Jim Moore's Journal
I am an independent inventor with a long-time interest in general systems and complexity theory, as well as media and politics and societ...Video Episodes:
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23:09:52 04/25/07
Prayer For Sudan
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The story of a family in Darfur, Sudan..
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06:48:39 04/23/07
A Prayer For Sudan
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The song was written anonymously. The musicians - from Mali, on djembe and arrangements is Moussa Traore. Balla Tounkara is playing the kora and sings the background Bamanakan vocals. Dave Mattacks, who plays with Richard Thompson, is on drums. From Serbia is Mikael Merska on electric bass. Laura Cortese is an American fiddle player, and Adrian Aquirre, from Spain, plays percussion. Fishweasel sings.
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06:12:23 09/12/06
Walden Pond Concord Massachusetts Early Evening September 11 2006
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Walden Pond is the most famous body of water in American literature, due almost entirely to Henry David Thoreau's hermetic sojourn on the pond, and his description of the pond in his book Walden, in terms simultaneously naturalistic and metaphorical.Fellow blogger, and philosopher, Tom Morris and I walked along the pond in the light of evening, September 11, 2006.To me Walden Pond is a cause for hope and optimism. The pond continues to be a source of beauty, renewal, and recreation to its community more than 150 years after Thoreau's time. The swimmingis excellent, the fishing ok, and the water clear and cool.
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05:58:28 09/12/06
Henry David Thoreau's Cabin Near Walden Pond Concord Massachusetts 1854 And Before
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From the beginning of Walden: When I wrote the following pages, or rather the bulk of them, I lived alone, in the woods, a mile from any neighbor, in a house which I had built myself, on the shore of Walden Pond, in Concord, Massachusetts, and earned my living by the labor of my hands only. I lived there two years and two months. At present I am a sojourner in civilized life again.Henry David Thoreau published Walden in 1854. The book is constructed as a kind of a journal of his life, philosophical and social reflections, and astute observations of nature and his surroundings that are often intended to be metaphorical as well concrete. Walden itself is a very deep pond, and Thoreau was fond of plumbing its depths--a reference to his mind and soul as much to the body of water on which he rowed, in which he fished, and from which he drank.Tom Morris and I sat in Thoreau's cabin and found ourselves talking of the parallels between Thoreau (1817-1862) and the Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855). Both were powerful intellects who lived the daily lives of near-monks, while also engaging in the debates and society of their day. Both traveled little, thought long, and wrote with lasting influence. Both died young, Thoreau at age 45, Kierkegaard at 42.The cabin is of course a mock-up of the original, but because of Thoreau's detailed description of the cabin in Walden, the replica is quite exact. I found myself in a reflective mood as Tom and I sat in the evening light on Henry's two small chairs.As we sat leaning back in our chairs, not facing each other directly but looking out the door and windows as we formed our thoughts, I was reminded of one of my favorite passages in Walden:One inconvenience I sometimes experienced in so small a house, the difficulty of getting to a sufficient distance from my guest when we began to utter the big thoughts in big words. You want room for your thoughts to get into sailing trim and run a course or two before they make their port. The bullet of your thought must have overcome its lateral and ricochet motion and fallen into its last and steady course before it reaches the ear of the hearer, else it may plow out again through the side of his head. Also, our sentences wanted room to unfold and form their columns in the interval. Individuals, like nations, must have suitable broad and natural boundaries, even a considerable neutral ground, between them. I have found it a singular luxury to talk across the pond to a companion on the opposite side. In my house we were so near that we could not begin to hear—we could not speak low enough to be heard; as when you throw two stones into calm water so near that they break each other's undulations. If we are merely loquacious and loud talkers, then we can afford to stand very near together, cheek by jowl, and feel each other's breath; but if we speak reservedly and thoughtfully, we want to be farther apart, that all animal heat and moisture may have a chance to evaporate. If we would enjoy the most intimate society with that in each of us which is without, or above, being spoken to, we must not only be silent, but commonly so far apart bodily that we cannot possibly hear each other's voice in any case. Referred to this standard, speech is for the convenience of those who are hard of hearing; but there are many fine things which we cannot say if we have to shout. As the conversation began to assume a loftier and grander tone, we gradually shoved our chairs farther apart till they touched the wall in opposite corners, and then commonly there was not room enough.
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05:01:15 09/12/06
Bronson Alcott's Concord School Of Philosophy 1879 1888
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Tom and I visited Bronson Alcott's Concord School of Philosophy, located just outside of town. This site has an almost magical serenity, and it reminded Tom of the British Secular Schools and similar citizen-centered educational institutions and movements.Alcott was perhaps the most activist of the transcendentalists, seeking to put principles into life to the utmost possible extent. As a result he challenged others and himself, attempted some of the most extreme lifestyle experiments, and ultimately became a beloved teacher and discussion-leader. born Nov. 29, 1799, Wolcott, Conn., U.S. died March 4, 1888, Concord, Mass. U.S. teacher and philosopher. The self-educated son of a poor farmer, Alcott worked as a peddler before establishing a series of innovative but ultimately unsuccessful schools for children. He traveled to Britain with money borrowed from Ralph Waldo Emerson and came back with the mystic Charles Lane, with whom he founded the short-lived utopian community Fruitlands outside Boston. Alcott is credited with establishing the first parent-teacher association in Concord, Mass., while he was superintendent of schools there. A prominent member of the Transcendentalists, he wrote a number of books but did not become financially secure until his daughter Louisa May Alcott achieved success.The following additional notes are courtesy Amy Belding Brown, from a remarkable web biography of Alcott, located at American Transcendentalism Web Alcott's ideas were instrumental in forming Emerson's thought as recorded in the transcendental seminal work, Nature. Alcott was an early admirer of Thoreau's reasoned philosophy of civil disobedience, and acted upon those principles several years before Thoreau did. He embraced a more broader conception of truth than his friends, asserting that true genius encompassed intellect, nature, and society. Alcott was an inveterate talker, and loved leading "Conversations," free-flowing discussions on selected topics. Because his conversations lacked systematic thought or continuity, participants were sometimes disappointed at the lack of direction. Yet Alcott was, typically, undaunted. "All the beauty and advantages of Conversation," he wrote, "is in its bold contrasts, and swift surprises... Prose and logic are out of place, where all is flowing, magical, and free." In his later years, Alcott traveled throughout the Midwest on lecture tours, where he finally achieved recognition for his ideas on education and transcendentalism. During the Civil War, he served as Superintendent of Schools in Concord, and in 1879, thanks to the financial support of his admirers, he was able to achieve a lifelong dream and founded the Concord School of Philosophy. One of the first summer schools for adults, the School of Philosophy continued for nine years and drew people from all over the United States. Alcott outlived his closest transcendentalist friends, dying on March 4, 1888, two days before his famous daughter, Louisa, succumbed to the long-term effects of mercury poisoning. The Concord School of Philosophy closed in July of that year after holding a memorial service honoring Alcott. Bloggers Tom Morris and Jim Moore, September 11, 2006
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03:00:01 09/12/06
Ralph Waldo Emerson Grave And Stone Concord Massachusetts 1882
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Emerson was the organizer of the American spiritual and literary and social activism movement that today we know as Transcendentalism. His grave is a rough-hewn outsized boulder, and reflects his deep respect for raw nature, for the inner, uncut stone of the individual soul. It also shows his willingness to let his light shine, as he was a writer, an editor and publisher of the Dial, as well as the salon-maker and general patron of the movement in Concord and Boston.Tom Morris and Jim Moore visited his grave site on September 11, 2006 From the Encyclopedia Brittanica: born May 25, 1803, Boston, Mass., U.S. died April 27, 1882, ConcordU.S. poet, essayist, and lecturer. Emerson graduated from Harvard University and was ordained a Unitarian minister in 1829. His questioning of traditional doctrine led him to resign the ministry three years later. He formulated his philosophy in Nature (1836); the book helped initiate New England Transcendentalism, a movement of which he soon became the leading exponent. In 1834 he moved to Concord, Mass., the home of his friend Henry David Thoreau. His lectures on the proper role of the scholar and the waning of the Christian tradition caused considerable controversy. In 1840, with Margaret Fuller, he helped launch The Dial, a journal that provided an outlet for Transcendentalist ideas. He became internationally famous with his Essays (1841, 1844), including Self-Reliance. Representative Men (1850) consists of biographies of historical figures. The Conduct of Life (1860), his most mature work, reveals a developed humanism and a full awareness of human limitations. His Poems (1847) and May-Day (1867) established his reputation as a major poet.
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02:47:32 09/12/06
Louisa May Alcott And Family Burial Plot In Concord Cemetary Concord Massachusetts 1888
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The Alcott family plot is a few yards to the east of the Thoreau family plot in a back lot of the Concord Cemetary. The design of the stones is similar to the Thoreau's, exceedingly modest, with Louisa May Alcott's stone having the simple initials LMA.From the Encyclopedia Brittanica: Louisa May Alcott born Nov. 29, 1832, Germantown, Pa., U.S. died March 6, 1888, Boston, Mass.U.S. author. Daughter of the reformer Bronson Alcott, she grew up in Transcendentalist circles in Boston and Concord, Mass. She began writing to help support her mother and sisters. An ardent abolitionist, she volunteered as a nurse during the American Civil War, where she contracted the typhoid that damaged her health the rest of her life; her letters, published as Hospital Sketches (1863), first brought her fame. With the huge success of the autobiographical Little Women (1868–69), she finally escaped debt. An Old-Fashioned Girl (1870), Little Men (1871), and Jo's Boys (1886) also drew on her experiences as an educator.Bloggers Tom Morris and Jim Moore toured the burial plot on September 11, 2006
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02:36:42 09/12/06
Henry David Thoreau Grave In Concord Cemetary Concord Massachusetts 1862
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Writer, activist, transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau was buried in 1862 in Concord Cemetary. He was 45 when he died, of an infection.I have always been impressed by the humble nature of Thoreau's gravestone. It measures about 10 inches high, and is inscribed only with "Henry." It would not even be recognizeable if it were not in a Thoreau family plot, where he is buried with his parents and siblings. Not many know of this grave, which is in a quiet back lot in the Concord Cemetary.Here from the Encyclopedia Brittanica is a short biographical note on Henry David Thorea: Writer, activist, transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau was buried in 1862 in Concord Cemetary. He was 45 when he died, of an infection. American essayist, poet, and practical philosopher, renowned for having lived the doctrines of Transcendentalism as recorded in his masterwork, Walden (1854), and for having been a vigorous advocate of civil liberties, as evidenced in the essay “Civil Disobedience” (1849).
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02:06:00 09/12/06
Looking Down On The Old North Bridge
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This short clip shows the view from the hill above the Concord River, looking southeast and down on the Old North Bridge. The "shot heard round the world" was fired by farmer militia-men on April, 1775 from this position toward British troops attempting to cross the river below.Bloggers Tom Morris and Jim Moore. September 11, 2006
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01:53:42 09/12/06
The Shot Heard Round The World 1775
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The Old North Bridge, over the Concord River, outside of Concord Massachusetts. Here in April 1775 farmers from the area faced off against British troops who had come searching for hidden weapons, including brass cannons recently stolen from the British army in Boston. Farmers poised above the river crossing fired on the troops attempting to cross, stopping them and initiating a retreat. The "shot heard round the world" set off a bloody running battle as 700 British troops attempted to return to Boston, chased and ambushed by up to 4000 citizen militia-men hidden along the return route.Bloggers Tom Morris, a Brit, and Jim Moore, an American tour the site. September 11, 2006
09/12/06