Sunday, November 7, 2010
The Seal of San Diego - Symbolism
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Kickstarter: The Understanding Campaign
The lastest Kickstarter campaign im backing is the Understanding Campaign. As they explain:
"The Understanding Campaign wants everyone in the world to read just one word of Arabic. Fhm (pronounced Fuh'hem) literally means Understanding. Through true understanding we can break down stereotypes and taboos – our mission is to begin with a single word. By joining the campaign you are saying you support empathy and understanding over conflict."
"Arabic is spoken by more than 280 million people as a first language. Let's face it, there is a major problem concerning US and Arab relations. Our main goal is to break down those brittle walls of ignorance by saying that we do want to understand more about Arab life, art, and culture."
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/685283397/the-understanding-campaign-starts-with-one-word
http://understandingcampaign.org/
http://www.facebook.com/ucampaign
Friday, October 1, 2010
A Tiny Ripple of Hope
"Each time a person stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, these ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance."
- Robert F. Kennedy 
Friday, August 13, 2010
The Tears of Gaza Must Be Our Tears
Excerpt From Chris Hedges The Tears of Gaza Must Be Our Tears
When I lived in Jerusalem I had a friend who confided in me that as a college student in the United States she attended events like these, wrote up reports and submitted them to the Israel consulate for money. It would be naive to assume this Israeli practice has ended. So, I want first tonight to address that person, or those persons, who may have come to this event for the purpose of reporting on it to the Israeli government. I would like to remind them that it is they who hide in darkness. It is we who stand in the light. It is they who deceive. It is we who openly proclaim our compassion and demand justice for those who suffer in Gaza. We are not afraid to name our names. We are not afraid to name our beliefs. And we know something you perhaps sense with a kind of dread.
As Martin Luther King said, the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice, and that arc is descending with a righteous fury that is thundering down upon the Israeli government. You may have the bulldozers, planes and helicopters that smash houses to rubble, the commandos who descend from ropes on ships and kill unarmed civilians on the high seas as well as in Gaza, the vast power of the state behind you. We have only our hands and our hearts and our voices. But note this. Note this well. It is you who are afraid of us. We are not afraid of you. We will keep working and praying, keep protesting and denouncing, keep pushing up against your navy and your army, with nothing but our bodies, until we prove that the force of morality and justice is greater than hate and violence. And then, when there is freedom in Gaza, we will forgive ... you. We will ask you to break bread with us. We will bless your children even if you did not find it in your heart to bless the children of those you occupied. And maybe it is this forgiveness, maybe it is the final, insurmountable power of love, which unsettles you the most.
via Truthdig-Chris Hedges, special thanks to Valadon for showing this to me.
The Palestinian poet Taha Muhammad Ali wrote this in his poem “Revenge”:
At times ... I wish
I could meet in a duel
the man who killed my father
and razed our home,
expelling me
into
a narrow country.
And if he killed me,
I’d rest at last,
and if I were ready—
I would take my revenge!
*
But if it came to light,
when my rival appeared,
that he had a mother
waiting for him,
or a father who’d put
his right hand over
the heart’s place in his chest
whenever his son was late
even by just a quarter-hour
for a meeting they’d set—
then I would not kill him,
even if I could.
*
Likewise ... I
would not murder him
if it were soon made clear
that he had a brother or sisters
who loved him and constantly longed to see him.
Or if he had a wife to greet him
and children who
couldn’t bear his absence
and whom his gifts would thrill.
Or if he had
friends or companions,
neighbors he knew
or allies from prison
or a hospital room,
or classmates from his school …
asking about him
and sending him regards.
*
But if he turned
out to be on his own—
cut off like a branch from a tree—
without a mother or father,
with neither a brother nor sister,
wifeless, without a child,
and without kin or neighbors or friends,
colleagues or companions,
then I’d add not a thing to his pain
within that aloneness—
not the torment of death,
and not the sorrow of passing away.
Instead I’d be content
to ignore him when I passed him by
on the street—as I
convinced myself
that paying him no attention
in itself was a kind of revenge.
Friday, August 6, 2010
Saturday, July 31, 2010
My Latest Backed Kickstarter funded film projects
These are the two of latest projects I've help fund on Kickstarter.
Suzannah Herbert's project called HOME GAME is one of my favorites so far. Its follows a homeless street soccer team that plays all over New York.
Clark Baker's project called Vessel is a sci-fi thriller that uses more "analog" methods from the 70's and 80's than the presently (and overused) CGI effects for creating his aliens that manage to take over an in-flight plane.
Untitled
These are the two of latest projects I've help fund on Kickstarter.
Suzannah Herbert's project called HOME GAME is one of my favorites so far. Its follows a homeless street soccer team that plays all over New York.
Clark Baker's project called Vessel is a sci-fi thriller that uses more "analog" methods from the 70's and 80's than the presently (and overused) CGI effects for creating his aliens that manage to take over an in-flight plane.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
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