Traditional mass media is an inappropriate medium for peace activism
Posted 8:36 AM

If a half-million peace activists spent 2 hours a week protesting out in front of a government building, then, maybe, there might be a mention on the news for a few minutes. And most people, the people that need to be reached, would ignore it. In fact, this has been tried, over and over, for 30 years. Sure, it's been effective on occasion, but I've been to many protests, with hundreds of thousands of attendees, that failed to make more than a blip in the national news.

If a half-million peace activists spent a couple hours a week handing out flyers and calmly talking to others about politics and nonviolent solutions to problems, then every adult in this country will have heard a personalized message of peace within two months. Activists can and should strike up conversation, listen and respond to people's requests for information, without anger, on a one to one basis.

TV and movies and radio are "centralized broadcast media", and, as such, are prone to all the reliability, efficiency, and control problems that any centralized system has. They are inherently inappropriate for distributing messages of peace, because peace is about working through problems, not passively watching things happen.

One great thing to do would be to research the war, learn about stuff like the Patriot Act and the Project for a New American Century, and then make your own flyer or web page. Your original voice is worth a thousand photocopies of someone else's ideas! If you create or find a printable flyers that you like, please email it to me.

For a quick conversation starter, a poster for your wall, or a picnic handout:

AnotherPosterforPeace: Excellent site with beautiful, impacting posters and flyers that anyone can download and print.

Posters by Adam Nieman: Focuses on the oil/war connection, full color talented illustrations.

My archive of peace flyers. These are my favorites and ones that I've found online, and that have been emailed to me.

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Etymology of the word "community"
Posted 8:41 AM

The word community is derived from from the Latin communitas, fellowship, which, in turn, is derived from communis, or "common".

The prefix "com" signifies "with, together, in conjunction, joint". Removing the "com" from the latin, leaves you with munis, which derives from munire, meaning "to fortify, strengthen, or defend".

AKA: Strength in numbers.
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Diverisitism
Posted 12:08 PM

Looking deeply into pure capitalism, socialism, communism, you can see underlying flaws.

Each system, like any nonlinear deterministic system, has the flaw of the "strange attractor". Left unchecked, each system will gravitate towards a "steady state". It is only due to the coexistance of multiple systems that we prevent stagnation of society.

Life thrives only on the border between chaos and order. Without the necessary "mixing", we would not even be here.

So, too, society thrives in a state of diverse ideology. A democratic cooperative, for example, is an excellent, even superior, system for purchasing a building to live in with a group of friends. But you wouldn't want a democratic cooperative to be the "only way" of structuring an organization or country.

In fact, it is in this having of multiple ways that a society ensures its survival.

Hence "diversitism" - a social structure in which the members of the society recognize that no one social structure, orgnaization, person or religion should be "all powerful" or "pervasive" - not even diversitism itself.

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Anton Chekov sues New York performance group
Posted 9:21 AM

Possibly one of my favorite groups of performers, Improv Everywhere has apparently shut their website down due to a lawsuit filed by the Estate of Anton Chekov. I saved a copy of their performance, in case it gets permanently scrapped. It's absolutely hilarious.

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