Changing the World

Smile For Zee Camera

Wow, my dear friend Bro. G sent me an article tonight about a relatively new phenomenon — video podcasting. First, there was audio podcasting, which is suddenly giving millions of people a voice, and now, even better, there is video casting. Now, anyone in the world can create a short video, and you can view it on your computer or iPod. It's really neat how companies like Apple Computer are quietly changing the world. The whole podcast movement is just in time, since corporations and government are controlling the media more and more. Fox TV has become the official news agency for the U.S. government, just like TASS was for the Soviet Union.

I'd love to turn my little shed office into a studio and make little broadcasts for video iPod owners around the world to download and watch. This is a great source of alternative media, and yes, it gives me hope!!!!

New Perspective (Or Not New)

After spending several months thinking about the "next step" in my activism, I've gone full circle. I mean, in the last few weeks I played with the "just do nothing" idea to "let's approach this on some mysterious deeper level" approach, and now I'm back to my original premise: Making the world better will simply take a lot of love, a lot of positive energy, grassroots organizing, and dogged persistence. After really feeling sick during August and September, I have my energy and drive back. I feel good — I can swim, take long walks, do yardwork. God has blessed me with energy, which is the most precious resource there is. It is up to me, and to all of us, to use our limited time and energy in the way we are felt called. I wish it were all that simple, but the problem is that there is some other goober out there who feels "called" to work against me. As I struggle to get the Sustainability Movement going, some fundamentalist is going to be working to make America a strong theocracy, and there won't be room for folks like me in this new religious order. But, yeah, that's the one thing I've learned about life: nothing is black and white, and nothing is simple. There is always the dreaded "X" element - the law of unintended consequences, the big freaking "what if."

The following was on the signature line from an email that I received from an activist leader. I just thought it was interesting, and have no idea who Paulo Freire is. Oh, I just Googled him — he is a famous Brazilian educator, and said to be the most influential thinker about education in the late 20th Century. Wow.

"Leaders who do not act dialogically, but insist on imposing their decisions, do not organize the people--they manipulate them. They do not liberate, nor are they liberated: they oppress."
- Paulo Freire