the price of bearing witness

"I think the only question is: Have I made the kind of difference the opportunities have given me? That's what you have to measure yourself against. Have I lived up to the opportunities that were presented to me? I think we all, collectively, starting with the governments we elect to represent our values and views, we all make a difference. The question is: have you seized the moment sufficiently? I hope I have. I try. I always try. But, in retrospect, you can't tell."
-Louise Arbour

Louise Arbour is now United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights - the UN's top human rights official. As the world marks the 11th anniversary of the Rwandan Genocide, Arbour tells us about the challenges in maintaining professional detachment in the midst of tragedy, and why atrocities in Africa were eclipsed by the tsunami.
You can accssess the whole interview here:
http://www.cbc.ca/sunday/arbour.html

I also discovered a video on the inteligent design debate. My problem with them media is they always focus on the most absurd extremist christians so the world ends up thinking we are uninteligent fudemenatlists who say dumb things like "it would be better if everyone thought like me"
No wonder the term "christian" has become on par with the word "nazi"

http://www.cbc.ca/sunday/feedback_jan16_05.html

scroll down and see the "feature" on the right column to view a twelve minute video about a new creationism debate.


I have done the very thing I told myself I would never do. I got a job in the resteraunt industry. I tell myself that there must be a purpose for it, and that keeps me hanging on.
I woke up this morning to a message being recorded on my machine. They wanted me call them. Probably to work today. Not a chance.I know the resteraunt industry. You got to lay your foot down, otherwise they'll walk all over you. I have my monday to friday daytime, and that's all I want. I want to keep my evenings free. I want to keep my evenings free.
I stayed up really late last night and watched movies on the TV. I have managed to break the cycle of endless television viewing, but it took a few weeks before i did that. Now, it is more like a novelty.
The empty house sydrome... I know this one. I find myself more of a hermit now than I thought I would be. Work was good to break this down, but it still continues. It could be a lack of social outlets, or maybe I am just apathetic towards the western world.
And then there is that illusibve question, would life be better if not alone? Hmmm... I don't think we should suffer or feel victimized for being alone... I mean, finding value and self worth is someone else is dangerous, especially if we can not find it without someone else...
staying busy can often just distract us from the reality that we NEED to think. It's part of the process.
As your good friend I recomend you watch a movie called Donnie Darko and stay up as late as you can tonight. Try and imagine a world that is not controlled by time. Instead, it is controlled by a stopwatch that you hold in your hand. When you start tick tick ticking, everything around you freezes - all people and traffic, and you are free tow walk amongst a frozen civilization.
You get use to this, and freeze time when you are doing tests, say, and you can go copy others answers. But say one day when you have clicked the world frozen, that the stopwatch breaks, and you find yourself unable to bring motion back into the world.
Do you think at that point you would wish you never discovered the sytopwatch in the first place?
If lonliness were like that stopwatch, then the great fear we all seem to have is that time has frozen and we may have to spend the rest of our lives like ghosts in a hallway seventeen floors above the city.
Like grass, happiness and contentment are always better looking somewhere else and with someone else.
refreshment and peace become so desirable because they are not constant.