a brave and startling truth

poem by Maya Angelou read at the 50th anneversary of the UN.

WE this people, on a small and lonely planet
Traveling through casual space
Past aloof stars, across the way of indifferent suns
To a destination where all signs tell us
It is possible and imperative that we learn
A brave and startling truth

And when we come to it
To the day of peacemaking
When we release our fingers
from the fists of hostility
And allow the pure air to cool our palms

When we come to it
When the curtain falls on the mistrel show of hate
And the faces sooted with scorn are scrubbed clean
When the battlefields and coliseum
No longer rake our unique sons and daughters
Up with the bruised and bloody grass
To lie in identical plots of foreign soil

When the rapacious storming of the churches
The screaming racket in the temples have ceased
When the pennants are waving gaily
When the banners of the world tremble
Stoutly in the good, clean breeze

When we come to it
When we let the rifles fall from our shoulders
And the children dress their dolls in flags of truce
When land mines of death have been removed
And the aged can walk into evenings of peace
When religious ritual is not perfumed
By the incense of burning flesh
And childhood dreams are not kicked awake
By nightmares of abuse

When we come to it
Then we will confess that not the Pyramids
With their stones set in mysterious perfections
Nor the Gardens of Babylon
Hanging as eternal beauty
In our collective memory
Not the Grand Canyon
Kindled into delicious color
By Western sunsets

Not the Danube, flowing its blue soul into Europe
Not the sacred peak of Mount fuji
Stretching to the Rising Sun
Neither Father Amazon nor Mother Mississippi who, without favor,
Nuture all creatures in the depths and on the shores
These are not the only wonders of the world

When we come to it
We, this people, on this minuscule and kithless globe
Who reach daily for the bomb, the blade, and the dagger
Yet who petition in the dark for tokens of peace
We, this people, on this mote of matter
In whose mouths abide cankerous words
Which challenge our very existence
Yet out of those same mouths
Come songs of such exquisite sweetness
That the heart falters in its labor
And the body is quieted into awe

We, this people, on this small and drifting planet
Whose hands can strike with such abandon
That, in a twinkling, life is sapped from the living
Yet those same hands can touch with such healing, irresistable tenderness,
That the haughty neck is happy to bend
Out of such chaos, of such contradition
We learn that we are neither devils nor divines

When we come to it
We, this people, on this wayward, flouting body
Created on this earth
Have the power to fashion for this earth
A climate where every man and every woman
Can live freely without sanctimonious piety
Without crippling fear

When we come to it
We must confess that we are the possible
We are the miraculous, the true wonder of this world
That is when and only when
We come to it.

better mexico blog

i actually switched my travel journal over to blogger from vox, because i didn't like vox so much. oh, and i got a digital camera for my birthday so i can post photos too. yippee!
so here is the new one.

happy birthday

Next saturday, the 21st, will be this blog's first birthday.

From London

I'm in London waiting for my travel companions to wake up for our flight home to Iceland. I am here on a working vacation with everyone from work. The owner decided to invite us all (9+him) to go to London and attend an event with comic writer Alan Moore and to explore the London bookstores espessially Forbidden planet on which Nexus the store where I work is inspired by. This is my sixth time in London and I always love coming here. The bookstores are great, Borders, Blackwells, Waterstones, Foyles, Murder One and Forbidden Planet to name some of them. Beside Forbidden Planet which is my favorite with it's humongus Sci-fi and fantasy selection I think Borders is my favorite. Ofcourse Murder One is always a delight with it's narrow staircase and small rooms crammed with books from top to bottom. Wish I had some pictures to share with you but I have been horribly lazy taking pictures. More when I get home.

Mexico

The new link in the links list on the left, Snowbirds, is a blog I set up to document our migration south for the winter. I like documenting...

deepa mehta

I've watched a couple of movies by director Deepa Mehta. I think she is really good and i hope to see more of her work. She depicts india so wonderfully yet so scary at the same time. most of her films are tragedies, especially against women so be prepared to cry. I think her most recent is Water, with previous films, Earth and Fire. I first saw Water and walked out of the theater very grateful for my protective husband and society that takes a little better care of the poor and destitute. I always hope that people have become wiser over time, even though there are tons of ways to disprove that. Her films also make me morn the lost rights of millions of women around the world. Her films are very intellegent, historically eye opening and beautiful.

poor is the new rich

So many people think more money would make them happy.
This is dillusional. Think of all the money that is spent on lottery tickets every day. I hear of so many stories of the people who win messing up their lives. Yet, people buy into this illusion that if they would just win the lottery, their lives would be so much happier. Why wait around for your life to be better, especially by something that you have no control over, like a one-in-a-million chance of winning a lottery. Start making your life better now on your own. And then there's the chase for the higher paying job. Those unfortunately come with higher stress and less time for a life. Is it really worth it?
Here are some quotes from Ernie Zelinski's book "The Joy of Not Knowing It All" (also published as "The Joy of Thinking Big"):
"People want to believe there is one big money deal that will take care of all their problems. This is believing in a form of Santa Claus; everything is going to be great once this savior brings something of great value for us. Remember how false this belief was when we were children. Our happiness was short-lived and our problems remained."
"A higher percentage of people making higher incomes are less satisfied with their income than people with lower incomes. A higher percentage of the rich have alcohol and drug problems."
"If we are unhappy and don't handle our problems well on $25,000 a year, we can expect the same of oursleves with a lot of money. We will be just as unhappy and handle our problems just as ineffectively, but with more comfort and style."
"The one-big-deal syndrome is one of those adolescent-rescue fantasies we all had in our younger years. Unfortunately I know many people who have carried these fantasies well into their fifties and sixties. eg. If I could only get a high paying job then I could start living."
"People are looking for an easy way to happiness, when none exists. Waiting for the one-big-deal avoids the effort to make life work."

Only when the last tree has died
and the last river been poisoned
and the last fish been caught
will we realise we cannot eat money.
-Cree Indian Proverb

the devil himself

click on george for a warping good time.

the fall of the library

I'm browsing through a book called Library: The Drama Within by Diane Asseo Griliches and Daniel J. Boorstin. It has made me think of the struggle that libraries here in Alberta, especially the smaller ones, face every year. The funding is always being cut and without the federal grants and fundraising societies, there would be a pretty dismal library system. The book is made up of an essay and photographs with short descriptions/explanations of the photo. There are a few quotes that I like. NYPD Officer Dombranski talks about some of the library closures in the US due to lack of funding: "Some kids go to the library...Others go to the street. But they can't go to the libraries if the libraries are closed." Malcolm X talked about learning to read in the library of a correctional institute. He said "My alma mater was books and a good library. I don't think anybody ever got more out of going to prison than I did. Ten guards and the warden couldn't have torn me out of those books. Months passed without even thinking about being imprisoned...I had never been so truly free in my life."
There was a picture of a tiny library that used to be a post office somewhere in Virginia that could only hold about 5 people. It inspired me even more to create a library when I live where there isn't one.
Some lady named Sheila Bourbeau says it so simply: "A library is books and somewhere to put them and some people to want them there..."
And here is one last quote from someone who's work I don't entirely enjoy, but I loved this:
"Come, take choice of all my library, and so beguile thy sorrow." - William Shakespeare
The picture on the cover of the book is of "The Grand Reading Room" of the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, France. The picture below I thought was kind of cool because it is of an old jail turned into a library and it still has the barred cells, and a rope hook and trap door for the gallows were left on the third floor.

chocolat

I just received this magazine, chocolat, as a promotional first issue and i want everyone to know how sick it made me. i hope none of you ever buy it. it is catered towards woman who marry rich and have lots of money to waste on them selves from pampering your pooch by buying your dog a $400 kennel, to spiffing up your house by buying $200 flower pots and $300 pillows, to the latest in cosmetic surgery. After sean's last post i am disgusted that people can waste so much money on pointless frivolity that help no one. I am even more ashamed to know that this magazine is a canadian publication when i thought canadians were more unselfish and globally aware than that. Sean was right; cant the media focus on anything that really matters? ever?

help me

I need some fiction recommendations. I've got tons of nonfiction on the go right now but I need a good pretend story. Sorry Erika, I tried reading the Seventh Son, but I couldn't get into it. I have some books that I own that I want to read but I'm saving those for when I'm going to a country that has an inferior library system for six months. So if anyone has any good fiction to tell me about, bring it on. I'm gonna milk the library for all it's worth in the next two months.

scuba-diving

A recent outing to the hot springs in Fairmont, BC made me want to scuba-dive. We had on our goggles exploring the bottoms of the hot springs and my husband and I both think we have developed an appetite for underwater exploration. Our six year old got pretty into it too. I am proud to say that after years of being afraid, I have recently come to feel comfortable in the water. That peaceful weightless feeling of being underwater would only be cooler surrounded by multi-coloured fish and coral reefs. A large supply of oxygen sounds nice too.

Ender's Game

I just read Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card, mostly out of curiosity of the popularity of this author, and this one was recommended. I had fun with it. Although it's not the best book I've ever read, it was different than what I'm use to reading. I don't normally read Sci-fi. I found myself getting really into this one though, even dreaming about interspace battle strategies and maneuvering in zero-gavity, which this book is especially good at descibing. After looking for it on Amazon, I noticed that it is the beginning of a whole series of books about Ender.

the hybrid jackpot

Ligers and such...
Scroll down a little past halfway to the audio with images "When Mammals Mix"(with this picture). It's a little long, but worth it.
Here's another link to some interesting info.

continuing with my hybrid fascination...

here's a zorse.

another hybrid in nature...

There was the pizzlar (polar grizzly). Now there is a... morse?...hoose?...horsemoose...
I heard about it on CBC radio. There is some info on the web now. It's name is Bambi. It is undergoing some dna tests, so it hasn't been confirmed whether it is from a horse and moose cross-breeding or whether it is just a deformation. Here's a link. Who wants to bet that it's a moose-horse?

The Science of Sleep

Here's a preview to a movie that I can't wait to see. It looks so good it makes me drool.

wonderful ad

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZ_mlwnAmr0

Watch this it´s marvelous

New series

I just started reading what looks like a wonderful fantasy series. In the first book "His Majesty´s dragon" you get to meet the incredible dragon Temeraire and his accidental handler/friend Will Laurence Captain of his Majesty´s navy. They are the main character and extremely well crafted. You get a good idea of Will´s character as early as page 2 and as soon as Temeraire cracks the shell of his egg soon after you love him. I´m only 1/3 into the book but I could hardly put it down to post this go to the loo and get a drink of water. I have a sinus infection and staying home from work so I have alot of time to read. More later. I think this could be the best book I have read in years.

a million little pieces

Well, sadly (or maybe gladly...?) I only made it to the third chapter or so of the second book in Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series. I just couldn't do it. I was bored already. Dagga, you are a better woman than I.
The gladly part is, a book that I have had on hold at the library for months finally came in for me: A Million Little Pieces by James Frey. I've only started it but so far it is the best book I have read since The Alchemist. It's written in a unique style; the dialogue is very simple with no quotation marks or he said, she said stuff. It contributes to the very introspective mood. It is the author's own addiction rehab story. I think I'm drawn to it because of the way my own life has turned around and although my life was definitely not as extreme, there are moments that are very familiar. I have a book by Elizabeth Hudson called The Carrion Flower (another chapter was added later and it was renamed Snow Bodies: One Woman's Life on the Streets)that is based on the author's younger years as a prostitute and heroine addict. It was kind of neat too, because it all happened in Alberta and B.C., so I recognized some of the places. I was drawn to this one as well for the same reason. No, I was never a prostitute or heroin addict! I think I just need the reminder that things could have been a lot worse.