Gods Agenda

A little follow up to the anti-apocalypse video...

Here's a great documentary from the VPRO in the Netherlands about politics and religion in the US. At the start someone states boldly "The US is the greatest...it's better than Europe, that's why we left!" Classic. Even if you can't understand the Dutch commentary the interviews are in English and are worth a look:

Link to gods agenda

Anti-Apocalypse

Its been awhile but I'm back with more ramblings about world events and other things that concern me. Things that I can do very little about. But comment I will. This time I'll start from back to front:

I've been trying all kinds of strategies to jump start a PhD in the social sciences and I'm pushing my own proposal about Filipino migrant organizations and their political impact on Philippine democracy. There's more to it of course, but there it is for now.

But then it turns out there are other PhD openings in the neighborhood that interest me too, like one I found today about the impact of media on religious belief. Finding that announcement must have been in the stars after just finishing a short video focused (with some blur) on the rapture and apocalypse for chichiandco.net. Its a rough vid hammered together from archival material, it speaks for itself.

For the Phd position I have to demonstrate a "proven" interest in the study of religion and the media. You think this would rate as a "proven" interest? (updated version)

My daughter

I've been fighting the urge to write about the event and person who has defined the last six months of my life in order to carve out my own space, my cave behind the waterfall, where I can retreat to think about black and white things in shades of grey instead of the technicolor rainbow that has descended like a baby blanket over my world.

The ground shaking event of her arrival influences everything from philosophical and existential questio y k df zzzzz QaszZ` 1 Q (that's her banging on the keyboard) to the most simple thoughts I've had these months. To say she dominates my thoughts, my time, my universe, is a huge understatement.



I'm still wrapping my mind around the fact that there's someone new in my life who lives with me, who is intimately related to me, and who keeps me from the deep kind of sleep I used to take for granted. I know the thing about sleep is what everyone talks about, but its true...I've been carrying around a deep tiredness that feels like the pilot has taken his hands off the wheel, switched on the autopilot and is watching a movie in the main cabin. But somehow, the plane stays on course.

Life has many more steps in it all of a sudden, 10 steps to getting out the door, 10 steps to going to sleep...10 steps to her bed at 7am when she wakes up hungry.

I just put her in bed, tucked her in, walked away thinking 'have i done it right? Done what right? Exactly.'. Concern sneaks in like a thief in the night, a vague concern that goes with not knowing whether concern is called for.

I hear her voice everywhere, in every sound that vaguely sounds like her.

I have a daughter.

Today she was upset and yelled, Muuuuumaaaahhh.

Philippine democracy

While on the subject of war, it seems Mr. Twain had some thoughts that were worthy of our illustrious times. The thorny issue of Philippine democracy (so-called 1st democracy in Asia) has been on the agenda for me as part of my march into higher learning and reconnection with things primordial. Connecting the pieces of a historical puzzle that could be a lesson learned and then forgotten, scrambled like so many historical lessons that have gone before, perhaps to be pieced together again. The "Philippine Insurrection" is etched into the USMC memorial in DC, and tied up 75% of active duty US forces in its day. Sound familiar? But then again, maybe it was all worth it...see vid.

Mark Twain, Returning Home, New York World [London, 10/6/1900]

You ask me about what is called imperialism. Well, I have formed views about that question. I am at the disadvantage of not knowing whether our people are for or against spreading themselves over the face of the globe. I should be sorry if they are, for I don't think that it is wise or a necessary development. As to China, I quite approve of our Government's action in getting free of that complication. They are withdrawing, I understand, having done what they wanted. That is quite right. We have no more business in China than in any other country that is not ours. There is the case of the Philippines. I have tried hard, and yet I cannot for the life of me comprehend how we got into that mess. Perhaps we could not have avoided it -- perhaps it was inevitable that we should come to be fighting the natives of those islands -- but I cannot understand it, and have never been able to get at the bottom of the origin of our antagonism to the natives. I thought we should act as their protector -- not try to get them under our heel. We were to relieve them from Spanish tyranny to enable them to set up a government of their own, and we were to stand by and see that it got a fair trial. It was not to be a government according to our ideas, but a government that represented the feeling of the majority of the Filipinos, a government according to Filipino ideas. That would have been a worthy mission for the United States. But now -- why, we have got into a mess, a quagmire from which each fresh step renders the difficulty of extrication immensely greater. I'm sure I wish I could see what we were getting out of it, and all it means to us as a nation.

iraq docs

...and the war rolled on&on&on without rhyme or reason, inspiring indignant doc filmmakers the world over to bring attention to that house of horrors that never seems to stop haunting our 24 hour news channels..."Iraq in fragments" and "My country, My Country" are just the most recent films up for oscars in what's becoming quite a lineage of docs stretching waaaay back to F911. Maybe there were some before granddaddy Fahrenheit, I'm not sure if MM's film was the chicken and the egg...frontline have some of the best I've seen.

It seems like everyone has an Iraqdoc now...so let me throw in another man's two cents from an interview I shot for the big guy. Wasn't included in the end. It seems the movie was getting too long and it was believed that American audiences wouldn't be too keen on hearing from the global street about America's business in Iraq. But in case you're interested in what an Iraqi (who I caught with Sas in front of the Dutch Parliament) thought of what was happening in his country (end 2003) have a peek at this vid.

Real merit has no merit

maybe its because more media attention is being brought to bear on the problems in Africa?

World leaders are making documentaries on climate change. Today's Andrew Carnegies are donating pieces of their hoard to good causes, following in the footsteps of the man who said something about money being like manure. idealism (for lack of a better word) is filling the air. If concentrated it begins to stink, so spread it around.

Reggae, triphop, African, brazilian, progressive, regressive...sounds blasts at some show, where marketing managers or investment officers or some kind of officer shouts in my ear about wanting to dedicate himself to a higher cause, when he's got the dough. Its in the air. Its everywhere and nowhere.

Makes me think of our much revered and cited anti-imperialist friend who said "We do no benevolences whose first benefit is not for ourselves." Which brings me conveniently to the diamond sutra. Yes, even buddhists know the value of a shiny rock.

須菩提、於意云何。若人滿三千大千世界、七寶以用布施、是人所得福德寧爲多不。須菩提言、甚多世尊。何以故。是福德卽非福德性。是故如來說福德多。若復有 人於此經中、受持乃至四句偈等爲他人說、其福勝彼。何以故。須菩提、一切諸佛及諸佛阿耨多羅三藐三菩提法皆從此經出。須菩提。所謂佛法者卽非佛法

"Subhūti, what do you think? If a person were to fill a chiliocosm with the seven kinds of jewels and give them away charitably, wouldn't the merit attained by this person be great?"

Subhūti said, "Extremely great, World Honored One. And why? This merit has no nature of merit; therefore the tathāgata says that this merit is great."

The Buddha said: "But if there were a person well-attentive to this sūtra such that he or she could teach a four line verse from it to others, this person's merit would exceed that of the former example. Why? Subhūti, all of the buddhas and all of their teachings of peerless perfect enlightenment spring forth from this sūtra. Subhūti, that which is called the buddhadharma is not the buddhadharma."