Hey, look...a new word! Like Santorum. Only uglier.

Bill Napoli.

You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do. - Anne Lamott, writer

Oh, snap!

Seriously, though, I think this is why Christianity and other religions have failed to produce a congregation of peaceful, loving and compassionate sheep and have instead become the milieu of dangerously powerful and hate-mongering shepherds. It's simply far easier to envision God as a larger reflection of your own psyche than it is to rise up to the challenge of loving all those people who violate your own personal sensibilities.

But annoyingly enough, the Bible, the Koran and many other texts quite literally saturate their pages, repeatedly and consistantly, with message that God's overall orders are to love, regardless of who, what, when, where, why or how. So these leaders have to latch onto some obscure, one-time example of violence or hatred that God let slip by without (visible) punishment, and then keep shouting that one bit of isolated text so loudly that no one can hear the rest of the entire book disagreeing with you.

I don't know how it is where you are, but around here a big controversy is a group of "Christians" who are picketing and protesting the funerals of slain soldiers, going so far as to harass the family members as they drag themselves to the graveside of their son or daughter, brother or sister, mother or father for the final goodbyes. The thing is, these protesters aren't protesting the war. Their convoluted spiel is that God is killing our soldiers because America has become to immoral (no doubt the spectres of gay marriage and whatnot play a big role in the weekly meetings). And somehow they've decided that protesting in the face of grieving family members is supposed to get that message across.

Huh?

So let me get this straight. You're going to protest the immorality of America by harrassing a grieving family who are burying someone that probably died doing what they thought was right, moral and good for this country? *insert Louis Black seizure here*

Pot, I'd like you to meet kettle. Kettle, pot.

It's sickening, really. All in the name of God. No wonder religion is having as hard a time as the military is in finding new recruits.

The most sickening thing to me is that now I have to go out and try to love these people, because I don't have the handy God-as-Soni's-evil-twin doll. And to me, that's the true nature of evil - that whatever vision you have of evil incarnate doesn't waste time with penny-ante immorality, which really only affects a small radius of people, but goes for the gusto by convincing people to behave in such dispicable ways, all in the name of God, that even hard core God freaks can't stomach following God's mandate to love them and end up abandoning association with Godly organizations and labels altogether rather than risk being associated with such vile creatures.

"Action is thy duty, reward not thy concern." -- the Bhagavad Gita

Too many of us shy away from work that fulfills us and that gives our lives meaning because we don't get the concept expressed in the quote above. We worry too much about being too insignificant, about not having the "platform" or the celebrity to reach millions of people, about no one caring about what we do or what we have to say.

Some of it is just plain fear and some of it is a side effect of today's celebrity society, where common consensus tells us that if you can't be the voice at the top of the mountain, then it's pointless to open your mouth at all. And that's a shame because, as the quote above suggests, it's not the fruit of the work that provides fulfillment, but rather the work itself.

In fact, several religious and spiritual texts and teachings exhort their followers to do what God wills and to use their gifts and abilities to do good work, regardless of the perceived results, and let God worry about the rest of it.

As a society, we have turned this around 180 degrees - we no longer give much thought to what we do, only what we can get out of it. Status, money, prestige, fame, recognition, approval - all of these are our focus, and the type and nature of work that is actually done to achieve them is secondary at best. While I absolutely accept the need to make a living and provide for ourselves and our family, I cannot accept that doing so should be the main consideration in the work we do.

For one thing, our purpose in this life isn't to make it through the game with the highest score. It's to contribute, to love, to give joy, to grow and help others grow as well. It's to join in the process of working toward a higher state of being, as a group rather than as individuals. And in order to do that, we all need to pitch in and do our share by doing the work we were designed for and sent here to do, to pull our weight toward the completion of that Divine plan.

And to do this with a clear conscience and a firm commitment, we have to relinquish our claim to the results and just concentrate on the work itself. Like a Zen archer, the point is not to hit the bulls-eye, but to mindfully engage oneself in the process of raising, aiming and releasing the arrow. Hitting the target is a bonus, not a requirement.

For another thing, a disturbingly large percentage of us, in the first world anyway, spend most of our income on stuff we don't actually need to live comfortably: cable television, new cars, status-laden clothes and accessories, iPods, Starbucks, cell phone and so on. However, we invest these lifestyle habits with the status of "needs" and then spend the rest of our lives scrambling around frantically trying to make sure we can meet them.

Ironically, anybody who has ever spent time away at a retreat, gone camping or even lived through a few days snowed in during a power outage can recognize the guilty pleasure of playing hookie from the pressure of day-to-day concerns, and the inevitable, quickly-supressed feeling of regret we experience when it's time to return to our "every day" lives of email, television, alarm clocks, jobs, expectations and facades.

If we were really honest with ourselves, we would realize that we could do work that actually provided us with meaning and joy (not to mention making the world around us a better place) and still get by just fine, although to do so we might have to give up some or all those modern "needs" that we somehow don't miss when we get the chance to step away from them for a few days.

And the argument that these are the things that make life worth living supports, rather than undermines, my argument. If you are relying on things (rather than what you do with your life) to provide your life with meaning, then you are paying far more than the full retail price of those goods for your fulfillment. OTOH, if something or some activity really is such a meaningful part of your life that giving it up would be a gut-wrenching blow, then that's a clue - you should be building a life around that instead of simply making it a small part of the options package of your main vehicle of life-energy exchange.

So what are you giving up on or failing to do because you are focusing too hard on the result, rather than the work itself? How would it change your life if the results were irrelevant, that you would be "graded," as it were, on the work you did rather than the targets you hit? If you were free to do what gave you the most joy, provided the best use of your skills and abilities and allowed you to pursue the things that brought you closer to the Divine?

Now imagine what this world would be like if we all did that.

In solidarity with others in the blogosphere, I am posting this fine example of egregiously tasteful, classical nudity to protest the ironically named Smartfilter web-rating software.

See, Smartfilter is used by many corporations and oppressive governments (the two being not entirely unalike) to filter web pages that the company or country deems inappropriate. In reality, the Smartfilter program is so unsmart that 95.5 percent of the pages it tagged as "containing nudity" on the popular blog BoingBoing had no nudity whatsoever David and photos of Abu Ghraib in with pornographic images. It also filters out the Bible, the Declaration of Independence and many health sites, like the CDC diabetes site (WTF?) Additionally,,.while lumping such images as the aforementioned statue of apparently the program doesn't block out all offensive sites, and is apparently so easy to work around that even your average cubicle slave can do it.

None the less, despite the fact that it is cripplingly bad at doing what is was bought  to do, and cotton-candy easy to get around, many countries and companies continue to treat their citizens and workers as children who are incapable ofcontrolling their own media diet by banning them from perfectly harmless sites (unless, of course, you view the free exchange of information harmful...) while blindly leaving the internet pipeline relatively open to other, as-yet-unblocked offenders.

Ergo, the protest. So you can go to Boing Boing to get your "guide to eveading the Smartfilter censorware" or just keep up with the story as it unfolds and get your own protest image kit. In the meantime, enjoy the classic art while you can. There's a good chance this blog will be banned by Smartfilter as soon as it finds out I'm flogging such porno on the open market.

Check out this ubercool 13-part personal development plan that the original Old Fart designed as a way to regulate his behavior, emotional state and lifestyle toward his ideal.

...did you know that in 1726, at the age of 20, while on an 80-day ocean voyage from London back to Philadelphia, he developed a "Plan" for regulating his future conduct?

[snip]

His "Plan" was made up of 13 virtues, each with short descriptions:

1. Temperance: Eat not to dullness and drink not to elevation.

2. Silence: Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself. Avoid trifling conversation.

3. Order: Let all your things have their places. Let each part of your business have its time.

4. Resolution: Resolve to perform what you ought. Perform without fail what you resolve.

5. Frugality: Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself: i.e. Waste nothing.

6. Industry: Lose no time. Be always employed in something useful. Cut off all unnecessary actions.

7. Sincerity: Use no hurtful deceit. Think innocently and justly; and, if you speak, speak accordingly.

8. Justice: Wrong none, by doing injuries or omitting the benefits that are your duty.

9. Moderation: Avoid extremes. Forebear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.

10. Cleanliness: Tolerate no uncleanness in body, clothes or habitation.

11. Chastity: Rarely use venery but for health or offspring; Never to dullness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another's peace or reputation.

12. Tranquility: Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.

13. Humility: Imitate Jesus and Socrates.

From what I know of Ben, he must have been at war with himself every day to try and stick to this plan. But hey, at least he made the effort, which is more than you can say about most of today's political leaders (or their constituents, for that matter).

To be honest, any decent life coach today could make a damn good living coaching clients through this plan. It's as applicable today as it was back in the days of furry wigs and burgeoning independence. Maybe I'll give it a whirl - I could do far worse than imitate the guy who basically sold the idea of backing American independance to Europe, discovered tamable lightening and spent his off days doing more for this country than most modern politicians do in a lifetime.

...but apparently it never occured to these folks that driving around with a balloon full of explosive gas could be, ya know, a bad thing.

Hey, look - there's my Write Livelihood lens sitting at #10 on the Top 100 By Visitor Rating. There are several Top 100 lists. I hope to conquer them all! Bwaaah hahaha hahhha hahhaahhh...ahhh...ahem. Moving on...




Okay, so now I know how all my published writer friends feel when they see their book do the bottle rocket thing on Amazon. We all know it's a cheap thrill, but that don't make it chopped liver.

Ahhhhh...the sweet, sweet juice of public approval.

(Click the self-serving screen capture to view my lens.)

A recent study has shown that greenhouse gases are driving river flow by making plants less thirsty.

Accentuating the almost infinite level of complexity involved in the whole "butterfly effect" of global warming, this study by British climactic specialists shows that as CO2 levels rise, plants keep their stomata (respiratory pores) less open for shorter periods of time, thereby requiring less groundwater to make up for water lost during respiration.

Sounds like a miniscule tweak to existing models, but it's not. After all, there are a lot of plants out there. As the article explains:

Over the last century, the flow from the world's big continental rivers has increased by about four percent, coinciding with an increase in the average global temperature of some 1 C (1.8 F).

[snip]

Crunching through a simulation of the world's big continental rivers and land use, the computer model concludes that less-thirsty vegetation accounts for the lion's share of the extra runoff.

That's a lot of water. And while it can do some good in counteracting rainfall drops due to global warming, it also contributes to flooding and will likely have a marked affect on oceanic currents, which are responsible for creating and stablizing climate. In fact,

A study published last November found that a rush of freshwater into the North Atlantic, from melting glaciers in Greenland, melting sea ice and higher flows from Siberian rivers, was slowing the warm Atlantic current that gives western Europe its mild climate.

On current trends, Britain, Ireland and parts of the European continent could be plunged into bitter winters a decade or so from now, it warned.

Ouchie. Looks like we're in for a wild ride the next 20 years or so.

Dropping Knowledge is an organization dedicated to creating world change by asking and answering question, sharing information and seeking knowledge from those who the rest of us recognize as thought leaders.

Dropping Knowledge is collecting questions from everyday people and will present them to a body of international thought leaders. Their answers will be recorded and made available to all, sparking more questions, discussion and thought. They also produce movies, a blog and daily ads based on questions they receive:



So, what's your question?

Democracy Player is a downloadable software tool for watching Internet TV in a user-friendly interface. It's free to download, open source (so if you've got haxx0r skills, you can mod yourself silly) and has an automatic RSS mode that allows you to automatically download stuff from your favorite online tv channels (the site's info pages boast about having over 300 to choose from).

No more squinchy screens and crappy resolution. Free programming that at its worst has to at least equal the crap on "real" tv and probably blows it out of the water in many cases. Delivered to your desktop automatically by bit torrent, so it's even nice to the show hosts' servers. I am soooo in.

Of course, it's still in the "bug shake out" stage, just so you know. But hey...so is real tv.