update

happy may day! thanks to everyone who made may day happen again this year! it seems like there is a lot of change happening with may day, but i feel like at its core, its really all about one love and thats what im about, so carry on party people!

and happy may day to all the noble workers of the world! I salute you brothers and sisters of the hard work for least pay. We do the work where the rubber meets the road. Without us, nothing happens, all you have are rich people sitting in banks and architects drawing lines on paper. Without us, things don't get put together into products, without us places go to shit! literally!

Speaking of workers, I went for a bike ride yesterday and had my walkman radio on and i heard this guy rick steves, who does travel shows for pbs, on the radio interviewing another guy, advocating for more vacation time. "what is the economy for?" he asks. i'm going to link to their page. he wrote a book called affluenza, i think. John Degraf is his name, www.timeday.org


the forum went well. much better than the drizzly previous week. it started out slow, but picked up momentum as people spoke. I have to miss next weeks, though. The JATC has a mandatory seminar up in Salem.

life goes on

liberty

Liberty is the combination of freedom and responsibility. Alone, freedom allows people to harm each other for their own gain. Only when you join freedom to right action do you produce a just society. Without justice, freedom is worthless. To understand that you are not alone is the first step on the path. Either we are all in this together, or we're not.

I just came upon this blog which had the above as the subtitle, or about the blog part. brilliant.

my letter to robert greenwald of brave new films

hi Robert,

Thanks for your email. I don't utube...yet. I think I need a faster computer. But it sounds cool, what you've been up to. So I just wanted to make two suggestions, make that three. one is: what really happened on 9-11? two is: why isn't the government supporting renewable energy more? and three: is our preparation/plan for global peak oil really going to be endless resource wars and armageddon?

back to work

after two weeks of temporary laying off, i'm returning to work today. its nice that i didn't have to get up at the butt-crack of dawn, though. i went to see an ear-nose-throat dr. this morning for an ingrown hair in my nose. thats a lot of fun, believe me! wouldn't you know it, the swelling had subsided and he couldn't find it, so i spent $30 for the co-pay for a prescription and a nose hair trim. what are you going to do? maybe it won't re-occur this time, knock on wood.

well, i don't know if i'll be able to keep up the blogging activity but i'll try. i'll definitely be at the forum unless something big comes up.

be well beloved readers

America at a Crossroads

I've been watching this series on OPB this week. Though I take it with a grain of salt (CPB's reputation is weakening as is every other government agency under Bush and Co.), I have to say that so far it has been very interesting to watch. Last night they had a piece on Richard Perle and why he thinks the war was a good idea. The best part was when talking to protestors one woman called him a wmd. I have to give him credit for going out there and meeting the protestors face to face. However, I did not find any of his arguments compelling.

how to pre-empt mass shootings

For those of you who watch the Newshour with Jim Lehrer, you know that last night they devoted the entire hour to coverage and analysis of the VTech shooting. One segment had two experts on the criminal mind. Here is the opening introduction:

JEFFREY BROWN: We turn to Stanton Samenow, a clinical psychologist based in Alexandria, Virginia. He's the author of "Inside the Criminal Mind." And Paul Viollis, he's CEO of Risk Control Strategies, which provides security consulting for corporations and educational institutions. He's the author of "Avoiding Violence in our Schools."

Check out the transcript or view the clip here. I haven't read these books, but both experts gave testimony to the fact that in these types of cases, the perpetrator has certain defining characteristics. For example,

PAUL VIOLLIS: Typically, this type of person is someone that's found as a loner, more or less the quintessential outsider, someone that's never accepted, someone who has a difficulty accepting criticism.

This person finds himself in a position where he's constantly searching for attention, constantly searching for inner control. And if it escalates to the extent that he cannot find that, it builds to a sense of powerlessness. And when that happens, typically violence is imminent.

And from Samenow, "They do have unrealistic expectations of other people. They have this all-or-nothing thinking, but that is not mental illness."

So it seems to me, that this is somewhat systemic, in that, the perpetrator goes down a downward spiral, with behaviors that reinforce each turn. Say you are this person who is an outsider, never accepted, etc. But then some kind hearted soul reaches out to you and tries to be friends. But unbeknownst to you, you have unrealistic expectations of this kind friend, and the first time they cross you (whether real or imagined/misunderstood), you respond with exaggerated anger and perhaps even violence. Well, how is the friend going to react? I know if I were in those shoes, I would get freaked out and probably not want to be friends anymore. Indeed, I would probably warn others to stay away from "you" because I think you have a screw loose. Thus, the downward spiral. Isolation and erratic behavior beget more isolation and desperation.

I think we need to develop the response-ability to recognize these situations and stop the downward spiral. How to do that? Well, I think it has to start with our hypothetical friend. The friend needs to first recognize that unrealistic expectations were held, and then not give up on "you" so quickly. Somehow, explain that sometimes things don't go exactly as we'd like them to, but that doesn't mean the end of the world, or relationship or whatever. This is definitely the tricky part.

My two cents.

test

is it possible for me to write an email that automatically posts on my blog?


Tim Kijoo Nam
Corvallis, OR
tkn317071@yahoo.com
http://timsbloggo.blogspot.com/
"We are discussing no small matter, but how we ought to live." -Socrates

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Imus be missing somting?

My buddy Dan argued this weekend that Imus is not a racist, or that his comment wasn't racist. Here is my reply via email and this blog.

I've been thinking about this some, and Imus' comment seems racist to me. It seems that he (wrongly) assumed that he could get away with making an extremely derrogatory statement about african-american women b-ballers...because he's a rich white guy, indeed, a regular good-ol-boy. If that kind of thinking doesn't reflect and support an underlying feeling of superiority, then I'm not sure what does. If he wasn't fired, then the fact that he said what he said and got away with it would've meant that its okay for a rich white guy to publicly demean black people who've been systematically and institutionally oppressed for hundreds of years. He didn't violate anyone's civil rights perse, but he did cross the line and vocalize a put-down of black women, which incrementally bolsters the still-alive-and-well (as you know and I know) system of thought that says white people are better than black people, brown people, red people and yellow people.

so what if a black person said that about a white team? say, something like blond-headed whores, If Chris Rock came out and called some white women's basketball team a bunch of blonde headed hookers, would that be percieved as racist?

I understand about PCness run amok, but I don't think this is one of those cases. And as Tina mentioned, it was the market that ultimately "punished" Imus. Is this a kind of mob mentality? perhaps, but it seems a lot better than the kinds of mobs that ruled in some of the southern parts of this country.

Explain yourself man.

P.S. I'm gonna post this on my blog.

KIVA

I was inspired the other night when I saw Frontline World. They did a story on the micro-credit outfit Kiva, which connects relatively well-off folks with people who need micro-loans in other countries, via the internet. So now, I'm investing in Ivan Salinas' business, which is in Baba, Ecuador. What a great thing. Thank you Kiva! Go for it Ivan!

KBOO listeners in Corvallis

I've been tuned in to KBOO this morning and wanted to put this out here.
Let me start by saying I think KBOO is great, it airs the programming that OPB fails to air. Of course, KBOO is a Portland entity, first and foremost. I've often felt that while I support KBOO financially, I'm not really a member of the KBOO community. One reason for this is that the signal here in Corvallis is often prone to interference. Most of the time that I tune in there is static and interference from other stations. I've asked our local KBOO guru, Michael Papadopolos about this and he seemed to not know what I was talking about. My question to you is, do you listen to KBOO and if you do how has your reception been? If your experience has been like mine...you wish something could be done to boost the 100.7 frequency...lets organize. I'm thinking about a mid-valley campaign to provide more power to the KBOO transmitter with solar and wind power. Whaddya say?

RIP Kurt Vonnegut

When I saw Kurt Vonnegut awhile back on NOW (the weekly PBS show I consider must see tv) he didn't seem well. He was very skeptical of our chances as a species to get our act together which made me want to try even more. I have yet to read his latest book, Man Without a Country, but hope to soon.

Kurt Vonnegut's writing changed me for the better. I'm still grateful to Ms. Martinez, my 10th grade English teacher, who included his book Cat's Cradle in a reading list for us to choose from. Somehow I chose that book and it opened my eyes to a greater vision of the world, how it is and how it can be. His writing was so creative and different that it suggested new possibilities to me. For a few years after that, he was the only author I read. I consumed his books voraciously though I fell short of reading all of them.

Now Kurt Vonnegut's spirit has returned to the Source and though just a humble fan, I will miss him. Thank you Mr. Vonnegut for opening my eyes and my mind.

shout outs

This is another piece I wrote to say at the forum awhile back.

What a great day to be alive and kicking in the world as we know it.
So as you may or may not know, the forum here was created to be an outlet for your voices. That means anyone who is within earshot or anyone who actually cares.

I’d like to give a few shout outs today

To the mass consumers: do you really need that? And you know, I still have to insist that it doesn’t matter what kind of clothes you wear, or what your hair looks like, what you smell like, or how you get around, it doesn’t matter to me. I know it does to you but that is pure fiction. I hate to burst your bubble but What I’m interested in is what’s in your mind and in your heart.
To the media: keep trying
To the ruling class: the sooner you learn to share, the better off we’ll all be. The future will either be sustainable or it will cease to exist for humankind. To be clear, that means peace not war, that means equality of every person’s right to exist, that means justice for all and restoring and conserving natural systems not raping and pillaging them. Enough is enough.

To family: thank you
To my allies: thank you
To my enemies: I love you and wish for you the warm embrace of God.

To the people who say you can’t change things. You’re wrong. Because as you can see, change is happening. Simply by deciding that a place can exist for public speaking and meaningful expression, one exists. What kind of world could we create if we all simply made different, more co-creative decisions? It really boggles the mind.

To the people who say why bother? Because we’re here goddamit! We’re here and we can… I don’t need any higher purpose than that. If you don’t think we are capable of improvement then must you drag everyone else down with you?

American Fascists ala Chris Hedges

These are some thoughts I wrote down for the forum a few weeks ago. They refer to an article and speech by Chris Hedges. I heard the speech on Alternative Radio then I got on the web and found the article.

What Chris Hedges speech and article illustrate so clearly for me is that American terrorists are being indoctrinated even as we speak. Taking Hedges at his word, Fundamentalist Christianity is no different than Fundamentalist Islam except for the vastly superior economic and technological abilities, and world-superpower status. These terrorists hate people like us and would prefer our extinction. Perhaps coincidentally or not, these are also the same people supporting the war on terror. Taking Hedges at his word, This is a serious problem we need to recognize and deal with before its too late.

Is Hedges exaggerating the problem? What is the real number of people who believe violence is a good thing to perpetrate on non-believers? What are the real parallels between pre-Nazi Germany and now? How do you affect someone who wants to see you dead?

We need to be waging the war on terrorism, it is We The People who need to get to the root of the terrorism problem. We are the only ones who can. I don’t think we can bomb terrorism off the planet. I don’t think we can neighborhood patrol terrorism off the planet. This is truly a matter of personal belief and conviction. Terrorism grows out of religion. Those of us whose hesitation is heard as silence and then implicitly agreement, must regain our voice.

See, I believe that most people are decent and well-meaning. I believe the consensus is to follow the golden rule. Most people don’t go to such extremes. The problem is the numbers that do are increasing. The solution is for the center to pull back on the extremist views, especially when those views are held and acted upon by the leaders of our country..