a change gonna come

it's been a long, long time comin'
and it's unbecomin'
of me

used to dream in the colors of others
tainted by their hue
used to be in the presence of lovers
dreaming it could be true
dreamin' love was waitin' for the lonely
dreamin' love was waitin' for me

it's been a long, long time comin'
and it's unbecomin'
of me
so i know
somehow i know
a change gonna come

always waitin' for love to come knockin'
sweetly on my door
always fearin' it might keep on mockin'
burdening my heart's rapport
dreamin' love was waitin' for the lonely
dreamin' love was waitin' for me

it's been a long, long time comin'
and it's unbecomin'
of me
so i know
somehow i know
a change gonna come

'cause still i wait with hope in my soul
for love to come along
'cause still i wait and on the whole i know
love will one day come along
knowin' love is waitin' for the lonely
knowin' love is waitin' for me

'cause it's been a long, long time comin'
and it's unbecomin'
of me
and yes i know
somehow i know
a change gonna come

oh i know it will
i know someday it will
i know a change gonna come

what melodies are for

funny when you listen to the newbies sing
goin' all on 'bout fancy things
losin' sight of what melodies are for
usin' them for nothin' more
than to holler about some bitch and hoe
things haved changed so much from before

where did it all go?
what happened to what we had before?
why don't we care no more?
why don't we care no more?
where did it all go?
what happened to what we had before?
why don't we care no more?
why don't we care no more?

used to be about helpin' man
to achieve and do the best he can
used to be about becomin' free
from all the hate, ignorance, and jealousy
now we so focused on the bling bling
blinding our eyes from more important things
like the 'reurbanization of poverty'
or so claimed by mugabe
never hear about the girls from juarez
or the human trafficking protests

where did it all go?
what happened to what we had before?
why don't we care no more?
why don't we care no more?
where did it all go?
what happened to what we had before?
why don't we care no more?
why don't we care no more?

but thankfully we got them video girls
dressed in nothin' but pearls and curls
'cause without them what would life be?
how would i fulfill my need?
to degrade the meaning of a woman
i swear this world's comin' undone
why can't we care about others more
than pickin' out some video whore
why can't we care for longer than just one song
not just 'til that song is done
distracted by that which we don't have
always wantin' more than that
never thankful, not no more
losin' sight of what melodies are for

where did it all go?
what happened to what we had before?
why don't we care no more?
why don't we care no more?
where did it all go?
what happened to what we had before?
why can't we care no more?
why can't we care no more?

Yesterday Threw Everything At Me

Switch on the light, between each other
Elevated to your side, Now I'm nervous
It's time to tell you honestly, so we can alter history

You are, first on my list,
When everything around is gone I know
You are, first on my list,
When everything is shown up for what it is

Plastic flowers that fight for colour
Shadows floating on the ground, that always follow
Like international acclaim, it comes and goes never the same

You are, first on my list,
When everything around is gone I know
You are, first on my list,
When everything is shown up for what it is

And I will run with it
And sunlight will break into my eyes
And it seems like you plugged the world in
‘cause sunlight is streaming from your eyes

You are, first on my list,
When everything around is gone I know
You are, first on my list,
When everything is shown up for what it is

Let's take our time, it won't change over night
We got a chance we didn't have before
Let's take our time, it won't change over night
We got a chance we didn't have before

You are, first on my list,
When everything around is gone I know
You are, first on my list,
When everything is shown up for what it is

Athlete - Yesterday Threw Everything At Me

...good ol' athlete. ya just can't ever ever ever go wrong with these guys. frickin' A-mazing

How Was I To Know

My world revolved around you
Every word was a promise I was hangin' on
Swept up inside a whirlwind
I just couldn't see the end till you were gone
Oh I thought I would fall apart
With shattered dreams and a broken heart
Scramblin' in the dark

How was I to know
That I'd be okay
Thought I'd lose it all when you walked away
How was I to know
I would be this strong
I had what it takes all along
How was I to know

What I was so afraid of
Turned out to be my freedom in disguise
Now I know what I'm made of
Guess it just took some time to realize
Oh I was blind I couldn't tell
Put too much faith in someone else
I gave up on myself

How was I to know
That I'd be ok
Thought I'd lose it all when you walked away
How was I to know
I would be this strong
I had what it takes all along
How was I to know

How was I to know
That I'd be ok
Thought I'd lose it all when you walked away
How was I to know
I would be this strong
I had what it takes all along
How was I to know

How was I to know

Reba McEntire - How Was I To Know

a newfound kingdom

my heart is confused with the simple meaning of life
burdened with the pain that comes in the night
how lovers can kill and eternally wound
is beyond my definition of man

my efforts to change seem forever despondent
from the hearts of those unable to pretend
that unconditional love means so much more
than confinement simply to those who can

our socialized ability for it to be so easy not to feel a thing
is somehow heartwrenching
somewhat distempering
and surely it's something awry
yet somehow forgotten
abused quite alot and
and surely there's no reason why

there's no reason why one should take another life
there's no reason why it should deem such a fight
there's no reason why we should so easily delight
in bringing pain to those out of sight

i hope you find peace through the never-ending march
the march that seemingly never ends in your favor
and i hope you find freedom
amidst others in your newfound kingdom
i hope you find freedom
in your newfound kingdom

All The Wild Horses

All the wild horses
All the wild horses
Tethered with tears in their eyes
May no man's touch ever tame
May no man's reigns ever chain you
And may no man's weight ever defrayed your soul
And as for the clouds
Just let them roll
Roll away
Roll away
As for the clouds
Just let them roll
Roll away
Roll away


Ray Lamontagne - All The Wild Horses

...this one goes out to all my animal friends who are treated as a commodity in our world of careless greed. i hope someday that the efforts of those who love you as other living, knowing, feeling beings and therefore refrain from supporting any harm dealt to you will be realized. until then i apologize for all the crap you're dealt and until the others come around...

as for the clouds
just let them roll
roll away
roll away

Prayer

...
lord
i must be strong now
i don't belong now
in this world anymore
...

Madeleine Peyroux - Prayer

No More

What is going on?
You know you surrender
In ways that'll end ya
Before you have begun
With the wannabe player
Who rules with the terror
Of violence, knives and guns

It ain't always the target
That you're gonna stop it
The innocent can survive
It's always the good that you look right

Now whatcha gonna do
When you look in the mirror
The eyes of a killer
Are staring back at you
It's too late for prayer
And no one'll save ya
With no place to run to

The thugs that you thought
Were your people that bought you
A ticket to your grave
This is your final day
But I say

No, no more
Put it, put it down
Too many gone, before they're grown
No, no more
Put it, put it down
You'll only reap, what you have sown
No more, families goin' to war
No more, tragedies in the heart of
This home
This street
This town
No more, no more

Now don't you read the signs
If those you be down with
Have done, got they ass kicked
Then you are next in line

And so on and so on
Don’t tell me you're so dumb
That you can see the light (can't you see the light?)

A time for decision
And time for some action
So stop it once and for all
You still won't call
I'm calling for

No, no more
Put it, put it down
Too many gone, before they're grown
No, no more
Put it, put it down
You'll only reap, what you have sown
No more, families goin' to war
No more, tragedies in the heart of
This home
This street
This town
No more, no more

Roni Size feat. Beverly Knight - No More

Vegetarianism and Global Warming

Global warming could be controlled if we all became vegetarians and stopped eating meat. That's the view of British physicist Alan Calverd, who thinks that giving up pork chops, lamb cutlets and chicken burgers would do more for the environment than burning less oil and gas.

Writing in this month's Physics World, Calvert calculates that the animals we eat emit 21% of all the carbon dioxide that can be attributed to human activity. We could therefore slash man-made emissions of carbon dioxide simply by abolishing all livestock.

Moreover, there would be no adverse effects to health and it would be an experiment that we could abandon at any stage. "Worldwide reduction of meat production in the pursuit of the targets set in the Kyoto treaty seems to carry fewer political unknowns than cutting our consumption of fossil fuels," he says.

(Physics World is the international monthly magazine published by the Institute of Physics)

...

The idea behind that makes me oh so happy.

funniest commercial ever...

"...oh yeah, droppin' off your laundry. why don't you just put it under the name...shrub killer!"

this is frickin' weird man...

"Faux" meat biologically identical to real tissue but grown in the lab is something of a staple in science fiction. In January, researchers at the University of Manchester, UK, came up with a method of using ink-jet printer technology to build animal tissue structures, including differentiated skin, bones and organs. I referred to them as "meat-jet" printers, and argued that they could be the harbinger of the future emergence a new kind of cuisine: cruelty-free, waste-free, prion-free meats grown in the lab. Little did I know how rapidly this scenario might come about.

In the June 29 issue of Tissue Engineering, researchers describe methods of mass-producing "cultured" meats: muscle tissues with the same taste, nutrients and texture of "real" meat, grown under controlled conditions in the lab. This wouldn't be fake meat made from processed vegetables, it would be cellularly identical to the flesh from livestock -- but no animal would be killed for its production.

The researchers -- from the US and the Netherlands -- aren't just talking about theory. They've started a non-profit company called New Harvest to develop cultured meat.

www.worldchanging.com

Solitude

In my solitude
You haunt me
With dreadful ease
Of days gone by

In my solitude
You taunt me
With memories
That never die

I sit in my chair
Filled with dispair
There's no one could be so sad
With gloom everywhere
I sit and I stare
I know that I'll soon go mad

In my solitude
I'm afraid
Dear Lord above
Send back my love

Billie Holliday - Solitude

'cause it's hard to

looking 'round for an open door
wanting to give the world so much more
but i find i'm
lost in my way
dreaming of a better way
to show the world a better day
but i find it's
always ignored
or maybe it's just pushed aside
waiting for another time
to gently rise up in the minds
of those i feel i've left behind
but i find love's
hard to be found
'cause it's hard to
find love around

so many hearts always seem so closed
despite anything i've proposed
and i find i'm
alone in my dreams
love must not be what it seems
if it's only given when it's received
and i find it's
often opposed
or maybe it's just lost like me
searching for some sympathy
wishing many more could see
how to love unconditionally
but i find love's
hard to be found
'cause it's hard to
find love around

why mr. bush? why??

(http://www.sierraclub.org/ca/sequoia/Monument)

The Sierra Club is leading five other conservation organizations to challenge the Bush administration's decision to log Giant Sequoia National Monument in federal court. The groups also encouraged the administration and the court to look to neighboring Sequoia National Park for a better way to manage the rare forest.

The Sierra Club, Sierra Nevada Forest Protection Campaign, Earth Island Institute, Tule River Conservancy, Sequoia Forest Keeper, and Center for Biological Diversity jointly filed the complaint in San Francisco Federal District Court.

"These magnificent giant Sequoia forests are found nowhere else on earth," explained Bruce Hamilton, Sierra Club Conservation Director. "It makes no sense for the Bush administration to sacrifice such a spectacular national treasure. It also happens to be illegal."

Giant Sequoia National Monument boasts two-thirds of all the Sequoia redwoods in the world, with most of the remainder found in the adjacent National Park. The popularity and awe-inspiring beauty of the Sequoia forest and its wildlife led President Bill Clinton permanently protect the forest as a National Monument under the Antiquities Act. Earlier, President George Bush Sr. had proclaimed the Sequoia groves off limits to commercial logging.

Earlier this month, the Bush administration officially reversed those policies by finalizing plans to allow what amounts to commercial logging in the Monument, including the prized Giant Sequoia groves. The administration's plan would allow 7.5 million board feet of timber to be removed annually from the Monument, enough to fill 1,500 logging trucks each year. This policy would include logging of healthy trees of any species as big as 30 inches in diameter or more. Trees that size can be as much as 200 years old.

"This plan opens up huge areas to logging and specifically targets trees big enough to sell, undermining the whole purpose of the Monument. The Bush administration is shirking its responsibility to current and future generations to take care of this ancient and treasured forest," added Carla Cloer, representing the Tule River Conservancy.

As a model for better management, the Sierra Club and others are asking the Bush administration to look to nearby Sequoia National Park, where innovative conservation and fire prevention strategies have reinvigorated the Sequoia groves and made nearby communities safer. "In stark contrast to the very successful management techniques used for decades by the National Park Service in the Sequoia National Park," reads the complaint, "[the Bush administration] approved a Giant Sequoia National Monument Management Plan... that would permit extensive logging and cause the degradation of old forest habitat and irreparable harm to the Monument’s wildlife, directly conflicting with the purposes of the Sequoia Monument."

"The plan proposed by the Forest Service reverts back to an outdated strategy that ignores the clear recommendations of fire scientists on the Monument Science Advisory Committee, that fire risk reduction is not about logging large trees," stated Craig Thomas, Director of the Sierra Nevada Forest Protection Campaign.


Make it stop! Make it stoooo-hoooooop! --> http://www.sierraclub.org/petition/sequoia

just plain not cool

things that make you say hmmm

i find it odd that our government spends 333 million dollars to blow a chunk out of a comet 83 million miles away from earth with all the challenges our own rock is facing.

springtime skies

fearful of my red sky at morning
i cling to the hope of springtime skies
springtime skies that will forever provide
shelter from the crimson tides of desperation

so near in my view is a future of souls in mourning
under the realization of the negation of truth
forced to reform and pick up the pieces
that withered within the neglected creases
of hope once posed as a source of freedom
freedom from all of the paths not taken
though such paths seemed to often be ignorantly mistaken

so many questions of our future decisions
diffuse the potential possibilities ahead
and instead linger like dust coating the throat
of our world so desperately wanting to speak
wanting to speak on our daily actions
on our greed for our own daily bread
wanting to speak on our weary factions
and the impudous paths we impulsively tread

long ago were the days of harmony
the days of enduring respect
today we live in selfish disunity
the grounds of which often eclipse intellect
darkening the light waiting to be acknowledged
overshadowing the hope of my springtime skies

the little engine that could

Biogas-Powered Train in Sweden


The city of Linkoeping in Sweden (south of Stockholm) will be linked to the city of Västervik 80 kilometers away (50 miles) by the first train to run entirely on biogas that comes from organic waste. A small one-carriage train that can carry 54 passengers has been converted: its diesel engines have been replaced by two Volvo gas engines. "The train is equipped with eleven canisters containing enough gas to run for 600 kilometers (375 miles) before needing a refill, and can reach a maximum speed of 130 kilometers (80 miles) per hour".

Trains are a relatively efficient way to move goods and people around, but cheap oil has meant that people and companies prefer the flexibility of cars and trucks. In the near future, we certainly won't have much of a choice to start using them more as long distance travel by road becomes increasingly expensive. Having them run on biogas is just making a smart choice even smarter.

The country, home to nine million people, currently has 779 biogas buses and more than 4,500 cars that run on a mixture of petrol and either biogas or natural gas, according to the Swedish environment ministry. [...]

"Sweden has a rather ambitious target for 2005. That is (a) 3.0 percent" replacement level, Lars Guldbrand, an energy expert at the environment ministry, told AFP.

That goal is the highest among European Union member states, most of which have set a target of around 2.0 percent, he said.

Shantideva

With the wish to free all beings
I will always go for refuge
To Buddha, Dharma and Sangha
Until I reach Highest Enlightenment.

Enthused by compassion and wisdom
Today in Buddha's presence
I generate the mind of compassion
For the benefit of all sentient beings.

For as long as space remains
And as long as sentient beings remain
Until then may I too remain
To dispel the suffering of all beings.

~ Shantideva