RFK on Obstacles to Change

First, is the danger of futility: the belief there is nothing one man or one woman can do against the enormous array of the world's ills--against misery and ignorance, injustice and violence. Yet many of the world's greatest movements, of thought and action, have flowed from the work of a single man. A young monk began the Protestant Reformation, a young general extended an empire from Macedonia to the borders of the earth, and a young woman reclaimed the territory of France. It was a young Italian explorer who discovered the New World, and the thirty-two-year-old Thomas Jefferson who proclaimed that all men are created equal.

"Give me a place to stand," said Archimedes, "and I will move the world." These men moved the world, and so can we all.

Day of Affirmation Address
Robert F. Kennedy
University of Capetown
Capetown, South Africa
June 6, 1966

Introducing the Hipster PDA | 43 Folders

I keep "joking" about this one, but it's true! I use it, and so do many other very cool people.
Introducing the Hipster PDA | 43 Folders

Daily Cup of Tech » 10 Ways to Protect Your Home Network

I would be remiss, as a computer nerd, not to mention this excellent article on protecting your home network.
On the backup side, I would also add the free services Mozy and XDrive...
Daily Cup of Tech » 10 Ways to Protect Your Home Network

America's Big Winners

A good article, with hope underneath, about what's driving the insane gap between the earnings of CEOs of America's largest companies and those of the people who work for them.

"In short, people’s incomes are swinging wildly—like winnings in a casino. In 1970, a family in any given year had a one-in-fourteen chance of its income dropping by half; today, the chance is one in six. No wonder mortgage foreclosures and personal bankruptcies have quintupled during the same period. Middle-class Americans live more and more with the kind of gnawing existential uncertainty that used to be mainly a problem of the poor."

Full article

Life, Liberty...

I thought that I had posted this a while back. It's an interesting article on the disproportionate nature of the pursuit of happiness in modern society.

Make the Move

I have worked with computers for nearly the last decade and only recently have I felt the kind of "empowerment" that the "personal computer" originally promised upon learning to use Linux. I am no pro and the learning curve was a little steep at first, but documentation and user groups are plentiful and gracious to the "newbie" such as myself. I have to say, however, that the price is right and when it's up and running, you start to see the potential that has been dormant or just simply ignored by Microsoft's monopoly. It is no longer safe to assume that Microsoft is easier, more secure, more stable, or faster than the alternatives. See Make the Move's website for more . . .

I also believe that Linux and the open source paradigm have larger implications for society as a whole. Collaboration, based on the intuition that everyone can and should contribute because our own individual perspectives are unique and no less qualified than the guys at Microsoft(/Washington D.C.) are the building blocks of this new community of programmers and activists. I am thrilled to be a part of it.

The (RED) Campaign

This feels like the model by which change for the better might actually happen in today's world.

The (RED) Manifesto

Tipping My Hand

I'm not sure what to make of the last month or so, but I'm feeling the development of a vocation within me. There is so much energy in the conversations that I've been having with friends and family recently. It feels good to watch the innovation and creativity come out of people and see the expressions of hope in those ideas. I am feeling compelled to find a way to bring those ideas to life.

More to come . . .

Latest Movies

So, over the past couple of weeks, during our recent Colorado snow storms, we have been watching lots of movies. We hit upon an activist streak with the following titles, and, I have to admit, I'm pretty blown away by what I've seen...

• An Inconvenient Truth -- I don't think that I need to re-review this one. It's good and worth watching.
• The End of Suburbia -- Fortunately, the last quarter of the film has some hope mixed into it, because the first three quarters pretty much scared the hell out of me. Oil companies buying up mass transportation and destroying it; the instability of a world dependent on oil-- both before the oil runs out and certainly after; the general short-sighted destructive nature of the suburban way of life...
• Who Killed the Electric Car? -- A recap of the brief lifespan of California's electric car experiment and its abrupt termination at the hands of California's government, the automobile industry, and an uninformed public, to name a few.

I'm going to go rethink my opinions on conspiracy theorists.