music sharing

Words are such wondrous things. Lately i've been drawn to odd words that are not used commonly but have such rich meanings. The one i chose this week is one i wish i had learned many years ago.

Agnotology--Culturally constructed ignorance, purposefully created by special interest groups working hard to create confusion and suppress the truth.

Why do so many of us around the world fall for this? Have any of your friends let politics trump friendship?

Instead of spreading ignorance, spreading peace through multimedia presentations enables friendship and trust in a manner all of us can understand.

A friend sent me a link to this website earlier in the week called Playing for Change. It was created to spread peace through a connection with music. i've sent this out to everyone already in an e-mail but decided it was important enough to do a repeat.

Mark Johnson, the sites founder, says:

"The act of playing music with people of different cultures, religions, economics and politics is a powerful statement. It shows that we can find ways of working together and sharing our experiences with one another in a positive way. Music has the power to break down the walls between cultures, to raise the level of human understanding."

Listen to the music there and tell me it doesn't make you feel good. Tell me you don't appreciate those people around the world working together.
http://www.youtube.com/user/PlayingForChange

Every once in awhile i post music i'm listening to:
Here are a few links to some different sorts.

Jon Hassell does a kind of visionary music he calls Fourth World this is for you Mark
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewProfile&friendID=244255708
Breathing Aether....rock and roll...this was a random find...but fun!
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewProfile&friendID=49488739
Franz Ferdinand if you like to dance around the house their new album is great.
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewProfile&friendID=8712457
Department of Eagles does disorienting music...interesting and varied
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewProfile&friendID=69036797
There are two songs here i like from the Harmony in My Head Festival....Sleep and Musee Mechanique
i don't like Alone.
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewProfile&friendID=320107433
Also Karina Denike who i think is the singer above has another song Polka Dot
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewProfile&friendID=49526696

Share what you are listening to with us here in the comments!

Smile!

If this doesn't work try this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=veom7XANGr4

peace was invited to dinner

If you are an individual participating in society you are required by the culture or law to adhere to specific social constructs or instructions.

George Carlin said there were only two commandments he adhered to. "Thou shalt not kill and thou shalt try not to lie."

Those commandments are perfectly suited to most social and cultural interactions. You definitely don't want to kill and if you didn't lie you never have anything to cover up or remember. On the other hand, if you don't lie, you can also injure others to the core with your brutal honesty.

So could leaving out salient details be acceptable?

Yes. Sometimes!

If you are not asked directly about them you don't have to contribute information that may confuse the issue or injure the other person. But the minute you are put on the spot with a focused question that might cut to the core of the dispute you have to fess up and reveal all that you were keeping under wraps to suit your story. That is if you are trying to follow the do not lie commandment. Of course if you didn't lie as part of your personality or stories there wouldn't be much to fess up to anyway.

So what more should you do to lead a life that didn't harm others and is that enough?

Unfortunately not lying can get you in trouble and hurt others also. When a person is so honest, brutally honest, sometimes friends or associates may not really want to hear truths in such a raw manner. The teller of the truth has to confront the very real possibility that the friend or associate's anger at hearing some truth may create future strained encounters. One can get tired of brutal honesty especially if you are put on the spot concerning a story that had become demonstrably false to one or the other. What if two people see the issues in such opposite manners that they can't agree on what is truth and what isn't? The lies they have absorbed become an integral part of their story and it is hard to let those lies go.

If you distance yourself, because you no longer trust that the friend or associate would also lie about you if it suited some final outcome they had anticipated, are you creating more of a problem or solving the problem?

Some would call this a basic human device used to accomplish something for the self. The human "instinct" being to get whatever they could for themselves first before thinking about others.

But is this really an "instinct" or something that develops over time, a learned response to adverse situations?

When i have observed preschool class in the past the children there had seemed more concerned about their playmates than themselves. Worrying about their feelings, helping them when they found someone crying, getting their things if they couldn't find them.

Was self interest really "instinct"? The preschool class certainly didn't indicate it was in fact it indicated the exact opposite.

There is a great quote by Black Elk that goes:

Grown men can learn from very little children for the hearts of little children are pure. Therefore, the Great Spirit may show to them many things which older people miss.

So how do you repair something like this when you know your friend or associate has created a story to suit them?

Should you go to war?

Maybe you should just get rid of them and that will solve the problem.

Not likely.

Today we have armed conflicts all over the world that might not be happening. i could believe that if these two commandments were respected
1. Do not kill and
2. Do not lie.
the number of violent conflicts might be reduced significantly. Don't you think that if we taught our children these two rules and encouraged their innate sense of compassion maybe earth would be a more peaceful place?

Go to www.change.gov and vote to create a Peace Department. Peace has not been extended an invitation to dine at the governments table, it is time to set a place and ready its chair.

St. Croix, VI 2009 Three Kings Day Parade

Carnival in the islands is a time when everyone comes together and just enjoys each other. There is laughing, dancing and much love.

These guys played all the way down the street and had a blast. We had a blast just watching everyone!


Cruzians really know how to have fun!







The last float in the parade carries a band. Everyone that wants to participate gets in behind the last truck and dances(tramps) their way down the parade route to the carnival village. i look forward to this every year.

It would be so nice if all that good feeling, camaraderie and love lasted all year!