I’ve decided I’m going to par­tic­i­pate in the National Blog Posting Month exer­cise. It’s been a long time since I’ve posted on my blog, and I have missed it. I’ve been dealing with a very hectic schedule in my real life, between taking a full load of courses at the uni­ver­sity, and working, and home life, social life etc., I’ve ignored my blog for too long. I get these email alerts for NaBloPoMo, an off­shot of NaNoWriMo, and I always look at the monthly theme and think to myself, “oh that sounds inter­esting, I should write some­thing about that.” Then I forget all about it till the next email alert. But this time, I’ll make it a point to stick to it.

“Look up” invokes three basic con­cepts in my mind:

1: Optimism.

As in, looking up at the bright side of life… trying to find ways to look at things from a pos­i­tive per­spec­tive as much as pos­sible. This is hard for those of us who pay atten­tion to the news, to pol­i­tics, and the state of affairs in many, I’d say most, parts of the world. But as a won­derful vis­iting Professor told our Equity Studies class recently, “the greatest chal­lenge for those of us aware of the prob­lems of the world, is to learn how to love the world.” This really is the greatest chal­lenge and one I’m learning slowly how to handle. I will blog about some of the people and orga­ni­za­tions that have inspired me and are moti­vating me in the world today. I’m not sure if opti­mism is some­thing I really under­stand, on a bigger scale, but I will make a honest effort at it. More on this as the month pro­gresses, I’m sure.

2: Searching.

As in, searching for/looking up infor­ma­tion, or a person, or a resource, group, or any­thing else that isn’t readily or easily avail­able. It could also mean searching for answers, or at least, better ways of artic­u­lating the ques­tions. This month, I’ll blog about some uncanny, off-the-wall, and inter­esting bits of infor­ma­tion that I find, and also about how to search for things on the internet.

3: The Sky.

Halley’s Comet 1986

One of my ear­liest mem­o­ries is of my dad taking us out near the air­port to watch for Halley’s Comet as it came within viewing range from Earth in early 1986. He explained to me what a comet was, and that the next time this ancient one came around I’d be in my 80′s. It was a mind-blowing thing for a 7 year old to dis­cover. It made me appre­ciate from a very early age, the expanse of space and time, and how insignif­i­cant we really are in this grand, beau­tiful uni­verse. Since then, my love for astronomy and cos­mology has only increased. Some of my blog posts this month will revolve around this enduring pas­sion of mine.

So, if you’re reading this and you’d like to com­ment, please do so, and let me know what “Look up” means to you.

A long but highly insightful con­ver­sa­tion between acclaimed authors Salman Rushdie and Irshad Manji on the nature of belief, Islamism, the his­tory of Islam and Quran, and what to do in a world full of cra­zies on both the Islamist side and the racist west­erner side. Rational, thinking people of all vari­eties will enjoy this video… please watch in full, it’s worth it. Intelligent com­ments are welcome.

There’s been so much neg­a­tivity sur­rounding Sarah Palin’s VP can­di­dacy, I thought I’d try and find some­thing to thank her for….
————————————–

Thank you, Sarah Palin
for taking women – and men -
back a few notches so fast
we all got whiplash.

Thank you Sarah Palin for proving fem­i­nism right;
For showing that men and women are truly equal.
That women can be just as stupid
as the stu­pidest of men.
Like the men run­ning the country
for most of the past decade.
And of course, Condi too.

Thank you Sarah Palin,
for flashing your girly smile,
and throwing back that silly Northern twang;
Your beauty queen charms warm the limp, lonely hearts
of Bill O’Reillys and Karl Roves every­where.
Thanks for being the pret­tiest beard
for frus­trated Republicans still in the closet.

Thanks Sarah Palin for charging rape vic­tims
for their own rape kits, while preaching to us all
the joys of cher­ishing our rape babies.
Because life is pre­cious -
until hunting season, that is.

Thank you Sarah Palin for helping intel­li­gent women
realize they are intel­li­gent first, women after.
Thanks for helping smart men appre­ciate
smart women more than ever before.

Thanks Sarah Palin for making George W. Bush
look edu­cated by com­par­ison.
Thanks for making Cheney look saner -
at least he shoots at things at close range and
doesn’t make couch covers from their bodies.

Thanks Sarah for not blaming us mor­tals for cli­mate change -
None of us was around 6,000 years ago
when you believe the Earth was cre­ated…
How could we know what caused cli­mate change?

Thanks Sarah.
For every­thing you do.
With every­thing you say,
you are a reminder
for every girl and every woman
of the choice inside each of us.
The choice…
to be a smart, savvy, self-aware human being
or to be
just another jackass, with lipstick.

~Kiran Mehdee, 1 October, 2008

1. Live for the past.
2. Live for the future.
3. Think every­thing is always about you.
4. Think that you just don’t matter at all.
5. Believe that pills will solve all your prob­lems.
6. Believe that pills are stupid and use­less.
7. Do not let your­self change.
8. Believe that it is all your fault.
9. Believe that it is all other people’s fault.
10. Accept all the bad things you have heard, read or thought about you.
11. Deny any good things you have heard, read or thought about you.
12. Never think about other people’s prob­lems.
13. Think that because you can’t do every­thing, you shouldn’t do any­thing.
14. Roll your eyes while reading this list.
15. When hap­pi­ness comes, greet it with fear or guilt or resent­ment.
16. Think that you are or have bad luck.
17. Don’t express your­self cre­atively in any way.
18. Keep on trying to please and/or piss-off Mom and/or Dad.
19. Wait for someone else to come and save you.
20. Exercise only spo­rad­i­cally and only out of guilt.
21. Don’t make friends with silence.
22. Watch a lot of TV.
23. Stay away from Nature.
24. Think of every­thing in terms of black or white.
25. Take all, give nothing.

~Kiran Mehdee [June 2008]

Journalist Mark Glaser has an article up on the pbs.org MediaShift blog about the changing face of media in the 21^st cen­tury. He talks about how both tra­di­tional media and new media must learn from each other, and merge the best prac­tices. I like the point he makes about the techno-genie… once it’s out of the bottle, no one can put it back in. We’ve seen the same phe­nomena with all tech­no­log­ical break­throughs: TV, radio, Film, Nuclear weapons, cell phones, you name it.

No longer do people rely on TV Guide to pro­gram their lives around their favorite TV shows. Now they can use a dig­ital video recorder or watch shows on-demand online and fit their TV watching into their lives. The people are taking con­trol and watching, and lis­tening to what they want when they want — and on the devices they want. And that goes for TV as well as radio and audio, with pod­casts allowing people to listen on their own time and fast-forward or rewind shows at will.

What do we gain? We get more con­trol of our lives and our media expe­ri­ence and we are no longer slaves to pro­gram­mers. But what do we lose? We are losing shared expe­ri­ences, where we all watch the same shows at the same time, or watch the same sporting events together. And our “water cooler” talk has a new eti­quette, where we must tell people not to ruin our favorite shows because we’re taping it to watch later!

I stum­bled across this little brain candy in Wired.com’s archives.

One of my favourites:

TIME MACHINE REACHES FUTURE!!! … nobody there …
– Harry Harrison

from kcd – A web­comic of romance, sar­casm, math, and lan­guage – By Randall Munroe

Found this off this blog:

StoryCorps:

StoryCorps is a national project to instruct and inspire people to record each others’ sto­ries in sound.

Listen to audio inter­views in a col­lec­tion of per­sonal sto­ries. Some real inter­esting stuff…

“There is a time to let things happen, and a time to make things happen.”
–Emerson

“Success is get­ting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get.”
–Dale Carnegie

“Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.”
–Arthur Schopenhauer

“Different is not nec­es­sarily better but better is always dif­ferent.”
–Hugh Lendrum

“You often meet your des­tiny on the road you’ve taken to avoid it.”

“Imagination is the begin­ning of cre­ation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine and at last you create what you will.”
–George Bernard Shaw

“Don’t believe every­thing you think.”

“It is not the strongest of the species who sur­vive, not the most intel­li­gent, but those who are the most adap­tive to change.”
–Charles Darwin

“We can have peace if we let go of wanting to change the past and wanting to con­trol the future.”
–Lester Levinson

“Tell me and I’ll forget. Show me and I’ll remember. Involve me and I’ll under­stand.”
–Confucius

“Nearly all men can stand adver­sity, but if you want to test a man’s char­acter, give him power.”
–Abraham Lincoln

“Everything that irri­tates us about others can lead us to an under­standing of our­selves.”
–Carl Jung

“Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks out­side, dreams, who looks inside awakes.”
–Carl Jung

“Wisdom is knowing what path to take next… Integrity is taking it.”

“Carefully watch your THOUGHTS, for they become your WORDS. Manage and watch your WORDS, for they will become your ACTIONS. Consider and judge your ACTIONS, for they have become your HABITS. Acknowledge and watch your HABITS, for they shall become your VALUES. Understand and embrace your VALUES, for they become YOUR DESTINY.”
–Mahatma Gandhi

“Criticism is some­thing we can avoid easily — by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.”
–Aristotle

“Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.”
–William Jennings Bryan

“When I despair, I remember that all through his­tory, the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and mur­derers, and for a time they seem invin­cible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it, always.”
–Mahatma Gandhi

“To be your­self in a world that is con­stantly trying to make you some­thing else is the greatest accom­plish­ment.”
–Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Whenever you find you are on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.”
–Mark Twain

“We do not see things as they are. We see them as we are.”

“It’s easier to fight for one’s prin­ci­ples than to live up to them.”
–Adler

“The greatest decep­tion men suffer is from their own opin­ions.”
–Leonardo da Vinci

“When we are no longer able to change a sit­u­a­tion… we are chal­lenged to change our­selves.”
–Victor Frankl

“There is only one thing more painful than learning from expe­ri­ence and that is not learning from expe­ri­ence.”
–Archibald McLeish

“Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.”
–Johann von Goethe

“You don’t get in life what you want. You get what you are.”
–Les Brown

“Anything in life that we don’t accept will simply make trouble for us until we make peace with it.”
–Shakti Gawain

“If you think that edu­ca­tion is expen­sive, try igno­rance.”
–Derek Botz

“He who asks is a fool for five min­utes, but he who does not ask remains a fools for life.”
–Chinese proverb

“Opinions founded on prej­u­dice are always defended with the greatest violence.”

“History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely only after they have exhausted all other alter­na­tives.”
–Abba Eban

“A nation that values it’s priv­i­leges above its prin­ci­ples soon loses both.”
–Eisenhower

“Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish.”
–Euripedes

“What luck for the rulers that men do not think.”
–Adolph Hitler

“Those who make peaceful reform impos­sible will make vio­lent rev­o­lu­tion inevitable.”
–J. F. Kennedy

“Injustice any­where is a threat to jus­tice every­where.”
–Martin Luther King

“It’s never too late to be what you might have been.”
–George Elliot

“If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember any­thing.”
–Mark Twain

“The deepest longing in the human breast is the desire for appre­ci­a­tion.”
–William James

“Intuition is not con­trary to reason, but out­side the province of reason.”
–Carl Jung

“Life is a daring adven­ture or it is nothing at all.”
–Helen Keller