things, companies can do things that can make it easier for people to figure out how to save and save in an effective way," says Wilcox. "And the same goes for the government. They can make it easier for people, but can't force anyone to do anything."
For instance, companies can automatically enroll their employees in their retirement plans, but participation in a savings plan can't be a condition of employment. Similarly, the government provides tax incentives for saving in retirement accounts such as IRAs, but you can't be thrown in jail for not taking advantage of it.
To avoid messy situations, develop a budget with both savings and debt pay-down strategies -- and stick to it.
"It's much easier to tell yourself and your kids 'no' if you know what the spending limits are. Everyone in the family should know that they can't get everything they want because the money is just not there," says Terry Rigg, editor of Budget Stretcher, a Web site and newsletter.
Be gluttonousYou deserve that cookie so go ahead and eat it and maybe a couple more for good measure. While you're at it, buy the bedroom set you can't afford but deeply desire.
As a nation, the United States is both plainly fat from eating too much and overstuffed in the materialistic sense. The message from society in general can sometimes be: You work hard, so splurge.
It's very possible to have a house full of stuff and no money. It's also possible to be extremely overweight and ingest no healthy nutrients.
Just like eating food for no good reason other than the fact that it is set in front of you, people buy stuff just to buy it.
"It's so easy when you're in a mall to start buying things on impulse. They're very attractive and all shiny and new -- especially when they're on sale," says Dave Jones, president of the Association of Independent Consumer Credit Counseling Agencies.
"People will react to a sale item -- 60 percent off -- and buy it when they don't need it or want it."
Big-box stores are vast dens of temptation, offering lots of everything at sale prices.
"People buy huge amounts of stuff and think they're saving money. But what happens is that it just takes up space, takes years to use up or it just spoils," Jones says. Let lust lead you into spendingWhat can a little coveting hurt if no action is taken?
Lust can take many forms. Stereotypical but true, it would be hard to find more than a handful of women who hadn't longed for a particularly fetching pair of shoes or other frippery on occasion.
As for men, one need look no further than the swimsuit edition of a popular sports magazine or the covers of various lad mags and other even more risqué publications that grace the newsstands.
That particular facet of lust was so vexing in centuries past that it was widely believed the afflicted would suffer greatly in the afterlife.
That facet of lust often does contribute to debt -- a contemporary hell -- in the modern day.
"Pornography is a very large industry, but it is hidden," says Stuart Vyse, author of "Going Broke: Why Americans Can't Hold on to Their Money."
"The fact that it is hidden makes it hugely popular because you can engage in it without anybody knowing."
And the Internet has made it very easy for people to indulge with little immediate consequence.
According to Vyse, it's estimated that Americans spend between $10 billion and $13 billion on adult entertainment.
That's a lot of money that might be put to better use in retirement accounts across the country.
Copyrighted, Bankrate.com. All rights reserved.

Rock Concert??

2008-03-04T15:15:00.001-06:00

After standing in the scorching sun for two hours with my aging mother and handicapped brother, we were finally searched (pat down style) and allowed to sit in an auditorium for another hour and 15 minutes before Hillary Clinton spoke for about 30 minutes.

Question: Would I ever wait in line for that long to see another politician?

Answer: Probably not, but I would do it for a live music performer.

Last Friday Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and Senator John McCain were all in SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS trying to get more votes!!! Who would have thought this south Texas town would make it into the spotlight other than because of the SPURS winning the NBA Championship. I, however, decided that I would go see non one speak -- did not require sunscreen or Gatorade. I decided I would much rather go salsa dancing.

Gotta Love Mitt Romney

2008-02-11T14:21:00.000-06:00

"Who let the dogs out??"

Stillness. Church. Eternal Life????

2008-01-24T17:15:00.001-06:00

I went to church today. I clarify, I went to a Catholic Mass today. It had been ages since I went to a Catholic Mass. This is really something since I went to Catholic Mass twice a week for about 12 years. I found myself muttering, i.e. grumbling morosely. Muttering is the correct word since I cannot say I was meditating, nor praying. I was repeating and repeating like a dumb robot whose battery is growing weak. The whole ceremony felt very foreign to me, very culty indeed.

I felt this profound irritation at being there and having to be told that I would be compensated for this life at a later date, at some point in time after my physical death in the "Eternal Life", in the "Forever and Ever and Ever", in the "Everlasting". The sermon was simplistic, meant to appease a misbehaving toddler, nothing profound or deep about it at all.

I have delved into Buddhism, reading as much as I can about it and trying to set aside my ego to truly understand my place in this cycle. Buddhism is not for the fainthearted. Buddhism asks you to live in this world, accept your place in this cycle, accept that everything is impermanent, and understand that you cannot fight change. No, Buddhism is definitely not for everyone, it is hard to understand, live, and foremost, very cerebral, but fills me. The answers don't come quickly nor easily, but when they come they don't just appease, they fill.

Buddhism is also the only religion that does not purport to be the only way, the right way, the only route to "salvation", or the only portal to heaven, i.e. the everlasting life, eternal life, forever and ever. It is the only religion that does not believe that everyone that does not believe in it (the members only club) is going to burn in hell like in Christianity, Judaism, or Islam. It doesn't feel juvenile, simplistic, or it doesn't feel like believing in the tooth ferry or in Santa Claus. It cuts deep into the human value system. Value meaning what Y O U value, as opposed to what one has been socialised to beliveve one should value, value being a relative, ever changing term.

Christine Rosen: "Virtual Friendship and the New Narcissism"

2007-11-08T12:07:00.000-06:00

Virtual Friendship and the New Narcissism Christine Rosen

On Thursday, October 4, Christine Rosen discussed this article on National Public Radio. Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson discussed this article in his column on October 5, 2007.

For centuries, the rich and the powerful documented their existence and their status through painted portraits. A marker of wealth and a bid for immortality, portraits offer intriguing hints about the daily life of their subjects—professions, ambitions, attitudes, and, most importantly, social standing. Such portraits, as German art historian Hans Belting has argued, can be understood as "painted anthropology," with much to teach us, both intentionally and unintentionally, about the culture in which they were created.

Self-portraits can be especially instructive. By showing the artist both as he sees his true self and as he wishes to be seen, self-portraits can at once expose and obscure, clarify and distort. They offer opportunities for both self-expression and self-seeking. They can display egotism and modesty, self-aggrandizement and self-mockery.

Today, our self-portraits are democratic and digital; they are crafted from pixels rather than paints. On social networking websites like MySpace and Facebook, our modern self-portraits feature background music, carefully manipulated photographs, stream-of-consciousness musings, and lists of our hobbies and friends. They are interactive, inviting viewers not merely to look at, but also to respond to, the life portrayed online. We create them to find friendship, love, and that ambiguous modern thing called connection. Like painters constantly retouching their work, we alter, update, and tweak our online self-portraits; but as digital objects they are far more ephemeral than oil on canvas. Vital statistics, glimpses of bare flesh, lists of favorite bands and favorite poems all clamor for our attention—and it is the timeless human desire for attention that emerges as the dominant theme of these vast virtual galleries.

Although social networking sites are in their infancy, we are seeing their impact culturally: in language (where to friend is now a verb), in politics (where it is de rigueur for presidential aspirants to catalogue their virtues on MySpace), and on college campuses (where not using Facebook can be a social handicap). But we are only beginning to come to grips with the consequences of our use of these sites: for friendship, and for our notions of privacy, authenticity, community, and identity. As with any new technological advance, we must consider what type of behavior online social networking encourages. Does this technology, with its constant demands to collect (friends and status), and perform (by marketing ourselves), in some ways undermine our ability to attain what it promises—a surer sense of who we are and where we belong? The Delphic oracle's guidance was know thyself. Today, in the world of online social networks, the oracle's advice might be show thyself.

Making Connections

The earliest online social networks were arguably the Bulletin Board Systems of the 1980s that let users post public messages, send and receive private messages, play games, and exchange software. Some of those BBSs, like The WELL (Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link) that technologist Larry Brilliant and futurist Stewart Brand started in 1985, made the transition to the World Wide Web in the mid-1990s. (Now owned by Salon.com, The WELL boasts that it was "the primordial ooze where the online community movement was born.") Other websites for community and connection emerged in the 1990s, including Classmates.com (1995), where users register by high school and year of graduation; Company of Friends, a business-oriented site founded in 1997; and Epinions, founded in 1999 to allow users to give their opinions about various consumer products.

A new generation of social networking websites appeared in 2002 with the launch of Friendster, whose founder, Jonathan Abrams, admitted that his main motivation for creating the site was to meet attractive women. Unlike previous online communities, which brought together anonymous strangers with shared interests, Friendster uses a model of social networking known as the "Circle of Friends" (developed by British computer scientist Jonathan Bishop), in which users invite friends and acquaintances—that is, people they already know and like—to join their network.

Friendster was an immediate success, with millions of registered users by mid-2003. But technological glitches and poor management at the company allowed a new social networking site, MySpace, launched in 2003, quickly to surpass it. Originally started by musicians, MySpace has become a major venue for sharing music as well as videos and photos. It is now the behemoth of online social networking, with over 100 million registered users. Connection has become big business: In 2005, Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation bought MySpace for $580 million.

Besides MySpace and Friendster, the best-known social networking site is Facebook, launched in 2004. Originally restricted to college students, Facebook—which takes its name from the small photo albums that colleges once gave to incoming freshmen and faculty to help them cope with meeting so many new people—soon extended membership to high schoolers and is now open to anyone. Still, it is most popular among college students and recent college graduates, many of whom use the site as their primary method of communicating with one another. Millions of college students check their Facebook pages several times every day and spend hours sending and receiving messages, making appointments, getting updates on their friends' activities, and learning about people they might recently have met or heard about.

There are dozens of other social networking sites, including Orkut, Bebo, and Yahoo 360º. Microsoft recently announced its own plans for a social networking site called Wallop; the company boasts that the site will offer "an entirely new way for consumers to express their individuality online." (It is noteworthy that Microsoft refers to social networkers as "consumers" rather than merely "users" or, say, "people.") Niche social networking sites are also flourishing: there are sites offering forums and fellowship for photographers, music lovers, and sports fans. There are professional networking sites, such as LinkedIn, that keep people connected with present and former colleagues and other business acquaintances. There are sites specifically for younger children, such as Club Penguin, which lets kids pretend to be chubby, colored penguins who waddle around chatting, playing games, earning virtual money, and buying virtual clothes. Other niche social networking sites connect like-minded self-improvers; the site 43things.com encourages people to share their personal goals. Click on "watch less TV," one of the goals listed on the site, and you can see the profiles of the 1,300 other people in the network who want to do the same thing. And for people who want to join a social network but don't know which niche site is right for them, there are sites that help users locate the proper online social networking community for their particular (or peculiar) interests.

Social networking sites are also fertile ground for those who make it their lives' work to get your attention—namely, spammers, marketers, and politicians. Incidents of spamming and spyware on MySpace and other social networking sites are legion. Legitimate advertisers such as record labels and film studios have also set up pages for their products. In some cases, fictional characters from books and movies are given their own official MySpace pages. Some sports mascots and brand icons have them, too. Procter & Gamble has a Crest toothpaste page on MySpace featuring a sultry-looking model called "Miss Irresistible." As of this summer, she had about 50,000 users linked as friends, whom she urged to "spice it up by sending a naughty (or nice) e-card." The e-cards are emblazoned with Crest or Scope logos, of course, and include messages such as "I wanna get fresh with you" or "Pucker up baby—I'm getting fresh." A P& G marketing officer recently told the Wall Street Journal that from a business perspective, social networking sites are "going to be one giant living dynamic learning experience about consumers."

As for politicians, with the presidential primary season now underway, candidates have embraced a no-website-left-behind policy. Senator Hillary Clinton has official pages on social networking sites MySpace, Flickr, LiveJournal, Facebook, Friendster, and Orkut. As of July 1, 2007, she had a mere 52,472 friends on MySpace (a bit more than Miss Irresistible); her Democratic rival Senator Barack Obama had an impressive 128,859. Former Senator John Edwards has profiles on twenty-three different sites. Republican contenders for the White House are poorer social networkers than their Democratic counterparts; as of this writing, none of the GOP candidates has as many MySpace friends as Hillary, and some of the leading Republican candidates have no social networking presence at all.

Despite the increasingly diverse range of social networking sites, the most popular sites share certain features. On MySpace and Facebook, for example, the process of setting up one's online identity is relatively simple: Provide your name, address, e-mail address, and a few other pieces of information and you're up and running and ready to create your online persona. MySpace includes a section, "About Me," where you can post your name, age, where you live, and other personal details such as your zodiac sign, religion, sexual orientation, and relationship status. There is also a "Who I'd Like to Meet" section, which on most MySpace profiles is filled with images of celebrities. Users can also list their favorite music, movies, and television shows, as well as their personal heroes; MySpace users can also blog on their pages. A user "friends" people—that is, invites them by e-mail to appear on the user's "Friend Space," where they are listed, linked, and ranked. Below the Friends space is a Comments section where friends can post notes. MySpace allows users to personalize their pages by uploading images and music and videos; indeed, one of the defining features of most MySpace pages is the ubiquity of visual and audio clutter. With silly, hyper flashing graphics in neon colors and clip-art style images of kittens and cartoons, MySpace pages often resemble an overdecorated high school yearbook.

By contrast, Facebook limits what its users can do to their profiles. Besides general personal information, Facebook users have a "Wall" where people can leave them brief notes, as well as a Messages feature that functions like an in-house Facebook e-mail account. You list your friends on Facebook as well, but in general, unlike MySpace friends, which are often complete strangers (or spammers) Facebook friends tend to be part of one's offline social circle. (This might change, however, now that Facebook has opened its site to anyone rather than restricting it to college and high school students.) Facebook (and MySpace) allow users to form groups based on mutual interests. Facebook users can also send "pokes" to friends; these little digital nudges are meant to let someone know you are thinking about him or her. But they can also be interpreted as not-so-subtle come-ons; one Facebook group with over 200,000 members is called "Enough with the Poking, Let's Just Have Sex."

Degrees of Separation

It is worth pausing for a moment to reflect on the curious use of the word networking to describe this new form of human interaction. Social networking websites "connect" users with a network—literally, a computer network. But the verb to network has long been used to describe an act of intentional social connecting, especially for professionals seeking career-boosting contacts. When the word first came into circulation in the 1970s, computer networks were rare and mysterious. Back then, "network" usually referred to television. But social scientists were already using the notion of networks and nodes to map out human relations and calculate just how closely we are connected.

In 1967, Harvard sociologist and psychologist Stanley Milgram, best known for his earlier Yale experiments on obedience to authority, published the results of a study about social connection that he called the "small world experiment." "Given any two people in the world, person X and person Z," he asked, "how many intermediate acquaintance links are needed before X and Z are connected?" Milgram's research, which involved sending out a kind of chain letter and tracing its journey to a particular target person, yielded an average number of 5.5 connections. The idea that we are all connected by "six degrees of separation" (a phrase later popularized by playwright John Guare) is now conventional wisdom.

But is it true? Duncan J. Watts, a professor at Columbia University and author of Six Degrees: The Science of a Connected Age, has embarked on a new small world project to test Milgram's theory. Similar in spirit to Milgram's work, it relies on e-mail to determine whether "any two people in the world can be connected via 'six degrees of separation.'" Unlike Milgram's experiment, which was restricted to the United States, Watts's project is global; as he and his colleagues reported in Science, "Targets included a professor at an Ivy League university, an archival inspector in Estonia, a technology consultant in India, a policeman in Australia, and a veterinarian in the Norwegian army." Their early results suggest that Milgram might have been right: messages reached their targets in five to seven steps, on average. Other social networking theorists are equally optimistic about the smallness of our wireless world. In Linked: The New Science of Networks, Albert-László Barabási enthuses, "The world is shrinking because social links that would have died out a hundred years ago are kept alive and can be easily activated. The number of social links an individual can actively maintain has increased dramatically, bringing down the degrees of separation. Milgram estimated six," Barabási writes. "We could be much closer these days to three."

What kind of "links" are these? In a 1973 essay, "The Strength of Weak Ties," sociologist Mark Granovetter argued that weaker relationships, such as those we form with colleagues at work or minor acquaintances, were more useful in spreading certain kinds of information than networks of close friends and family. Watts found a similar phenomenon in his online small world experiment: weak ties (largely professional ones) were more useful than strong ties for locating far-flung individuals, for example.

Today's online social networks are congeries of mostly weak ties—no one who lists thousands of "friends" on MySpace thinks of those people in the same way as he does his flesh-and-blood acquaintances, for example. It is surely no coincidence, then, that the activities social networking sites promote are precisely the ones weak ties foster, like rumor-mongering, gossip, finding people, and tracking the ever-shifting movements of popular culture and fad. If this is our small world, it is one that gives its greatest attention to small things.

Even more intriguing than the actual results of Milgram's small world experiment—our supposed closeness to each other—was the swiftness and credulity of the public in embracing those results. But as psychologist Judith Kleinfeld found when she delved into Milgram's research (much of which was methodologically flawed and never adequately replicated), entrenched barriers of race and social class undermine the idea that we live in a small world. Computer networks have not removed those barriers. As Watts and his colleagues conceded in describing their own digital small world experiment, "more than half of all participants resided in North America and were middle class, professional, college educated, and Christian."

Nevertheless, our need to believe in the possibility of a small world and in the power of connection is strong, as evidenced by the popularity and proliferation of contemporary online social networks. Perhaps the question we should be asking isn't how closely are we connected, but rather what kinds of communities and friendships are we creating?

Won't You Be My Digital Neighbor?

According to a survey recently conducted by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, more than half of all Americans between the ages of twelve and seventeen use some online social networking site. Indeed, media coverage of social networking sites usually describes them as vast teenage playgrounds—or wastelands, depending on one's perspective. Central to this narrative is a nearly unbridgeable generational divide, with tech-savvy youngsters redefining friendship while their doddering elders look on with bafflement and increasing anxiety. This seems anecdotally correct; I can't count how many times I have mentioned social networking websites to someone over the age of forty and received the reply, "Oh yes, I've heard about that MyFace! All the kids are doing that these days. Very interesting!"

Numerous articles have chronicled adults' attempts to navigate the world of social networking, such as the recent New York Times essay in which columnist Michelle Slatalla described the incredible embarrassment she caused her teenage daughter when she joined Facebook: "everyone in the whole world thinks its super creepy when adults have facebooks," her daughter instant-messaged her. "unfriend paige right now. im serious.... i will be soo mad if you dont unfriend paige right now. actually." In fact, social networking sites are not only for the young. More than half of the visitors to MySpace claim to be over the age of 35. And now that the first generation of college Facebook users have graduated, and the site is open to all, more than half of Facebook users are no longer students. What's more, the proliferation of niche social networking sites, including those aimed at adults, suggests that it is not only teenagers who will nurture relationships in virtual space for the foreseeable future.

What characterizes these online communities in which an increasing number of us are spending our time? Social networking sites have a peculiar psychogeography. As researchers at the Pew project have noted, the proto-social networking sites of a decade ago used metaphors of place to organize their members: people were linked through virtual cities, communities, and homepages. In 1997, GeoCities boasted thirty virtual "neighborhoods" in which "homesteaders" or "GeoCitizens" could gather—"Heartland" for family and parenting tips, "SouthBeach" for socializing, "Vienna" for classical music aficionados, "Broadway" for theater buffs, and so on. By contrast, today's social networking sites organize themselves around metaphors of the person, with individual profiles that list hobbies and interests. As a result, one's entrée into this world generally isn't through a virtual neighborhood or community but through the revelation of personal information. And unlike a neighborhood, where one usually has a general knowledge of others who live in the area, social networking sites are gatherings of deracinated individuals, none of whose personal boastings and musings are necessarily trustworthy. Here, the old arbiters of community—geographic location, family, role, or occupation—have little effect on relationships.

Also, in the offline world, communities typically are responsible for enforcing norms of privacy and general etiquette. In the online world, which is unfettered by the boundaries of real-world communities, new etiquette challenges abound. For example, what do you do with a "friend" who posts inappropriate comments on your Wall? What recourse do you have if someone posts an embarrassing picture of you on his MySpace page? What happens when a friend breaks up with someone—do you defriend the ex? If someone "friends" you and you don't accept the overture, how serious a rejection is it? Some of these scenarios can be resolved with split-second snap judgments; others can provoke days of agonizing.

Enthusiasts of social networking argue that these sites are not merely entertaining; they also edify by teaching users about the rules of social space. As Danah Boyd, a graduate student studying social networks at the University of California, Berkeley, told the authors of MySpace Unraveled, social networking promotes "informal learning.... It's where you learn social norms, rules, how to interact with others, narrative, personal and group history, and media literacy." This is more a hopeful assertion than a proven fact, however. The question that isn't asked is how the technology itself—the way it encourages us to present ourselves and interact—limits or imposes on that process of informal learning. All communities expect their members to internalize certain norms. Even individuals in the transient communities that form in public spaces obey these rules, for the most part; for example, patrons of libraries are expected to keep noise to a minimum. New technologies are challenging such norms—cell phones ring during church sermons; blaring televisions in doctors' waiting rooms make it difficult to talk quietly—and new norms must develop to replace the old. What cues are young, avid social networkers learning about social space? What unspoken rules and communal norms have the millions of participants in these online social networks internalized, and how have these new norms influenced their behavior in the offline world?

Social rules and norms are not merely the strait-laced conceits of a bygone era; they serve a protective function. I know a young woman—attractive, intelligent, and well-spoken—who, like many other people in their twenties, joined Facebook as a college student when it launched. When she and her boyfriend got engaged, they both updated their relationship status to "Engaged" on their profiles and friends posted congratulatory messages on her Wall.

But then they broke off the engagement. And a funny thing happened. Although she had already told a few friends and family members that the relationship was over, her ex decided to make it official in a very twenty-first century way: he changed his status on his profile from "Engaged" to "Single." Facebook immediately sent out a feed to every one of their mutual "friends" announcing the news, "Mr. X and Ms. Y are no longer in a relationship," complete with an icon of a broken heart. When I asked the young woman how she felt about this, she said that although she assumed her friends and acquaintances would eventually hear the news, there was something disconcerting about the fact that everyone found out about it instantaneously; and since the message came from Facebook, rather than in a face-to-face exchange initiated by her, it was devoid of context—save for a helpful notation of the time and that tacky little heart.

Indecent Exposure

Enthusiasts praise social networking for presenting chances for identity-play; they see opportunities for all of us to be little Van Goghs and Warhols, rendering quixotic and ever-changing versions of ourselves for others to enjoy. Instead of a palette of oils, we can employ services such as PimpMySpace.org, which offers "layouts, graphics, background, and more!" to gussy up an online presentation of self, albeit in a decidedly raunchy fashion: Among the most popular graphics used by PimpMySpace clients on a given day in June 2007 were short video clips of two women kissing and another of a man and an obese woman having sex; a picture of a gleaming pink handgun; and an image of the cartoon character SpongeBob SquarePants, looking alarmed and uttering a profanity.

This kind of coarseness and vulgarity is commonplace on social networking sites for a reason: it's an easy way to set oneself apart. Pharaohs and kings once celebrated themselves by erecting towering statues or, like the emperor Augustus, placing their own visages on coins. But now, as the insightful technology observer Jaron Lanier has written, "Since there are only a few archetypes, ideals, or icons to strive for in comparison to the vastness of instances of everything online, quirks and idiosyncrasies stand out better than grandeur in this new domain. I imagine Augustus' MySpace page would have pictured him picking his nose." And he wouldn't be alone. Indeed, this is one of the characteristics of MySpace most striking to anyone who spends a few hours trolling its millions of pages: it is an overwhelmingly dull sea of monotonous uniqueness, of conventional individuality, of distinctive sameness.

The world of online social networking is practically homogenous in one other sense, however diverse it might at first appear: its users are committed to self-exposure. The creation and conspicuous consumption of intimate details and images of one's own and others' lives is the main activity in the online social networking world. There is no room for reticence; there is only revelation. Quickly peruse a profile and you know more about a potential acquaintance in a moment than you might have learned about a flesh-and-blood friend in a month. As one college student recently described to the New York Times Magazine: "You might run into someone at a party, and then you Facebook them: what are their interests? Are they crazy-religious, is their favorite quote from the Bible? Everyone takes great pains over presenting themselves. It's like an embodiment of your personality."

It seems that in our headlong rush to join social networking sites, many of us give up one of the Internet's supposed charms: the promise of anonymity. As Michael Kinsley noted in Slate, in order to "stake their claims as unique individuals," users enumerate personal information: "Here is a list of my friends. Here are all the CDs in my collection. Here is a picture of my dog." Kinsley is not impressed; he judges these sites "vast celebrations of solipsism."

Social networkers, particularly younger users, are often naïve or ill-informed about the amount of information they are making publicly available. "One cannot help but marvel at the amount, detail, and nature of the personal information some users provide, and ponder how informed this information sharing can be," Carnegie Mellon researchers Alessandro Acquisti and Ralph Gross wrote in 2006. In a survey of Facebook users at their university, Acquisti and Gross "detected little or no relation between participants' reported privacy attitudes and their likelihood" of publishing personal information online. Even among the students in the survey who claimed to be most concerned about their privacy—the ones who worried about "the scenario in which a stranger knew their schedule of classes and where they lived"—about 40 percent provided their class schedule on Facebook, about 22 percent put their address on Facebook, and almost 16 percent published both.

This kind of carelessness has provided fodder for many sensationalist news stories. To cite just one: In 2006, NBC's Dateline featured a police officer posing as a 19-year-old boy who was new in town. Although not grounded in any particular local community, the imposter quickly gathered more than 100 friends for his MySpace profile and began corresponding with several teenage girls. Although the girls claimed to be careful about the kind of information they posted online, when Dateline revealed that their new friend was actually an adult male who had figured out their names and where they lived, they were surprised. The danger posed by strangers who use social networking sites to prey on children is real; there have been several such cases. This danger was highlighted in July 2007 when MySpace booted from its system 29,000 sex offenders who had signed up for memberships using their real names. There is no way of knowing how many sex offenders have MySpace accounts registered under fake names.

There are also professional risks to putting too much information on social networking sites, just as for several years there have been career risks associated with personal homepages and blogs. A survey conducted in 2006 by researchers at the University of Dayton found that "40 percent of employers say they would consider the Facebook profile of a potential employee as part of their hiring decision, and several reported rescinding offers after checking out Facebook." Yet college students' reaction to this fact suggests that they have a different understanding of privacy than potential employers: 42 percent thought it was a violation of privacy for employers to peruse their profiles, and "64 percent of students said employers should not consider Facebook profiles during the hiring process."

This is a quaintly Victorian notion of privacy, embracing the idea that individuals should be able to compartmentalize and parcel out parts of their personalities in different settings. It suggests that even behavior of a decidedly questionable or hypocritical bent (the Victorian patriarch who also cavorts with prostitutes, for example, or the straight-A business major who posts picture of himself funneling beer on his MySpace page) should be tolerated if appropriately segregated. But when one's darker side finds expression in a virtual space, privacy becomes more difficult and true compartmentalization nearly impossible; on the Internet, private misbehavior becomes public exhibitionism.

In many ways, the manners and mores that have already developed in the world of online social networking suggest that these sites promote gatherings of what psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton has called "protean selves." Named after Proteus, the Greek sea god of many forms, the protean self evinces "mockery and self-mockery, irony, absurdity, and humor." (Indeed, the University of Dayton survey found that "23 percent [of students] said they intentionally misrepresented themselves [on Facebook] to be funny or as a joke.") Also, Lifton argues, "the emotions of the protean self tend to be free-floating, not clearly tied to cause or target." So, too, with protean communities: "Not just individual emotions but communities as well may be free-floating," Lifton writes, "removed geographically and embraced temporarily and selectively, with no promise of permanence." This is precisely the appeal of online social networking. These sites make certain kinds of connections easier, but because they are governed not by geography or community mores but by personal whim, they free users from the responsibilities that tend to come with membership in a community. This fundamentally changes the tenor of the relationships that form there, something best observed in the way social networks treat friendship.

The New Taxonomy of Friendship

There is a Spanish proverb that warns, "Life without a friend is death without a witness." In the world of online social networking, the warning might be simpler: "Life without hundreds of online 'friends' is virtual death." On these sites, friendship is the stated raison d'être. "A place for friends," is the slogan of MySpace. Facebook is a "social utility that connects people with friends." Orkut describes itself as "an online community that connects people through a network of trusted friends." Friendster's name speaks for itself.

But "friendship" in these virtual spaces is thoroughly different from real-world friendship. In its traditional sense, friendship is a relationship which, broadly speaking, involves the sharing of mutual interests, reciprocity, trust, and the revelation of intimate details over time and within specific social (and cultural) contexts. Because friendship depends on mutual revelations that are concealed from the rest of the world, it can only flourish within the boundaries of privacy; the idea of public friendship is an oxymoron.

The hypertext link called "friendship" on social networking sites is very different: public, fluid, and promiscuous, yet oddly bureaucratized. Friendship on these sites focuses a great deal on collecting, managing, and ranking the people you know. Everything about MySpace, for example, is designed to encourage users to gather as many friends as possible, as though friendship were philately. If you are so unfortunate as to have but one MySpace friend, for example, your page reads: "You have 1 friends," along with a stretch of sad empty space where dozens of thumbnail photos of your acquaintances should appear.

This promotes a form of frantic friend procurement. As one young Facebook user with 800 friends told John Cassidy in The New Yorker, "I always find the competitive spirit in me wanting to up the number." An associate dean at Purdue University recently boasted to the Christian Science Monitor that since establishing a Facebook profile, he had collected more than 700 friends. The phrase universally found on MySpace is, "Thanks for the add!"—an acknowledgment by one user that another has added you to his list of friends. There are even services like FriendFlood.com that act as social networking pimps: for a fee, they will post messages on your page from an attractive person posing as your "friend." As the founder of one such service told the New York Times in February 2007, he wanted to "turn cyberlosers into social-networking magnets."

The structure of social networking sites also encourages the bureaucratization of friendship. Each site has its own terminology, but among the words that users employ most often is "managing." The Pew survey mentioned earlier found that "teens say social networking sites help them manage their friendships." There is something Orwellian about the management-speak on social networking sites: "Change My Top Friends," "View All of My Friends" and, for those times when our inner Stalins sense the need for a virtual purge, "Edit Friends." With a few mouse clicks one can elevate or downgrade (or entirely eliminate) a relationship.

To be sure, we all rank our friends, albeit in unspoken and intuitive ways. One friend might be a good companion for outings to movies or concerts; another might be someone with whom you socialize in professional settings; another might be the kind of person for whom you would drop everything if he needed help. But social networking sites allow us to rank our friends publicly. And not only can we publicize our own preferences in people, but we can also peruse the favorites among our other acquaintances. We can learn all about the friends of our friends—often without having ever met them in person.

Status-Seekers

Of course, it would be foolish to suggest that people are incapable of making distinctions between social networking "friends" and friends they see in the flesh. The use of the word "friend" on social networking sites is a dilution and a debasement, and surely no one with hundreds of MySpace or Facebook "friends" is so confused as to believe those are all real friendships. The impulse to collect as many "friends" as possible on a MySpace page is not an expression of the human need for companionship, but of a different need no less profound and pressing: the need for status. Unlike the painted portraits that members of the middle class in a bygone era would commission to signal their elite status once they rose in society, social networking websites allow us to create status—not merely to commemorate the achievement of it. There is a reason that most of the MySpace profiles of famous people are fakes, often created by fans: Celebrities don't need legions of MySpace friends to prove their importance. It's the rest of the population, seeking a form of parochial celebrity, that does.

But status-seeking has an ever-present partner: anxiety. Unlike a portrait, which, once finished and framed, hung tamely on the wall signaling one's status, maintaining status on MySpace or Facebook requires constant vigilance. As one 24-year-old wrote in a New York Times essay, "I am obsessed with testimonials and solicit them incessantly. They are the ultimate social currency, public declarations of the intimacy status of a relationship.... Every profile is a carefully planned media campaign."

The sites themselves were designed to encourage this. Describing the work of B.J. Fogg of Stanford University, who studies "persuasion strategies" used by social networking sites to increase participation, The New Scientist noted, "The secret is to tie the acquisition of friends, compliments and status—spoils that humans will work hard for—to activities that enhance the site." As Fogg told the magazine, "You offer someone a context for gaining status, and they are going to work for that status." Network theorist Albert-László Barabási notes that online connection follows the rule of "preferential attachment"—that is, "when choosing between two pages, one with twice as many links as the other, about twice as many people link to the more connected page." As a result, "while our individual choices are highly unpredictable, as a group we follow strict patterns." Our lemming-like pursuit of online status via the collection of hundreds of "friends" clearly follows this rule.

What, in the end, does this pursuit of virtual status mean for community and friendship? Writing in the 1980s in Habits of the Heart, sociologist Robert Bellah and his colleagues documented the movement away from close-knit, traditional communities, to "lifestyle enclaves" which were defined largely by "leisure and consumption." Perhaps today we have moved beyond lifestyle enclaves and into "personality enclaves" or "identity enclaves"—discrete virtual places in which we can be different (and sometimes contradictory) people, with different groups of like-minded, though ever-shifting, friends.

Beyond Networking

This past spring, Len Harmon, the director of the Fischer Policy and Cultural Institute at Nichols College in Dudley, Massachusetts, offered a new course about social networking. Nichols is a small school whose students come largely from Connecticut and Massachusetts; many of them are the first members of their families to attend college. "I noticed a lot of issues involved with social networking sites," Harmon told me when I asked him why he created the class. How have these sites been useful to Nichols students? "It has relieved some of the stress of transitions for them," he said. "When abrupt departures occur—their family moves or they have to leave friends behind—they can cope by keeping in touch more easily."

So perhaps we should praise social networking websites for streamlining friendship the way e-mail streamlined correspondence. In the nineteenth century, Emerson observed that "friendship requires more time than poor busy men can usually command." Now, technology has given us the freedom to tap into our network of friends when it is convenient for us. "It's a way of maintaining a friendship without having to make any effort whatsoever," as a recent graduate of Harvard explained to The New Yorker. And that ease admittedly makes it possible to stay in contact with a wider circle of offline acquaintances than might have been possible in the era before Facebook. Friends you haven't heard from in years, old buddies from elementary school, people you might have (should have?) fallen out of touch with—it is now easier than ever to reconnect to those people.

But what kind of connections are these? In his excellent book Friendship: An Exposé, Joseph Epstein praises the telephone and e-mail as technologies that have greatly facilitated friendship. He writes, "Proust once said he didn't much care for the analogy of a book to a friend. He thought a book was better than a friend, because you could shut it—and be shut of it—when you wished, which one can't always do with a friend." With e-mail and caller ID, Epstein enthuses, you can. But social networking sites (which Epstein says "speak to the vast loneliness in the world") have a different effect: they discourage "being shut of" people. On the contrary, they encourage users to check in frequently, "poke" friends, and post comments on others' pages. They favor interaction of greater quantity but less quality.

This constant connectivity concerns Len Harmon. "There is a sense of, 'if I'm not online or constantly texting or posting, then I'm missing something,'" he said of his students. "This is where I find the generational impact the greatest—not the use of the technology, but the overuse of the technology." It is unclear how the regular use of these sites will affect behavior over the long run—especially the behavior of children and young adults who are growing up with these tools. Almost no research has explored how virtual socializing affects children's development. What does a child weaned on Club Penguin learn about social interaction? How is an adolescent who spends her evenings managing her MySpace page different from a teenager who spends her night gossiping on the telephone to friends? Given that "people want to live their lives online," as the founder of one social networking site recently told Fast Company magazine, and they are beginning to do so at ever-younger ages, these questions are worth exploring.

The few studies that have emerged do not inspire confidence. Researcher Rob Nyland at Brigham Young University recently surveyed 184 users of social networking sites and found that heavy users "feel less socially involved with the community around them." He also found that "as individuals use social networking more for entertainment, their level of social involvement decreases." Another recent study conducted by communications professor Qingwen Dong and colleagues at the University of the Pacific found that "those who engaged in romantic communication over MySpace tend to have low levels of both emotional intelligence and self-esteem."

The implications of the narcissistic and exhibitionistic tendencies of social networkers also cry out for further consideration. There are opportunity costs when we spend so much time carefully grooming ourselves online. Given how much time we already devote to entertaining ourselves with technology, it is at least worth asking if the time we spend on social networking sites is well spent. In investing so much energy into improving how we present ourselves online, are we missing chances to genuinely improve ourselves?

We should also take note of the trend toward giving up face-to-face for virtual contact—and, in some cases, a preference for the latter. Today, many of our cultural, social, and political interactions take place through eminently convenient technological surrogates—Why go to the bank if you can use the ATM? Why browse in a bookstore when you can simply peruse the personalized selections Amazon.com has made for you? In the same vein, social networking sites are often convenient surrogates for offline friendship and community. In this context it is worth considering an observation that Stanley Milgram made in 1974, regarding his experiments with obedience: "The social psychology of this century reveals a major lesson," he wrote. "Often it is not so much the kind of person a man is as the kind of situation in which he finds himself that determines how he will act." To an increasing degree, we find and form our friendships and communities in the virtual world as well as the real world. These virtual networks greatly expand our opportunities to meet others, but they might also result in our valuing less the capacity for genuine connection. As the young woman writing in the Times admitted, "I consistently trade actual human contact for the more reliable high of smiles on MySpace, winks on Match.com, and pokes on Facebook." That she finds these online relationships more reliable is telling: it shows a desire to avoid the vulnerability and uncertainty that true friendship entails. Real intimacy requires risk—the risk of disapproval, of heartache, of being thought a fool. Social networking websites may make relationships more reliable, but whether those relationships can be humanly satisfying remains to be seen.

Christine Rosen is a senior editor of The New Atlantis and a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.

Christine Rosen, "Virtual Friendship and the New Narcissism," The New Atlantis, Number 17, Summer 2007, pp. 15-31.

A Free Night of Amazing Music.

2007-10-04T11:20:00.000-06:00

For a minute there, I thought I was in NYC at Central Park....... simply amazing! The San Antonio Jazz Festival is stepping it up a bit! Arturo Sandoval was phenomenal. I felt transported - that feeling that only comes from the high of hearing and watching an incredible musician/performer/artist!

Paris Hilton on David Letterman

2007-10-04T10:34:00.000-06:00

This is just hilarious!!! I am glad somoene finally made fun of her in public, to her face, instead of extolling her achievements an an actress and singer!!!!

San Antonio Museum of Art Photos Taken By Gabriel

2007-08-19T10:37:00.003-06:00

Los Desaparecidos at Museo Del Barrio

2007-04-26T19:17:00.001-06:00

Feb 23 - June 17, 2007

I saw this exhibit today. "Los Desaparecidos". I really like political art, but this exhibit was a bit intense even for me. The security guard asked me if I was okay as I walked out of the exhibit. I don' t know if I looked upset, or if I was just pale after seeing all the installations. The exhibit was upsetting. One of the artists whose work really struck me was a Colombian artist by the name of Oscar Muñoz. The name of his piece was "Project for a Memorial" wherein there are 4 television screens with a separate video on each. They are videos of him sketching a man's face with water on a rock. As he drew some other feature of the same face, the other parts of the drawing dried and disappeared. It was so frustrating to watch it over and over again.

The photograph of the Rio de la Plata where the bodies of political dissidents were dumped after having been sedated was hard to look at - the river looked cold and unforgiving and yet that is how many people met their fate.

Another artist whose work struck me was Luis Camnitzer , and one photo in particular that read, "He was losing his will to clarify."

New York, NY – January 30, 2007 –-El Museo del Barrio, New York’s premier Latino and Latin American cultural institution, will present The Disappeared (Los Desaparecidos) from February 23 – June 17, 2007. This traveling exhibition, organized by the North Dakota Museum of Art and curated by Laurel Reuter, brings together visual artists’ responses to the tens of thousands of persons who were kidnapped, tortured, killed and “vanished” in Latin America by repressive right-wing military dictatorships during the late-1950s to the 1980s.

The Disappeared (Los Desaparecidos) gathers 14 contemporary living artists from seven countries in Central and South America (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Guatemala, Uruguay and Venezuela), all of whose work contends with the horrors and violence stemming from the totalitarian regimes in each of their nations during the mid- to late-20 th century. Some of the artists worked in the resistance; some had parents or siblings who were disappeared; others were forced into exile. The youngest were born into the aftermath of those dictatorships. And still others have lived in countries maimed by endless civil war. These artists whose work is represented in the exhibition are Marcelo Brodsky , Luis Camnitzer , Arturo Duclos , Juan Manuel Echavarría , Antonio Frasconi , Nicolás Guagnini , Nelson Leirner, Sara Maneiro , Cildo Meireles , Oscar Muñoz , Ivan Navarro , Luis González Palma , Ana Tiscornia and Fernando Traverso . Also included is a collaborative installation Identity/Identidad by a collective of 13 Argentinean artists.

The range of visual languages -- drawings, prints, photographs, installations and mixed media -- incorporated in The Disappeared (Los Desaparecidos) frequently employs similar forms to evoke the presence of the missing person or persons. Bodies, faces, personal possessions and names, often methodically compiled and arranged, appear both boldly and subtly throughout the work in the exhibition. “Through their intense visual and emotional impact, these works communicate the unspeakable and reveal the artist’s assumed role of social responsibility towards ending the silence surrounding these extreme cases of human rights violations,” says Julián Zugazagoitia, Director of El Museo del Barrio. “In this context of public awareness and education through art, El Museo, as the only venue in the Eastern United States for this internationally traveling exhibition, aims to assemble as broad an audience as possible to confront and preserve the memory of these recent historical tragedies.”

Free public programs for adults, educators and children will be offered in relation to the exhibition and to encourage dialogue among viewers. Scheduled programming includes a series of film screenings, monthly family tours and workshops, an evening of music as a tribute to los desaparecidos in March, and an artist panel moderated by Columbia University Professor Andreas Huyssen on May 23. A bilingual illustrated color exhibition catalogue written by Laurel Reuter and Lawrence Weschler and produced by Charta , Italy with funding from The Lannan Foundation will accompany The Disappeared (Los Desaparecidos).

Support for this exhibition has been provided by the Otto Bremer Foundation, the Andy Warhol Foundation and the Lannan Foundation.

Major funding for the presentation of The Disappeared (Los Desaparecidos) at El Museo del Barrio provided by the Oak Foundation. Additional support provided by Mahnaz I. and Adam Bartos and by Open Society Institute.

About El Museo del Barrio

El Museo del Barrio is New York ’s premier Latino cultural institution, representing the diversity of art and culture in the Caribbean and Latin America . As one of the leading Latino and Latin American museums in the nation, El Museo continues to have a significant impact on the cultural life of New York City and is a major stop on Manhattan’s Museum Mile as well as a cornerstone of el barrio, the Spanish-speaking neighborhood that extends from 96 th Street to the Harlem River and from Fifth Avenue to the East River on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. El Museo was founded in 1969 by artist and educator Rafael Montañez Ortiz in response to the interest of Puerto Rican parents, educators, artists and activists in East Harlem who were concerned that their cultural experience was not being represented by New York ’s major museums. In 1994, corresponding to substantial local and national demographic changes, El Museo broadened its mission to present and preserve the art and culture of Puerto Ricans and all Latin American and Latino communities throughout the United States.

El Museo’s varied permanent collection of over 6,500 objects from the Caribbean and Latin America includes pre-Columbian Taíno artifacts, traditional arts, twentieth-century prints, drawings, paintings, sculptures and installations, as well as photography, documentary films and video. Through the sustained excellence of its collections, exhibitions, publications and bilingual public programming, El Museo reaches out to diverse audiences and serves as a bridge and catalyst between Latinos, their extraordinary cultural heritage, and the rich artistic offerings of New York City .

El Museo del Barrio is located at 1230 Fifth Avenue between 104th and 105th Streets and may be reached by subway: #6 to 103rd Street station at Lexington Avenue; #2, #3 to Central Park North/110 th Street station or by bus: M1, M3, M4 on Madison and Fifth Avenues to 104th Street; local crosstown service between Yorkville or East Harlem and the Upper West Side in Manhattan M96 and M106 or M2. Museum hours: Wednesday - Sunday, 11AM to 5PM . Closed on Monday and Tuesday. Suggested museum admission: $6 adults; $4 students and seniors; members and children under 12 accompanied by an adult enter free. To learn more about El Museo, please visit our website at www.elmuseo.org or call 212-831-7272.

'Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic' - Chalmers Johnson

2007-03-18T11:19:00.002-06:00

I was driving around town running some errands the other day when I caught an interview on NPR, Talk of the Nation. It was an interview of Chalmers Johnson! I went to go buy the book that very same day! It is pretty depressing book, but puts in writing the conversation I have been having in my head for the past 8 years and with friends, as well !!!

You can catch the stream of the interview on NPR. The link is below!

'Nemesis' Tells of U.S. in Peril

February 27, 2007 ·

A year before the attacks of Sept. 11, Chalmers Johnson warned that decades of secret U.S. operations overseas would bring disaster at home. Johnson talks about his book Nemesis, and what he calls the last days of the American republic.

"México: el racismo que no se nombra"

2007-02-05T13:37:00.001-06:00

México: el racismo que no se nombra, por Francesca Gargallo 24/11/05

A pesar de las evidencias abrumadoras, en nuestro país se sigue negando la existencia de prácticas de discriminación racial. El presidente puede hablar de los trabajos que ni los negros hacen y unos sindicalistas pintar suásticas en Paseo de la Reforma. Nada pasa. Quizá porque el racismo a la mexicana es, digamos, "más sutil" o porque el nuestro es un racismo sobre todo contra los indígenas y los morenos en general, un racismo de exclusión

Nadie en México admite ser racista, así como nadie quiere verse más oscuro de lo que un canon no dicho de aceptación social exige. Según el Consejo Nacional para prevenir la Discriminación (Conapred), 40% de los mexicanos está dispuesto a organizarse con otras personas para solicitar que no se establezca cerca de su comunidad un grupo de indígenas. Y es lógico, pues 43% opina que los indígenas tendrán siempre una limitación social por sus características raciales.

La declaración del presidente Vicente Fox sobre los trabajos que ni los negros quieren, declaración de la que nunca se retractó, demuestra el vergonzante racismo que todos padecemos.

¿Qué es el racismo para que la mayoría de las personas se sientan intimidadas frente a su sola mención? La Real Academia ofrece dos definiciones: "exacerbación del sentido racial de un grupo étnico, especialmente cuando convive con otros", la primera; y "doctrina antropológica o política basada en este sentimiento y que en ocasiones ha motivado la persecución de un grupo étnico considerado como inferior", la segunda. Dicho de esta forma, el racismo parecería algo casi limpio, libre de connotaciones económicas, de género o de acceso a los servicios públicos. Peor aún, una especie de locura o de fobia, individual o colectiva: una "enfermedad" de la que ninguna persona es plenamente responsable.

Por ello, una amiga en París pudo soltar durante una cena: "De Bush puede decirse cualquier cosa, menos que sea racista. Mira que nombrar a una mujer negra en la Secretaría de Estado...". Según ella no existe razón alguna para llamar racista a un presidente que redujo los fondos para la manutención de los diques de Nueva Orleáns: fue un mal cálculo económico que sería tendencioso relacionar con el hecho que la capital de Luisiana estaba habitada precisamente en 80% por población negra y pobre.

Las dos definiciones tampoco explican el racismo que no se nombra en México. No hay corriente o partido político que reivindique algún tipo de superioridad racial y la oficial definición de México como país mestizo acalla cualquier exaltación de un grupo étnico. No obstante, es indudable que los habitantes de los 62 pueblos indios y las minorías negra y asiática de México sufren discriminación, invisibilización, pauperización y difícil acceso a los servicios públicos como consecuencia de una discriminación racial tan difusa como negada.

Durante el Foro Regional de México y Centroamérica sobre Racismo, Discriminación e Intolerancia, que se llevó a cabo en la ciudad de México en noviembre de 2000, Ariel Dulitzky afirmó que la discriminación racial es negada en América Latina y que este afán por ocultar, tergiversar o encubrir el racismo dificulta las medidas efectivas que pueden tomarse en su contra. La igualdad, sea racial, de género, étnica, religiosa u económica, dista aún de ser vista en la región como un requisito esencial y fundacional de la democracia. Todo acto de racismo es, por lo tanto, negado "aquí no estamos en Europa donde queman a los migrantes", interpretado "decir que los indios no tienen cultura no es racismo, es que no tienen acceso a la escuela" o justificado "sí, se les metió a la cárcel, pero no entendíamos qué decían, no hablan español".

Los chistes, en México, ridiculizan todos los grupos raciales y étnicos que no sean el mayoritario o el de elite (blancos ricos), subrayando algunas de las características propias de su condición de marginados. Al mismo tiempo que no puede verse un solo comercial televisivo o cartel publicitario en el que aparezca un bebé o niño de rasgos indígenas, ser indio es sinónimo de ser inculto y portarse como ranchero es demostrar timidez o poco savoir faire; los negros se cenan entre sí y nadie puede diferenciar a un chino de otro. Todos los lugares comunes del racismo están comúnmente en nuestras bocas y no hay familia que no esgrima un abuelo español, una tía inglesa o un primo francés para subir de categoría social.

El mestizaje encubridor

Mestiza es la persona que nació de madre y padre con fenotipos distintos o pertenecientes a etnias de culturas diversas. En México y Centroamérica es la persona hija de europeo y amerindia, aparentemente sin preferencia hacia ninguna de sus raíces. No obstante, el mestizaje encubre una gran mentira, la de la armonía entre grupos étnicos y raciales gracias a la violencia sexual colonial, que sigue siendo cimiento de las jerarquías de género y de raza en la actualidad. De hecho, el papel de las mujeres indígenas y negras es rechazado en la formación de la cultura nacional; la desigualdad entre hombres y mujeres es erotizada; y la violencia sexual contra las amerindias y negras ha sido convertida en un romance, como en el caso de Cortés y la Malinche. Según la brasileña Ángela Gilliam, a este conjunto de prácticas culturales, a la vez sexistas y racistas, se le podría llamar en América "la gran teoría del esperma blanco en la formación nacional". Quizá por eso entre los mestizos ser güero es poder reivindicar un padre o bien creerse superior, hermoso y con derechos.

Al fin y al cabo, conquista, colonización y racismo han sido indisociables y la cultura colonialista no ha desaparecido con la independencia política. La violencia es hija de esta tríada que hambrea, mata y ofende por segregación.

El colombiano Carlos Arocha Rodríguez insiste: la idea que todos somos mestizos, todos somos café con leche, todos tenemos sangre indígena o negra, impide el desarrollo y la identificación de grupos raciales específicos. Mientras este mito se utiliza para impedir el desarrollo de identidades y reivindicaciones propias, no se le utiliza para conseguir mayor grado de igualdad e integración social. La ideología oficial del mestizaje transforma a la diversidad en invisible, niega el derecho al disenso y permite, al mismo tiempo, la exclusión de todos aquellos que quedan fuera de la norma del mestizo. De hecho, aunque todos seamos mestizos, a los más blancos les va mejor.

En México, el mestizaje fue una "invención" de los liberales criollos cuando, al finalizar la guerra de Independencia, tuvieron que construir al "ciudadano" para no reconocer a los pueblos indios ni su protagonismo ni sus derechos ancestrales, que eran incompatibles con el proyecto capitalista. Mestizo era alguien que no se identificaría con lo indio, a la vez que era descartado como blanco. Desde entonces, el imperativo categórico de los que querían llegar lejos era el de "mejorar la raza", que se traducía en "casarse con una güerita". Hoy la Iglesia católica ha venido a reforzarles el poder de la confusión: ha beatificado al indio Juan Diego, cuyo retrato oficial lo muestra tan barbado como un español.

Según Sueli Carneiro, las que podrían ser consideradas historias o reminiscencias del periodo colonial permanecen vivas en el imaginario social y adquieren nuevos ropajes y funciones en un orden social supuestamente democrático que mantiene intactas las relaciones de género según el color, la raza, la lengua que se habla y la religión instituidas en el periodo de los encomenderos y los esclavistas.

La extensión y perdurabilidad de estas prácticas, que acompañan el mito de la democracia racial de los mestizos, llevan a que la población en general esté poco dispuesta a explicar las disparidades sociales en términos de inequidades raciales, prefiriendo las explicaciones basadas en disparidades económicas. La primera Encuesta Nacional sobre Discriminación en México, de 2005, revela que uno de cada tres mexicanos opina que lo único que deben hacer los indígenas para salir de la pobreza es no comportarse como indígenas.

En 1994, el Comité para la Eliminación de la Discriminación Racial de la OEA observó que México "no parece percatarse de que la discriminación latente que padecen 56 grupos de indígenas (...) queda comprendida en la definición de discriminación racial... Es inadecuada la descripción de la difícil situación de esos grupos como una mera participación desigual en el desarrollo socioeconómico". Amnistía Internacional hoy ratifica que en la base de las desapariciones, invasiones de tierras, encarcelamientos arbitrarios, violencia contra las mujeres, pobreza y baja escolaridad en las zonas indígenas de México está el racismo.

La justificación de la discriminación por motivos de clase antes que de raza es un corolario de la premisa de la democracia racial y la máscara ideológica de las sociedades monolíticamente mestizas, con sus supuestas ausencias de prejuicios y discriminación. Si existe armonía racial porque hay sólo una raza (la mestiza), todas las diferencias deben explicarse en función de la pobreza, estatus social, educación. Nunca debe inferirse que la ausencia o escasez de servicios públicos a una determinada comunidad por su pertenencia étnica sea el factor que provoca su baja escolaridad, pobreza y marginación. Según Dulitzky, el sólo planteamiento de la cuestión racial es visto como algo foráneo mediante el cual se procura traer al país problemas que pertenecen a Estados Unidos (modelo del odio racial frente al que todas las demás organizaciones sociales deben ser comparadas).

El racismo en pocas palabras

El dirigente maya Genaro Serech Sem describe al racismo en estos términos: "una creencia, una imaginación de las diferencias creadas en provecho de los explotadores contra el pueblo maya, para justificar sus privilegios y agresiones. El racismo en su esencia expresa prejuicios desfavorables, repugnancia, miedo, desconfianza, desprecio, hostilidad y odio hacia el pueblo maya, como mecanismo para esconder el estado de dominación, opresión y explotación que se ha cometido contra nuestro pueblo".

Nueve de cada diez indígenas entrevistados por el Conapred opinan que en México son discriminados por su condición, que tienen menos oportunidades para conseguir trabajo y para ir a la escuela que el resto de las personas. Dos de cada tres aseguran que son nulas las posibilidades de mejorar sus condiciones de vida y que no se les respetan sus derechos. A uno de cada cinco se le ha negado trabajo por el simple hecho de ser indígena.

La mayoría de los representantes indígenas del país, al hablar de racismo, enumeran las discriminaciones de sus prácticas culturales, religiosas, médicas y jurídicas, en el plano educativo y en el acceso a la salud, así como la opresión por parte de las autoridades, en particular el ejército y la policía, y las invasiones de sus tierras por parte de ganaderos. No faltan las denuncias de genocidio y de encarcelamiento de indígenas en Oaxaca, como "forma habitual del sistema social y político".

En general, las personas que no aceptan la existencia del racismo en México, frente a las denuncias indígenas y sus reivindicaciones de autonomía, aluden a la resistencia de los indios a la igualdad, les exigen que se vuelvan "mexicanos", que se porten como mestizos oscuros, sin sus indumentarias, sin su historia, sin ninguna dignidad, como hijos del avasallante universalismo colonizador con el cual los racistas se identifican.

En México, la población indígena se concentra en el centro y sur del país. En 803 municipios hay 17 mil localidades eminentemente indígenas que, por su tamaño y dispersión, por el desinterés de la federación y el desvío de recursos, cargan con elevados grados de pobreza y aislamiento, carencias de servicios públicos y escasa comunicación. Resienten de manera grave las consecuencias de la descapitalización del campo, la falta de inversión productiva, los altos niveles de erosión del suelo, la escasa o mala calidad de la educación pública y la ausencia de servicios médicos. Las comunidades negras de Oaxaca, Guerrero y Veracruz padecen de los mismos males y, como las indígenas, son culpadas de ser sus causantes.

El racismo en la vida cotidiana

Recuerdo la impresión que me provocó hace unos diez años haber llegado a la farmacia de Huejuquilla el Alto, Jalisco, atiborrada de personas que esperaban ser atendidas. Fui llamada de inmediato al mostrador. Cuando dije que había muchos antes que yo, la dueña me explicó que los demás eran huicholes, es decir indios. Todavía lamento no haber tenido el coraje de aguantarme el dolor de muelas y salirme.

Lorenza Gutiérrez, de Huechapan, una comunidad mixta de Puebla, recuerda que en la escuela las niñas se diferenciaban por su ropa, por la lengua que hablaban y por cómo se peinaban, aunque el color de la piel y el tamaño eran iguales. Durante toda la primaria, cada día, una de sus compañeras de salón le jaló las trenzas para ver cómo se aguantaban las indias. Hoy participa en organizaciones productivas de mujeres y afirma que la verdadera condición de indio es la de pobre, más aun "aquí sólo el indio pobre es indio".

En mayo de 2005, un domingo por la mañana, Juanita Pérez Martínez, tojolabal de Las Margaritas, Chiapas, tuvo un día libre durante un taller para mujeres indígenas que se impartía en la ciudad de México. Decidió salir a pasear con tres compañeras con quienes se encontró en Tacubaya. Desde que se subieron al metro, la discriminación se hizo patente y adquirió varios matices de racismo: un grupo de jóvenes que iba rumbo a Chapultepec se mofó de ellas por su indumentaria; dos hombres mayores les instaron para no demorarse en las escaleras mecánicas; una señora les gritó desde el andén opuesto que necesitaba una sirvienta y se ofendió cuando le contestaron que no buscaban trabajo. Una vez en Xochimilco, a la más joven de ellas el lanchero intentó seducirla y hasta la jaló de un brazo; cuando ella se alejó con sus amigas, el hombre le gritó "india fea" y "desagradecida".

En 1986, el antropólogo Iván Gomezcésar, en el centro de San Cristóbal de las Casas, saludó a unas muchachas tzotziles que se disponían a vender dulces caseros en el suelo de la plaza; poco después, un grupo de muchachitos coletos les arrebató sus mercancías, frente a la mirada indiferente de dos policías, para desafiar al "chilango" que fraternizaba con los indios. Poco después, esperando hacer una llamada, vio como en una farmacia vendían a los hombres formados en fila "Aceite Huapo", un veneno en forma de alcohol, para que se envalentonaran y "hablaran castilla".

Al hoy filósofo tzotzil Miguel Hernández, quien habla y escribe tzeltal y chol además de su lengua, al inscribirse en primaria le dijeron que no sería capaz de aprender nada porque no era "hombre de razón", pues no se expresaba en español.

No vayamos más lejos, todos hemos escuchado a alguien así: la mamá en el restaurante al niño que acaba de tirar la botella de refresco: "¡No seas indio!". El padre de familia explicando al compadre que por las tareas que desempeña le pagan muy mal: "Trabajo como negro". La vendedora en la farmacia convenciendo a una clienta que la crema es realmente blanqueadora: "Se va a ver como güera". La joven saliendo de la maternidad donde fue a conocer al recién nacido de su mejor amiga: "Lástima que sea morenito". La clasemediera entrada en años atrincherada detrás de su parasol en la playa: "Es que el sol me hace daño, me quedo renegrida como costeña". La mujer en la peluquería: "Si tengo pelos en las piernas es porque no soy india".

Frente a actitudes como éstas (cualquier persona que quisiera abrir ojos y oídos podría percibirlas a su alrededor, pues son cotidianas), es evidente que seguir diciendo que en México no hay racismo es la mejor forma para no enfrentarlo y seguirlo tolerando. La discriminación como determinante de la pobreza y la desigualdad es un tema obviado; ya es hora de afirmar que es un verdadero impedimento para la vida democrática.

On Net Neutrality and Democracy !!

2007-01-19T22:51:00.000-06:00

I just saw an hour long report on Net Neutrality and the future of media by Bill Moyers on PBS. It is excellent specifically because the documentary we were working on dealt with many of the issues that Bill Moyers addressed!! For those of you who don't understand what Net Neutrality is and how it will impact your life, this is a great place to start!! Further, he had two authors on the show that are excellent: Mark Cooper and Eric Klineberg.

WATCH & LISTEN

Go here to watch the report and click on image that looks like this:

The Net at Risk

Check out the live discussion online.

Mike McCurry, co-chairman of Hands off the Internet, a coalition of telecommunication-related businesses, and Ben Scott, policy director of the nonpartisan public interest organization Free Press, which advocates in favor of net neutrality, and representative of SaveTheInternet.com, will respond to the program, each other, and to viewers' comments. Citizens Class on The Net at Risk.

The future of the Internet is up for grabs. Last year, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) effectively eliminated net neutrality rules, which ensured that every content creator on the Internet-from big-time media concerns to backroom bloggers-had equal opportunity to make their voice heard. Now, large and powerful corporations are lobbying Washington to turn the World Wide Web into what critics call a "toll road," threatening the equitability that has come to define global democracy's newest forum. Yet the public knows little about what's happening behind closed doors on Capitol Hill.

Some activists describe the ongoing debate this way: A small number of mega-media giants owns much of the content and controls the delivery of content on radio and television and in the press; if we let them take control of the Internet as well, immune from government regulation, who will pay the price? Their opponents say that the best way to encourage Internet innovation and technological advances is to let the market-not the federal government-determine the shape of the system.

"The genius of the Internet was that it made the First Amendment a living document again for millions of Americans," says Robert McChesney, a media scholar and activist and co-author of OUR MEDIA, NOT THEIRS. "The decisions that we're going be making ... are probably going to set our entire communication system, and, really, our entire society, on a course that it won't be able to change for generations."

With the MOYERS ON AMERICA series, we inaugurate Citizens Class, an extensive, interactive curriculum designed to encourage and facilitate public discourse on the issues raised in the series. The workshop features multimedia discussions, reference materials on the key perspectives presented in the program, and questions for further reflection-all designed to stimulate deep and thoughtful community dialogue. Interested? Check it out. In search of specific information? Just browsing? Select topics below to explore a range of issues, from the new digital divide, voices from the debate over net neutrality, to ways to find out who owns your local media.

NET NEUTRALITY

The debate is hot, the language heady, the metaphors many. Op-ed pages alternately bemoan "The End of the Internet" or curse "Net Neutrality Nonsense." Allegations fly about the stifling of free speech, the holding back of progress and corporate hegemony. Indeed, network neutrality has become something of a cause celebre in the digital world, pitting a slew of high-profile Internet content providers and consumer-advocacy groups against major phone and cable companies, and federal lawmakers against each other.

But what exactly is net neutrality, and why does it seem to have everyone from Google and Yahoo! to Verizon and AT&T concerned? In a nutshell, the issue involves the transmission of data over broadband networks (e.g. DSL or cable internet services). As the number of sites on the Internet continues to grow and the quality of data becomes more sophisticated-encompassing video and audio files and other multimedia applications-broadband service providers (generally cable and phone companies) are seeking to regulate how material flows to users through their increasingly taxed networks. For most large providers, this has come down to one general desire: They could establish a tiered system of content delivery in which companies with data-heavy content can pay a fee to the providers in return for "special treatment" in transmission. An analogy: For those companies that pay the fee, their content would breeze through the fast-pass lane at the toll bridge, reaching users more quickly; those who don't pay will be stuck in the crowded, slow-moving line, and users will have to wait longer for their content to load.

So why "neutrality?" Because since the Internet's inception, everyone, every site, regardless of the data load, has been given equal-i.e., neutral-treatment by providers, their content transmitted at equal speed. Net neutrality advocates argue that changing this system will give unfair advantage to deep-pocketed content providers, while start-ups, small businesses, and nonprofits who can't pay the piper will be unduly punished. The telecom proponents of the tiered system insist that they need these new fees (in addition to those paid by their users) to recoup the costs of updating their networks to handle all the new data-heavy content. Many also object to the additional government regulation and involvement that would be necessary to enforce net neutrality.

Neutrality supporters worry that without regulation, there's no guarantee that some traffic would move over the net at all. In other words, neutrality supporters say that only with regulation would internet users be guaranteed access to whatever they want to read, listen to, or watch online, and that without regulation, large telecom companies could block or censor things they don't like without consequence.

This past summer, Congress took up the issue. Following a huge lobbying campaign by both sides, including millions spent by the cable and phone corporations, the House voted down an amendment to the Act that would have made the Federal Communications Commission responsible for enforcing neutrality. In the Senate, a similar amendment was defeated in committee, but net neutrality legislators managed to table a vote on the telecommunications bill indefinitely in hopes that they can somehow force the issue back to the forefront.

Some lawmakers have said they are sympathetic to the cable and phone conglomerates' assertions that regulating the Internet isn't necessary. "A lot of us believe that we don't have a problem today," says Rep. Fred Upton, Chairman, Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, (R-MI). "And we're not going to overly regulate a product ... which might stifle the entrepreneurship and the progress we want to make in the future."

But other legislators are concerned about the implications of changing the longstanding Internet standard of neutrality, especially as the public becomes more aware and the battle heats up. The telephone and cable firms are proposing "the rules of monopolists, the rules of duopolists," says Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA), who led the fight in the House for net neutrality. "We have to go back to the rules which created the Internet."

What's more, the companies that deliver internet connections to most homes are increasingly in the business of generating content, as well, so supporters of neutrality worry that they'll be in a position to privilege their own content over competitors. For example, if AT&T decided to start its own online auction site, neutrality supporters say, the firm's customers might find themselves unable to use eBay — unless Congress protects net neutrality. Media watchers are worried that the Internet will follow the path of other media — where deregulation led to consolidation - and some would say — to fewer voices being heard. (Find out more about media consolidation.)

Find out more about the implications of pending legislation and the history of net neutrality-and let us hear your voice-in the MOYERS ON AMERICA Net Neutrality Citizens Class.

The word "HISPANIC" !!!

2007-01-18T16:41:00.000-06:00

I am chatting with the Berkley PhD Linguist and I am still fuming. Today I got into a heated "discussion"with a friend about the word "hispanic" because I invited him to event where "hispanic" constituted part of the organisation's name. In his opinion, he hates "fake and ignorant people" who call themselves "hispanic" but don't speak Spanish!! I guess I am more pissed he could not just shut his mouth long enough to mingle with business owners and community leaders and enjoy a nice glass of wine without having to invoke his bullshit, replayed speech about how he knows more than everyone else soley because he has traveled all over the world and speaks Spanish. I don't know who is more dumb, Richard Nixon for creating the label, or my stubborn friend for not understanding Richard Nixon's stupidity and the limitations of the definition! If the word offends the sensibilities of educated, Spanish-speaking people not born in the United States then maybe the word should be deleted from job applications, census bureau forms, and all government documents in the United States. Yes, checking a box on any government form is preposterous when you are provided a box denoting a racial (color) "label", a box denoting an ethnic (culture) "label", and a box denoting a language (language, part of culture but different) "label". It makes absolutely NO SENSE -- I already knew that!! In short, my friend renamed the organisation to his liking and decided NOT to attend the function: National Association of Spanish Surnamed Brown People who have MBAs!

So I called the Berkley linguist and he claims that:

Hispanic was a term created by the Nixon administration and means any person of a Spanish speaking origin. It does not refer to a country and does not mean from the Spanish Empire, either. It means of a background where Spanish is spoken. What you call yourself is your choice. What others call you isn't!

Personally, I don't label myself Hispanic (language/culture), nor do I label myself Latino ( large region). I am simply American (nation). What I choose to read behind closed doors, how I choose to express myself among my family, the music I choose to listen to and the language I speak among friends is not the business of the federal government, nor the Nixon administration, or any other administration. However, if there were enough boxes on the forms to accurately describe my origin, there would have to be a box for my nationality (American), a box for the languages I speak (Spanish and English), a box for my culture (a culture where Spanish is spoken, located in the North American continent, not in Central America, not in South America, not in the Caribbean, and not in Spain), a box describing the color of my skin (brown in the summer and yellow in the winter with perpetual black circles over my eyelids and under my eyes!!!), and finally, a box describing my feminist inclinations!!

Alas, I also called in Wikipedia.....

Hispanic (Spanish Hispano, from Latin Hispānus, adjective from Hispānia, "Iberian Peninsula") is a term denoting a derivation from Spain, its people and culture. It follows the same style of use as Anglo, which indicates a derivation of England and the English. Thus, the Spanish-American War in Spanish is known as Guerra Hispano-Estadounidense, the "Spanish-German Treaty" is Tratado Hispano-Alemán, and "Spanish America" is Hispanoamérica.

As used in the United States, Hispanic is one of several terms of ethnicity employed to categorize any person, of any racial background, of any country and of any religion who has at least one ancestor from the people of Spain or Spanish-speaking Latin America, whether or not the person has Spanish ancestry. It is therefore not a racial term, although as used in the United States it often carries racial connotations. The term was first adopted in the United States by the administration of Richard Nixon^[1] and has since been used as a broad form of classification in the U.S. census, in local and federal employment, and numerous business market researches.

In Spain, Spanish-speaking Latin America and most countries outside the United States, Hispanic/Hispano is not commonly employed as a term for ethnicity; however, this can be implied depending on the context. When used in this manner, in Spanish-speaking Latin America an Hispano is commonly regarded to be any person whose ancestry stems, in whole or in part, from the people of Spain — to the contrast of the non-Hispanic (ie. non-Spanish descended) population. In this sense, when speaking of a nation's Hispanic population, those who are implied are Spaniards, criollos, mestizos, and mulattos, to the exclusion of indigenous Amerindians, unmixed descendants of black African slaves or other peoples from later migrations without any Spanish lineage who today reside in any of the Hispanic nations, regardless of whether they now use Spanish as their first and only language. In contrast, a non-Spanish-speaking Mayan Amerindian from Mexico, for example, who lives in the U.S. would be considered Hispanic as the term is officially defined and commonly understood there. North Americans often confuse the words "Hispanic" and "mestizo", therefore assuming that all Latin Americans are dark-skinned with black hair and brown or black eyes. There are, however, many fair-skinned, blue-eyed, blonde Hispanics who are not mestizo.

"Hispanic" as a U.S. ethnic label

In the United States, some people consider "Hispanic" to be too general as a label, while others consider it offensive, often preferring to use the term "Latino", which is viewed as a self-chosen label. The preference of "Latino" over "Hispanic" is partly because it more clearly indicates that those it is referring to are the people from Latin America (including Brazil) and not Spain. Different labels prevail in different regions, as well. In places like Arizona and California, the Chicanos are proud of their personal association and their participation in the agricultural movement of the 1960s with César Chávez, that brought attention to the needs of the farm workers. Usually younger Hispanics will not refer to themselves as such, however.

It is important to remember that the majority of "Hispanics" do not identify as "Hispanic" or "Latino," but with their national origin, i.e. Mexican-American. And, it is debatable that Latino is any less self-imposed than Hispanic. The label, Hispanic, was the result of efforts by a Hispanic New Mexican senator, Montoya, who wanted a label that could be used to quantify the Spanish-speaking population for the US Census. The label Hispanic was chosen in part because in New Mexico, well-to-do people of Spanish descent such as Montoya referred to themselves as Hispanos, and the transliteration of Hispano is Hispanic. Thus, while Latino is more popular in some urban areas, Hispanic is more popular in some parts of the southwest.

Previously Hispanics were commonly referred to as "Spanish-Americans", "Spanish-speaking Americans", and "Spanish-surnamed Americans". These terms, however, proved even more misleading or inaccurate since:

Most U.S. Hispanics were not born in Spain, nor were most born to recent Spanish nationals;
Although most U.S. Hispanics speak Spanish, not all do, and though most Spanish-speaking people are Hispanic, not all are (e.g., many U.S. Hispanics by the fourth generation no longer speak Spanish, while there are some non-Hispanics of the Southwestern United States that may be fluent in the language), and;
Although most Hispanics have a Spanish surname, not all do, and while most Spanish-surnamed people are Hispanic, not all are (e.g., there are tens of millions of Spanish-surnamed Filipinos, but very few, only about 3.5%, would qualify as Hispanic by ancestry).
Many Catalans and Basques refuse to identify themselves as Hispanic in the US census, especially those who have Catalan and Basque as mother tongues.
The term "Spanish" to denote a person from or of descent from a Latin American country is incorrect, as "Spanish" means a person who is from Spain.

The term "Spanish American", however, is still currently in use by many of those who, while not of recent descent from a Spanish national, have continued to practice and view Spanish culture and identity as dominant in their lives. In this usage it emphasized ancestral history and identity, and is not meant to indicate citizenship of the 'old country'.

What Makes You NOT a Buddhist - Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse

2007-01-17T18:22:00.002-06:00

Book Review

Synopsis:

Moving away from conventional presentations of Buddhist teachings, Rinpoche challenges readers to make sure they know what they're talking about before they claim to be a Buddhist. With wit and irony, he urges us to move beyond the superficial trappings of Buddhism - beyond a romance with beads, incense, and exotic people in robes - straight to the heart of what the Buddha taught. He throws down the gauntlet to the Buddhist world, challenging common misconceptions, stereotypes, and fantasies. In essence, this book explains what a Buddhist really is.

Can you accept that all things are impermanent and that there is no essential substance or concept that is permanent? Can you accept that all emotions bring pain and suffering and that there is no emotion that is purely pleasurable? Can you accept that all phenomena are illusory and empty? Can you accept that enlightenment is beyond concepts; that it's not a perfect blissful heaven, but instead a release from delusion? Rinpoche encourages us to examine our most fundamental assumptions and beliefs, and he inspires us to explore the authentic Buddhist path based on these traditional four seals of Buddhism.

Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche is one of the most innovative and creative young Tibetan Lamas teaching today. The film director of critically acclaimed movies The Cup and Travellers and Magicians, this provocative teacher is widely known and admired in the West.

Extract from the book:

CAUSES AND CONDITIONS: THE EGG IS COOKED AND THERE IS NOTHING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT

When Siddhartha spoke of “all assembled things,” he was referring to more than just obvious perceptible phenomena such as DNA, your dog, the Eiffel Tower, eggs, and sperm. Mind, time, memory, and God are also assembled. And each assembled component in turn depends on several layers of assembly. Similarly, when he taught impermanence, he went beyond conventional thinking about “the end,” such as the notion that death happens once and then it’s over. Death is continuous from the moment of birth, from the moment of creation. Each change is a form of death, and therefore each birth contains the death of something else. Consider cooking a hen’s egg. Without constant change, the cooking of an egg cannot occur. The cooked-egg result requires some fundamental causes and conditions. Obviously you need an egg, a pot of water, and some sort of heating element. And then there are some not-so-essential causes and conditions, such as a kitchen, lights, an egg timer, a hand to put the egg into the pot. Another important condition is absence of interruption, such as a power outage or a goat walking in and overturning the pot. Furthermore, each condition—the hen, for example—requires another set of causes and conditions. It needs another hen to lay an egg so that it can be born, a safe place for this to happen, and food to help it grow. The chicken feed has to be grown somewhere and must make its way into the chicken. We can keep breaking down the indispensable and dispensable requirements all the way to the subatomic level, with an ever-increasing number of forms, shapes, functions, and labels.

When all the innumerable causes and conditions come together, and there is no obstacle or interruption, the result is inevitable. Many misunderstand this to be fate or luck, but we still do have the power to have an effect on conditions, at least in the beginning. But at a certain point, even if we pray that the egg won’t cook, it will be cooked.

Like the egg, all phenomena are the product of myriad components, and therefore they are variable. Nearly all of these myriad components are beyond our control, and for that reason they defy our expectations. The least-promising presidential candidate might win the election and then lead the country to contentment and prosperity The candidate you campaign for might win and then lea4 the country to economic and social ruin, making your life miserable. You may think liberal, left-wing politics are enlightened politics, but they may actually be the cause of fascism and skinheads by being complacent or even promoting tolerance of the intolerant. Or by protecting the individual rights of those whose sole purpose is to destroy other people’s individual rights. The same unpredictability applies to all forms, feelings, perceptions, traditions, love, trust, mistrust, skepticism—even the relationships between spiritual masters and disciples, and between men and their gods.

All of these phenomena are impermanent. Take skepticism, for example. There was once a Canadian man who was the very embodiment of a skeptic. He enjoyed attending Buddhist teachings so that he could argue with the teachers. He was actually quite well versed in Buddhist philosophy, so his arguments were strong. He relished the opportunity to quote the Buddhist teaching that the Buddha’s words must be analyzed and not taken for granted. A few years later, and he is now the devoted follower of a famous psychic channeler. The ultimate skeptic sits before his singing guru with tears running like rivers from his eyes, devoted to an entity who has not a scrap of logic to offer. Faith or devotion has a general connotation of being unwavering, but like skepticism and like all compounded phenomena, is impermanent.

Whether you pride yourself on your religion or on not belonging to any religion, faith plays an important role in your existence. Even “not believing” requires faith—total, blind faith in your own logic or reason based on your ever-changing feelings. So it is no surprise when what used to seem so convincing no longer persuades us. The illogical nature of faith is not subtle at all; in fact it is among the most assembled and interdependent of phenomena. Faith can be triggered by the right look at the right time in the right place. Your faith may depend on superficial compatibility. Let’s say that you are a misogynist and you meet a person who is preaching hatred against women. You will find that person powerful, you will agree with him, and you will have some faith in him. Something as inconsequential as a shared love of anchovies might add to your devotion. Or perhaps a person or institution has the ability to lessen your fear of the unknown. Other factors such as the family, country, or society you are born into are all part of the assembly of elements that come together as what we call faith.

Citizens of many Buddhist-ruled countries, such as Bhutan, Korea, Japan, and Thailand, are blindly committed to the Buddhist doctrine. On the other hand, many young people in those countries become disillusioned with Buddhism because there is not enough information and too many distractions for the phenomena of faith to stick, and they end up following another faith, or following their own reason.

When we learn to see the assembled parts of all things and situations, we learn to cultivate forgiveness, understanding, open-mindedness, and fearlessness. … Fear and anxiety are the dominant psychological states of the human mind. Behind the fear lies a constant longing to be certain. We are afraid of the unknown. The mind’s craving for confirmation is rooted in our fear of impermanence.

Fearlessness is generated when you can appreciate uncertainty, when you have faith in the impossibility of these interconnected components remaining static and permanent. You will find yourself, in a very true sense, preparing for the worst while allowing for the best. You become dignified and majestic…. By knowing that something is lying in wait for you just around the bend, by accepting that countless potentialities exist from this moment forward, you acquire the sill of pervasive awareness and foresight like that of gifted general, not paranoid, but prepared. … The recognition of impermanence is key to freedom from fear of remaining forever stuck in a situation, habit, or pattern.

Saddam Hussein Hanged.

2006-12-30T19:20:00.001-06:00

I am not sure why I feel upset at reading the news this morning that Saddam Hussein was hanged. I mean after all, I live in Texas, a state that takes the death penalty fairly seriously. Killing someone in an electric chair as a punishment for their crime(s) is not a new concept for me. Hell, I am pretty sure that Texas has the most executions in the country.
(Actually, I just checked, California beat out Texas!!)

So why am I upset???

I suppose I am upset because I realized the very grim, dismal hope for humanity. Saddam Hussein is tried for the crimes he committed against people of his own nation. The trial is made a public spectacle/circus for over a year -- every portion is practically televised. And then his death, his hanging, is also broadcast & displayed. And why did the method of death have to be hanging? Why couldn't it have been something else? Hanging seems archaic, but meant to prove a point. I know that that his death being televised was also meant to prove a point.

So, what is the point???

Killing someone doesn't really purge the country of Iraq; killing Saddam Hussein doesn't really aid in the healing of the nation or to help reconcile the Sunnis and the Shittes. In my opinion (that's why this is my blog), his death only contributes and reiterates the hate that already exists in Iraq, and all over the world. Throughout the course of history, hate for hate, violence for violence, death for death haven't really worked to alleviate society's problems and the cycle of hate/hatred. And 'America' is supposed to be changing the course of history, or at the very least showing the world how it's supposed to be done? Doubtful.

Further, I find it interesting that Saddam Hussein refused to wear the head covering for his hanging -- much like the last act of defiance of Albert Camus' character, Meursault, in L'Etranger. Except this time, in the year 2006, 'citizens' didn't show up to the towne square as in the old days to witness the tragic end to a man's life, or to witness the suffering of another human being shunned and later killed in public just so they could go home and utter, "I'm glad that wasn't me.", but rather people over the world showed up to his hanging via the internet and television and tuned into see the suffering of yet another human.

I ask again, "So what is the point?"

Colombia Es Pasion!

2006-12-01T20:11:00.001-06:00

This Little Girl is SMARTER than most Adults!!!

2006-11-26T13:38:00.000-06:00

(Sorry D. you showed me this video and I loved it!!)

Peace Market at the Esperanza Center

2006-11-25T19:23:00.001-06:00

(Ernesto hard at work!!)

Amy Goodman in San Antonio, Texas

2006-10-20T08:01:00.001-06:00

Amy Goodman, a broadcast journalist at Democracy Now, http://www.democracynow.org/ , was brought to San Antonio through the many efforts of Texas MEP (http://texasmep.org/ ) and The Esperanza Peace and Justice Center (http://esperanzacenter.org/). She was featured as a speaker for one of the Lady Fest events held this year in San Antonio, Texas. Lady Fest is a festival showcasing women in music, art and films,( http://ladyfestsatx.org/ ).

I have had the privilige to hear many people speak, but Amy Goodman was pretty incredible. She is very intelligent and her summary of US foreign policy over the last 50 years made the audience sick, especially what happened in East Timor. What particularly struck me about her lecture was her commitment to articulating people's name over and over and over throughout her speech. She said that by naming people, by pronouncing their name, you dignify them. This is true, how many people were never named throughout history? How many soldiers will have died in Iraq with no name?

Lady Fest San Antonio, Texas October 19 - October 21, 2006

2006-10-19T08:00:00.001-06:00

LadyFest is a community based, not-for-profit, festival established to highlight female artists, bands, musical groups, media producers, and visual artists organized by volunteers. This festival came about as a result of the DIY ethic and "Riot Grrrl" movements in Olympia, Washington as well as the many contributions by authors on inclusive feminist philosophy. The first ever LadyFest was conducted in Olympia, Washington in August 2000 with over 2000 people attending. Prime motivators in the event were Sleater-Kinney, Cat Power, and Neko Case. The primary organizers of LadyFest are women, but everyone is encouraged to attend and volunteer at every festival.

Since the first LadyFest, the event has branched out into other urban centers such as Amsterdam, Atlanta, Belgium, Berlin, Birmingham, Brighton, Bristol, Brooklyn, Cardiff, Dublin, Lansing, London, Los Angeles, Melbourne, Orlando, Ottawa, Philadelphia, San Francisco, San Diego, Toronto, Washington DC, and more. Primarily volunteers organize each festival locally and independently of other LadyFest events. Proceeds from LadyFest festivals are donated to non-profit organizations dedicated to eliminating the sexist oppressions of women.

NALAC Conference and Meeting Muses !!

2006-10-13T11:29:00.002-06:00

The NALAC Conference in San Antonio was simply awesome!! A local writer gave me her ticket to attend. She said that my analytical mind would take away quite a bit from the conference and she just didn't have enough time in her schedule to attend. And why not, I was eager to be surrounded by people who have risked everything to love their work, their job, their contribution.

I was a little disappointed at how diluted the actual workshops were, but the people who attended rocked!!

The workshop on music was enlightening because it was in that moment that I felt that reoccuring theme in my life -- wishing to love something as much as they loved their work and their contribution. They were so fully engrossed and caught up in the moment and the audience felt truly transported. I admired and envied the musicians for having such a passion for their work that propelled them to get up every morning, as well as their ability to rouse the audience. I suppose the reason for going was that I wanted to be around passionate people, or people with passions! Being around so many muses and that kind of palpatable energy was really wonderful, re-energizing, and refreshing. I am not used to spending so many days socializing, or around that many people. I am not socially phobic, but it simply doesn't happen very often. Two particular muses made me smile much!! One particular muse gave great, long hugs. If I saw him today I'd hug him until he yelped -- which would not be difficult at all. :-)I feel privileged to have met them both. And the pianist kicks ass!!! You know who you are! You are playing at my wedding, don't you dare forget!! I will do the work on my end at finding the suitable mate. Arrrrghhhhh!

Celebrando El Grito

2006-09-16T11:34:00.002-06:00

A wonderful of day climbing, sun, jumping in the river, and good company!! But most importantly, a day of mental clarity due to physical challenges!!! 'Viva Emiliano Zapata' ! No downtown celebration for me of Mexican Independence and all the alcohol that that necessarily entails.

C'est Officiel.

2006-08-01T11:39:00.001-06:00

Today I began blogging, i.e. posting nonsequential, miscellaneous information and contributing to the junk already on the internet. But what the hell? Everyone else is doing it!!! My blog isn't nearly as interesting and entertaining as Alex's blog, but alas, he has always been more entertaining than I.

Les différents visages de CoQuille......