Matthew Henry John Bartlett

Tom B on better c-neutral-welly stuff: urban wind turbines
Walking wind sculptures   … und youtube versions
EVENT: Daniel McClelland’s movie fest starts tomorrow at 10am
Lend (with me) to Fizuli, why not?
Tom W: neither is the final destination [via WRD on CD]

SubversNZ on a new Christian political party for NZ
Tom B on holes in WCC’s aspiration of carbon neutrality

Last night’s Angela Davis talk. The atmosphere was worshipful, ceremonial. I wondered what it would be like if Jesus turned up to give a lecture, maybe in the Hunter Chambers or the Town Hall. 200 people had been turned away at the door, even after an overflow room with a video link had been filled up. It was like she wasn’t there, like an icon of her was there instead. She said it herself in fact – many people when they meet her feel they’re encountering their youth. She was the instantiation of an idea, or a hope, or maybe a vibe. She could have said anything, we would have clapped and cheered. We weren’t there for her, we were there for us. Well they were: I didn’t really belong; I didn’t fight the good fight, I don’t believe. What she did say was more of less this: notes from this evening’s Angela Davis lecture [45K PDF]

Tash took this at UWA when I was over in Perth last year.

REMINDER: Tomorrow evening is the Winter solstice party at our house, feat. swap meet.

dinosaur cartoon explains tagging [WellUrban]

African gadgets [vis Dennis B]
really hard oral history from New Orleans, 2005 [via D]

6-min video introducing MapLight.org which shows money–votes links in US state politics [via WC]

mhjb.co.nz seeks assistance: does anyone know where I can find a long recording of outdoorsy dusky nature sounds? Cicadas, birds, frogs, that sort of thing.

Tom B on Wellington thinking about going carbon neutral

I recommend Pan’s Labyrinth, A Scanner Darkly and Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others).

UK supermarket chain Tesco will start carbon labelling all its products
new Hoyt venture: micropledge.com – fund software projects collaboratively
David H is selling a 1992 Ford Laser

A history of economics by John C. Médaille [250KB PDF]
Feudalism was better than what we’ve got now, says JCM [100KB PDF]

Of course there are more reasons than I can say or know, but the first one that comes to mind is that I have someone to be thankful to for e.g. mandarins, books, all flowers everywhere, girls in buses, cycling, freecycling, Leonard Cohen, the cabbage trees and soggy flats around Lake Wairarapa, the sun spilling down the Hutt valley into the harbour, the front-marking cloud to the west that looks as solid as a mountain range, the gaps between languages, having been launched into the world with loads of food within arm’s reach and some good work to do, and having more people than I can count who I love and who seem to be reasonably fond of me. For many of those things there is someone to whom I can be more immediately thankful, like the mandarin tree or my parents or the universe, but it seems wonderful to me that there is some one person ‘behind’ all those, who is presumably not less than all of them, and who might be pleased that someone is grateful.

Speaking of Buddhism, that cheap Chinese kicked me in the guts one-two, and after a day and a half of striving for emptiness on the humble white throne would you believe the thing that finally did the trick was some ginger-heavy delight at Ban Mai Thai, Vivian Street. By the beard of Zeus!