Dinner was Ethopian, and a chance to compare notes with the proprietor, with a focus on WWII. "Who was Haile Selassie and what was his connection to the Rastafarians?" is what we wanted to know. We learned a lot.
Earlier, I was corresponding with Friends about some of my projects. From an outgoing email:
For my part, I took the billboard thing seriously, along with my long-standing concern (AFSC related) to work with Native Americans on restorative justice, which puts me at loggerheads with some Friends, e.g. one John Wilmerding of John Woolman College, because of their Prohibition Era associations around gambling and casinos.That's somewhat a translation away from my native namespace, "restorative justice" being closer to the CERJ way of talking.
Tomorrow I'm to lead some adult discussion. I mentioned Appreciative Inquiry in my queries. Let's focus on what's working?
One of my guests, a physician, is curious about my sagas around health care, also about my mom (mom's room is the guest room). I explained a little about MUMPS versus SQL and a dutch boy cartoon.
We also watched a bit of Zeitgeist Addendum (memes in a suitcase) which I'd seen previously -- not that exciting right? Like where does energy from the sun enter this picture? Pharaoh Akhenaten seemed to have a stronger grip, though he was maybe somewhat overbearing. I saw Sun Ra perform live that one time -- a bit of a non sequitur, but for the Ra - Aten connection.
From Synergeo #48573 some hours later:
Typical of gringos, they think it's money that's in short supply, whereas the real problem is an oversupply of people thinking the way they do. If you know anything about anything economic (e.g. home economics, no longer taught -- too basic) you know that energy comes from the sun and we're surfing a solar gradient. I have to go back to Egyptian sources to find much lip service to that effect. Today's econo-heads want you to think central banks and the Federal Reserve are a source of wealth. Any building with columns. There's this superstition that traces back to Roman times, used by the emperors for their Ponzi schemes even then (how little has changed).Anyway, I agree that explaining economics more clearly is a big priority right now, given all the distrust of financial institutions. Maybe spice it up with some GST? Saturday Morning cartoons might explain it? Kids need to be clued too.
According to Tom, Princeton's Paul Krugman is calling for glasnost (a truth process), although that's a translation as well. Bishop Tutu is coming to Oregon soon, so maybe that's a good sign?
