On the recommendation of a friend, I watched this earlier and was left with many thoughts. Many questions. Anything that raises questions is of interest.
The following video is intended for audiences who are willing to ask questions. Questions about religion. Questions about authority. Questions about government. Questions about the world all live in. The author of this post takes no responsibility for the contents herein, and furthermore does not claim to believe in part or full the views expressed herein. However, the author does have strong interest in all the covered subjects. It is best you go into this blind. For if I were to explain the outline of this video to you, you would surely form prejudgement and that is not ideal at all. The author very much wishes to know your thoughts regarding this film, and have discussion about it. We here at RKNet are willing to entertain any and all view points. Moderation will be conducted by Giania. The other authors of RKNet will express their own views. Regardless of disagreement all (non-spam) comments will be allowed and encouraged. The point of asking questions is to get answers. Every person’s answer is important to us. Please help us explore these ideas by giving your feedback.
Caution, this film is 2 hours long. It is recommended that you visit the film’s site for source information and larger formats of the film.
The Damanhurians are a lot of things. A small group of semi-private spiritualists, architects, philosophers, ecologists, and revolutionaries, for starters. In 1978 they began building a complex series of temples into a mountain in Italy. They finished this construction in the 90’s. They were constructed with the use of whatever labor they could find, and construction was done in secret so they didn’t have to deal with legal constraints. According to wikipedia, Damanhur was an ancient Egyptian city whose name translates literally to “City of Horus”.
For your edification, here’s a short video on the history of the Damanhurians. Check out the Damanhur websites and scope around for more videos. The temples are absolutely gorgeous. There’s so much more to the Damanhurians than just the temple though, they’re a fairly good sized group at this point, with ecologically conscious installations all over the world.
The Daily Kos has provided a link to the list of committee members who will be dealing directly with this bill in their lengthy commentary. I have no idea why only the Democrats have outbound links.
As with any law-related item, it is strongly encouraged to read the proposed bill yourself prior to espousing your thoughts to a positive or negative. With that in mind, here is a small portion of the opening statement. Those with little tolerance for religion, and those who are disinclined to see our government’s time wasted with trifling arguements for meaningless memorials would do well to take a few deep breaths first.
Affirming the rich spiritual and religious history of our Nation’s founding and subsequent history and expressing support for designation of the first week in May as `American Religious History Week’ for the appreciation of and education on America’s history of religious faith.
Whereas religious faith was not only important in official American life during the periods of discovery, exploration, colonization, and growth but has also been acknowledged and incorporated into all 3 branches of American Federal government from their very beginning;
Whereas the Supreme Court of the United States affirmed this self-evident fact in a unanimous ruling declaring `This is a religious people … From the discovery of this continent to the present hour, there is a single voice making this affirmation’;
Whereas political scientists have documented that the most frequently-cited source in the political period known as The Founding Era was the Bible;
Whereas the first act of America’s first Congress in 1774 was to ask a minister to open with prayer and to lead Congress in the reading of 4 chapters of the Bible;
Whereas Congress regularly attended church and Divine service together en masse;
My thoughts? It’s a waste of human resources to even consider talking about this. This bill strikes me as demonstrating no effort at honoring “American Religious History” so much as it wishes to remind everyone how important Christian religion has been in the history of this country. Regardless of that observation, to approve any bill citing any one faith as essential or preferred in this nation’s past is to imply that it is essential to its present; in short, the bill flies in the face of separation of church and state and is therefore simply not acceptable. I absolutely respect the rights of citizens to practice and celebrate and share their religious beliefs - up to and including sharing their beliefs on how their faith may have shaped this nation’s history and practices - but I cannot and will not condone signing anything into law which then places the state’s official position as one of direct endorsement of a specific group’s personal beliefs. Focusing in such a manner belittles the historical significance and current cultural relevance of all other theological positions, and engenders ill will between differing faiths by inciting heated debate as to why one religion is preferable in the eyes of the government.
I support separation of church and state. I support the equal exchange of ideas. I support the pursuit of history, unbaised by the agendas of the few. Please share your thoughts with me, and more importantly, please share your thoughts with the representatives of the committee if you feel strongly about this issue (one way or the other).
So today has been re-affirmed as “Loyalty Day” by our current Commander in Chief. Well… okay, fine, whatever. It’s not as though we don’t already have a number of patriotic-themed holidays that we thoroughly ignore despite these types of reminders. What’s one more?
That aside, I think it is a good idea to keep in mind the history on which this country was founded and maintained; that habit, in addition to tracking the most recent ways the nation is being run, should provide us with more ways to keep the BS down to a bare minimum. Granted, “A bare minimum” will undoubtedly still be a very large amount, but that is the issue with democracy in the first place: it requires many people to get together in the attempt to reach an agreement on which policies will work out the best for the most people at once. But I digress. Read the rest of this entry »
This Words To Know is being brought to you today by “why the hell not?” and also by “not formatted anything like the other ones”. Now with 99% less Wikipedia and 100% more link mouseover info. This makes it sort of revolutionary among its brethren, and also somewhat of a jerk.
First thing's first. With the recent pet food scare, and me owning a kitty of which I have yet to take pictures, I decided it was time to find out what kitty ought to be eating. There were a lot of resources out there, but the best has to be this recipe for a “raw food” catfood. More on how that works out later.
One of the suggested ingredients in there is a whole rabbit (minus skin and fur of course). That's not a euphamism for kibble, either. That's the real deal, 1 whole Peter Cottontail, 1 whole Benjamin Bunny, 1 whole hexen hase[2]. I myself am going to settle for the chicken option, it's a lot more accessible and ultimately much more afforadable.
That's just one of several things I've managed to suss up lately. I've gotten into a lot of bizzare philosophical debates on IRC lately, and one of the most recent involved average IQ. (Intelligence has been on my mind a lot lately, particularly the calling into question of my own. Which is a patently ridiculous scenario, I realize.) Of course, show me a person with a truly average IQ and I'll probably be so stricken by the unlikelihood of it all that I'll spontaneously develop bizzare psychic powers to not be outdone in the oddity department.
Speaking of the oddity department, and discoveries, I've decided that I'm intensely enamored of the whole “Gothic Lolita” fashion style. The lovely Annalee over at ToM pointed out the store site for Baby, The Stars Shine Bright. I spent a while browsing there and then struck out on my own, looking for moresuper-fun visual styles in that vein. It is of course by no means practical, but it's so enjoyably artful that I can't help but be fascinated by it.
This leads to my last little bit, which like most of the rest of this post will be less of an proper WTK and more of a personal aside. At some point while gushing over how adorable a bunch of cosplayers were I quipped something to the effect of “quick, everybody gimme me money so I can buy a Suiseisekicostume!” However, my attempt to be funny went slightly off-center with someone and I wound up being donated $15 through PayPal. …so now I intend to hold that money aside and put it towards buying real hosting for my site as I mentioned wanting to months ago. I guess I am willing to take other donations but I'm not really all that keen on the idea since it feels sort of absurd to take handouts for something as simple as hosting. What I will accept with open arms are suggestions on a low-cost, stable hosting solution that will support wordpress.
This isn’t as decisive and cutting as I am accustomed to reading from Mr. Long, but as he himself admits, it is a very complicated and difficult for Joe Average to approach in an impartial and a well-informed manner.
Still, if you ask me, it ties back into personal responsibility. His assessment was very neutral, very info-gathering oriented rather than firing off his usual heavy slug of strong opinion. This was more of a buckshot approach, scattering some lead over this very broad and dangerous topic to make sure to hit at least a few key points.
One approach that he only hinted at, and I would have loved to see him persue, would definitely have been for him to raise the flag of Personal Responsibility. Little steps will help immensely in this situation, and people who are passionate about the environment (or claim to be so) need to take more action if they really do have ideas. To some degree, the early 90’s thought process of “it takes everybody to save mother earth!” is correct. However, realisitically, not everyone can devote the kind of time necessary to finding cures for our greatest sources of pollution. In this case, it really is up to the vocal, independant movements to muster up the courage to get out there and support the fine minds that will bring us alternatives to our current mode of life.
Which is really what it takes. Science got us into this particular postion. The industrial revolution’s brand of science, anyhow. Interchangable parts lead to disposable parts, the study of electricity leading to power plants of varying degress of smoke-belching, the development of vehicular advancements, the invention of plastic, the machinery that allows us to automate and speed up production of goods, and the list really does go on and on.
Realistically there are a lot of things that could stand to be shifted around. I myself don’t have a whole lot of ideas, but I know when something is a flat-out wasteful idea! In that light I myself do some little things which will in some way help. I won’t be toppling any major issues or winning a Nobel prize for my efforts, but it’s surely better than nothing.
Soon, I think it’d be a good idea for a lot of us to do a little inventory and see how many wasteful and how many useful things we do every day. The idea there is to knock a few items off that wasteful list, and add a few to the useful list. How about Monday? As of Monday morning, start making a few mental notes on your habits and - if you can - jot them down or type them out and see how you’re doing.
Some kids play in the sandbox. We play in the.... litterbox??? The RKNet staff is pleased that you decided to stop by. Currently this is a multi-author project, with a rotating cast of totally kooky characters. Contact giania [at symbol] gmail [dot] com if you'd like to play here too.
