Community Level

As we studied about a table of potential application of theories, models, and approaches on last Saturday. I have found a story that is good in level 2 (Community Level). 

CNN has reported the 6th V-Star Change the World Day

  1,000,000 V-Star Children gathered in this event at Dhammakaya Temple on Saturday January 28th, 2012.  This event is a part of the World Morality Restoration Project of Dhammakaya Temple.

 The dmc.tv staffs had shot photos and video clips of the 6th V-Star Change the World Day on January 28th, 2012 and reported them on CNN iReport, one of the CNN editors was interested in this news and picked it up to present in the homepage of CNN iReport in a few days later. So, the story of 1,000,000 V-Star Children doing good deeds together has spread in the cyberspace over the world speedily.

On CNN on-air the Video that there are Million of Vstar Kids from all over Thailand come to meditate at The Great Dhammakaya Cetiya, Patumthani Province Thailand. On-Air time :
Thursday 16 Feb 2012, 0830 GMT
Friday 17 Feb 2012, 0330 GMT
Saturday 18 Feb 2012, 0800 GMT
Saturday 18 Feb 2012, 1730 GMT
Saturday 18 Feb 2012, 2230 GMT
Sunday 19 Feb 2012, 1430 GMT
Monday 20 Feb 2012, 0230 GMT 

The 6th V-Star Challenge Day
The Project: The leaders of World Morality Restoration
On Saturday January 28th, 2012

          More than 5,000 schools in Thailand have faithfully participated. Since the V-Star Unity Project began in 2007, organizing committees for the program have provided full scholarships and all manner of learning media as well as equipment to both facilitate and directly cultivate a genuine moral and ethical awareness for all the youth who have attended the project. read more

The Dhammakaya Temple was founded by a nun Khun Yay Ubasika Chandra Khonnokyoong in 1970. Then, the temple expand to the world. There are more than fifty centers outside of Thailand.

   Normally, the Dhammakaya temple's members  learn dhamma and meditation from the Dhamma Media Channel (DMC). The DMC is a Buddhist satellite television and a white channel, ethic channel. It broadcasts, for 24 hours a day, media programs based on Buddhist teachings. DMC programms are suitable for all viewers regardless of age, gender, religion, race, nationality, and sexual orientation. read more

    I think this is the  non-profit organization that is in the level 2. The positive activities are the community members expand their power from within and create desired to change the world. It is not easy to gather a million children to meditate together. 

    I also think about Level 3 (Interpersonal Level) on 3.2 Diffusion of Innovations. The V-star's program on January 28, 2012 had the Abbot at Wat Phra Dhammakaya to lead them to meditate. The children followed him. They trusted him because of his Buddhist credentials.

    

        The Project is still in progress and will change the world.

 

might as well post it here too

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OU897UKXJ3Q

Taking inventory

The following quote comes from this post on Mashable, "Social platforms are still in their Precambrian era."  Really?  If that is the case I feel like I could become an extinct species drowning in the tar pits of various log-ins and I wonder how other people deal with the dilemma of so many accounts.  Just off the top of my head here is what I need to log into, and this doesn't even include paying bills as this is something my wife handles:
- School e-mail
- All my research articles I saved in the library database
- Hotmail (friends)
- Gmail (For my eventual job search)
- Work e-mail (I'm not in a cubicle so it's remote)
- Uniform link (from work, not synched)
- Same with my HR access
- Travel access via Delta
- Scanner for luggage @ work

Then we start going into the different social media tools:
- Facebook for me
- Facebook for an online game I play for the bonuses
- Linked In
- Posterous
- StarTribune.com (which will be ending since they feel this need to charge me)
- NonRevTravel.net
- ESPN360.com
- Yelp.com
- Tripadvisor.com
- and on and on and on.......

I think part of my issue is that one time, my hotmail account was hacked because of a stupid link. It was a clever enough password but I had to come up with something new and I started using that with new sites while older sites still had the old password.  Then there are my essential sites, my work login's.  There is no  consistency and all have unique requirements to their password structure.  That doesn't even include the one that needs to be changed every 90 days.  

So I struggle.  Have others been like this and have you figured out a solution?

Facebook in My Daily Life

Facebook in my daily life

Facebook is  social media that makes my daily life very busy.  When I stop for a moment and look at how different it is from ten or even five years ago. I really know that my life is not the same. My life has totally changed. However, it is better than in the past.

I use Facebook for my everyday life. I spend a lot of time reading several posts from different groups. For example, I have joined with Meditation groups; I gain a lot of knowledge from them. I have more than a thousand of new friends. I have learned how to create attractive images and post them with useful texts. Facebook is good social media that helps me to present my skills. I also have blogs. People are finding my blogs  from Facebook referrals rather than via Google.

 read more

 What is Facebook

 Facebook is a social networking website launched in February 2004 that is operated and privately owned by Facebook Inc.  Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg with his college roommates and fellow students Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskoyitz and Chris Hughes. January 2009, Compete.com study ranked Facebook as the most used social networking service by worldwide monthly active users.  

read more

 I hope everyone enjoys Facebook. We use social media for our daily lives. It can give all of us greater choice in how we live and what happens in our world. 

 

Have you done anything pinteresting today?

If you are interested in joining Pinterest you typically have to request an invitation. I have heard from people that you can get the invitation sent to you pretty quickly, or you could end up on a wait list for a couple of weeks. Pinterest users can also send out invitations. If you are interested in signing up with Pinterest, and need an invitation, comment on this post. I will then send you an invitation.

Happy Pinning!

Also, I saw these articles on Twitter today. Check out the one about hospitals using Tumblr.

This article is how Pinterest can boost your search engine optimization (SEO).

Cognitive Dissonance

Cognitive Dissonance is the feeling of uncomfortable tension which comes from holding two conflicting thoughts in the mind at the same time. 

Feeling uncomfortable is a form of confusion caused by the brain 'short-circuiting' as it struggles to make a connection and decision based upon past experiences.  And those past experiences may have little or nothing to do with the situation that is immediately present.  But the brain (the ego) wants to come to an immediate understanding in order to make a judgement.  This judgment used to serve us well as a 'fight-or-flight' response.  It was a healthy fear kept us alive.  This kind of fear is the brain's default and go-to response, but fear can also overstep its bounds in an undisciplined mind. 

I believe emotions are a gift that are part of the human experience.  Science is proving emotions are a built-in system of chemical releases that stem from memories of experiences. These chemical releases signal an opportunity for growth, learning, and evolution. Whether that opportunity is accepted or rejected is up to the individual that is experiencing the emotion.

If a person can sit and simply 'be with' an extreme emotion, without reacting to it, just simply feeling it and moving through it, we refer to that person as mature, even as 'aware of himself'.

The opposite, is stated here in the movie Seven, by Detective Sommerset (Morgan Freeman) speaking to Detective Mills (Brad Pitt).

It's impressive to see a man feeding off his emotions

Now, I feel it is up to us as conscious and aware human beings to undertake actions that rewire our brains, and move away from responses based on fear of the unknown.  We can do this by looking at facts before us, putting aside our selfish desires, and focusing on the betterment and welfare of all people on this planet.

By taking the actions that rewire the brain, we begin to become more aware of our immediate and self-damaging behaviors. With out those actions, the mind remains undisciplined and we experience self-damaging behavior.


Let me illustrate .

Thought: "I want a soda."

It is a fact that adding large amounts of carbon dioxide and sugar to the human body is inherently poisonous to the system.  So after the initial 'I want a soda' thought, if a person consciously stops to think that they are considering drinking a poisonous liquid, then that person could be considered aware.

If a person does not have this thought, they may be considered either unaware of their own impulsive behaviors, otherwise, they are simply in a state of denial. And, the inability of a person to be honest with themselves is a form of insanity.

But let's say the person does have that conscious thought, 'this is inherently poisonous'. They are left with the choice of whether or not put that destructive chemical into the human body.

Also to be considered is, if the soda is consumed, what will be done with the empty bottle?

Lets say the type of plastic the bottle is made of is not recyclable in this state, and that the person has that information.  Here is another choice to be made. The choice of whether or not to pollute the environment/planet.

Logic, science, and personal honesty says: “DO NOT DRINK THAT OR POLLUTE THE ENVIRONMENT.  BOTH ACTIONS WILL EVENTUALLY KILL YOU.”

But the selfish ego says: “But I like it.  I like the way it tastes and I like how it makes me feel. If it eventually kills me and the pollution eventually kills the planet... so what?  I do I feel bad about it, but there's nothign I can do.  And I want to feel good now.  This is the way I prefer to do it.”

Many times the soda is bought anyway, and it is consumed. In other words, a person does what they want now, and regardless of the known negative consequences of such action.  If confronted by another person about their behavior, they experience cognitive dissonance.  The they become uncomfortable and confused.  Uncomfortable-ness and confusion can be construed as 'weaknesses' in our society/culture. 
In order not to appear weak, the ego rises up and the person will respond in the form of anger, denial, or 'running away'. This is our new version of fight-or-flight.

So what would be the difference between a the person buying the soda and a person addicted to heroin? 
The answer: Only the extremes to which each person would immediately go based upon their level of awareness.  Both care, but not to the extent to which they are willing to change their behavior.

That, I believe, is insane. And that is how we live.

  

*********

“People are locked into a box.  They see the box around them. 

They see the leaks and the holes, and the cracks. 

They go to the cracks, and they try to fix them. They try to patch the holes. 

But they don’t stop to think that maybe there is something wrong with the box itself. 

Maybe the integrity of the box they exist in is inherently flawed. 

The economic system we live in is a parasitic paradigm that is only going to lead to self-destruction.

We live in a very sick and fucked up culture.  We really do. 

Society is mentally ill. 

To be ‘normal, is to be messed up.  

But people don’t see that.” 

~HUMAN: The Film~ 

Human the film (2012) Part 1 from joseph mccoy on Vimeo.

Posterous

For the class assignment I reviewed Tumblr, Posterous, Path, and Pinterest, finally deciding Posterous would be a great place to begin to develop a website where I could develop a personal site, collectively organize unusual phenomena, and learn how to utilize the attributes of this site for the promotion and avocacy of organizations.. 

Admittdly, it has been a struggle utilizing Facebook to gather images and ideas together (such as the Fibonacci sequence, information on the ancient Mayans, the Golden Ratio, henges, crop circles, DNA structuring, frequencies and sound waves, etc/) into a format where ideas can grow or connections between such unusual subjects could be made.

This is simply because the design of Facebook is not conducive to organizing more complex ideas, but more suited to 'chronologial driveby's' of ideas and experiences.

I look forward to exploring more of what Posterous has to offer, and may write another post here once I learn more.

Thanks.




http://rednaxelasalo-chin.posterous.com/

A "filming on location" cautionary tale

I wanted to share with you all my experience when I visited the Mendota Dakota fire ceremony at Ft. Snelling a couple weeks back, which was to honor their ancestors who were executed or interned following the US-Dakota War in 1862.

I had left class early and flew home, grabbed a quick bite to eat, and then grabbed my video camera--only to discover the battery was dead.  Makes sense, seeing how it hadn't been used since summer.  I plugged it in for 30 minutes for a quick, partial charge only to discover it wasn't charging!  I gave it another 30 minutes; meanwhile, I was kicking myself for not following the cardinal rule of casual or professional production:

CHECK YOUR EQUIPMENT THE NIGHT BEFORE YOU NEED IT!!!

It's not like I haven't shot video before.  Heck, I've done it professionally.  Clearly, I was not prepared in the slightest to do this and thought I could wing it somehow.  Errr---NOT.

So there I was, wasting precious time, missing the ceremony while waiting for the camera to charge, and it wasn't charging.  After an hour or so, I ditched the idea of capturing any images and left, stopped by the tobacco store (for an offering to the fire), and flew to Ft. Snelling State Park, only to arrive in time to see people leaving.  Figures, right? Isn't that the price you pay for being ill prepared?

I tried to make the best of the situation and warmed up to a few people there.  I had some lovely conversations with people about the complete absence of Indian history in school curriculum, the shaky direction of the country, and how exciting it was that we had this really cool class project (no joke!).  One of the most insightful moments occurred when I was talking with Greg, a peace pilgrim in his 50's who'd traveled the world to participate in various vigils.  When I told him that one of our goals was to demand from the state an acknowledgment of genocide against the Dakota, he smiled gently and told me what Marshall Rosenberg said about demands, that they were essentially acts of violence.

And that was what I came away with: we can't hope for anything positive or creative to happen if we approach our obstacle with violent intent.  That's kind of how this whole war and massacre and internment and diaspora happened in the first place.  So, in the end,  I lost the video capture of the ceremony but gained a new perspective for our project, and I'm okay with that.

Choices

 “Almost any decision taken in narrow-minded self-interest is selfish if the people involved fail to consider – and heed – the larger global and political consequences of their actions.” – Mainwaring, Page 31

So far this is my favorite quote from the book and that is because, what I believe, are the deeper implications of this in regards to global issues.

Upon first reading this, the words ‘them’ or ‘they’ or ‘corporation’ surface in my consciousness. It is very easy to spot how corporations are polluting our ecosystem, and how international companies steal from other countries to enrich their shareholders, and how those same companies will transfer labor to foreign countries with little or no human rights protections.
But I believe the truth of this, the solution of this is much more simple.  I am the problem.

I empower the corporations and the organizations that ‘take from’ and do not give back (at least, give back with balance).  With the choice I make every single day on how I live my life, and what I stick in my mouth, and the products I use, and what I do with my free time, and how or what I drive…

These are all choices of a consumer.

con·sum·er

noun /kənˈso͞omər/  consumers, plural 1.    1. A person who purchases goods and services for personal use §  - consumer demand 2.    2. A person or thing that eats or uses something §  - Scandinavians are the largest consumers of rye

Funny how this does not seem like a bad definition… WE are all consumers. Right?  Let’s look at the word consume.

con·sume
/ [kuhn-soom] verb, -sumed, -sum·ing.

verb (used with object)

1.    to destroy or expend by use; use up.

2.    to eat or drink up; devour.

3.    to destroy, as by decomposition or burning: Fire consumed the forest.

4.    to spend (money, time, etc.) wastefully.

5.    to absorb; engross: consumed with curiosity.

So the question is, what small choice am I going to make today to change the REAL problem… that being, am I a slave to my ‘wants’?  Am I willing to be in integrity with myself, to begin with a small thing today, and hold onto that?  Can I remain in integrity with myself with just that one little thing? 

And with passing days, can I see other things I am willing to let go of? Things that I think define me, but in truth, do not.  And when I continue this, and remain in integrity with myself, what will my dream of tomorrow look like?

Or will I simply choose to put it off, and let that dream of tomorrow dwindle to nothing, because I did not have the courage to begin?

What choice will I make today?

The medical community peacefully slumbers as a young girl with an Sci takes matters into her own hands

I'm still shaking as I read this article on AOL this morning. All I know is that action must be taken NOW in the treatment of spinal cord injuries, so that at the very least, some other choices exist. The lobbyist leeches and the pharmaceutical companies better get it together… Soon!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/15/paralyzed-artist-christin_n_1279573.html?ref=email_share

Sorry I missed you…

I thought I should get going on my six blog posts for the semester. I write this poolside in Key Largo, FL. My husband and I needed to use up a Delta’s Vacation package we purchased at an auction last year- so here we are.

Don’t get jealous too quickly. Although we are in Florida the weather hasn’t been great. Our first two days we experienced torrential downpours, a sky full of thick clouds the third- with brief appearances from the sun, and today, as I sit by the pool, I am in jeans and a sweatshirt, and I am still chilly! But because we are native Minnesotans, we are trying to not complain and take in as much vitamin D as possible.

I am not a complete stranger to blogging. I have my own personal blog and follow a lot of others. However, there is a lot to learn about the different blogging platforms and how to maximize their potential. As we dive head first into our projects, and the blogging that comes along with it, I look forward to reading everyone else’s posts. After all, that is what I love about blogging. You can learn a lot (or a little) just by reading what someone else has to say.

Lowertown Ballpark

Spring is right around the corner so why not think baseball.  The recent bonding bill is being discussed at the State Capitol.  This bonding bill would support numerous public works projects but more notably, the proposed regional ballpark in Lowertown.  Currently, the Saint Paul Saints play right up the street from where we meet.  Midway Stadium has been the home of the Saints since 1994.  In 1995, a young high school kid got his first job at Midway (then Municipal Stadium) working for the City of Saint Paul's Parks and Recreation.  That kid called Midway his home away from home for several years with what he considered the best job in the world.

That kid was me.  I still stop in to Midway to check in with my former boss who was a mentor to me growing up.  Midway will always be a very special place to me.  However, age and large crowds have Midway Stadium wilting away.  The ballpark which at one time was the hottest ticket in town, is now an antiquated facility that has seen better days.  The proposed ballpark in Lowertown would be a welcomed change. 

This ballpark would not be owned by a millionaire team owner.  This ballpark would be a jewel that that citizens of Saint Paul could call their own.  This city owned ballpark would bring thousands into Lowertown for not only Saints games but high school and amateur ball as well. 

Nothing Good in War

Nothing Good Comes from War

     “I believe all suffering is caused by ignorance, People inflict pain on others in the selfish pursuit of their happiness or satisfaction.” said Dalai Lama from Nobel Acceptance Speech in 1989. 

As we know, we are in the same world and we are all born equal. Moreover, nobody has the right to take another’s life. There are a lot of things that we have learned in the past such as World War I and World War II. Nothing good comes from war. World War II or the Second World War was a global conflict that was underway by 1939 and ended in 1945. During the final stages of World War II in 1945, the Allies of World War II conducted two atomic bombings against the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan. read more

There are a lot of people suffered from wars:

 

Ms.Akiko Takakura was 20 years old when the bomb fell.  
 She was in the bank of Hiroshima, 300 meters away from the hypocenter.

"I remember red, black and brown, but, but, nothing else.  Many people on the street were killed almost instantly.   The fingertips of those dead bodies caught fire and the fire gradually spread over their entire bodies from their fingers.   A light gray liquid dripped down their hands, scorching their  fingers."
read more

The atomic bombs were exploded over Japanese cities. The controversy has revolved. 
  

The United States military officials believed that such a massive demonstration of U.S. military power was the only reasonable way to force an unconditional Japanese surrender.  

 On the other side, the atomic bombings took many innocent lives. And many survivors have long suffered from the after-effects that should be the first and last to be used in combat. read more 

However, I think that the voices of testimonies are important to tell the world about world peace. Nothing good comes from war.

We cannot bring peace by anger. It is necessary to bring coolness, tolerance, and contentment. 

As we study in MDST 485, we discuss about "We first" instead of "I first".  The Hiroshima Peace Cultural Center and NHK Established in October 1967 as a bureau within the City of Hiroshima government. The overall the goals is to contribute to world peace and human happiness.

Spread Peace, not War

 

 

 

Apple factory piece

Don't know if the link to the radio monologue re: the Apple factory was ever posted, that we talked about in class.
it deserves a listen, check it out:
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/454/mr-daisey-and-the-apple-factory

a little pre bed time ramble

I’m starting to enjoy reading ‘We First’, now that I think of Mainwaring as a communist in capitalist costume. He really tipped me over after quoting Slavoj Zizek. I’m not gonna pretend like I know who that is, but I looked him up because the quote had a Marxist ring to it. And bingo, he’s a communist. I had a moment of overwhelming revisionism as I thought backwards over Mainwaring’s repetitive message; transformative power to the people. I’m enjoying the read a bit more, but I’m still not gonna throw back a pint of kool-aid. I remain troubled by the notion that our collective power to make a better world resides in our collective selective wallets. In all his inspiring prose, there seems to be an underlying message of a kind of global Reaganomics, without a criticism of our standard of living. Simply put, I don’t think there’s enough water to raise everybody’s boat to our standard of living. Its our standard of living in the West that drives the exploitation of the rest of the planet and without some significant change to that expected opulence, not much is gonna change.

Is technology taking over our world?

Looking at how technology has evolved through the years from the time of the atari to the xbox and ps3 where there are games now that can be controlled without actually having a game controller! Technology is pretty amazing, but I think that is taking ourselves and make us dependent on it.

Take for example the cellphone. When you think of the word cellphone, it usually comes to our a mind, a device that is used to make phone calls while we are on the go, right? And that's how it used to be and still is, but is more complex now.

I work for T-Mobile and this last week I had a customer who was set into her old ways. We spent a lot of time talking about different devices , both smartphones and basic phones, and throughout the conversation she was telling me about her 30 year old son who was taught by a 6 year old on how to use the internet on a smart phone! If we actually think about that, that is just huge, because you can think "well what can a 6 year old teach me?" Now a days with technology, a kid can teach adults more than they can teach them. We also hear of kids and teens who hack into this super advanced computer systems in the matter of hours and days, but it would take the government to decipher a code weeks or months. Is just amazing what technology can do for us.

But also having advanced technology has its consequences, it has made our civilization, lazy and dependable on machiines, and I see it with cellphones, people assume that just because they have a smartphone, the phone is supposed to solve all of their problems, and we have become picky with our purchaes too. Before it didn't matter all of this stuff that a phone can do, before all we cared was for the phone to make phonecalls, now if the phone doesn't talk back to us when we give it an order, then the phone is no good.

I could go on and on about this topic, but I don't want to make it too long, let me know what you think.

Objects in the mirror are closer than they appear.

Our last class put me in self-examination mode.  I too, struggle with the idea of adding to this blog.  I have no doubts my group members have the best of intentions, and I can go to them for guidance.  The same goes for all of my classmates.  My self-doubt is my enemy.  I'll do my best to concentrate on the positive possibilities of this class, to combat this .I don't want to see any of our work become a forgotten statistic.  Issues we are presented with are real, and they require resolution.

Pop stars grab our attention with the greatest of ease and the least amount of dignity.  Sex and pity sells, that's a given.  I want to be empathetic, and I want to be real.  The more I think about this, the less I know.  Matt said the other day, "things that scare us most, end up being, the coolest things we see.”  He's right, and I'm over thinking it.  I hope.