September 2014 - OE - lists.wedgeblade.net

Gandhi anecdote
by via OE 22 Sep '14

22 Sep '14

Mahatma Gandhi A lovely little anecdote, about one of life's more interesting characters. When Mahatma Gandhi was studying law at the University College of London, a white professor, whose last name was Peters, disliked him intensely and always displayed prejudice and animosity towards him. Also, because Gandhi never lowered his head when addressing him as he expected, there were always "arguments" and confrontations. One day, Mr. Peters was having lunch at the dining room of the University, and Gandhi came along with his tray and sat next to the professor. The professor said, "Mr Gandhi, you do not understand. A pig and a bird do not sit together to eat." Gandhi looked at him as a parent would a rude child and calmly replied, "You do not worry professor. I'll fly away," and he went and sat at another table. Mr. Peters, reddened with rage, decided to take revenge on the next test paper, but Gandhi responded brilliantly to all questions. Mr. Peters, unhappy and frustrated, asked him the following question. "Mr Gandhi, if you were walking down the street and found a package, and within was a bag of wisdom and another bag with a lot of money, which one would you take?" Without hesitating, Gandhi responded, "The one with the money, of course." Mr. Peters, smiling sarcastically said, "I, in your place, would have taken the wisdom." Gandhi shrugged indifferently and responded, "Each one takes what he doesn't have." Mr. Peters, by this time was fit to be tied. So great was his anger that he wrote on Gandhi's exam sheet the word "idiot" and gave it to Gandhi. Gandhi took the exam sheet and sat down at his desk, trying very hard to remain calm while he contemplated his next move. A few minutes later, Gandhi got up, went to the professor and said to him in a dignified but sarcastically polite tone, "Mr. Peters, you autographed the sheet, but you did not give me the grade."

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Jaime for the 29th in ST
by via OE 22 Sep '14

22 Sep '14

The power of Babel At the neighborhood bar where I hang out on weekends to beavailable to those who wish to practice their englisCHe, I often ran into foreign students who come to improvetheir Chinese and imbibe on the "cocktail" ambience. I engage them in conversation hoping toconvince them to reciprocate to their counterparts by enticing them to practicetheir English, too. I met a couple of Jamaicans. One grew up in Nigeria. His father was from Cameroon. They were happyto meet someone who knew where the Blue Mountains were, and conversant of the differencebetween Yoruba and Hausa. Last week, I recognized an Indo-Aryan from the Indus Valley,so I asked where he was from. Sureenough, his Mom is Indian and his Dad, Pakistani. "But I had only been to India once,never to Pakistan,' he claimed. "Iwas born in Nigeria near Abuja and grew up in Zimbabwe's Harare," he added. I went beyond my hour-long normal stayin the bar conversing with the dude about South Asians scattered around the worldby the British Empire! All were the foreigners were multilingual. John McWhorter wrote The Power of Babel on languages, which I have yet to read (a copy sitsin SF for me), but I do have a copy of David Crystal's Encyclopedia of Language, 3rd Edition. I keep an eye on language as a cross-culturetool. McWhorter claims there are more than 6,000 living languagesspoken across the planet, and Crystal lists 1,000 of them (of those spoken bymore than 100,000). I am not versedenough on the main thrust of linguistics to line up one side or the other onMIT Noam Chomsky’s notion that "we possess a neural mechanism calibratedto produce basic sentences" but the Fula language of Africa recognizes 16genders and a tongue in Australia has only 3 verbs, so languages do not developout towards rational evolutionary lines. It is, nevertheless, comforting to know that 95 percent of the worldspeak one of the top-20 of the 6,000-some planetary gab. Our concern is a bit more mundane. Or, more poetic if we recall Juliet saying toRomeo from Shakespeare's pen: "What'sin a name? That which we call a rose by any other name wouldsmell as sweet." That oft-quotedline is now contradicted by research that shows humans do have apreference on letters and phonemes, preferring that which is closest to theirname, or, as in the case of the Sino cultures, that which sounds like somethingdesirable like "happiness" and "long life. The Biblical tower of Babel (babel, Hebrew verb "to confuse") downsized humanity'sarrogance in building itself a stairway to heaven. Providence saw it wise to confuse unilingualhumanity into a multi-linguistic cacophony. McWhorter turns the classic condemnation of Babel as a symbol of human pride into a celebration of humanity'slife force. Worldwide language developedin many directions. McWhorter usesCreoles as markers. (Louisiana's creole,to me, subjugated French out of its flower-scented Frenchy-ness in its culturalimperialism over its colony!) France suggests that instead of calling ISIL the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, wecould use the Arabic al-Dawla al-Islamiyaal-Iraq al-Sham in its loose acronym, Daesh! Acronymsare rare in the Arabic world with the exception of Palestine's Hamas (Harakat al-Muqawamah al-'iSlamiyya),but Da'esh is commonly used byanti-IS forces loyal to Syria's al-Assad to counter rebels and eliminate referenceto the words Islamic and State, inculcate defiance and disrespectthrough the negative undertones of Arabic words (daes, one who crushes something underfoot, or, dahes, one who sows discord). We know what happens to dreaded names in the long run. They get domesticated and appropriated so that"Niggah" on the Westside of Chicago is now an address of endearmentrather than the pejorative it was originally coined to be. Da'esh Iam sure will find the same fate, in the same way as the f-word and sh*t are now tamed for home consumption. Still, words cut deeper than bullets, and there might bewisdom in staying at the level of rhetorical confrontations rather than revvingup those tanks straight from Moscow to Crimea via Kiev, a practice Ukraine wasfamiliar with in the days of Khrushchev, now recklessly bandied about byVladimir when he feels folksy! It was a long way from the tower of Babylon to the power ofBabel and though we might have finally learned our lesson on the strength of powwow,it may have come too late. We are nowtold that the isotopes out of Fukushima reactor deliberately made isodopes outof all of us. The radioactivity is moretoxic than reported, dude, so be prepared to radically evolve! Mr. Obama was one out of three who voted against the IraqWar in the US Congress, but is now gung-ho to wipe out the IS not only in Iraqbut also in Syria without al-Assad's permission. At least, that's true at the talk level. So, let's just keep talking a bitlonger. That way, the "power"of Babel does not get confused with the "powder". Cute, neh?

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Jaime for Friday in ST, September 26
by via OE 22 Sep '14

22 Sep '14

China's comeback kids China faces a spirit issue. It's goals since 1978 when Deng Xiaoping left ideology for a guided freemarket economy, clearly accepting that some folks will get rich before others, hasbeen attained. In just over 30 years, advancesin science and technology fueled industrialization, along with a judicious nursingof its military might, leaving China on top of the development heap while gropingfor its soul. Development in the global race is on to increase GDP percapita at a pace to fuel a consumption-production system at the expense of natureand people. This purely economicdefinition is doing much harm to the world's natural systems and the ever-continuingcreation of a democratic rather than a consumer culture. China's soul hit a vacuum groping for rolemodels. Today, the comeback candidates are Christ, Mao, and theBuddha. The Chinese who sees comfort in the Christ has the undergroundhouse churches that attract devotion because they defy authority, anunderstandable reaction. Pastor poundedpulpits trained to wear evangelical enthusiasm up their sleeves are zealously tiedto the emotional allure of a cultic "savior" that takes away the "sinsof the world" through communal fellowship that gathers adherents warmheartedly. The communal comfort in Christianity fits into the Confucianethos of family and the ethics that comes along. Its metaphors and belief-nets remain in the regallanguage of a redeemer under a defunct three-story universe, a "belief"in a heaven in the sky, and a penal colony under; it appeals to the elderly'ssuperstition but the secular and scientific young, at best, say,"huh?" Mao is a tolerated Uncle whose centralized dictates belongto, by his own measure, the 30 percent of his mistakes, but his dialectics alignswith the 70 percent that was right. It definedthe conflict then prevailing between elite and worker, urban and rural, learnedand the hoi polloi, though hardlyfits in the current harmonizing and collaborative thrust of the "reformand opening up" era. The contradiction metaphor got the Chinese mind around thereality of differing perspectives, and Mao would have been regarded an undisputedstatesman had he allowed his "a thousand flowers bloom" evolve into vive le difference rather than thedivisive and humiliating confrontational deterioration of the CulturalRevolution. Ironically, Mao represents recognition of the virtue ofindividual genius before it is straight jacketed into the commune. The assertive selfhood he exhibited is dubbedas a personality cult by the west, gobbled up by prejudiced contra Sino, butrevered from a distance as his name is invoked, though without bothering withthe details. The halls of academia quicklydiscard the mention of his name. Which brings us to the Buddha. If Jesus belongs to the Ptolemaic cosmologyof pre-Nikolaj Kopernik, and Mao brought down the elitist pretensions of the illuminati of academy into realisticlevels, ushered into Sino-consciousness Marx's dialectic and socialism withChinese characteristics, its contradiction understood from a deeply communalview and cooperative perspective before it is the social conflict to resolvelayered social stratification, the saffron Buddha saunters with a Mona Lisaenigmatic smile. Buddhists skew Christiantheistic escapism and Mao's dichotomy between decadent and progressive forces,favors a psychology of a mind-full self. Buddhists meditate not to escape from any situation, or thechallenges of any given location, but to engage in the depths of the bottomlessabyss of understanding one's consciousness. This lends itself to the Sino orientationof rootedness in space rather than the Euro-journey in time. The Buddhists, however, tend to be abstract intheir mindfulness against the practical activism that is a demand of cognition. Pope Francis willingness to dialogue with China's officiallysanctioned Christian Church might be at the root of the recent pronouncementthat Beijing will not shy away from creating its own Christianity with its own "Chinesecharacteristics", similar to its socialist economics and communal politicsof reform and opening up. Kung Fu Tzu (Confucius) is not being dismissed. His ethos will be around awhile but making a comebackkid out of Jesus, Mao Zedong, or the Buddha is a backward step as eachtradition inadequately encompasses China's broiling spiritual hunger. Since 1968, we minded exploited and battered mother earth, cognizantof her gracious support of the human specie. We segued into a secular spirituality without the hocus-pocus of theismthough not a surrendered devotion to "all there is". It was rather a decision to be free, to makechoices, and own up to one's decisions. Wetook to the ancient art of mindfulness and plumbed the depths of engagement inhuman affairs, like the recent Peoples Climate Change March, allowing motherearth's wellbeing a fighting chance. In the care of Mother Earth will China finds its soul. j'aime la vie pinoypanda2031(a)aol.com yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today. participate. In all, celebrate!

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Jaime for ST September 24
by via OE 22 Sep '14

22 Sep '14

Truth and Lying My brother once referred to one of my columns on our motheras a "pack of lies". We werenot at the time in the best of terms so I dismissed his comments as expressinghidden hostilities until another brother essentially said the same thing. Conversantwith the wisdom of the Brad Blanton's RadicalHonesty that sees all humans trained to lie, or, the popular spiritedatheist Sam Harris' write-up on Lying,that came as a wake-up call on the level of knowledge I thought I was verycareful about in my writings. I tried to understand the import of words I used. "Lies" in my vocab results fromattempts to deceive but there I do use metaphors. Perhaps, I just use too much of it! Not a conscious liar nor deceiver, I am, however,clear that my brothers have seen something that I don't. (Would be helpful if they go into details!) An additional possible view is that my brothers do not see "truth"from what might be fuzzy facts of metaphors, analogies and similes. In the spectrum of knowledge, I classify fourtypes of knowing (like all typology, this serves the mind more than clarity onknowledge): the indicative (fact), subjunctive (sentiment), cognitive(discursive), and imperative (deed). Theadage "Truth is in the pudding" reflects the understanding that it isthe deed that is the done deal. The worldwide network of the Institute of Cultural uses theO.R.I.D. formula in imaginal education. In their technology of participation, the letters stand for:O=objective, R=reflective, I=interpretive, and D=decisional. There is nothing esoteric about this scheme, followingstimuli that the brainstem receives as sense experience is registered, withemotional expressions processed in the middle brain, cognitive functions on theouter brain, and the whole cranium along with the heart, bile, kidney, stomach,liver and gut colloquially determining the course of action. Science introduced quantifiable terms at the objectivelevel, measureable within a spectrum. Collegesare organized according to disciplines to determine specific fields ofknowledge. The widely used metaphor isthat of sight: tell me what you see, draw me a picture. The sense experiences of touch (skin), sound(ear), smell (nose), and taste (mouth) are the other proper subjects ofscience. Dominant biology and ecology aresensual, cuisine is a universally popular folk art, scents are on the firstfloor of department stores. Internal responses are of two kinds: the emotional andintellectual. They are not verifiablebut can be shared. For sure, one can usesuch terms as real or authentic, but those are judgments of the onlooker. "I know how you feel" is empathy,not accurate sense knowledge. Psychologyis our science on interpersonal and human relations, with the other side of thecoin sociology, the development, structure, and functioning of society. Symbol, picture, image, and emblem used in simile, allegory,idiom and parable express emotions. Intensity of passion measures the quality of response. Looking at how others respond, identifyingsimilarities and contrasts, likeness and dissonance, parallels andcontradictions and discussing the same with others in words, numbers andgestures, constitute the activity of comparing and arriving at social significanceand meaning. When EU used "sanctions as strategy" to pressureRussia, a means at a negotiating advantage, Russia came back to suggest that itwill take first strike a Russian option, including the nuclear one. I amhopeful the rhetoric stays at the level of verbal threat without proceeding tothe scary level of behavior. George II Bush sent troops to Iraq on the notion that preemptivemilitary offense is the best defense of national security post-911. Obama sets his cross sights on the renegadeIslamic State and, not surprisingly, receives the same criticism he levelsagainst Russia of violating sovereign integrity sans consent of the sitting executive when he leers at Syria! Ethics point to behavior where consensus is possible. Two service providers for the autism communityhave one saying, "vaccines saved a lot of lives" and the other,"vaccines can cause inflammation of the brain." I see them both as being defensiblytruthful. Consensus is not in facts,psychological affirmations, and sociological verities, though sharing can leadto it. It is in conduct that consensusis possible. The question is not whether we sense, feel, or think similarly;the issue is whether we are headed in the same direction, behave in tandem. If a question asks for a "yes", or"no" answer, it is a question of what to do and how to act, ratherthan an agreement on feelings and meanings. My brothers and I might differ, and may not see similar truths from thesame metaphors but it does not mean anyone is lying! I often want to scream at friends who empathetically say,"I understand", when they possibly couldn't, but folks do expressdifferent perspectives and views, and for that, I am grateful.

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GARA Imaginal Education Research Working Group Announcement
by steve har via OE 22 Sep '14

22 Sep '14

The Imaginal Education working group communicators have just sent out a start-up document with our 1st research focus. You can still register and join the the Imaginal Education Research Working Group. Please Ask ----GARA Imaginal Education Working Group Agenda--- MONDAY Sep 22 we will focus on the project work of a master educator TUESDAY Sep 23 we will Broadcast live on YouTube a conversation about the collaborative learning environment created in ICA-USA's ABCD Share-Fair Project (The expected LIVE BROADCAST TIME IS TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 23 AT 1PM CDT USA (1300 hours Chicago - we will post an announcement) Through out the week we will be sharing "Research Postcards" of Imaginal Education related work at the Imaginal Eduction http://wedgeblade.net/wordpress/imaginaleducation/blog/ ICA Research G+ Page https://www.youtube.com/user/icaresearchaccess/feed -- Steve Harrington

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Join us when you can for the opening of the 2014 Archive Research Assembly
by James Wiegel via OE 22 Sep '14

22 Sep '14

Click here to se the list of scheduled events. Click on the Opening Plenary to view the recorded opening session, then share your thoughts Time Design and Scheduled Events Time Design and Scheduled Events GARA is primarily a virtual global event. We will be starting each day at 9 am Chicago time. Scheduled Events will be announced here and will be recorded and made ... View on wedgeblade.net Preview by Yahoo Jim Wiegel Never trust atoms. They make up everything. a billboard 401 North Beverly Way,Tolleson, Arizona 85353 011-623-936-8671 or 011-623-363-3277 jfwiegel(a)yahoo.com www.partnersinparticipation.com Upcoming public course opportunities: ToP® Facilitation Methods: Sep 9-10, Nov 18-19, 2014 Click to watch video. ToP® Strategic Planning: Oct 7-8, 2014 Click to learn more. Facilitation Mastery: The Mastering the Technology of Participation program begins in Oakland on Nov 12-14, 2014 Click to watch video. For online registration go to http://www.top-training.net The AZ ToP® Community of Practice meets the 1st Friday, 1-4 pm, starting again on Sept 5th at ACYR, 648 N. 5th Avenue, Phoenix, AZ 85003 AICP Planners: 14.5 CM for all ToP® courses

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Historical Records Team Collegium
by Beret Griffith via OE 22 Sep '14

22 Sep '14

The Historical Records Team has two exciting announcements to make tomorrow morning at the Historical Records Team Collegium, Monday, September 22, 2014. Tune in for a peek into life at the ICA Global Archives, ICA GreenRise, Chicago, Illinois, USA.. Find out how you can access the ICA Global Archives holdings and documents currently on-line. We will be providing links that were only dreamed possible when work in the archives began many years ago. You will be among the first people to experience this transparency, which we hope will give you the confidence and courage to dive into your personal documents, artifacts, slides, photographs, old audio tapes, films, decor, graphics to decide what is worth preserving for the Future of the Archives. We are prepared to provide support to individuals and ICA offices around the world needing assistance. Beret Griffith for the current Historical Records Team Marge Philbrook, Jean Long, Frank Knutson, Christina Wolf and Wendell Refior of the Tech Team for providing technical support Please contact me at beretgriffith(a)gmail.com to let us know if you are interested in working with the Global Archives Team

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Fwd: GMCA Sept.13
by David Zahrt via OE 21 Sep '14

21 Sep '14

SAT SEP 13 * Stay Day: Good Shepherd Montessori School, South Bend, IN* It was a stay-day and I got up late: 7am! I looked in the kitchen/dining hall and no one was up. I checked the Kitchen Truck and found it locked. Mary opened the truck and brought some breakfast out. I requested granola and yogurt and she put it out. Later on the lunch food was out and I made myself a lunch. Eventually John Abbe got up and cooked a late breakfast meal. After that he conducted a meeting that began to sort out the logistics for the remainder of the March. A portion of that was attending the NYC Peoples Climate March in a phone conference. Anita was labeling vests, over a template, with a black magic marker on a table near the meeting. She needed someone to hold the vest over the template so I assisted. Lunch prep started and I met John Gibson’s Earth Charter colleagues, Charlotte and Deb, who live in and around South Bend. They arrived to bring produce for lunch. They also helped with the meal preparation. I learned that Charlotte and her husband have a vegetable farm, and Deb rides her bike to work. We made our way over to the Notre Dame University Library to view the film *Disruption*. We’d already seen it at ICA in Chicago, but it was a powerful film. It emphasized the power of the people. When I got back to the school I sorted through my clothes to get ready for tomorrow. Dinner was very late and we finished up at 9pm. -- Peace, David

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Fwd: You're needed tomorrow, no matter where you are.
by James Wiegel via OE 21 Sep '14

21 Sep '14

Action in Majuro Jim Wiegel > > > > Friends, > > To change everything, we need everyone. > > And this weekend, the action is indeed happening everywhere: > > Rallies in Lisbon and Delhi, marches in Istanbul, Manila, Cape Town, Majuro and Papua New Guinea, concerts in Johannesburg -- this is true people powered movement: enormous, diverse and beautiful. People from all backgrounds are acting locally, mobilising their communities, shaping the future of our planet. And this is before big actions get underway tomorrow. > > Here in North America, the action isn't just in New York City. People everywhere are standing up for climate justice, with dozens of People's Climate Mobilization actions from coast to coast. I'm awfully happy I moved to New York City so I can march here, but my hometown in California is also hosting a march. The action is everywhere! > > Together, we're going to form the biggest push for climate action in the planet's history. To find a People's Climate Mobilization action near you, click here. > > Also, you can tune in and spread the word about the big New York march online. The PeoplesClimate.org website will make it easy to watch the whole march via livestream, and share all the breaking news and beautiful photos with your social networks. > > Starting at 10:30 AM Eastern Time on Sunday, go to PeoplesClimate.org, and click "play" on the video player that will be front and center to watch the march live from the streets of New York. > > To follow along on social networks, just search for posts with the hashtag #PeoplesClimate -- that's what everyone will be posting with during the march and from actions across the world. > > You can see #PeoplesClimate posts streaming in from across the world at the March page tomorrow too -- just scroll down below the video stream to see all the posts from People's Climate actions, and share your favorites. > > This is a moment that needs everyone. No matter where you'll be this weekend, you can help make this a turning point for our movement, and our climate. > > Thank you for everything. Let's do this. > > May > > > 350.org is building a global climate movement. Become a sustaining donor to keep this movement strong and growing. > > You can update your contact information here, or if you're 100% sure you never want to hear from 350.org again you can click here to unsubscribe.

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Fwd: GMCA Sept. 12
by David Zahrt via OE 20 Sep '14

20 Sep '14

FRI SEP 12 * Bourissa Hills, New Carlyle to Good Shepherd Montessori School, South Bend, IN* Breakfast was in the Lions Club so I was wakened by the breakfast crew. We finished meal preparation and clean-up and I hauled my gear back to the Gear truck, which was 1/4 mile away. It was a lot of work but I used the hand-truck that Nancy Trask donated to me in Winterset. That made it a lot easier. I’m not getting the messages sent out on gmail unless my phone is connected to WiFi so I didn’t have the day’s route. When I looked at the route posted on the back of the commode I decided that the simplest thing was to take Hwy 20 into South Bend. I did that, stopped at a McDonalds and got WiFi, and asked for directions to the school. That got me there. When I arrived the school was still in session but they gave permission for the early Marchers to come in and relax in the library. We had a 4pm meeting in the sanctuary. It was a conference call with those who are planning our NYC trip. The big issue was changing our original plans to include additional demonstrations. I finally left, chose a spot for my bed, got my bedroll in from the truck and set up for the night. There was to be a potluck at 6pm from several of the local churches. It was scheduled for the school cafeteria. A few locals brought some food, but it didn’t happen so we had to prepare dinner. So dinner was at 7:15pm. One of the couples that visited had a daughter in Carson City. I don’t remember their names or the name of their daughter. They wondered if we were in activities where we might have met, and asked me if I was a ‘birder’. I said “No”. They asked if we lived near the Governor’s Mansion. I said “Yes”. I asked if they had heard of Muscle Powered, a group in Carson City that does a lot of things to make walking and biking safe. They said “No”. I showed them my Muscle Powered T shirt so they would remember the name of the organization and let their daughter know. At the end of dinner there were some local folks who did presentations. Kim helped me get some hydrogen peroxide out of the Gear truck and I cleaned up a scratch that I got cycling through a busy street in Oak Park, IL. Peace, David

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