 by Flemming Funch
What makes people self-organize? Well, when I ask people, the successful examples I hear are when people have a well-defined shared purpose, and most particularly when there is a common threat. Like, someone just reminded me that when my favorite TV show Farscape got cancelled by the sci-fi channel recently, the loyal fans very quickly organized a huge Save Farscape campaign, involving coordinated letter writing, faxing, phone calls, petitions, t-shirts, demonstrations, media coverage, etc., to try to change it. And we're talking about "just" a tv-show. Nobody's physically threatened or anything. It is not about life or death, or money or jobs or personal security. Just a bunch of people who happen to agree on something. That's a powerful thing.
Greg Smith is 13 years old and a senior in college. He's a genius. And he's an activist for world peace. He's getting peace schools built in Kenya, libraries in Rwanda, centers for children at risk in Brazil.
A fun essay about the Leidenfrost Effect (in PDF format) describes the scientific principle that makes it possible to put one's hand into molten lead, pour liquid nitrogen into one's mouth, or walk with bare feet over burning coals. I've tried the latter, but the author is crazy enough to attempt the first two as well, in the name of science, and he ended up with some scars, burned feet and damaged teeth from all three, from when he got too casual about it. Most fun is his final suggestion that physics students should be required to walk across burning coals at the final exam. If their belief in physics is big enough, they will be unharmed. If not, they will have badly burned feet.
This just in: Terror bombing in Bali. My friend Vila who lives there writes: "An explosion occurred and people died, and on one hand it is terrible what has happened, there is compassion here and alot of feelings of sadness and others. We each react to what happens in our lives in our own individual ways depending on where we are at, thats it. There is no judgment about the reaction. There are no rules and no wrong choices, from my point of view. Sometimes stepping back and sometimes fighting back is of the highest order, only you can know whats true for you in each moment."
Where your talents and the needs of the world cross lies your calling. -- Aristotle
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