Archive for November, 2008

time to use freedom

Monday, November 24th, 2008

I think it may be something in the water, but there seems to be a whole lot of optimism floating around in the world right now. And in large part accompanied by a very refreshing realism such as that of this post about how we can ‘build anything we want’ that warns:

We’re nowhere near the bottom of this disaster we’ve voted onto ourselves. I don’t think the majority of Americans fully understand the severity of our financial crisis. We’re all fervently staring at Christmas, confusing the holiday spirit for hope.

To borrow a riff from Seth, the best time to start affecting the changes that need to be made was five years ago. The second best time, is now. The reason being that certainly for me, and for most of the people in the world, we can be the change we need.

I am off to do so, right after I set up a reminder to Hassle Myself just in case I forget.

Love regards etc

Related: Also, watch Davd Simon’s talk on The Audacity of Despair, which I have posted about at People Want More

dress for success

Wednesday, November 19th, 2008

This week, via the the Library of Congress flickr account, I came across the fantastic story of my (now) favourite ever ship.

In the 1850s it was employed as a prison ship off the coast of Australia, gaining notoriety when, in 1857 prisoners managed to murder the Superintendent of Prisons John Price. After this, it was “purchased by a group of entrepreneurs to be refitted as a museum ship to travel the world advertising the perceived horrors of the convict era.”

It then travelled to England before spending more than twenty years sailing up & down the east coast of the U.S., only falling into disrepair during the great depression, which coincided with a fall in the public’s appetite for buying museum tickets.

Now as far as I am concerned this, especially alongside the striking images of torture equipment makes for a fine tale. But the really remarkable thing about this museum about horror, pain & death, is that throughout its history, it retained the original name given to it. Which was the Success.

File under “Sublime Ironies”.

My thanks to Joho (the blog) who first alerted me to the existence of the LOC on the interwebs.

Love regards etc