A Most Amazing Interview

Listen to the first part of this podcast to hear an interview with the brother of Ted Kaczynski, the unabomber. David Kaczynski (who, despite his love for his brother, suspected he was the unabomber and notified authorities) talks about telling their mother. He said he had a moment of fear - what if she didn't love him any more after the news. Her response is one that will bring tears to your eyes. Other interesting interviews by David Freudberg.

Discovered through the amazing radio program, To The Best of Our Knowledge. (Other notable episodes include Women & Islam, Befriending your Brain, Sports and Society, Violence and Morality... and many more. Free to listen at their site.)

Feminist Toronto: Wading into Lebanon waters

Excellent post by Feminist Toronto.

She quotes from The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East by Robert Fisk.

Note that this book was written before Hezbollah kidnapped soldiers -- before Hamas became the government of Palestine.


"The same skewed semantics were applied to the July 1993 Israeli bombardment of southern Lebanon. In revenge for the killing of nine Israeli soldiers inside its occupation zone in Lebanon, Israel attacked the villages of southern Lebanon, killing more than 100 men, women and children -- and putting 300,000 refugees on the road to Beirut...And President Clinton's reaction? He blamed the Hizballah -- which killed the nine Israeli soldiers -- for all the deaths, then called on 'all sides' to exercise 'restraint'."

More on The Middle East

Perspective on World Population

Click here and remember one person is one pixel

Combat + Sexual Trauma = I Can't Even Imagine

Trauma has complex and life-destroying consequences. If you've never been involved in something like that there's a tendency to brush it off and think severely traumatized people can simply get on with their lives, but this is ignorant and wishful thinking, as trauma shatters the self in ways that are hard to imagine. An excellent exploration of this is the well-known Trauma and Recovery: From Domestic Abuse To Political Terror by Judith Herman (Powells).

We hear of soldiers returning from Iraq with Post Traumatic Stress, but many women have the added problem of sexual abuse, assault, and rape. Sexual assault is more than a physical crime, but reaches right into a person and violates the person from within. This is not a few isolated incidents, as explained here, here, and here. If a soldier has more fear of their own than of the "enemy" there is no safety, anywhere for them - not in the barracks, not in the toilet, not even in their own heads.

Support for Suzanne Swift is incredibly important. She was jailed for going AWOL after her repeated attempts to get someone to do something about her ongoing sexual assault was ignored - she was essentially hunted by a predator, and displayed great courage trying to save herself. You can hear her mother tell the extremely moving tale on Democracy Now.

Filed Under: Iraq, Women

Strangely Beautiful

by Edward Burtynsky
Strangely beautiful photos of garbage and refuse.

Recycling yards, mine tailings, quarries and refineries are all places that are outside of our normal experience, yet we partake of their output on a daily basis.

Thanks to the Magical Urbanism blog.

More art, environment

What do you believe is true even though you cannot prove it?

From The world question center:, described by the BBC as "the crack cocaine of the thinking world."

What do you believe is true even though you cannot prove it?

Great minds can sometimes guess the truth before they have either the evidence or arguments for it (Diderot called it having the "esprit de divination"). What do you believe is true even though you cannot prove it?

Interesting answers from such intellectuals as Richard Dawkins, Jared Diamond, Benoit Mandelbrot (The inventor of fractals), Ian McEwan: "...that no part of my consciousness will survive my death.", Michael Shermer: "...that reality exists over and above human and social constructions of that reality."

More Philosophy & Reflection

The Pope of the Chimps

A short story by Robert Silverberg in which researchers teaching sign-language to a colony of chimpanzees inadvertently pass along notions of God and the afterlife.

"It's possible sometimes to be too subtle in your analysis," Falkenburg said. "You're suggesting that these chimpanzees have a theology?"

"I'm suggesting that they may be in the process of evolving a religion," Yost replied.

Can it be?

Sometimes we lose our perspective with these animals, as Mick indicated, and we overestimate their intelligence; but just as often, I think, we underestimate them.

Jump high come again.

I wonder. Secret sacred talk? A chimpanzee theology? Belief in life after death? A religion?

Filed under Literature, Religion, Science Fun

Scared Sacred

Watch Scared Sacred by Velcrow Ripper. An amazing documentary that asks the question "Is it possible to find hope in the darkest moments of human history?" Be surprised by the resilience and compassion of the survivors of some of the most awful moments in our memories. Velcrow Ripper takes quite a journey, from the killing fields of Cambodia to NYC just after 9/11, talking to artists in Sarajevo, a Sufi musician and courageous members of RAWAin Afghanistan, and the Bereaved Families Circle in Israel & Palestine. Breathe in suffering... breathe out compassion...

There's bits of Scared Sacred on this episode of Rabble Radio, which is always good for a listen (that's also where I discovered Kobayashi).

Listen to and be inspired by Velcrow Ripper's Podcast, Fierce Light. A good antidote to cynicism without resorting to denial. Interesting, because I'm not spiritual, but this actually reaches out on a very human level, I think. The knowledge of what atrocities and tragedies are occurring around the world sometimes hits at a visceral level, and it is easy to get overwhelmed, and then want to avoid this knowledge, but that doesn't make anything better, it only helps perpetuate a neurotic society.

We need to acknowledge reality, but keep our hope, and perspective, in face of it all. (An excellent read in terms of perspective is False Alarm: The Truth About the Epidemic of Fear by Marc Siegel - I'll review this another time)

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