Updated 5/10/2004
Life
Getting to the essence, the juice of life.
        

Wednesday, March 10, 2004



Tibet

Tonight, having just seen the movie "Tibet: Cry of the Snow Lion", I realize how little I knew about the actual situation of Tibet.


The Dalai Lama

On my birthday 3 years ago in northern California, I and thousands of others had the opportunity to see and listen to the Dalai Lama in-person, for three straight days. Being in the Dalai Lama's presence, hearing him speak, was an inspiration to be sure, yet my intellect hadn't fully grasped the full significance, nor the broad relevance Tibet's situation and Tibet's leader in exile actually has to humanity's opportunity to create peace amongst itself. This movie brings it all to light.


Awareness

I believe that many U.S. citizens, like myself, have not been truly aware of what's actually been going on in other places of the world, like Tibet. We owe it to ourselves and all humanity to create more awareness for ourselves and others around topics like these.


The Movie

I, thus, highly recommend this movie. In my opinion "Tibet: Cry of the Snow Lion" is a must see. It's currently being shown at various locations around the U.S., and will show in Canada soon. It's also being shown at Film Festivals around the world. For a schedule visit the cryofthesnowline.com website (link below).

It's not yet available on DVD.


Dalai Lama Statement

For me, to top it all off, today March 10, 2004 marks the Forty-Fifth Anniversary of the Tibetan National Uprising Day: I was pleased to discover a statement of His Holiness the Dalai Lama written today on The Government of Tibet in Exile web site. Pair an unexpected viewing of the Dalai Lama's recently written words with a viewing of the movie less than two hours earlier and the so-called coincidences of life seem to become the Universe imparting it's wisdom to you.


Narration: Martin Sheen. Filmed in Tibet, India and Nepal

The film is narrated by Martin Sheen. Over the course of ten years, the documentary was filmed in Tibet, India and Nepal.



Click here to read His Holiness The Dalai Lama's March 10, 2004 statement on the Forty-Fifth Anniversary of the Tibetan National Uprising Day.

Read the Spirituality & Health review by Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat here.

See a gallery of Images from the Documentary here.

See the official "Tibet: Cry of the Snow Lion" movie web site at cryofthesnowlion.com (both movie images from the same).

Click here to see the Movie Trailer.




Sunday, February 29, 2004


The Story

"The Passion of The Christ" tells the story of the last 12 hours in the life of Jesus on the day of his crucifixion in Jerusalem.

The movie was filmed in Matera Italy, and Rome.


A Passion of Love

It's difficult to endure all the torture shown, and there's simply no reason to. Instead, I say "save yourself the dollars and reflect on the example Jesus, the master of life, set for all of mankind."

Matera, Italy


Movie Buzz

If, however, you're like me and have to see "The Passion of The Christ" for yourself to see what all the hubbub is about, prepare for a visceral experience.


Caravaggio - The Deposition
The Pope: "It Is As It Was"

According to the Pope, who watched it in January, Mel's movie "is as it was" (For those that have seen it: I don't think he was referring to the "crow" part). Even so, I agree with Unity minister Jack Groverland who said "the movie is artless, it totally misses the mark" (with respect to spiritual insight).


Not For Kids

Whatever you do, don't bring the kids. I give Mel Gibson credit for doing what he could to bring the greatest story that ever was to life on the silver screen, but unlike Caravaggio's "The Deposition", shown here, Mel Gibson's rendition is completely preoccupied with blood.



Painting & Photos

Both photos shown here are of Matera Italy.

Caravaggio's "The Deposition" was found at christusrex.org, in the Vatican Museum ("Musei Vaticani" in Italian). (Click the painting, or click here, for a close-up.)

The first Matera photo was found at Yuki's web site:
yuki.cside.tv/italy/ (Japanese) yuki.cside.tv/italy/ (English)

The second Matera photo is Copyright Anthany H. Galt. It was found on his site here.




Thursday, February 5, 2004


I've got music.

I now have my own GarageBand, there's music in my iLife. The M-Audio keyboard I ordered from Apple arrived this morning.

With GarageBand, Apple says, "Making music has never been so natural."

I agree.

Not that I'm a professional or anything, as I suspect most current or would be GarageBand users are (not), but I am something of a veteran when it comes to having experience poking around on synthesizers, and making music on my computer.

Not a whole lot came about in all my efforts over the years, besides the Electronic Music class I took over 15 years ago. That's where I really churned out some music (a whole two-thirds of one side of a cassette tape worth). In that class I had access to a real studio, where I'd stay up until the wee hours of the morning completing my "masterpieces" for the class. There were synthesizers, and a reel-to-reel on which I made my recordings. After that, I didn't make any more music because of all the effort it took. Without the studio, even though I had a 4-track Fostex multi-track cassette recorder, a Midi keyboard, and Midi software that turned it all into musical notation (and "vice-versa" allowing my computer to control the sound coming out of the keyboard) -- it was just too much work.


Enter GarageBand. It's hot. It's fun.

Get musical.

GarageBand creates a virtual studio that lets you jam on your favorite instrument with a virtual band as backup. So what if you sold your flute or never bought a piano? GarageBand lets you be a one man band.

Not that it won't take you some time to come up with something that won't unnerve your neighbors. It'll take time, and practice. But you'll have fun in the process. And instead of sounding like you're just getting started playing your instrument for the high-school band (though it could if you don't bring on the accompaniment), it'll sound like you've invited your friends over and started your own GarageBand.


Jam on!

GarageBand is currently only available to Apple Macintosh users. If you're not already, it's incentive to become one, I'm telling you.

GarageBand is part of the iLife package. It comes with 4 other great programs: iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, and iDVD.

Buy the keyboard to go with it, you can't effectively make music without it. The one I got (pictured at top) works great and costs only $99.


For more information about GarageBand, visit the iLife page on the Apple website here.

Quote and images from apple.com, keyboard image from M-Audio

The Keyboard is an M-Audio Keystation, 49 Key Mobile USB Midi Controller: see M-Audio.com




Sunday, October 26, 2003


I've always wondered what it would be like to be a professional photographer.


Spencer Tunick

In this photo: 450 women show up at New York's Grand Central Terninal at 3 AM Sunday morning, Oct. 26, strip off their clothes, and compose their bodies into sculptural shapes and formations for Spencer Tunick.


More Fun?

Perhaps it's time to take photography a little more seriously. Or is it less seriously? At any rate, my question is: do photographers have more fun? (Speaking of who has more fun, I see only one blond in this picture. How about you?)

Photo found here.




Monday, August 25, 2003


The Trident Cafe, Boulder Colorado, has served me well again. It's been so warm I'd stayed away from the teas, until tonight. Their "Alpine Flower" blend, with honey, sweetly tainted my taste buds for almost 2 hours. In that time I'd come up with an initial success-plan oriented weekly schedule, and the following.


I've come up with 4 main areas that currently seem to comprise the main aspects of what I'm currently up to in terms of livelihood.

In other words, this is what I plan to be doing 40 hours a week:

  • Zaz Corporation (Custom Internet Development)
  • NetZaz (Turn-Key Internet Solutions)
  • My Success Network (Business Networking)
  • Zaz Success Systems (Success R & D, Research & Development)


Zaz Corporation will ultimately house each of these divisions. Initially the company's revenue will come solely from custom internet development.


Custom Development

Though I haven't recently been focusing on this area of business, it will again become my main focus, as it had been when I'd done business as Binder Internet Commerce and Database Technologies in the Bay Area. It's an arena I've proven myself in, though perhaps not in this current market. I'll soon discover what this market is really about. I really think it may have no bearing on things at all. We'll soon see.

What's custom development? It's any internet related technology I implement for a client. It's custom because each solution is tailored to clients' specific needs. What's development? It's giving ideas functional, tangible form. The client says, "This is what I want," and we make it happen.

Technologies skill set: Cold Fusion, PHP, ASP, .NET

Solutions rendered: Content Management Systems (CMS); Database Manipulation, Access & Integration; Contact & Email Management Systems; E-Commerce Product Management & Payment Processing


NetZaz - Turn-Key Internet Solutions

I have quite a few technologies in mind here. Capabilities include: spam elimination, superior group messaging, information sharing, news and weblog technologies, easy to use website content management systems, URL & bookmark management, plus email and web identity packages.


To be continued...

(My Success Network)

(Zaz Success Systems)




Tuesday, August 19, 2003


"Living apart and at peace with myself, I came to realize more vividly the meaning of the doctrine of acceptance. To refrain from giving advice, to refrain from meddling in the affairs of others, to refrain, even though the motives be the highest, from tampering with another's way of life - so simple, yet so difficult for an active spirit. Hands off!"

- Henry Miller


Photo source: Ludlow Press




Monday, August 18, 2003


From September 3rd to 7th I'm attending a workshop by an organization called WorldWorks. I've come up with the following personal objectives for the introductory course:

  1. Clearly stated foundational Vision, Mission, and Goals aligned with Values and my perceived Life Purpose. Experience and feedback that others get it.
  2. Empowerment as my Livelihood: Plans and Experience in Action eliciting and honoring the Highest and Best in All.
  3. Systems & Plans for, plus Experience of: Physical, Social, Temporal, and Financial Balance.

If you'd like to know more of what this is all about call or email me. You can also visit the World Works website. Click Here.




Sunday, August 17, 2003


"My favorite thing is to go where I've never been."

- Diane Arbus


Photo source: Photobetty




Monday, August 11, 2003


I initially composed this on my Samsung i-300 Palm phone during a drive from Colorado Springs to Boulder (the evening of Monday Aug. 11). I later edited and posted it using my laptop. For those that are interested, I do anticipate that I'll eventually be making posts directly from my phone. I could rather easily start tomorrow if I wanted. All of the technology is there.

As indicated (in the title) this is very much a first draft. Also note that what's written below is purposely very broad so as to encapsulate as much as possible (specifics will be worked-out from there on an ongoing basis). It's likely to leave you with many questions, and that's a good thing.

It seems that the source of my inspiration here comes from recent developments in the following areas of life: a) business-financial, b) the "World Works" training opportunity introduced by L.A. friend Mike Tan, c) my interest in dating, plus women who are showing up in life.

- Kevin JT


WHAT I'M UP TO

Contribution
- Allowing what's highest-and-best to be, to flow from me, out into the world.

Social
- Personal Success Network: family, friends, peer groups, special interest groups, business networks/groups/acquaintances.
- Free-flowing fun
- Elevation: "highest-best exploration" (exploratory, lively, clear-rooted action)

Material
- Financial Foundation: Plan, Systems, Revenue, Profit, Reserves, Infrastructure, Livelihood

Spiritual
- Awareness: Unleashed, Clear, Centered, Balanced.

Highest-Best Manifesto
- Aligned, integrated purpose and mission.
- Clarity on the topic of and culmination of life.
- Experientially: the astounding realization that the energy and power emanating from every particle, every thing in the Universe contributes to what I'm up to. Every moment and every thing has led up to this moment. The momentum here is massive, enormous, momentous. Universal momentum elicits every thought, every action. We all contribute to and are moved by ever-expanding Awareness, ever-increasing Creative Power.




Sunday, August 10, 2003


"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."

- Martin Luther King Jr.


Photo source: youngleaders-usa.org




Thursday, August 7, 2003


"The trouble with facts is that there are so many of them."

- Samuel McChord Crothers


Photo source: Harvard Square Library




Saturday, July 26, 2003


Garrison Keillor's upcoming book Love Me looks like fun reading. I got a kick out of this short story excerpt that I found on The Atlantic web site.

There are some very funny parts, including numerous entries from Mr. Blue's Minneapolis Star Journal advice column that had me rolling with laughter.

Here's a little snippet / intro. (read the whole thing for the best laughs!):

The Star Journal printed a quarter-page ad for Ask Mr. Blue ("Lonely? Confused? Angry? Tell your story to Mr. Blue. Offering commonsense answers to life's persistent questions, twice weekly in the Star Journal "), and fifty e-mails arrived instantly, immediately. Lonely was lonely, and Angry was disappointed in love, and Disappointed had a wonderful husband who was crippled by jealousy, and Brokenhearted was missing her boyfriend who was happily dating other people.

Garrison Keillor's new book, with the same title Love Me, is scheduled to be published by Viking Penguin in September.


Read the short story Love Me by Garrison Keillor here.

Garrison Keillor photo source: the Oklahoma KCSC/KBCW FM web site here.

The Atlantic image source: theatlantic.com




Wednesday, July 23, 2003


I like seeing that they're restoring the San Francisco Ferry Building and surrounding area, having lived on Beale Street at the Avalon Towers and really appreciating that area. When I lived there the harbor was part of my neighborhood. Though I certainly visited it while living throughout the bay area, including Sausalito, Oakland, and the San Francisco Sunset district (blocks away from Irving St. and Golden Gate Park).

The funny thing though, is that when I lived in Oakland I visited the San Francisco Farmer's Market most often. I seemed to be taking time for that kind of thing in my early Bay Area days. Later, when I lived just blocks away, near the foot of the Bay Bridge, I suppose I was keeping to more of a social schedule, and nurturing my business in order to come up with the $4k+ per month rent I was paying for the Bay view at the time. Or maybe because I saw the Bay looking out my windows every day I didn't feel a need to visit the Ferry Building, though I did drive past it quite often. Back then the Farmer's Market was held across the street to the West, closer to Market Street and the Embarcadero Center buildings.


Read The New York Times article "New Life for San Francisco's Harbor" here.

Ferry Building photo: by Peter DaSilva, The New York Times




Friday, July 18, 2003


Vaclav Havel Hope is a state of mind, not of the world. Hope, in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously heading for success, but rather an ability to work for something because it is good.

- Václav Havel


Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.

- Václav Havel, Disturbing the Peace, ch. 5 (1986; tr. 1990).


The truth is not simply what you think it is; it is also the circumstances in which it is said, and to whom, why and how it is said.

- Václav Havel



Where I First Heard of Václav Havel

During the summer of 1990, on the second day of my maiden travels through Europe, I spent the day exploring Florence, Italy with a couple of young Czechoslovakian travellers who raved about Václav Havel. Their english wasn't very good and I didn't know a bit of Czech, but we enjoyed communicating and they got their ideas across. They said that it was because of Havel that they were now able to travel freely into countries besides their own.

We truly are fortunate to be living in and experiencing these challenging yet often awe-inspiring times.


Great Speech, Good Article

Here's a great speech given by Václav Havel on July 4, 1994 at Independance Hall, Philadelphia titled "The Need for Transcendence in the Postmodern World".

Here's a good Radio Prague article on Václav Havel titled 'Vaclav Havel: from "bourgeois reactionary" to president.'


Photo source: aphorismen-archiv.de

Sig source: Kinskych Palace




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Life Index






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Find:




h o t z a z # 1




Life Index

"Tibet: Cry of the Snow Lion" Movie -- And Dalai Lama Statement


FEBRUARY

Mel Gibson's Movie "The Passion of The Christ" -- The Pope Says, "It is as it was."

GarageBand - Make Your Own Music, Play Your Favorite Instruments: Apple iLife for Macintosh


OCTOBER 2003

Spencer Tunick - One Day in a Photographer's Life - 450 Unclothed Women at NYC Grand Central Terminal


AUGUST 2003

Livelihood - Focus Areas

Henry Miller on Acceptance

WorldWorks Intro Course - Personal Objectives

Diane Arbus' Favorite Thing

"What I'm Up To" - First Draft (Notes)

Martin Luther King Jr. on Being Vocal

Samuel McChord Crothers on Facts


JULY 2003

Love Me - A Story by Garrison Keillor

San Francisco Harbor & Ferry Building Restoration

Vaclav Havel on Hope & Truth

Work-Life Balance, Edwald Kist

Emerson - Paths & Trails

Dog versus iMac

George Bernhard Shaw - Circumstances

Tolstoy - Happiness & Seeing

Getting The Best

4th of July Fireworks

4th of July Family Picnic

© Copyright 2004 Kevin JT Binder, kevinbinder.net