give us this day more blogs: blog love: the news: the environment: the reading/writing room: tech: and then:
the rings: |
In some ways, it feels as if Tuesday's attacks blew a crust of rancid sugar off the nation; suddenly the vulgar nature of popular culture seems not only juvenile, not just banal, but wrong. Eminem: Shut up. Go away. Miss Spears: Put some clothes on, young lady, and stop writhing around with snakes.
tuesday, september 18, 20013:49 am Meditation: A very simple meditation technique you can learn in five minutes. 3:47 am How You Can Help: "If you have a meditation, prayer or visualization technique for increasing the power of light and love into the world, now is the time to use it. Spend time throughout the days ahead sending light and healing energy to those souls in need that are suffering from this calamity. Don't underestimate your own power to do good. One more person meditating and praying for the current situation can and will help."
monday, september 17, 20017:21 pm When I was 19, a terrible thing happened to my family. My stepfather was stabbed in the throat during a scuffle with a gang of thugs in our small restaurant. It happened late at night, and my mother waited 'till morning to call and tell me, even though I was only a block away - she didn't want to wake me. I went to the hospital to wait with her during ten long hours of surgery during which my stepfather had a stroke that left him paralyzed on his left side. Joe had been a strong, energetic man, the kind that women admired and other men looked up to. He became a shadow. He died five years later. The business never recovered. Our family was never the same. There is a sadness in me about this that will never go away. Funny. I just realized that's why the past few days have felt very familiar; I've been through it already, on a smaller but very personal scale. The feelings of shock, horror, rage and sorrow that I experienced then seem very much like what we as a nation and individuals are expressing now. It's also why I haven't been able to write or talk about my feelings during the past week. They're too confusing, too much a mixture of everything all jumbled together. And every time I think about them, I start to cry. And I really, really don't want to cry. I don't know why - I have nothing against tears, per se - but I don't want to. Back then, while my mother stayed with Joe during the days, I ran the diner, or at least tried to keep it going. I remember some customers returning on the days after we reopened for business, asking questions with an odd gleam in their eyes. Their small lives now had a personal connection with a terrible tragedy, so terrible that it had rated a minute or two on the local evening news. I could see that my family's misfortune made these people feel important. The look in their eyes, the excitement in their voices, made me sick with disgust and rage. I imagined them telling their friends all about it, as though they were part of the drama. I wanted to take a knife from the kitchen and slash their gleaming eyes. I realize now that my anger was territorial: I didn't want outsiders muscling in on my tragedy. Not mine, really, but my parents' - still, it affected me deeply. I saw myself as the custodian of their story. It was the excitement I recognized in the eyes of those people that enraged me, because I knew it very well. I had felt it myself as a high school girl when the drama teacher announced that our President had been shot. I'd had to hide my awful grin behind a book because I couldn't make it go away. Something Real had happened, not a movie or a TV show but an honest-to-God human drama, and in some frightening way it was a relief to stop pretending and start experiencing Real Life. 2:57 pm Ftrain: "And what I really need is for someone to just tell me how sorry they for me, just me, me alone, me in my fucking aloneness in this tiny country and my stupid lost job and my meaningless trivial bullshit life, even in comparison to the horrid, horrid things that happened." 2:25 pm Small things make me happy - like the discovery that I don't have to laboriously enter my quote of the day into a template, then rebuild everything each time; I can just blog the quote as a normal entry and click the 'Stay at the top' button in Greymatter. Voila - a quote that also goes into the record so I can search and find it later, or even link to it later. Greymatter rocks. ::link::[3 comments] 1:56 pm Zeldman: "Hasan Yalcinkaya writes from Turkey: 'The east part of the world is shaking in fear. They are sure America will take revenge and kill many Arabs.'" 12:58 pm
The opposite of war isn't peace, it's creation.
sunday, september 16, 20015:37 pm Salon.com News | An Afghan-American speaks: "You can't bomb us back into the Stone Age. We're already there. But you can start a new world war, and that's exactly what Osama bin Laden wants." ::link::[4 comments] 12:36 pm well, that didn't last long, did it? balance? what's that? ::link::[3 comments] 12:34 pm
"But if the enemy incline towards peace, do thou (also) incline towards peace, and trust in God: for He is One that heareth and knoweth (all things)."
saturday, september 15, 200111:59 am I've been feeling the need for balance for a long time, feeling off-balance in a very unhappy, unhealthy way. The web has been my source of information, income, companionship, entertainment, education, hope, and escape - above all, escape - to the exclusion of most of the rest of my life. I began this blog last December in response to a personal crisis, and it served its purpose very well. But now it is in the way, preventing me from finding balance in my life. I've become a compulsive blogger. [Perhaps some pop psychologist or media type will want to borrow this term and make a pile of money writing about a new phenomenon - be my guest.] The meaning I found at first, by writing about my personal experience has degenerated into empty entries, quotes from other sites, devoid of worth or purpose. I've become obsessed with stats and comments and figuring out ways to get a reaction from you, the reader - my audience. At last, I had the audience I always craved. For that is the meaning of "bornfamous": I grew up wanting to be famous, angry that I wasn't born famous, that the world wasn't giving me my due. And then the Internet came along, and personal web sites, and I gave my site/self the name I felt I deserved, and an average 35 people a day visited my site, and I felt some satisfaction in that pathetic number. But I spend all my time sitting in front of this screen while my 13-year-old son is in the other room staring at other screens and life is ticking away, somewhere out there. Not here. It ain't healthy. I used to get so angry with people when they told me that, before they all got computers too and stopped saying it. [Have you noticed? Nobody talks about obsessive/addictive computer use any more.] The events of the past few days seemed to fuel my compulsion to surf and read and look for more experience/opinion/feelings about what happened. At first, the explosion of thoughts expressed on personal sites across the country was wonderful and heartening. I still believe that it is an amazing outpouring of communication, expression and interaction, unprecedented in human history. It has proven the true worth of the Internet. But by last night, I couldn't stand it any more. I didn't want to read or hear or speak one more word. I didn't want to argue or speculate or add another byte to the cacaphony. As I searched web site after web site for something, I didn't know what, to fill some empty space inside me, I came across a site that said, "A moment of silence" on an empty black page. And I stopped. It was so nice to look at that screen, so peaceful and quiet, in the Internet sense of quiet [I'm sure you know what I mean.] I put the same message up on my own site, thinking that I would just take a break for a few days and think about things for awhile. I liked the feeling of quiet. Then I blinked and looked around at my depressing little apartment, and heard the TV in my son's room, and realized that I'm not living my life. I've been waiting for it to be over because I feel like I've blown this opportunity - better luck next time, kiddo. But it's not over yet. There's still time, still much to be done and experienced and learned - and loved. So I'm quitting, as much as I can, considering that I make my living from an ecommerce web site and hope to build some measure of improved income with web design. I'm quitting the blog. Is this forever, or just a 'hiatus'? I don't know, I can't say. For now, I'm going to get out of here for awhile, maybe go on a picnic or take my kid to the beach. Away from electronics, out into the sun. And find out what life is supposed to be about. ::link::[6 comments]
friday, september 14, 20016:07 pm adnan.org: "At least they can pronounce my name now." 1:56 pm
Will we ever get to the point that we realize we will be more secure when the rest of the world isn't living in poverty so we can have nice running shoes? 1:52 pm Michael Moore: "Am I being asked to believe that this guy who sleeps in a tent in a desert has been training pilots to fly our most modern, sophisticated jumbo jets with such pinpoint accuracy that they are able to hit these three targets without anyone wondering why these planes were so far off path?" 1:42 pm Supplies Needed for NY Relief Effort: A list of critical medical and non-medical supplies required by the officials and volunteers supplying the workers and survivors of the World Trade Center disaster.
thursday, september 13, 20012:11 pm I've heard the Ghandi quote a dozen times: "an eye for an eye leaves everyone blind." With all due respect to Ben Kingsley, this is moral imbecility. Self-defense is not retribution.Yeah, I know. I don't disagree. I'm just keeping my favorite Peace Pilgrim quote up for balance - trying to find a place for love and peace in my heart, you know? 1:28 pm Trying to return to some sense of normalcy... My Aortal site of the week is All About My Vagina: "The whole site is about my personal vagina, because it is the one I know best and because I have this idea in my head that part of the info that is hard to find about vaginas is the variety of personal attitudes that people have about them. A lot of the attitudes that I have been able to find presented in various media are counter-productive and kind of annoying. I wanted to make a big, informative vagina resource that had an attitude I thought was healthy, sane and positive." Sounds healthy and positive to me! 11:15 am So my son is watching HBO or Showtime in his room, and I wander in for some family time away from the awful news in the living room. The movie is "Fight Club", which I haven't seen yet. I'm like, oh. my. god. at the ending where the lovers hold hands as they watch explosions and numerous skyscrapers falling, just like you know what. Then we change the channel to Comedy Central, where an old SNL skit shows two men throwing rocks at a plane as it flies over. We look at each other and my son says, "Are they doing this on purpose?" And I can't blame him for assuming conspiracy. Suddenly, everything has new meaning. 10:07 am A moment of sweet, silly humor in jish's comment logs after he wrote that someone asked him if he was from Afghanistan. "God dammit, I'm Canadian!" he pointed out in his blog. And this was one of the comments: "I'm sorry that happened to you, hon. What is wrong with people? Please, please know that Canada is in our thoughts and prayers as is the whole world. I myself have tons of friends that are Canadian and we appreciate and love you and your fellow Canadians. We are all part of the human race, after all." Yes, for heaven's sake, let's not start beating up Canadians. ::link::[2 comments] 12:50 am Web Offers Both News and Comfort: "Amateur news reporters on weblogs are functioning as their own decentralized media today, and it's one of the only heartening things about this stomach-turning day." ::link::[2 comments]
wednesday, september 12, 20016:46 pm Understanding Osama bin Laden: "Merely locating and hunting down a single "guilty party" in this case will not stop future violence: such an action will not destroy the organization of terrorist cells already established throughout the world. Of greater importance, it will do nothing to alleviate the residual enmity against America." ::link::[2 comments] 6:39 pm New York search efforts: "New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani said two people trapped in the WTC basement made cell phone calls to their relatives to give them their locations, and said others were down there with them." 6:12 pm
"This is the way of peace -- overcome evil with good, and falsehood with truth, and hatred with love" 6:04 pm The new world order: "From the "Real World" and "Survivor," to "Boot Camp" and "The Fear Factor," what we know of conflict and survival and fear comes from the mind of cynical producers. From "Platoon" to "Saving Private Ryan" to "Pearl Harbor," what we know of pain and sacrifice and the terror of war comes from a Blockbuster rental store." 4:08 pm Here's the true view of tragedy for most of us. Surreal, indeed. 2:28 pm Please, please, please... don't let what happened yesterday turn you into a racist. There are evil, ugly, hateful people enough to go around for all races. Don't join them. 12:19 pm Tragic twist: "An Irishman fled the World Trade Center only to discover that his sister and young niece were on board one of the hijacked jets which had ploughed into it." 11:58 am I found the following message on the web this morning. I don't know about you, but it made me feel a little better - and very proud of some brave Americans: "Today was a tragedy for all of America and to my family, a very personal one. Lynn and my Niece Liz's husband, Jeremy Glick was on United flight 93 this morning. When the Hijackers took control of flight 93. Jeremy called my niece who in turn conferenced him to 911. Jeremy relayed to the police what was happening as the hijacking unfolded. As our niece Liz listened, Jeremy told the police there were three Arab terrorists with knives and a large red box that they claimed contained a bomb. Jeremy tracked the second by second details and relayed them to the police by phone. "After several minutes of describing the scene, Jeremy and several other passengers decided there was nothing to lose by rushing the hijackers. Although United Flight 93 crashed outside of Pittsburgh, with the loss of all souls. Jeremy and the other patriotic heroes saved the lives of many people on the ground that would have died if the Arab terrorists had been able to complete their heinous mission. "Please offer your prayers for all of those who perished or were injured in this tragic of all days and to our niece Liz Glick and her 2-month-old child, Emerson, who are left without their loving Husband and Father. "May we remember Jeremy and the other brave souls as heroes, soldiers and Americans' on United flight 93 whom so gallantly gave their lives to save many others." |
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