Back To Reality

A nice side effect of having all this off topic stuff to think about the past few weeks is it takes my mind off the awful job I did this week of riding my bike places. Yeah, that’s right. MinusCar Guy was way more Car this week than Minus. It doesn’t even matter that The Owner saw me on a bike in traffic; it was one of a few times I was on a bike. Tomorrow morning I have an investment club meeting, it’s supposed to be rainy and snowy. I have to sit in someone else’s chair. I might not get to ride to that either.

Add this week’s snow to the off topic stuff I’ve been working on (and you may or may not have been reading) and you have a guy not giving a lot of thought to global warming…until today.

It began with a conversation with a friend who just got back from visiting some farm land he stands to inherit. It’s in the most northern and western county in North Dakota. I asked him, in a few years when South Dakota turns to desert, if he’d save me a little piece to put up a pup tent. He laughed.

He didn’t say no.

Then I saw a post on the Mother Jones blog that mentioned a new faith-based campaign against global warming. Yeah, it’s the same one that was new a year ago. But wait, it points to a different article reporting that one of the signers of the ECI has become the head of the Christian Coalition. And he looks “forward to expanding our mission to concern itself with the care of creation, helping society's marginalized, human rights/religious issues and compassion issues.”

Anything is better than a God who legislates the nation from Pierre, SD…an opportunity Jesus declined early on, in my estimation. There’s still the fact that it’s the Christian Coalition which leads me to imagine God legislating the nation from, say, Portland, OR. That wouldn’t be much better.

And then thanks to the Leveller's blog I learned that Common Dreams is reporting that “Climate Change Will Cause Refugee Crisis.”

Ya think?

Well I guess these studies are necessary. Nobody believes me when I say it.

The report claims there are already 25 million environmental refugees. Some of them are Mexican’s coming to the United States. Meaning the current national discussion on immigration is partially related to global warming even if Bill O’Reilly doesn’t realize it. And our answer to the problem is...

Build a wall.

Dear Canadian friends, you’d better get started with yours. You've got a lot more ground to cover.

I wonder how many pup tents my friend's land will hold. Oh and corn, not for eating, for fuel, so we can drive to McDonalds. In Canada.

It was a dark afternoon.

Got Woody?

My favorite story about Tony Campolo is that he’s been known for informing audiences that 30,000 kids died during the past few hours because of disease and malnutrition and that most people in the room don’t give a shit. He’d then point out that, in fact, most people in the audience were more concerned about his use of the word shit than the 30,000 dead kids. – see wiki for wiki-proof.

I’ve had an accidental Woody Harrelson film festival over the past few weeks.

The festival began here after I pointed to Sans Auto’s discussion of Dr Putnam’s lecture and book “Bowling Alone.” I mentioned I’d soon be watching League of Ordinary Gentlemen. While the movie has very little to do with linking bowling and social decline, it does acknowledge the link by opening with meaningful quotes from Dr Putnum and then President Clinton. Woody’s part in the movie is simply the use of clips from his parts in Kingpin, a movie I havent seen.

Next up was North Country, the film about sexual harassment in northern Minnesota mines. Woody played the good guy lawyer. North Country was produced by Participant Productions, maker of some of the best (most challenging? most socially conscious?) films in recent memory, including: An Inconvenient Truth, Syriana and Fast Food Nation.

Participant believes in the power of media to create great social change. Our goal is to deliver compelling entertainment that will inspire audiences to get involved in the issues that affect us all.

Today I watched Go Further, a movie that might serve to get this blog back to its regularly scheduled programming. The film documents Woody’s west coast lecture tour where he and a handful of others rode bike from Oregon to southern California, ate organically, and lived in the tension of ummm...that laundry list of all that is bad related to the environment. In the opening minutes I thought I was going to be really annoyed by the movie but soon it became palatable and by the end I really liked it.

The best part: I watch my daddy films from the laptop, quietly, not wanting to push this crap on the family. Sometimes The Boys get curious and I either pause the film to avoid inappropriate content or they quickly get bored and walk away. The Boy 8 watched much of this film over my shoulder. He knew what was going on and even wanted to know what’s so bad about corn dogs?

And I wasn’t concerned that he was hearing the word shit.

(I was glad the huffing of the Dust Off part had already passed.)

Part of a very cool Woody Harrelson poem:

Politicians and prostitutes
are comfortable together
I wonder if they talk about the strange change in the weather.

Complete poem here at the Voice Yourself website.

Insolicited, Unexpected and Doing It Anyway

Is it spam? Is it real? Even if it’s real do I really want to post it? It’s unsolicited and unexpected! I don’t know who these people are! I assume most of the other blogging bicyclists I know of received the same e-mail. I wonder how many will post what they received?

And so it goes that I’m posting content from an unsolicited and unexpected e-mail…but first:

Thich Nhat Hanh is the real deal. I know of Thich Nhat Hanh because I listen weekly to public radio’s Speaking of Faith. In March he was featured. He is a Buddhist. The website is here. The transcript is here. The podcast here. I recommend the podcast because hearing the man speak is to hear peace.

UNESCO is the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.

Personal trivia: the “Christian conference center in a lakeside setting of rural Wisconsin”, where the radio show was recorded, is a conference center my family has connections to.

What about the e-mail?

Thich Nhat Hanh is apparently speaking to UNESCO on October 7. He will propose that UNESCO organize a Global No Car Day. Part of the effort to convince UNESCO to accept the proposal involves a petition that is attempting to gather 10,000 signatures by October 7. The petition is located at the Deer Park Monastery website.

I have signed it.

Here is the message:

From Nobel Peace Prize nominee and Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh:

Only collective awakening can help us to solve the difficult problems in our world like war and global warming. In an upcoming talk which I have been invited to give at UNESCO (United Nations Education Science and Cultural Organization) on October 7th, I will propose that UNESCO organize a Global No Car Day-- a day when people refrain from using their cars, except in emergencies.

It may take six months or more to prepare for such a day. UNESCO can promote this day around the world and use it as a means to educate and inspire collective awakening concerning the present environmental dangers facing all of us on planet Earth. I will suggest that UNESCO itself, from the director to ambassadors and other members, try to live in such a way that the message becomes a true message; not just a call for action, but action itself.

In our daily lives, we should each try to drive a car that doesn't pollute the environment, or ride a bicycle more often, or use public transportation. Every one of us can do something to protect and care for our planet. We should live in such a way that makes a future possible.

Thich Nhat Hanh
September 16, 2006
Deer Park Monastery, Escondido, CA

I have also responded to the invitation in their e-mail to help develop and promote a Global No Car Day. I wonder what that might mean?