Friday, March 28, 2003
Timeless wisdom for our times. If you keep thinking “That man has abused me,” holding it as a much-cherished grievance, your anger will never be allayed. If you can put down that fury-inducing thought, your anger will lessen. Fury will never end fury, it will just ricochet on and on. Only putting it down will end such an abysmal state. — Sunnata Vagga.
From The Buddha Speaks, edited by Anne Bancroft. shambhala.com (I bought this book today. Be peace.)
Friday, March 21, 2003
Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Edward Humes blogs on war coverage:
I am in shock and awe. Not of the war launched in Iraq, but of the American media's abysmal coverage of it — a complete suspension of healthy, ethical, traditional press skepticism. Instead, we have slavish and unquestioning repetition of official pronouncements coupled with breathless hype from correspondents “embedded” with (read: beholden to) the troops. Nowhere is this more evident than in the press's bizarre embrace of the term “Shock and Awe” as a euphemism for the intensive bombing of Baghdad now underway. It is not surprising that our government officials would use a term like Shock and Awe — it is, after all, so much more palatable than the more accurate and honest “Horror and Death” or “Destruction and Maiming.” Read more.
Thursday, March 20, 2003
On the morning of a war, a meditation. 
Don't let this be an ordinary day. Take a moment of silence to let your thoughts touch all humanity with compassion. In the quiet, feel how you are related to the young soldier and the iraqi mother. How their suffering ripples out, washing over us all. Let this feeling of human oneness inform all your actions today. Be kind. Be mindful. Be peace.
Wednesday, March 19, 2003
Another katecohen joint: Sanosurf.com.
Tuesday, March 18, 2003
A mesmerizing clockwork ecology. Lose yourself in the world of Eric Fong at feric.com. [It’s a Flash thing]
Monday, March 17, 2003
Stunned silence. The stunning thing, the thing that stops me, is how everything goes on — as if we're not in geo-political free fall. Life inexorable. Deadlines still press and bills still need paying. Every night there's dinner. Now the roof has a leak, the car needs work and good-dog Beanz has a cancer. And days are full, full, full of all that I want: love and art and the studio house by the beach, good business partners, the fastest friends, work I like to do. So I attend to the long To Do list of details with a fluttering sense of jeopardy — what will the world be like next week, next month, next year?
I find myself actually relying on the overwhelming inertia of the American Way of Life. Things next year will probably be a lot like things this year. Born at a lucky longitude and latitude, I have guilty assurance: I bank on the way things grind on — through everything, the water flows, the lights go on, the market's stocked, the ATM spits out greenbacks. Hard times come and go, civilization remains. A world away, others have no such sense of surety.
I tend my little garden life. I do what I can.
So there's been a short silence at katecohen because while you're living, nothing stops life. Work to do and vet bills and taxes to pay, late nights with new projects, dust, not a minute to spare for our little gazette. But despite appearances, nothing really stops katecohen either, so here are some things we've come across lately. And, thanks faithful readers for keeping the faith.
Work. A site for senior citizens who can — if you'll pardon the frank expression — kick my ass and probably yours too. SeniorChampion.com.
Design Resource A. Authentic surf culture. Check out the bitchin'galleries of Surf Movie Posters of the 60s at surfclassics.com.
Design Resource B. It's all Greek to me. Lipsum.com is a nifty site which generates greeking or dummy text for designers to use in mock-ups of all sorts. Enter a number of paragraphs or words and the site returns the specified dummy text. Also read the history of the passage of Cicero that printers have been using to dummy text since the 1500s. I've used this site so much in the last few months, I happily made a little paypal donation.
Oily politics of war. On Wednesday or Thursday the Senate will vote again on opening Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling. Fax your Senator here.
Civil Disobedience. 
Where will you be on Day X?
Lead Story from the Hell Picayune. Let's see, what were we missing? Oh yeah, a virulent, deadly, treatment-resistant world plague.
Headlines: Canada Says No Way, Eh?; New Mexico Bill Upholds Constitution, Spits in Feds' Eye; Hasidim: Carp shouts apocalyptic warnings in Hebrew
Couldn't we use a little word play? Wordspy says: Conscientious neglect is a good thing. I'm not so sure about chewable liquor.
Tuesday, March 11, 2003
Holy Crap. Will war in Iraq launch an unstoppable chain of events that lead to Armageddon? Could the Antichrist be alive now? Are ATM's and other revolutions in global banking foretelling of the Mark of the Beast? Is the End-Times Uber-Franchise, Left Behind, the One World Government prophesized in the Bible? You can find out, but you have to buy in. (Considering what's Coming, who needs savings accounts anyway?) With a a subscription to the Left Behind Prophecy Club you get "a weekly analysis of world events and their relationship to end-time prophecies" from the best-selling authors of the Left Behind series. (These guys now have so much money they could actually build a Tower of Babel out of Benjamins. Yeah, right through the stratosphere. 666 miles high.) [gee-sus Beliefnet]
Sunday, March 9, 2003
Support our Troops. On Friday night (see below), there was a counter-demonstration of a dozen people or so — I think a single family and some friends of someone who’s deployed — chanting “USA” and “Support President Bush” and “Down with Saddam”. Out in front are two little girls with wispy-thin blonde hair and candy-colored tights. "Support Our Troops," they shout into the traffic and at the peaceniks across the wide divided street. They stand on tip-toe, little Barbie dolls, raising their poster-board as high as they can reach. They hop. Across four lanes of busy street, the anti-war crowd dances to a world-beat drum combo, brandish their "War is Not the Answer" placards at the on-coming cars, cheer as people honk in support.
There is so much to be sad about on this gentle, sweet-smelling California evening. The world is being led into disaster by short-sighted single-minded men, who say proudly that they listen to no one. But as I lean against the post and take pictures of the crowd across the street, I am sad, too, that the little girls have actually been told by adults that the bad people who want peace — who don't want their daddy or big brother or cousin to be shipped off to fight and die in an unyielding desert — are "against" service men and women. This is an old and knowing lie — one that is repeated unchallenged on television news every night — spit up by hawks to demonize anyone that disagrees with the battle plan. But to spoon-feed it to children seems especially heartless and shameful.
So I want to say: Children, the truth is that the demonstrators love their country. They believe our servicemen and women are good people doing a hard and important job and they want to support the soldiers by asking the government to take them out of harm’s way and bring them home to their families. And they, too, say down down down with Saddam and all brutal dictators and they want the governments of the world to punish him for his crimes. But, they believe this can be done without a war that will kill innocent people and make a bigger mess in the world. They believe that our President is making a mistake by making this war. It is important to tell him so. When you believe something is very wrong, you must say so. Most of all, they believe the best world for you to grow up in is one that is at peace. Many know this because when they were children, our country was at war.
Presidents, like all people, make mistakes. As you study history, you will see that Presidents have made mistakes many times. We have a responsibility to ask questions. We have a responsibility to be honest about what we think. Your mother and father may believe differently than the demonstrators do about the President’s decision and about the war. Good people can feel differently about this and many issues and you have a right to form your own beliefs about the world too. But let your opinion be based on your own conviction and not a lie about others. Remember all of us — especially the people who demonstrate for peace — want our servicemen to return to us safely.
Friday, March 7, 2003
Nations and neighborhoods say no to war. Around the corner from my house, on my shopping street in Belmont Shore, about 100 people of all ages demonstrated for peace tonight.
Thursday, March 6, 2003
An Emergency Appeal to the United Nations. MoveOn petitions the Security Council: “President Bush argues that only by endorsing a war on Iraq can the United Nations prove its relevance. We argue the opposite. If the Security Council allows itself to be completely swayed by one member nation, in the face of viable alternatives, common sense and world public opinion, then it will be diminished in its role, effectiveness, and in the opinion of humankind.” Click here to add your signature to the 550,000 MoveOn has already collected — but act today, the petition has to go to press Friday night for Monday delivery. [thanks, Melinda]
And, 10 reasons to oppose the war in Iraq.
Wednesday, March 5, 2003
Tuneful harcore geek humor: Every OS Sucks. [via 0for2]
United States v. American Library Association. The Bush Administration would like to see “porn filters” — which block access to tens of thousands of non-porn sites — installed in public-access computers in America’s libraries. The Supremes consider.
Tuesday, March 4, 2003
Hey Pocky Way. Sister-in-law writes on Sunday, from New Orleans, where Carnival is a season:
I stopped by your website yesterday (and today) and am sorely disappointed that there is NO MENTION of MARDI GRAS!!!! I know that you live all the way on the edge of the earth but who from New Orleans can ever forget when Mardi Gras is. Have you finally morphed into a total Californian? Lest you forget Mardi Gras, soon you shall never crave an oyster po-boy or boiled crawfish or heaven forbid forget Jazz Fest also.I could keep going but it is Bacchus Sunday and I must get properly prepared to make it all the way across town to Napoleon and Prytania to see the God of Wine, (and to park legally on time). To see the Bacchasaurus (oh, have we forgotten that also?) and all the fiberoptic lites now used by the super crews.
Didn't go to Endymion yesterday because Endymion did not come to me. Horror of all horrors, it rolled UPTOWN!!! Due to construction in mid-city. Officials SAY it will return next year and if it doesn't I'm sure a Civil War will start. So instead I went to Crew of Dreaux ... out in Chilly Gentilly.
All Hail Bacchus and Happy Mardi Gras. At least on Tuesday have a beer at 10 a.m and think of us here.
Oh salt in the old wound! Like the Masks of Momus, I laugh. I cry. Yes, Sister, I *still* know what it means to miss New Orleans and that big human noise that is Mardi Gras. Here’s my 10 o’clock beer. (Imported, of course — and not an Abita to be found) Here’s to you, to Bacchus, to Fat Tuesday and the City That Care Forgot ... Happy Gras from the land of LA. (Don't forget your ashes tomorrow!)
Saturday, March 1, 2003
Filling evil needs since 2002. Villainsupply.com. Customer of the Month: Our favorite Crime Dog! [thanks nikki for the evil e-mail that brought this to our attention.]