Al-Jazeera.net/best news website I read

I highly recommend adding english.aljazeera.net to your bookmark, as well as making it part of your daily news source. I have been frequenting this site over the last few months and I have enjoyed it more than any other news-site i've read. Yes i know even more than NPR, please dont hate me. It just has so much news from all over the world. I have learned more about global politics than ever before, it's quite pleasant. Now there may be some resistance and skepticism about this website, which some may claim as being pro-terrorist, and anti-American, but give it a chance. Compare their stories with similar ones given by more accepted sources and you will find that the contrast is slight. But hey the media will always be plagued with half stories and subtle (many times not so subtle) propaganda, so really give it a try. I hope you come to appreciate it as much as i have.

Thank you Steve for the reference.

Brotherhood.

A gracious answer to pray at a pivotal point in life.

This shared life of sorrow and joy has been mixed,

mixed with the narratives of a select few.

This selection was divinely inspired,

divinely orchestrated in perfect unity.

Common themes knit together contrasting paths.

Our banner will be unity in diversity. 

Brotherhood - a common bond amongst a group of men with a common maker

Boredom

and unrest

its seeping in through the walls

transcending everything you have created to keep it out

yet any attempt fails and breakdowns

faster it drowns your entire body in its cold abandonment

you fight it with all that you have but your mind cracks 

filling and overflowing with the thoughts you've been avoiding

they hit you hard and leave you unconscious until you wake 

The Breath of Nature - Chuang Tzu

When great Nature sighs, we hear the winds

Which, noiseless in themselves,

Awaken voices from other beings,

Blowing on them.

From every opening

Loud voices sound. Have you not heard

This rich of tones?

There stands the overhanging wood

On the steep mountain:

Old trees with holes and cracks

Like snouts, maw, and ears,

Like beam-sockets, like goblets,

Grooves in the wood. hollows full of water:

You hear mooing and roaring, whistling,

Shouts of command, grumblings,

Deep drones, sad flutes.

One call awakens another in dialogue.

Gentle winds sing timidly,

Strong ones blast on without restraint.

Then the wind dies down. The openings 

Empty out their last sound.

Have you not observes how all then trembles and subsides?

Yu relied: I understand:

The music of earth sings through a thousand holes.

The music of man is made on flutes and instruments.

What makes the music of heaven?

Master Ki said:

Something is blowing on a thousand different holes.

Some power stands behind all this and makes the sounds die

down.

What is this power?

This is for those who love nature.

Musing.

I was hanging out with my buddy Geoff last night and he said that something that really caught my attention. It's short and sweet, and it definitely qualifies as a musing.

"you can't look in a face like this and not believe in a creator."

Geoff 

This was the most adorable kid I saw while I was in India this interterm. Geoff couldn't be any righter.

Musings

"It's a delightful harmony when doing and saying go together."

- Michael Eyquem de Montaigne - 

Abe would not approve

I was in Los Angeles this weekend with my Post-Modern Metropolis class touring Downtown.  As I was walking around I saw what seemed to be a business or court building with and interesting visualization in front of it.  As you can see in through the fence it's a large bronzed statue of our 16th President, Mr. Abe Lincoln.  Sleeping just under his nose is an African-American homeless man.  Somethings not right here.  I wonder what Good ol' Abe would say if he saw this?  I think he would be a bit disappointed. 

Abe had his war that he fought for to the end.  Even though some disagreed with him on both sides he still fought for those who could not fight for themselves.  He put into action laws and rallied the masses, which led to the abolition of slavery.  Abraham Lincoln the great emancipator gave an example that our society and culture has yet to grasp.  

We just walk by without looking at this other nation that lives on our street gutters and park benches.  Abe died for his war.  Sadly we are doing little to fight for ours.  

This photo was taken from behind a fence.  What I'm not clear on is which part of the fence i am on?