Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Obama-Longoria... wtf.


Eva Longoria info@barackobama.com
6:01 PM (2 hours ago)
to Brandy
Brandy --

In 2008, like so many of you, I dedicated a lot of my time to help Barack Obama win the presidency.

Now, with 2012 around the corner, I wanted to get ready for the next election by sitting down for an intimate conversation with supporters like you to talk politics and the role we'll play to win the 2012 election.

If you want to join me, along with DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, donate $3 or whatever you can to President Obama's campaign today, and you'll be automatically entered for the chance to be one of five supporters to take part in this face-to-face conversation about next year's election.

I can't wait to meet some of you. I hope you'll bring your ideas for 2012 and share what matters most to you -- whether it has to do with health care, immigration, education, or jobs.

Donate today to be automatically entered to join in the conversation:

https://donate.barackobama.com/Our-Conversation

Looking forward to it,

Eva




So, I received this email today... Politicians...our current president... piggybacking onto images and vice versa. 

AND getting a faux-spammy email about it.  ?!  How stupid. 

But that's the game, huh. That's the democracy we chose.  Pick the best poster-boy(godforbidawoman)--the best Tom effingHanks...or Eva Longoria, I suppose.


I'm sickened by the blatant frivolity of our political process that has been too steeped in privilege$ to really understand reality anymore.

Ugh.  Stupid.




Sunday, December 18, 2011

venting poem


Nannies, ripped away wombs
bats leave flatheads
dust finds broom

wind buries chimney 
hair sweeps tears
grooming fears
wound up in sheered
patattacks combing
around you
back from work

the worlds better without you.

Do everything in mindfulness
I have successfully mindfully 
meditated
on hate.

I have done so all day.  And retaliated
in stabbing fashion so applauded by 
modeled by, supported by 
that which is called
chromosome Y. 

Sunday, December 11, 2011

On tea and mind



When you have a well-built, solid handle, the tea will pour itself.  

That's the assumption, what's served to me on a tray at one particular coffeeshop.  

When you have a house, money, blahblahblah, xyz, the tea will pour itself:  you will be happy with minimal negative repercussions--just tasty tea.  

Ever eaten some tea leaves?  It happens.  Eating tea leaves isn't always pleasant to those who drink tea with expectations of smooth-sailing, warm, comforting liquid--only. 

Tea strainers are paramount--a solid external 3rd party mediator between pot and cup.  The strainer is the final holder of the leaves.

But the handle: look at the handle.  Note it's shape.  How it grasps the pot, it's precious--sturdily, loosely?  Does it swivel?  Is it rickety or poorly crafted with a death grasp on the pot?  Or does it all the pot some wiggle room?  All handles have a different relationship to the pot; just as all of our brains have different relations with our bodies. 

You must craft your life into a solid, working, sustainable, efficient way, just as the handle of a teapot you trust can pour the tea.

The body the pot. 
The handle the mind.

Craft your mind, pave many paths.  

A well crafted handle learns to adapt to the level of water in the teapot. 

When the tea is plentiful, all that's required is a simple lift-tilt jig.  

When the tea's running low--drained of its teaness, it's lovely energy of warmth and flavour... just the oversteeped backwash of exhausted leaves.

Now for the handle--this is where the handle's swift ninjary is put to use:
When freeing the last of its contents, an efficient handle bends in shape--accommodating for the weight and shifting nature of the water. 

It must in order to free the straggling tea contents from their misery.  No where to go but down another drain.  


Knowing its fate, it remains in the pot rather peacefully (it seems from a human perspective).  Simmered at the bottom in a melancholic paralysis.

Abandoned at the bottom of cellophanic jellowater.

Yet much stronger than the tea that had evacuated prior to it.  This is the water that faced the leaves the longest.  And the former lively, now dried leaves, coming to terms with the foreign substance of the hot water that is sucking out its juices.  

There is mutual understanding that leaves and water have to die--each of them. The leaves must be willing to give of their juiciness if it wants to become tea.  And the water must undergo boiling if it wants to face the tea.

The dance between the leaves and water.  Each giving of themselves to try to become some end.
However, 
Tea leaves are already tea.  And water is already tea.  


Bend with the water.

Think like the tea. 

Monday, December 5, 2011

Ctrl Z Culture

This post is in response to Kathryn Schulz's TED talk (posted).  An interesting one for certain about living with regret.





Living with regret is the HUMANE alternative to rejecting it.  Regretting Regret.

When we regret, we tend to think our present situation can be happier if we had done something different in past. 

This requires: 
1. agency 
2. imagination (tracing your steps back and making a different choice, then creating a possible scenario out of that--a story). 

The more agency and imagination with given regret, the more acute that regret will be.

Miss flight by 3 minutes rather than by 20.  We feel responsible when experience came out badly but ALMOST came out well.  We can almost just imagine it.

top regrets, gathered data

1. Education 2. Career 3. Romance 4. Parenting 5. Self 6. Leisure, family health, friends, spirituality, community.  
We know most of what we know by regret by the study of finance.  
Financial decisions don't even rank. Count for less than 3% of total regrets within this pool.

Components of regret:
1. denial  
2. bewilderment - we can no longer understand that part that led us to some action we regret
3. punishment - i could kick myself!
4. perseveration - to focus obsessively & repeatedly on same thing, which puts regret on INFINITE LOOP.



She refers to our generation (the present new youngsters of 20s and whatever else) as the Ctrl+z generation.  Focused on undo.  Unfriend.  Unfollow.  Quick undo fixes.


I know when I played Solitaire growing up, hell yeah I abused the Ctrl Z button.  And with Dope Wars (remember that awesome fucking game?!).

Throwing money at problems to make them go away.
Throwing ourselves into work to undo the thoughts in-head.
Throwing our minds back and forth between extremes to distract.


All so violent.  Ctrl Z is an upright rejection of the reality of the situation.
  
Ctrl Z culture: Drink to forget, think to forget, work to forego, lie to forfeit.




Summary of the last 5 minutes or so of this talk, BRILLIANT:




Make peace w regret: 
1. take comfort in universality.
2. laugh at selves.
3. time heals wounds.  

some of own regrets aren't as ugly as you think they are.

we should feel pain.

 the point is to not live without any regrets. 

the point is to not hate ourselves for having them.

we need to learn to love the flaws imperfect things we create and forgive ourselves for creating them.

regret doesn't remind us that we did badly.  reminds us that we know we can do better. 



humor, even balck humor plays role in survival.

Saturday, December 3, 2011

WHY I BELIEVE IN THE MINDS OF OCCUPY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6oCscep_T4&feature=share




Please share this video.


they're just muscle they're not told to think.

go serve in a war. go defend an oil company.
ill-informed. ignorance. hide in fancy house. 
**national defense autorization act - going thru congress. allowing military to pursue american individuals without any reason. 

hiding only buys time--no one is safe (eventually 99%, only 80% of those 99% are DISTRACTED and BRAINWASHED by their perks. vacations. job titles. EGOS).

she goes on"what are you gonna do" needless question--she repeats the question throughout. this guy stands his ground. takes the opp to share some intelligence.

any major social change did not occur in 2 months--civil rights, gay rights, magna carta..


Our children, future generations will be enslaved by debt, wars for profit, political pondering,
we can't vote people in
we are the change we wanted in 2008

half those cops-- they dont wanna be here.

business owners, military vets, college students. media is dangerous.
theyre selling themselves out, trying to get a piece as well (cause its easier to bury your head in the sand and BELIEVE that what you're doing is okay).  This is a truth.  A faith that we call believe in.



faith of capital
put a stop to the radicals
play cards to the bone
sweep over our bloodyholes.

see no blood see no bodies
counting hydes bleeding whipped
from Moneyminds
Mastering the game of TIME

Believing in our lady of bank
barred of gold
the head is straight
pouring out the crown
a thought bubble of clouds
cloaked in loving kindness 
makes a lovely sound

THE PANT OF RAGE
IS
NEVER 
SILENT
.
.
.