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Romney and McCain’s behavior tonight on the Republican debate on CNN was simply disgusting, CNN’s censoring of the Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul was a blatant disregard for our voting rights, as I mention below.

Also, as another Ron Paul supporter commented on the Daily Dose’s post “Don’t Get Mad, Get Even“, Anderson Cooper never kept his word:

“Ron Paul said, “Can I talk about conservative vs liberal?” Cooper said, “I will promise you that we will get back to your part.” Guess what? Never happened.”

Following another supporter’s advice, I left a comment for CNN and Cooper through their feedback form:

Cooper’s wanton disregard of Paul is a disgrace to your company, our country and a violation of our voter’s rights to a fair debate.

Okay maybe Tool wasn’t there last weekend at the latest Alex Grey / CoSM fundraiser but the next best thing to that was their music and larger than life banners of Grey’s art.

The event was held downtown at Club 740, which had apparently once played host to Charlie Chaplin and Prince.

The venue itself was pretty cool; another hidden gem in the muck of downtown LA (been living and working there for far too long…). As it was moved last minute from Crash Mansion, things got started late and Alex Grey seemed (perhaps) forced to rush through his presentation, which included a slew of slides, including some great renderings of the new Chapel of Sacred Mirrors, along with his talks flavored with the concept of “Anthropocosm”.

He also played one of Tools videos (which got drowned out in bass for nearly half the vid), which was cool, but perhaps better suited for another place and time (disclaimer: I absolutely love their music but short of a live performance in public, especially in a mostly DJ-music setting, is kind of vibe-killer I think).

Anyway, gonna’ wrap this up short for now, today’s kind of low point for me and I don’t want to give the wrong impression: Any Alex Grey event is well worth attending, especially if it’s your first time. So if you get the chance, check him out.

I’ll post some pics later on, for now here’s one of Tristan later on in the evening, while waiting for Treavor to come on. We had a lot of fun with the old staircase deco and her new birthday coat from Shrine:

I recently made my support of Ron Paul official by submitting my endorsement of him and his campaign.

Yesterday it was posted to the business category and today one of my Google Alerts notified me of its addition there.

This got me to thinking about when I actually first came to hear of him, which I honestly don’t recall: either late 2006 sometime or early 2007. The surest I can be however, for an exact date, would have been from when I read Adam Wiggins’ post about Ron Paul For President. As a trusted friend and business partner (and me a voter newbie), I quickly took head of his comments there and started looking into Dr. Paul’s platform, views and yes, Web 2.0 presence.

Anyway, needless to say I was duly impressed with much of what he stands for. And as noted previously, don’t agree with all his views, but do truly believe he’s the best suited for the role of president in the 2008, United States presidential election.

And while some people would argue that he’s not been focused enough on our nations sustainability, I’d now have to disagree.

As this was one of my previous issues, I contemplated for quite awhile as to whether I could in good conscience, vote for him in light of my continued immersion into sustainability. And obviously the answer is yes but as to the why, let me explain.

First of all, his unshakable view on a limited government should be a no-brainer.

From what I understand and can tell, the innumerable corporate lobbyists in and around Capitol Hill are largely to blame for most of what’s occurred over the last, oh I don’t know…nearly the last century in policy-making/editing/hacking to suit their manufacturing, outsourcing and a slew of other needs that have undermined much of the little good that’s been done to protect the environment.

So it seems like a great step in the right direction to minimize the federal government’s control, thereby allowing the state governments to forge ahead with the demands they’ve placed on them (fed gov), to initiate stricter car emissions and other guidelines for the various manufacturing industries.

Not only that but a return to sound, fiscal responsibility is very much representative of sustainability: conservative spending, deficit reduction, troop withdrawals, limited international military maneuvers/bases/etc., and so much more that will initiate a top-to-bottom reduction of consumption that spans energy use (water, power, fuel, etc.), to a major transportation reduction (further reducing emissions), to reduced product consumption: office supplies, electronics, food, related entertainment, etc., and all the related packaging.

A sustainable future is not just about driving a hybrid, recycling and wearing the latest eco-fashions, but a complete and total rethinking/rebranding/renewing of thought within and throughout our society, again from top-to-bottom. Every corner of this nation, every nook-and-cranny, every little crucial minutia of our life cycle’s must be rethought and retooled.

Ron Paul may not have (yet) won an Oscar or thrown a green festival, but he has served longer than most, for a set of beliefs founded at a time of true sustainability and simplicity, where men and women knew how to live with less.

It’s simply amazing how quickly the flow of time passes by. The days continue to slip by in 2’s and 3’s…

Most of this past weekend was spent focused on my girlfriend’s birthday. We went out to dinner this past Friday night at a romantic little spot called Tagine, in Beverly Hills (ouch - see my Yelp review); then back out again to The Edison with all her friends and sister for a more lively celebration on Saturday night.

I spent a few chunks of time here and there throughout both Saturday and Sunday working on various web tasks: profile updating, blogging, networking, etc. I even finally activated some temporary hosting for the Sugar Shack, scrolled through all the latest WordPress themes and finally settled on one, followed by some theme tweaking, then finally the first post.

Sunday was a mix-bag of activities: usual morning web stuff (post on these oh-so very fascinating boring details coming soon) and it was back to Sugar for miscellaneous, routine acts (cat feeding and roomie relations), followed by a bit of lunch over Harry Potter 5, then our weekly meeting.

Monday was just a sheer wall of work from start to finish, as was today. Though today was especially fun (productively speaking) because I finished up the installation of a proper blog for The Do LaB’s Green Team (of which I play a part in), under the new moniker, the Greenlight.

And oh yes: Yesterday evening I was officially sworn in for my seat on the Mid-City Neighborhood Council (MINC); it was a little over a 2 hour affair and a nice change from recent weeks intense pace of entrepreneurial endeavors.

Looking forward to wrapping up the pending sale of one of my previous ventures and moving on with greater focus and passion in other areas of my life.

Stay tuned for more on this as time and legalities permit.

(oops, almost forgot: Finally got my last final grade from my fall semester at SMC: straight A’s…a most pleasant suprise!)

With the Real ID Act implementation beginning this year, we as Americans are without a doubt, moving one more step closer to an all-out police state.

While the Real ID may have been postponed for 5 years, this May however, states resisting the law will be penalized: “Their driver’s licenses won’t be valid for air travel”.

The article goes onto say:

“Come May 2008, [their] citizens . . . will feel the consequences” of the states’ resistance, Homeland Security Department spokesman Russ Knocke said Friday. To board a plane or enter a federal building, those residents will have to use a passport or other form of accepted identification, he said.”

All the more reason to embrace and support Ron Paul’s revolution.

Last night saw the birth of a new dish: Curry, Mexican…slop, but a grand slop nonetheless.

Dinner preparation began with a refresher from Ryan on how to prepare tofu (I really don’t cook that frequently). Then things kind of just escalated from there as his scientific mind took over in the kitchen and a slew of ingredients made there way from the spice shelves, pantry and fridge onto the chopping block stand by our industrial-strength stove.

Curry, canned coconut juice, black beans, yellow corn, jasmine white rice, pepper, salt, curry powder, curry sauce, hot sauce, honey and more passed from his hands through mine preparing everything and then finally into the pots and pans bubbling away on the stove.

Then Robb strolled in with his usual gait and hopped on board, whipping out nearly every available veggie left in the fridge: celery, onions, carrots, and more, then the star ingredient…fractal broccoli.

The resulting concoction was amazingly delightful, filling and um…therapeutic; the dish was so spicy by serving time, I couldn’t keep my stopped-up nose clear for more than a few seconds.

In the end, it was one of the most satisfying meals I’ve had in a long time, though it really doesn’t look like much here. Probably had something to do with the fact that it was a collobrative effort and…the fact that I was actually cooking for once!

I hate to complain but I must voice something that just continues rubbing me raw when dealing with some people’s behavior in communal living.

When there’s a serious discussion on the table and everyone else is addressing the issue at hand with an appropriate level of attention and maturity, it becomes increasingly frustrating and even a personal insult to me, when one member disregards that level of seriousness through constant joking, sometimes outright ridicule and just an all around blatant disregard for order, respect and maturity.

Relationships thrive on communication and intentional communities require nothing less than that in a clear and respectable manner.

So when one “bad seed” if you will, starts to impede on that and is constantly disrupting the natural understanding of such things in that time and space, what do you do? Do you call that person down outright? Or do you take them aside after the fact?

I can see, perhaps, where sometimes in older times tribal societies and the like (even not that long ago in American society) that the elders might have disciplined these types of trouble-makers on the spot, perhaps humiliating them, to drive the lesson home so that respect and what not may be instilled. But now in today’s modern societies, this type of instructional discipline is way out of style, and probably in every case, rightfully so.

That doesn’t make the impulse to slap some fool upside the head when they’ve overstepped their boundaries more times than is tolerable, any less desirable. But, society dictates we reprimand in other ways.

Anyway, the next time you see someone acting out of line, perhaps you can speak up and let ‘em have it, otherwise they’ll just continue running all around uninhibited, pissing a slew of other people off.

As tradition dictates, I rang in the 2008 new year at Green Sector’s annual NYE party.

This year’s event NEW YEARS TWO THOUSAND CREA8, was held at Crea8tivity, in Marina Del Rey, CA. The event started at 10pm and pounded on through the night until 11am the following morning: always fun, always hardcore, with their fantastic parties.

Brad of Moontribe threw down one of the better sets I’d heard in 2007. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the stamina to make it through and see Treavor (partied myself out prematurely with my birthday just two days prior), but am sure he delivered an unparalled and proper trance marathon.

Anyway, here are a few more pics, might post some others online somewhere at some point too.

Happy new year!

2007 was an amazing year of growth and change, on many levels; also, this year’s end saw my one and only Golden Birthday:

(Check out the rest of my birthday pics from at the Edison)

The year started out with a 3-week visit home after my mom broke her arm, shortly after New Years 2007. I spent almost 2-weeks at home with her to help out with her rehab, got her set up with a new Mac, and generally just spent a lot of quality time catching up with her and some of the other family members.

I then bounced down to Florida for a week-long visit with my Dad, step-mom and some old friends from the River: Tim and Doug.

Then it was back to Cali to return to work on Dianovo, but I just couldn’t get back into it or much of any other work: I was uber home-sick and caught up in the slow-pace that the East Coast so often is. So I decided to pack up my things and move back east, but first stopping back over in LA again to dump said stuff in storage and prepare my other business for my departure. But not surprisingly, I got caught back up with my friends and loved ones in LA and decided to push off my departure for a few months.

I hopped back on board hardcore with The Do LaB, for an amazing few months of work on Coachella, then Lightning In A Bottle, the Beverly Hills White Party, and then it was into summer with a 2.5 week long trip to Guatemala. My time there gave me a lot of opportunity to reflect upon what was important to me and what I wanted to pursue personally and professionally. So when I returned to LA in early June, I began in more earnest, to work on both my romantic relationship and professional path.

I continued working with The Do LaB, resumed work on Green Gurus and continued work on my relationship. Then in mid-summer I went back east again (and therein lies a constant theme for me and home) to help head up the Green Spot construction of The Do LaB’s lumi pods and towers at the Virgin Music Festival in Baltimore, followed up by another visit home.

While at home again, I heavily re-visited my passion for the outdoors as it related to my old job at Hidden River Adventures and my future plans for Rivertribe, but realized it still wasn’t time for that pursuit; I still needed something more from my investments living out West. So after some much needed time re-connecting to the river with some great kayaking trips, I headed back to LA.

One of my investments or more aptly, reasons for moving out west, was school. So the first thing I did was re-enroll in school at SMC for the fall semester. Then I headed up another gig for The Do LaB at the Future Ape festival, followed by one last get-away before the start of the school: this time back to Santa Cruz to watch my old house and base of operations for Dianovo.

Then it was a head-first dive back into school for an intense 3.5 month-long semester in computer science, design and programming; an intense and seemingly appropriate step with regards to my romantic interests; followed by a long-awaited move into the Sugar Shack, then my foray into local politics, the loss of my oldest friend Charlie, and continued work on Green Gurus.

I also worked on the last few gigs for the year with The Do LaB, at the Global Mala Project and a random job for Goldenvoice. Also during the last half of my semester, I started counseling for the first time in years, to help kind of clear some of the noise in my head from everything that year, followed by a renewed start in work on my longest running romantic relationship, through couples counseling (which has been a great decision).

Another big event of the year was my first surgery, in which I finally went in and had a lumptectomy performed to have an overly uncomfortable and ample-sized cyst removed from directly beneath my left nipple; the surgery was flawless and there was very little pain involved afterwards, thanks to the great job performed by my doctor.

While there have been countless other events and random bits of interest from this year, nothing is more noteworthy than the pending sale of my first internet venture. The sale was posted back over the summer and negotiations have been taking place on and off for the last few months with several different parties. Now it looks very close to happening, perhaps within the first month of this new year, so I have been doing a lot of work to prepare for this possibility, both for the business itself and my own well-being; it’s definitely one of the biggest, most life-changing steps I’ve had to prepare for in a long time. But I definitely believe it’s time to make this change and what better time then at the start of the new year?

So as this year starts to unfold and all the previous year’s seeds start to yield their fruits, I look forward to the work in store: for my companies, myself, my family, friends, and the world. I am going to make this my best year ever and I hope you are able to do the same!

Much love and blessings for everyone’s prosperity, health and happiness.