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3.05.2005
Saturday, March 5, 2005
The greens in the hills of Los Angeles after the rains are absolutely magical. They are irredescent. I keep trying to capture them but they are elusive to the camera. This is one of the more accurate shots I've gotten. The lushness fits the image I have always had in my mind since a child of what paradise looked like - a place where leprichons lept around and fairies buzzed by. Strange that right here on earth, not more than a mile from home, there should be a scene that fits precisely my image of paradise.
Lately I have realized that as much as the Right talks about the "intellectual elite" on the Left, there is a cynical elite on the Right. They do not believe that world peace can be achieved. They do not believe that world hunger can ever be ended. They do not believe we can have strong defense and fix our educational system at the same time. They do not beleiev we could re-fit the American automobile fleet to hydrogen within the next ten years. As much as they paint themselves as optimists, there is a deep pessimism underlying their imagination. This disbelief in our ability to achieve the impossible is a fundamental disbelief in the power of America. I for one reject it wholesale. America can do anything she sets her mind to, and, if we choose to, it is within our power to create a heaven on earth.
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3.04.2005
Friday, March 4, 2005
More on the impossible front. A legally blind athlete has gotten the Iditarod (the 1,100-mile dog sled race from Anchorage to the Bering Sea town of Nome) to agree to let her participate in the race. She's twenty years old. Click here for story. There is nothing quite like picking the most adverse set of circumstances you can imagine and daring the universe to keep you from overcoming them. This is Helen Keller's "Life is a daring adventure" vision made manifest.
On the technological front, my partner got me an IPod Shuffle fro my birthday. This thing is the size of three sticks of juicy fruit gum and holds 120 songs. It is truly amazing.And they actually thought about me, the user, in designing it.
Our goal must be to get government to behave with the same daring and the same commitment to the user as this inspiring woman and Apple Computer. Imagine the kind of world we could be living in if these kinds of stories and advances weren't just rare, isolated phenomena, but the way of the world. They can be. They really can.
P.S. Sorry for the repeat picture - losing my memory in my old age!
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3.03.2005
Thursday, March 3, 2005
Now here are a couple of impossible dreams. CNN reports that, "Steve Fossett left the Pacific Ocean behind on Thursday and flew over Los Angeles on his quest to become the first person to fly solo round-the-world without refueling."
The Norweigian-conceived Think car, is finally on U.S. roads.The car tops out at 65 mpg and can go 55 miles on a charge - the perfect car for people to use to get back and forth to work without any emissions.
One can only imagine the road these dreamers had to travel from idea to reality, but really, is any other road worth taking?
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3.02.2005
Wednesday, March 2, 2005
A friend of mine told me about this cool organization yesterday called Breakthrough Institute. Click here to visit their website: www.thebreakthrough.orgThey talk about the fact that America is basically an aspirational culture, that this is often ignored, and that it is to this longing for vision that we must speak. Their "Apollo Alliance" invokes all of the passion of the moon missions and points it at the need for a new environmental movement. But best of all, they call for the replacement of the image of Andrew jackson on the $20 bill with that of Martin Luther King, Jr. Now that's a vision. You know you've just met with a vision when it takes your breath away and sends a shiver up your spine. It is a sneek peak through a magical sort of time travel dooor, in whcih you get to see a flash of the world in which you will be living but which has not yet come to pass. Check these folks out and have a great day.
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3.01.2005
Tuesday, March 1, 2005
Outside of the realm of what is obviously possible lies our true destiny. It is in the pursuit of the impossible that human beings find what they are really made of, and we oughtn't settle for anything less. Quotations like Helen Keller's, "Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all," are thrown around so much that they lose all their meaning and stopping power. But I remember when I first read that, many many years ago, it struck me as a huge original thought. It startled me and awoke my consciousness. She was speaking of the need to stop living in the realm of comfort, in the realm of the predictable, in the realm of safety and caution. She was telling us to let go, to take risk, to fail and fail an fail again if we have to, but to pursue the things that humanity has never seen before - to bring new reality to bear on the world.
We must re-wire all of our thinking to align with the truth - that failure in the pursuit of ones dreams is noble, that caution for caution's sake is a rejection of life, and that we have a right to our most far-reaching dreams - in fact, we have a responsibility to them.
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2.28.2005
Monday, February 28, 2005
There is a tendency to keep logging on to the news to see what is happening in our world - to see if anything exciting has happened. This is to be at the effect of the world instead of to be at cause in the matter. We must begin making the news. We must begin to make the world exciting ourselves, instead of waiting for others to do it for us, or worse, instead of waiting for others to destroy any chance of it ever becoming exciting.
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2.27.2005
Saturday/Sunday, February 26th & 27th, 2005
If we truly want to change the fundamental direction of America we must realize that the road ahead will be long and difficult, that it will require hard work and dedication on our part - that we will be called to bring forth as much daring, boldness, and energy as did the founders back in 1776, and we must be prepared to give of ourselves as deeply as all those who changed the direction of the nation in the past, from the civil rights activists to those who fought the Civil War to those who ended the war in Vietnam to those who won the Second World War. We have to ask ourselves if we are ready to get involved at that level. Much will be asked of us for the reward that we seek. I have quoted Robert Kennedy several times on this front - "the future is not a gift, it is an achievement." Are we prepared to do what it will take to achieve a new future for America? That future can be magnificent beyond all conception, but it will not be easily won...
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