More Beautiful Time Pieces

This one is filled with "singing sand" (don't know what that means) and can be found at the Nima Sand Museum in Kotoga Beach, Japan:

The Time Wheel in Budapest - an hourglass made of granite, steel, and glass.  The "sand" is made up of glass granules and flows from top to bottom in a year:

It's All About The Powah!

Frances Moore Lappe just published a great article in Yes about what she sees as the missing link in our search for happiness: making a difference.  She says:

If happiness lies in covering basic needs, plus satisfying personal ties and finding meaning, society's role is limited. It need only ensure that essential needs are met and provide opportunities to pursue personal relationships and meaning. Even a largely totalitarian government could do that.

But, if we add power to the happiness equation, our agenda shifts. Maximizing happiness then requires engaging citizens in changing the rules and norms so that more and more of us are empowered participants.

And, of course, joining with others in this exhilarating pursuit, we achieve a double whammy: Such activity furthers the widely appreciated relational and meaning aspects of the happiness puzzle.

I coudn't agree more. I know that when I'm feeling woolly and discontent with my life, and all the usual suspects - home, relationships, health, money - seem to be reasonably intact, I can usually trace my troubles to feeling like I'm not contributing enough, not making a difference.  I want the sense of power and efficacy.  Nice to have those feelings confirmed by as potent a thinker as Ms. Lappe.

Transition Movement In America

This is an interview with Jennifer Grey, one of the original Transition activists from Cornwall, UK.

Inuagurual Report From Kurdistan

"The most amazing thing happened when the swearing in took place. When the President (elect) took his place at the podium, every employee came out of the kitchen, every Kurdish and Iraqi patron stood up. We followed their lead, and many cried while he was sworn in.  I cannot even attempt to understand the emotions which took place here, in a nondescript restaurant, in Erbil Kurdistan and we had to argue with the owner to be able to pay our full bill - they wanted to cover it - in a place where people earn an average of 3k per year. I thought that you might be interested in this observation of what just happened, in this remote part of the world, as American democracy shows its face yet again."

Steve Mackenzie, Erbil, Iraqi Kurdisan

From Jewish Voices For Peace

The Lincoln Quote Always Makes Me Cry

NATIONAL DAY OF RENEWAL AND RECONCILIATION, 2009

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

A PROCLAMATION

As I take the sacred oath of the highest office in the land, I am humbled by the responsibility placed upon my shoulders, renewed by the courage and decency of the American people, and fortified by my faith in an awesome God.

We are in the midst of a season of trial. Our Nation is being tested, and our people know great uncertainty. Yet the story of America is one of renewal in the face of adversity, reconciliation in a time of discord, and we know that there is a purpose for everything under heaven.

On this Inauguration Day, we are reminded that we are heirs to over two centuries of American democracy, and that this legacy is not simply a birthright -- it is a glorious burden. Now it falls to us to come together as a people to carry it forward once more.

So in the words of President Abraham Lincoln, let us remember that: "The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."

NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim January 20, 2009, a National Day of Renewal and Reconciliation, and call upon all of our citizens to serve one another and the common purpose of remaking this Nation for our new century.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this twentieth day of January, in the year of our Lord two thousand nine, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-third.

Fierce Politics of Optimism

We stand on the threshold of a new era, but I find myself not with grand and eloquent thoughts, but with a simple, burning wish as a simple American citizen: let the door to transformation open. Let it swing wide, and let our sense of the possible, our sense of the tomorrow we still might make, widen with it. Let us become again the native home of that future and the land of the free and just and hopeful.  

- Alex Steffen, worldchanging.com

 I love the idea of a "fierce politics of optimism." It's so easy to get blown over by the winds of cynicism. Nobody wants to look like a fool. But I'd rather fail as a hopeful fool than go down with my heart closed.