As a teenager — and perhaps beyond — I thought I might achieve some great thing in this world. I wished for recognition, aspired for greatness and some exalted place, to strive with Tennyson's gods...
Death closes all: but something ere the end
Some work of noble note, may yet be done
Not unbecoming men that strove with gods.
I've been reading a great deal about ecology and conservation biology lately, and thus found the article Ecolonomics: Valuing Forests (dead link removed; SF 2025) quite timely. Of course it is an intriguing article whether or not one has been reading up on the subject, and I recommend it even more to those who haven't been doing so.
Thank God that the U.N. Security Council has chosen to act on the Darfur crisis. The internal conflict has been resolved — with Algeria, China, Pakistan, and Russia abstaining — and specific sanctions, investigations, and new legal obligations have now been imposed on Sudan. Its too bad we can't get this done elsewhere in the world, as Darfur is really just the current poster child of global conflict.
As an active Bahá'í on campus in the mid-to-late 90's, I often found myself engaged in intriguing but sometimes pointless discussions with various Christians. The Bahá'í Faith, progressing from an Islamic milieu, shares a good deal of religious worldview with that faith. Thus in "A note on Muslim-Christian dialogue" one could almost directly substitute the Bahá'í Faith for Islam.
Though historically I've not read many blogs, I've been poking around looking for good news sources to add to my news feeds in the new Mozilla Firefox pr1. My slumming has turned an interesting piece on the future of cold fusion over at Popular Science.
Just as a negotiated-peace began to take hold in southern Sudan, a new crisis arose in the western Darfur region this past winter and spring. Half a year after escalation of the atrocities, estimates of the dead range from 30,000 to 50,000, and well over a million people have been internally or externally displaced. Men and boys have been systematically murdered; worse yet, a conscious effort at genocide has once again turned to mass rape of the remaining women. International response has been harsh yet guarded, and far too slow. We must push our political leaders to appropriate action under international law. [This editorial is specifically focused on religious and interfaith communities].
This weekend I have relaunched InterfaithNews.Net, with a few interface enhancements and new features — the most important of which is the ability to add comments to select articles. I invite you to stop by to see the new features and articles; read on below for descriptions of the latest articles added this month.
"The well being of mankind, its peace and security, are unattainable unless and until its unity is firmly established." ~Bahá'u'lláh
The concept of world peace is surely not new to you. The idea that it just might come about — now that is a revolutionary concept.
As a child I watched Elroy Jetson with a certain bemusement, flitting about in his jet pack, popping food pills, and relying on Rosy the Robot to keep his room clean. Likewise in Disney World's Tomorrowland I gazed in amazement at what was once envisione d for our future. Monorails and jet packs were just the optimistic incarnations of that Cold war futurism — but in science fiction particularly we find the more sinister predictions. Luminaries such as Bradbury, Roddenberry, and Gibson penned tales of continuing exploitation of all that humanity might invent. While their tales were scoffed at or ignored by the masses, especially when the Cold War ended with fall-out-free winters, the days of past present may be returning to the present future.
We're now 85% unpacked, though the place is still a mess. Just got library cards and using a public library Internet Station for the first time ever, very exciting you know. So if anyone's reading, other than the viagra and cialis spam-bots (they flood old blog entries with spurious spam comments), drop me a line and say hello. My Austin mobile number is still good. If you don't have it, send me an e-mail. Oh, and the weather has been gorgeous =).
