I'm reading a book called "Blood Diamonds" by Greg Cambell right now. It's incredible. I started the book Sunday evening and got all torn up inside. It's a weighty matter to be sure and it sent me into something of an introspective and poignant mood that demanded a response but left me at a loss in knowing what I really should or could do about the whole matter.
This is one of the most aggravating moods to be in by the way.
While I'm debating on whether or not to quote some of the book here I'll go ahead and assert that you really need to read the book. Inform yourself on the subject of conflict goods. The diamond industry influences most of us in light of the fact that at some point you're probably going to either receive a diamond or purchase one for someone else.
I'm going to hold off on quoting the book. While I could probably shock and horrify by telling you some of the stories Cambell came across first hand as he trekked through Sierra Leone, it would be more important for you to understand the context of the situation. Suffice it to say that even if one was to purchase a "conflict free diamond" you really have no idea where it came from as the whole identification system of a diamond's point of origin is a running joke.
One thing the book will do is paint a completely frustrating picture of how thorough and far reaching corruption can be as the victimized can quickly become the victimizer in such an arrantly corrupt and broken down state many of the African countries currently find themselves in.
Related Topics:
Boycotts
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
Thursday, June 15, 2006
Art
Art moves. Bridges the gap. Fills the void. Brings together light and dark, beauty and hate. Uniting unexpected ends and shattering predictable means. Art fills the soul and challenges the mind. It often questions and seldom answers but always moves us along the journey. Its a sail to the wind, breath to the thought, motion to a stagnant mind and paints a truer picture of what we call life. Without art a voice of God would be silenced. The mountains would crumble to the plains, the ocean would puddle and the stars would fall from their throwns in the black canvas sky. Without art the heart would break and the mind would crack in the cage it would soon discover this life to be.
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
The Highlight
It's only 9:00 in the morning but I'm pretty sure I've already hit the highlight of my day.
I've paid off the credit card debt I've had since college.
I've paid off the credit card debt I've had since college.
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
Fear
I went on a 4 day backpacking trip with 17 people this past weekend. Not the ideal number to be backpacking with but surprisingly nothing went seriously wrong. Our trip leader is an engineer and detail oriented to a fault at times but honestly it was probably his attention to said detail that kept things smooth.
We climbed a 14,000 foot mountain called Snow Mass out near Aspen. Beautiful. Pictures will soon follow this post of course (providing they turned out) but suffice it to say that when you're standing in the shadow of God you tend sense something you may have missed back in the city.
It took three liters of water and plenty of swearing but I made it to the summit. I might add that I kind of forgot to eat which was a mistake that made itself readily apparent to me soon enough. Try hiking through snow on fatigued limbs while fighting the urge to spew what little you put into your stomach back out. Add to that the fact that I was fighting some mild diarrhea on the way back out the last day and you could say that I was a broken creature indeed.
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I experienced fear on this trip. I've never felt it quite the same way before. The day we made it to our 11,000 ft base camp I stood at the foot of this great monument we set out to conquer and I knew fear. The cold hard rock breaching the snow laced crown. Wind tearing across the heights, lifting wisps of snow high in the sky. From that distance it looked like little puffs of smoke. As if the peak chose to fire up a cigarette before the sun rested it's weary eye in the west. I know from past experience that when you see snow erupting off the peak by wind you can be sure it's blowing with combative force. It's nothing to smirk at.
I went to bed that night thinking about how frail humanity is. How untamed this wilderness was that we now found ourselves. As I crawled deeper and deeper into my sleeping bag, embracing the warmth that surrounded me, I could hear the wind tearing through the trees that night, across the crystal clear lake and up the massive peaks that loomed over our tents but underneath the brilliant stars that shone high above. I knew fear.
When the darkness in the forest at night takes hold in a way never known to the cities far below, you can see stars...many stars. Spiraling. Like celestial satellites. As if watching. Measuring. Like a billion mysterious eyes. A tension exists here. You can sense it in the cold. Warmth, the desired prize in the ongoing struggle to survive. As if nature's long fingers poke and search for a way into this frail humanity. Cracking and breaking. Protecting itself from our innate curiosity.
It's curious to me that this fear doesn't turn me away. Send me running into the embrace of a strictly urban existence. I suppose in a wildly unpredictable outcome it's this fear that draws me here. I guess fear isn't always a bad thing.
I'd imagine we'd be afraid of God if we stood in His shadow. It's a strange tension though. To be so afraid of something (or someone) but feel an intrinsic need to run toward it. I've come to understand that often fear is an element of respect. I respect the wilderness. I don't suppose I can hope for an equal respect in turn. After all I am pretty small. But as you reach the summit of a peak or the depths of a darkness you've feared for so long you learn that it's this respect that keeps you alive. Keeps the weights in the scale. You understand this unseen tension a little bit better and maybe realize it's what reminds you that you're truly alive.
We climbed a 14,000 foot mountain called Snow Mass out near Aspen. Beautiful. Pictures will soon follow this post of course (providing they turned out) but suffice it to say that when you're standing in the shadow of God you tend sense something you may have missed back in the city.
It took three liters of water and plenty of swearing but I made it to the summit. I might add that I kind of forgot to eat which was a mistake that made itself readily apparent to me soon enough. Try hiking through snow on fatigued limbs while fighting the urge to spew what little you put into your stomach back out. Add to that the fact that I was fighting some mild diarrhea on the way back out the last day and you could say that I was a broken creature indeed.
------------
I experienced fear on this trip. I've never felt it quite the same way before. The day we made it to our 11,000 ft base camp I stood at the foot of this great monument we set out to conquer and I knew fear. The cold hard rock breaching the snow laced crown. Wind tearing across the heights, lifting wisps of snow high in the sky. From that distance it looked like little puffs of smoke. As if the peak chose to fire up a cigarette before the sun rested it's weary eye in the west. I know from past experience that when you see snow erupting off the peak by wind you can be sure it's blowing with combative force. It's nothing to smirk at.
I went to bed that night thinking about how frail humanity is. How untamed this wilderness was that we now found ourselves. As I crawled deeper and deeper into my sleeping bag, embracing the warmth that surrounded me, I could hear the wind tearing through the trees that night, across the crystal clear lake and up the massive peaks that loomed over our tents but underneath the brilliant stars that shone high above. I knew fear.
When the darkness in the forest at night takes hold in a way never known to the cities far below, you can see stars...many stars. Spiraling. Like celestial satellites. As if watching. Measuring. Like a billion mysterious eyes. A tension exists here. You can sense it in the cold. Warmth, the desired prize in the ongoing struggle to survive. As if nature's long fingers poke and search for a way into this frail humanity. Cracking and breaking. Protecting itself from our innate curiosity.
It's curious to me that this fear doesn't turn me away. Send me running into the embrace of a strictly urban existence. I suppose in a wildly unpredictable outcome it's this fear that draws me here. I guess fear isn't always a bad thing.
I'd imagine we'd be afraid of God if we stood in His shadow. It's a strange tension though. To be so afraid of something (or someone) but feel an intrinsic need to run toward it. I've come to understand that often fear is an element of respect. I respect the wilderness. I don't suppose I can hope for an equal respect in turn. After all I am pretty small. But as you reach the summit of a peak or the depths of a darkness you've feared for so long you learn that it's this respect that keeps you alive. Keeps the weights in the scale. You understand this unseen tension a little bit better and maybe realize it's what reminds you that you're truly alive.
Wednesday, June 07, 2006
CNN & Us
So do we control the media or does it control us? What we get fed at 5 and 10 at night...was that what we asked for?
I'm becoming progressively aware of the tension between what we call news and what we call entertainment. Meshed together in that ever present, grey, media blender we call our television. I wonder, in the world of media buy-outs, corporate ownership and media saturation, who's actually making the calls on what we hear, see and feel. Who makes the calls on our reality?
In the media's defense no one wants to come home after a long hard day of work and hear about how the world is going to hell in a hand basket. But where does that fall in line with the idea of painting an accurate and unbiased picture of the world in which we live?
Perhaps it has something to do with the idea of relevancy. So what's relevant to us? What directly effects us? As participants in the global community is there anything that happens on this planet that doesn't effect us in some fashion? To a certain degree.
An idealistic turn of events in my mind in regards to the news networks methods of broadcasting would be an initiative to really tell us what's going on in the world with a call to get involved in some way. If there's something going on in Uganda then that's what they tell us and they would follow that up with some information on how we could make a difference.
Maybe I'm being naive and overly optimistic.
The quicker the internet destroys television the better. But then again can the internet be bought?
Suspicion and paranoia take flight!
I'm becoming progressively aware of the tension between what we call news and what we call entertainment. Meshed together in that ever present, grey, media blender we call our television. I wonder, in the world of media buy-outs, corporate ownership and media saturation, who's actually making the calls on what we hear, see and feel. Who makes the calls on our reality?
In the media's defense no one wants to come home after a long hard day of work and hear about how the world is going to hell in a hand basket. But where does that fall in line with the idea of painting an accurate and unbiased picture of the world in which we live?
Perhaps it has something to do with the idea of relevancy. So what's relevant to us? What directly effects us? As participants in the global community is there anything that happens on this planet that doesn't effect us in some fashion? To a certain degree.
An idealistic turn of events in my mind in regards to the news networks methods of broadcasting would be an initiative to really tell us what's going on in the world with a call to get involved in some way. If there's something going on in Uganda then that's what they tell us and they would follow that up with some information on how we could make a difference.
Maybe I'm being naive and overly optimistic.
The quicker the internet destroys television the better. But then again can the internet be bought?
Suspicion and paranoia take flight!
Monday, June 05, 2006
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