Izzy's Serious Humor: Chris Abani muses on humanity

Saturday, April 17, 2010

Chris Abani muses on humanity | Video on TED.com

Chris Abani muses on humanity | Video on TED.com: "Chris Abani tells stories of people: People standing up to soldiers. People being compassionate. People being human and reclaiming their humanity. It's 'ubuntu,' he says: the only way for me to be human is for you to reflect my humanity back at me.

About Chris Abani

Imprisoned three times by the Nigerian government, Chris Abani turned his experience into poems that Harold Pinter called 'the most naked, harrowing expression of prison life and political…"

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SOME FAVORITE QUOTES

"(S)he who asks is a fool for five minutes, but (s)he who does not ask remains a fool forever." Chinese Proverb
"A few who can understand the system (check money and credits) will either be so interested in it’s profits, or so dependent on its favors, that there will be no opposition from that class, while on the other hand, the great body of the people mentally incapable of comprehending the tremendous advantage that capital derives from the system, will bear it's burdens without complaint, and perhaps without even suspecting that the system is inimical to their interests." Rothschild Brothers of London
"A good catch word can obscure analysis for fifty years." Oliver Wendell Holmes
"A sobering thought what if, at this very moment, I am living up to my potential." Jane Wagner
"A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community." Aldo Leopold
"All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind." Aristotle
"Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone." John Maynard Keynes
"Chemicals, n: Noxious substances from which modern foods are made." ~Author Unknown
"Creation myths are not about the origins of the world at all, but about the origins of patriarchy which has claimed itself as the world." Jane Caputi
"Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person." Mother Teresa
"Faced with the choice between changing one's mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof." J.K. Galbraith
"Feminism directly confronts the idea that one person or set of people (has) the right to impose definitions of reality on others." Liz Stanley and Sue Wise
"Food is an important part of a balanced diet." Fran Lebowitz
"Historians, both male and female, have not always resisted the temptation to see the rise of monotheism as a plot against women, since the after effects have been so disastrous for the female sex." Rosalind Miles
"History is a better guide than good intentions." Jeane Kirkpatrick
"History is the glorification of murderers and robbers." Karl Popper
"History provides a laboratory in which we see played out the actual as well as the intended consequences of action." Liz Coleman
"History says, Don't Hope On this side of the grave. But then, once in a lifetime The longed-for tidal wave Of justice can rise up, And hope and history rhyme." Seamus Heaney
"Hollywood has to take its proud place along side the 'morals police' of the Ayatollah Khomeini for its valuable work in keeping women in line and training them to be everything a regular guy could ever hope for as his wife and the mother of his children." Rosalind Miles
"I began waking up slowly into history, from which we do not emerge as from other nightmares." Martha Cooley
"I don't know why we are here, but I'm pretty sure that it is not in order to enjoy ourselves." Ludwig Wittgenstein
"I envy paranoids; they actually feel people are paying attention to them." Susan Sontag
"I have noticed that as soon as you have soldiers the story is called history. Before their arrival it is called myth, folktale, legend, fairy tale, oral poetry, ethnography. After the soldiers arrive, it is called history." Paula Gunn Allen
"I know we're termites. But if all the termites got together, the house would fall down." Florynce Kennedy
"I was so overprotected, I used to think I was as delicate as people said I was." Natalie Wood
"I'll be post-feminist in the post-patriarchy." Meg Sullivan
"If all men are born free, how is it that all women are born slaves." Mary Astell
"If you're not living on the edge you're taking up too much space." Mary Elizabeth Croft
"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act." George Orwell
"In a world where there is so much to be done, I felt strongly impressed that there must be something for me to do." Dorothea Dix
"Leap, and the net will appear." Julie Cameron
"Leave it to a girl to take the fun out of sex discrimination." Bill Watterson
"My Dad's philosophy is having a job is expensive. You spend all your time working for someone else, you haven't any time to work to do things for yourself." Bo in "Off the Map"
"My Dad's philosophy is having a job is expensive. You spend all your time working for someone else, you haven't any time to work to do things for yourself." Bo in "Off the Map"
"My passions were all gathered together like fingers that made a fist. Drive is considered agressive today; I knew it as purpose." Bette Davis
"None Are More Hopelessly Enslaved Than Those Who Falsely Believe They Are Free!" Johann von Goethe
"Rumors of our progress have been greatly exaggerated: one of my constituents deducted $600,000 from his taxes--he'd taken business clients to Scores, a strip joint. Yet many of my constituents--men and women--can not deduct the costs of their child care. This is ridiculous." U.S. Rep Carloyn Moloney (D-NY)
"Sometimes whatever doesn't kill you...can really piss you off for a long time!" Symbio's Page of Witticisms
"Success is going from failure to failure without any loss of enthusiasm". – Winston Churchill
"The best mind-altering drug is the truth." Lily Tomlin
"The ceiling isn't glass; it's a very dense layer of men." Anne Jardim
"The main thing history can teach us is that human actions have consequences and that certain choices, once made, cannot be undone. They foreclose the possibility of making other choices and thus they determine future events." Gerda Lerner
"The optimist thinks this is the best of all possible worlds, the pessimists knows it." J. Robert Oppenheimer
"The reward for conformity is everyone likes you but yourself." Rita Mae Brown
"The universe is full of magical things, patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper." Eden Phillpotts
"There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil for every one striking at the root." H.D. Thoreau
"There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening, that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and will be lost." Martha Graham
"They could not imagine the things they lived for could disappear. They could not believe...that something essential could disappear, that a whole spiritual realm is threatened. They did not believe in major historical upheavals that obliterate all traces of previous generations and entirely tranform continents. They do not believe that what seems to them unjust is possible." Antoine de Saint Exupery
"Too many have dispensed with generosity in order to practice charity." Albert Camus
"Vengence is a lazy person's form of grief." Author unknown
"Vision is the art of seeing things invisible." Jonathan Swift
"We are living in a world today where lemonade is made from artificial flavors and furniture polish is made from real lemons." ~Alfred E. Newman
"We don't see things are they are. We see them as we are."Anais Nin
"We spend most of our lives cutting down our ambitions because the world told us to think small. Dreams express what your soul is telling you, so as crazy as your dream might seem--even to you--I don't care; you have to let it out." Former World Bank economist Eleni Gabre-Madhim
"What gets us into trouble is not what we don't know. It's what we know for sure that just ain't so." Mark Twain
"What is not recorded is not remembered." Benazir Bhutto
"Women's history is the primary tool for women's emancipation." Gerda Lerner
"Write what should not be forgotten." Isabel Allende
"You assist an evil system most effectively by obeying its orders and decrees. An evil system never deserves such allegiance. Allegiance to it means partaking of the evil. A good person will resist an evil system with his or her whole soul." Mahatma Gandhi
"You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people that you do." Anne Lamott
"You can't drown your troubles...because troubles can swin." Margaret Millar
"You can’t make anything idiot-proof because idiots are so ingenious." Ron Burns
"You must learn from the mistakes of others. You can't possibly live long enough to make them all yourself." Sam Levenson
History has been the chronicle of psychopaths (4% of pop.) who have evolved a system that preys on the rest of us. Get it? Okay, now what? Catherine Isadora
“A doctor pointed out that estrogen (the female hormone) is at its lowest level during the menstrual cycle. So at our “worst,” we are most like the way men are all the time.” (from Chicago North Suburban NOW Newsletter
“A woman picking at a thread of discontent can unravel the world.”Author Unknown
“Each progressive spirit is opposed by a thousand mediocre minds appointed to guard the past.” Maurice Maeterlinck
“If it ain’t food don’t eat it. “ Author unknown
“Morality represents the way people would like the world to work—whereas economics represents how it actually does work.” Author Unknown
“One of the things about equality is not just that you be treated equally to a man, but that you treat yourself equally to the way you treat a man.” Marlo Thomas
“Read no history-nothing but biography, for that is life without theory.” Benjamin Disraeli
“Religion is for people who are frightened of going to Hell; Spiritualism is for those who have already been there.” Gary Busey
“The Great Depression in the United States,” wrote Milton Friedman, “…is a testament to how much harm can be done by mistakes on the part of a few men when they wield vast power over the monetary system of a country”
“The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie - deliberate, contrived, and dishonest - but the myth - persistent, persuasive and realistic.” John F. Kennedy
“The Messiah is not coming and he’s not even going to call!" –Israeli Hit Tune in 2001
“The Various forms of worship, which prevailed in the Roman World, were all considered by the people to be equally true, by the philosophers to be equally false, and by the magistrate as equally useful.” Edward Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
“There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root”- H.D. Thoreau
“Vegetables are the food of the earth; fruit seems more the food of the heavens.” ~Sepal Felicivant
“Women have served all these centuries as looking glasses possessing the power of reflecting the figure of man at twice his natural size.” Virginia Woolfe
“Yet, we all live in fear. We actually are not permitted to experience the most efficient way to learn, without severe emotional, not to mention physical, mental, and spiritual repercussions. Our society is designed to keep us from venturing out, experimenting, throwing caution to the wind, because we are kept in fear of making mistakes. Society discourages us from ‘living’. We are punished if we don’t either make amends or correct our ways. The entire court system, which came from the ego mind, is based upon this.” Mary Elizabeth Croft
“You assist an evil system most effectively by obeying its orders and decrees. An evil system never deserves such allegiance. Allegiance to it means partaking of the evil. A good person will resist an evil system with his or her whole soul.” Mahatma Gandhi

The Hopi Elders Speak:

We Are the Ones We've Been Waiting For

You have been telling the people that this is the Eleventh Hour. Now you must go back and tell the people that this is The Hour. And there are things to be considered:

Where are you living?

What are you doing?

What are your relationships?

Are you in right relation?

Where is your water?

Know your garden.

It is time to speak your Truth.

Create your community.

Be good to each other. And do not look outside yourself for the leader. This could be a good time! There is a river flowing now very fast. It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid. They will try to hold on to the shore. They will feel they are being torn apart, and they will suffer greatly. Know the river has its destination. The elders say we must let go of the shore, push off into the middle of the river, keep our eyes open, and our heads above the water. See who is in there with you and celebrate. At this time in history, we are to take nothing personally. Least of all, ourselves. For the moment that we do, our spiritual growth and journey comes to a halt. The time of the lone wolf is over. Gather yourselves! Banish the word struggle from your attitude and your vocabulary. All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration. We are the ones we've been waiting for.

—The Elders Oraibi Arizona Hopi Nation

Note to "Resources for Understanding..."

I have been consumed with studying economics since majoring in history in college. I saw how cycles of boom and bust periodically punctuated by a major economic meltdown disrupted and at times totally destroyed peoples lives. This observation led to me wonder, "how might we have an economy which serves us rather than us serving it?" I have come to understand that only when the truth of what has been created is known might we then be free to find that economy.

I have spent 25 years researching this topic on my own. I have read history, economics, and business books like most people read novels--for years averaging about 70 books a year. I could not have summarized my findings any better than the resources which follow.

It is within our ability to create a much more equitable and balanced economic system: a system which serves our humanity rather than oppresses it. Fortunately, when we finally understand the web in which we are entrapped, there is a way out.....

A Bit of Wit and Wisdom

"The problem with giving your life to someone else; they end up with two lives and you have none." Catherine Isadora

"If it ain't simple, you're being screwed." Catherine Isadora

“The trouble with being in the rat race is that even if you win, you're still a rat" Lily Tomlin

"The thing women have got to learn is that nobody gives you power. You just take it" Roseanne Barr

"The only interesting answers are those that destroy the questions" Susan Sontag

"Men are taught to apologize for their weaknesses. Women for their strengths"- Lois Wyse

"If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much space." Mary Elizabeth Croft

Good Books: Substantial Food for Thought

A Guide to the I Ching by Carol K. Anthony
Adam’s Curse: A Future Without Men by Bryan Sykes
At the Root of this longing: Reconciling a Spiritual Hunger and a Feminist Thirst by Carol Lee Flinders
Beyond the Double Bind: Women and Leadership by Kathleen Hall Jamison
Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature by Janine Benyus
Brain Sex: The Real Difference Between Men and Women by Anne Moir and David Jessel
Composing A Life by Mary Catherine Bateson
Counting for Nothing: What Men Value and What Women are Worth by Marilyn Waring
Critical Path by Buckminster Fuller
Emotional Genus by Karla McLaren
Eve’s Seed: Biology, the Sexes, and the Course of History by Robert McElvaine
Exurberance: The Passion for Life by Kay Redfield Jamison
If Women Counted: A New Feminist Economics by Marilyn Waring
Love, Sexuality and Matriarchy: About Gender by Erich Fromm
Misogyny: The Male Malady by David L. Gilmore
Misogyny: The World’s Oldest Prejudice by Jack Holland
Necessary Dreams: Ambition for Women’s Changing Lives by Anna Fels
On Education by Buckminster Fuller
Reinventing Eve: Modern Women in Search of Herself by Kim Chernin
Seductress: Women Who Ravished the World and Their Lost Art of Love by Betsy Prioleau
Sex, Time, and Power: How Women’s Sexuality Shaped Human Evolution by Leonard Shlain
The Alphabet Versus the Goddess: The Conflict Between Words and Image by Leonard Shlain
The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
The Boundaries of Her Body: The Troubling History of Women’s Rights in America by Debran Rowland
The Gender Knot: Unraveling our Patriarchal Legacy by Allan G. Johnson
The Help by Kathryn Stockett
The Princessa: Machiavelli for Women by Harriet Rubin
The Seven Daughters of Eve by Bryan Sykes
Who Cooked The Last Supper? The Women's History of the World by Rosalind Miles
Women and Love: A Cultural Revolution in Progress by Shere Hite

Notes to Health and Nutrition Section

Many years ago I read a copy of a speech delivered by Rudolf Steiner to an audience in London during the 1920's. He spoke of how all our lives we've been encouraged to use a intermediary in all areas of our lives except in our economic life in which we all are actively engaged: we've had the church or organized religion for our spiritual needs; the medical profession for our health needs; government for our political and social constructions, etc.

The point was, I think upon reflection, that it would be only in our direct interaction with the economy that we would come to see the truth in how we have been controlled throughout history. As we realize the validity of this perspective, we must also begin to take back control and responsibility for all aspects of our lives.

I have spent a lot of time learning about alternative medicines and gravitating toward Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). I found TCM to be most intuitive and easy to grasp with relatively little time expended in acquiring a working knowledge. It's all about balance.

I believe that traditional medicines, whether they be Native American, African, Ayurvedic, Chinese, Tibetan, etc., are all remnants of a global system of health which has been lost through history after the cataclysms which wracked our planet some 5,000 years ago. These systems of health are predicated on prevention and a recognition of the importance of balance in our intellectual, spirital, physical and emotional lives. I encourage you to explore these venues for health. I have included a number of my favorite books and other which I have found helpful to get you started on this journey back to wholeness.

Health Books

Acupressure's Potent Points: A Guide to Self-Care for Common Ailments by Michael Reed Gach
Asian Health Secrets by Letha Hadady
Dragon Rises, Red Bird Flies: Psychology & Chinese Medicine by Leon Hammer, M.D.
Enzyme Nutrition: The Food Enzyme Concept by Edward Howell
Formula for Life: The Definitive Book of Correct Nutrition, Anti-oxidants & Vitamins, Disease Prevention & Longevity by Phyllis & Eberhard Kronhausen
Hara Diagnosis: Reflections on the Sea by Kiko Matsumoto and Stephen Birch
Healing With Whole Foods: Asian Traditions and Modern Nutrition by Paul Pitchford
Macrobiotic and Oriental Medicine by Michio Kushi
Macrobiotic Home Remedies by Michio Kushi
Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition & The Diet Dictocrats by Sally Fallon
The Book of Macrobiotics: The Universal Way of Health, Happiness and Peace by Michio Kushi and Alex Jack
The Complete Book of Chinese Health and Healing by Daniel Reid
The Green Pharmacy by James A. Duke Phd. (If I had to have only 1 resource on health this would be it. An herb book catalogued by malady rather than by herb.)
The Web That Has No Weaver: Understanding Chinese Medicine by Ted Kaptchuk
You Face Never Lies by Michio Kushi

Izzy's Serious Humor

Saturday, April 17, 2010

Chris Abani muses on humanity | Video on TED.com

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"The skill of writing is to provide a context in which other people can think."

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SOME FAVORITE QUOTES

Calm Through Chaos

The Hopi Elders Speak:

Note to "Resources for Understanding..."

Resources for Understanding What the Heck's Going On Here

Here's to Wine, Wit and Wisdom

A Bit of Wit and Wisdom

The Thinker Aka Seated Young Woman

Good Books: Substantial Food for Thought

Balance

Notes to Health and Nutrition Section

Health Books

Health & Nutrition Sites

Woman Holding a Balance

Music, the Ocean, et.al.

Disclaimer

Izzy's Serious Humor

Saturday, April 17, 2010

Chris Abani muses on humanity | Video on TED.com

No comments:

Post a Comment

"The skill of writing is to provide a context in which other people can think."

Izzy's Articles

About Me

Ant Architecture

Twitter

Search This Blog