Peaceable Kingdom film showing
Wednesday, February 27th
Cline Library Assembly Hall at Northern Arizona University
7:00
FREE!

Hosted by Animal Rights NOW!

“From the incredibly talented filmmakers of ‘The Witness,’ this deeply moving film explores the plight of farmed animals through the story of Gene and Lorri Bauston of Farm Sanctuary. Heartbreaking actual footage from factory farms, stockyards, and slaughterhouses is masterfully interwoven and juxtaposed with beautiful scenes from the sanctuary, as well as with rescue missions and intensely personal interviews with people who experienced first hand — and ultimately rejected — the painful realities of farm life. This film has the power to effect real change in people. Gather some friends and family to watch it, and by the end, there will not be a dry eye — or untouched heart — in the house.”

I recently bought a great documentary that realistically interrogates our current and frightening environmental challenges. I wanted to share one small section, which, in the past, I’ve heard in various forms. In the film, “the parable of the tribes,” was recited by Ran Prieur. This is an over-simplified explanation of how violence seeps into peaceful landscapes and spreads. This blew my mind the first time I heard it, so I’m curious to hear what you think.

Imagine a bunch of tribes living in an area peacefully. One of the tribes, for some reason—instead of living in balance and in peace—they decide to make a bunch of weapons and conquer the next tribe and turn them all into slaves. The other tribe has three choices

1. If they run away, the paradigm of the violent tribe expands into their territory.
2. If they submit to slavery, the paradigm of the violent tribe expands into their territory.
3. If they decide to make a bunch of weapons to fight back, the paradigm of the violent tribe expands into their territory.

This process continues and spreads around the world until it’s full of violent people who build weapons and fight and enslave others.

I finally got the internet working at my house again. Last week, stupid NPR was my only source of news. Who will it be, Hilary or Obama? Hilary or Obama? Who will stand up to McCain? Every time I turned on the radio is was either a report about how Obama attracting black voters and Hilary attracting women voters….or the latest on the Roger Clemons case, which I am oh so sick of hearing about.

Our country desperately needs to a take third party seriously. The notion that 350 million of us can be divided up into two contrasting ideologies is nothing short of crazy. I have more options when I’m shopping for peanut butter.

The republicans are a pack of criminals and the democrats are a bunch of weenies. It’s been this way for too long. They have both let us down time and time again. If “change” is really what you seek, the person who has me fired up is Cynthia McKinney of the green party. She has everything I would want in a candidate all wrapped into one. She is in touch with normal people’s lives, a strong advocate for women’s rights, not building a wall at the border (take that Ron Paul supporters!), she is the only candidate with strong connections to working class people, she wants out of Iraq, and wants to “leave the oil in the soil.” Even if she can’t win, I’m glad she’s there. And I hope to see her in some of the debates.

exciting for some, but in this humble writer’s opinion, scary as hell.

Machines will achieve human-level artificial intelligence by 2029, a leading US inventor has predicted.

Humanity is on the brink of advances that will see tiny robots implanted in people’s brains to make them more intelligent, said Ray Kurzweil.

The engineer believes machines and humans will eventually merge through devices implanted in the body to boost intelligence and health.

“It’s really part of our civilisation,” Mr Kurzweil explained.