TNS (The Next Step) Palo Alto cable show

TNS#77: Clearing The Air (Between the Sexes)

2011-06-18T16:03:00.000-07:00

The Next Step #77 was taped 3/8/11 and featured Gordon Clay in a show titled Clearing The Air (Between Women & Men). Shauna Wilson Mora, Gordon's co-facilitator in their Clearing The Air workshops, was hoping to join us but didn't make it. Gordon and Shauna have run workshops together since 1993, under the names Healing The Father Wound, Healing The Mother Wound, and Family Reunion.

From their clearingtheair.net site:
"Turn what has impacted your life into the impact you can have in your life.
Transform: reaction into the power of choice, coping and settling into living with passion, numbness into clear, appropriate, emotional expression, fear of conflict into opportunities for positive change, blame and guilt into accountability, shame and/or resentment into forgiveness."

"The highly acclaimed Clearing the Air Workshop series features various interactive group experiences. It explores the wounds we hold around our family of origin, and how these initial wounds have continued to impact our adult lives. The series is designed to help men and women break through the unresolved issues that impede forgiveness and personal freedom.
The workshops are experiential in nature. There is very little lecture. The intention is to break through barriers and old patterns through movement, Tantrum Yoga® express and release work, breathwork, psychodrama, meditation, and processes that excavate wounds and ties that keep us stuck. It is an intense and transformational series.
Healing the Father Wound® and Healing the Mother Wound® workshops are four-night, three-day events offered for 12 men or 12 women. Clearing the Air™ Between Women & Men is a six-day, five-night event for 6 men and 6 women (not couples) who have completed both previous workshops."

Gordon Clay is also the creator of menstuff.org - the largest website in the world on men's issues, online since 1985. Our discussion was wide-ranging and highly enjoyable. Gordon lives in southern OR now so it was a treat to be able to catch him on the road. Gordon also spent years traveling the U.S. with his mobile Mens Resource Center library van. It was nice to see him participating in the recent (june'11) ultimatemenssummit.org online conference.

"Man's inherent nature is to be curious, gentle, intimate, responsible, enthusiastic, sensual, tolerant, courageous, honest, vulnerable, affectionate, proud, spiritual, committed, wild, nurturing, peaceful, helpful, intense, compassionate, happy, and to fully and safely express all emotions. When will we stop training him to be otherwise?"
-- Gordon Clay

TNS#76: A Return to Healing

2011-06-06T14:53:00.000-07:00

TheNextStep show #76 was taped 1/24/11, with Dr. Len Saputo about his book A Return to Healing: Radical Health Care Reform and the Future of Medicine (www.doctorsaputo.com, healthmedicinecenter.net). I heard Dr. Len on coasttocoastam.com last year, was very impressed and was delighted when a mutual friend introduced us and he was willing to come down to Palo Alto for a show.
Len founded the Health Medicine Forum in 1994 and subsequently founded the Health Medicine Center in Walnut Ck CA, one of the first clinics to bring the new model of integral-health medicine into practice. In addition to A Return to Healing, he is coauthor of Boosting Immunity and editor of six other books. Len and his wife Vicki produce a weekly radio show "Prescriptions for Health" Fri 9-11am on KEST 1450 AM.

From my show notes: Len's 4 principles of 'health medicine': integrated, holistic, person-centered, preventative. Conventional medicine focuses almost entirely on managing symptoms. New style of medicine needed: CAM (complementary and alternative medicine). The Orthomolecular premise: if all body cells were functioning perfectly, one would not be sick! The 4 factors of cellular health: nutrition, detox, genetic defects, psychospiritual factors. The 4 paths to cyto-pathology: genetics, toxins, nutritional deficiency, stress.

Reasons why a new approach is needed: US last place in preventable death among industrialized nations; cost of health care now causing a bankruptcy every 30 secs; premiums grown 4x faster than wages in last 8 yrs; 50% of all Amer. bankruptcy due to medical bills; obesity up to 33%/population now and #2 cause of preventable death; multiple chemical sensitivity now 30%/population; cancer up 85% since 1950, now 50%/population; "war on cancer" a failure: still #2 cause of death.

Len does a great job laying out the economic argument for universal health care. He supports 'healing circles'. He offers a 5-point plan for making America healthier:
1. Fund programs to make exercise universally available and attractive.
2. Tax junk food, subsidize sustainable farming and healthy foods.
3. Fund comparative assessment research for 'alternative' treatment regimes and require disclosure of all treatments supported by scientific evidence.
4. Provide broad support for preventive screenings.
5. Ban DTC (direct to consumer) drug ads, advertise healthy lifestyle.

I found Len personally charming and his book compelling, and hopeful. Check it out!
Great Albert Schweitzer quote: "It's supposed to be a secret, but I'll tell you... We doctors do nothing. We only help and encourage the doctor within."

TNS#75: Burning Man 2010 Travelogue

2011-05-18T21:07:00.000-07:00

TheNextStep show #75 was taped 10/28/10... the fifth annual MST3K-style Burning Man travelogue! Featuring guests Shibumi, from my Leopard Martini Lounge BurningMan camp, and the renowned Dr. Hal Robins. Dr. Hal is well known in the bay area for his long-running Ask Dr. Hal Q&A show (www.askdrhal.com). In recent years he has served as emcee for the Burning Man fashion show, and he's also known as an early Church of the SubGenius co-conspirator. Mark McGothigan (home.pacbell.net/mcgmgb) was nice enough to contribute his footage of the fashion show this year, so the first part of the show has several video clips from that; then there was a slide show of 100+ photos I took this year; then a long video segment also by Mark showing the fireworks display and the start of the Man burning. All interspersed with informative, amusing or perplexing running commentary by Dr. Hal, Shibumi and myself! Shibumi (studioreflex.com) is a designer and producer, and gets credit for inviting Dr. Hal onto the show. Thx Shibumi and Dr. Hal, that was great fun!

TNS#74: Exploring the Enneagram

2010-10-22T18:32:00.000-07:00

TheNextStep show #74 was taped 9/13/10 and featured a discussion of the Enneagram with local authors/workshop leaders David Fauvre and Katherine Chernick Fauvre (www.enneagram.net). The Enneagram is a psychospiritual typology or model of personality types, a nine-fold system of types where each is seen as expressing a distinctive and habitual pattern of thinking and feeling. Its development can be traced from the Sufis thru G.I. Gurdjieff, P.D. Ouspensky, Oscar Ichazo, Claudio Naranjo, and a host of current authors.

David and Katherine seem to have made their own contributions to the field with their incorporation of 'tri-types' wherein the nine types are grouped with respect to one's 'motivational' factors, into the three groups of head/blue, heart/red, and gut/green. As I understood it they seem to be saying one could correlate the qualities of a type with each of these 3 aspects of psyche (head, heart, gut), but I could be wrong about that! Just before the show they had me take their online personality test, which I found surprisingly difficult and left my head spinning someewhat during the show... difficult because I was being asked repeatedly to choose between qualities that I was pretty darn ambivalent about. Perhaps if there was a personality type for ambivalence I'd be there and the whole process would've been easier. But I do definitely see the value in this kind of work, following directly from the Delphic Oracle's invocation to "Know Thyself". Another way they expressed the goal of this work is "to transform self-defeating behaviour into empowerment".

They eventually settled on a determination that I'm a social nine, in company with Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, which I found flattering enough. Not that I'm the type to care much about flattery! Try their test yourself, at www.enneagram.net!

Here from my notes is a summary of the nine types:
1. perfectionist, reformer, judge, crusader, critic
2. giver, helper, nurturer, caretaker, advisor, manipulator
3. performer, motivator, achiever, producer, status-seeker; corp America!
4. tragic romantic,individualist, mystic, artist; authentic, sensitive, moody
5. observer, thinker, investigator, sage; self-suff; can be arrogant
6. devil's advocate, loyalist, skeptic, guardian, rebel; safe, secure
7. epicure, entertainer, optimist, adventurer;
8. leader, solution-master, maverick, protector; can be intimidating
9. peacemaker, mediator, naturalist, accomodater; conflict-avoidant
Types 8,9,1 relate to gut, instinct (green); types 2,3,4 relate to heart (red);
types 5,6,7 relate to head, ideas (in their work that is).

TNS#73: Open Source Learning

2010-10-22T14:22:00.000-07:00

TheNextStep show #73 was taped 8/11/10, a show on the topic of open-source learning with Scott MacLeod and Barbara Breuchert. Scott's the founder of World University & School (worlduniversity.wikia.com) - "the Global, Virtual/Digital, Open, Free, {potentially Degree- and Credit-Granting}, Multilingual University & School where anyone can teach or take a class or course." Barbara's a local Media Center producer and former educator.
From the WU&S site: "World University & School's mission, in reaching out to the entire world, is to provide a free, wiki-based education platform and, through facilitating the development of broadband worldwide, to make our service accessible
to under-served parts of the world. The WUaS mission is thus to facilitate all levels of teaching and learning opportunities (and future degrees) through an open, editable wiki in all languages, nation-states and subjects with great universities, and for One Laptop per Child countries and everyone." Very commendable vision, Scott!

My main comment was that if there are to be course credits granted, somewhere there have to be human beings reviewing the work of students, and those human beings need to be compensated for their time somehow... and I'm dubious that some form of barter is going to be workable in this situation, and hence dubious that 'free' will be compatible with 'degree-granting'... but optimistic that some form of workable economic model can be found. Now I've joined Scott's advisory board so there will likely be more TNS shows on the topic!

We also discussed John Taylor Gatto's books Weapons of Mass Instruction and Dumbing Us Down, which I'm a big fan of, since he came to P.A. to speak at a futuresalon in 2008. Also discussed was Scott McNealy's new project Curriki.org: his vision for a "free and open source digital compendium of just about everything teachers use to teach -- textbooks, worksheets, tests, video presentations, podcasts, you name it." The project, run by McNealy and former Sun executive Kim Jones, started inside Sun six years ago and spun out as a nonprofit in 2006. Curriki now has 38,000 educational pieces on the site, and about 135,000 registered users.

TNS#72: Kumbh Mela travelogue

2010-10-21T16:58:00.000-07:00

TheNextStep show #72 was taped 5/12/10 and featured Maurizio Benazzo and Gopi Kallayil. Maurizio was co-director of the documentary film Short Cut to Nirvana: Kumbh Mela (2004) and the show featured a number of short clips from the film. Gopi is a local Media Center producer, Google engineer and world traveler who brought his slide show of photos from his trip to this year's Kumbh Mela. Maurizio had colorful stories about making their documentary on a shoe-string budget in the massive chaotic festival in 2004. His film company is melafilms.com. Maurizio is also producer of the upcoming scienceandnonduality.com conference (Oct 2010 in Marin, CA).
From the imdb.com entry for Short Cut to Nirvana:
"Every 12 years over 70 million pilgrims gather at the meeting of India's holiest rivers, the Ganges and the Yamuna, for a spectacular spiritual festival: the Kumbh Mela. This documentary takes a voyage of discovery through this colorful event through the eyes of several Westerners and an ebullient young Hindu monk, Swami Krishnanand. Featuring encounters with some of India's most respected holy men and exclusive footage of His Holiness the Dalai Lama."

TNS#71: Terence McKenna Retrospective

2010-07-08T00:17:00.000-07:00

TheNextStep show #71 was taped 4/14/10, close to the tenth anniversary of the passing of Terence McKenna. The show was supposed to feature guests David Jay Brown and Robert Forte, however due to the upcoming maps.org Psychedelic Science Conference that weekend, both had to cancel on short notice. Very short notice... the producer's nightmare! Fortunately Marty Wasserman who was slated to direct the show filled in as an ad hoc interviewer, and fortunately I'd done my homework and had made film clips from The Alchemist's Dream (featuring Terence) and had pages of notes from his various books. So, Marty interviewed ME about Terence's life and work, and the show went on - not what I had in mind but I'd like to think we pulled it off reasonably well. I really enjoyed reading through his books Food of the Gods, Archaic Revival and Invisible Landscape in preparing for the show... all classics! I'd read through Invisible Landscape in the early 80's but had forgotten the great diagrams he included depicting the chemical make-up of various neuro-transmitters,. and showing how close they are to various entheogens... like serotonin and psilocybin for instance.
From Wikipedia:
Terence Kemp McKenna (11/16/46 – 4/3/2000) was an American author, public speaker, metaphysician, psychonaut, philosopher, ethnobotanist, art historian, and self-described anarchist, anti-materialist, environmentalist, feminist, Platonist and skeptic. During his lifetime he was noted for his knowledge of psychedelics, metaphysics, plant-based entheogens, shamanism, mysticism, Hermeticism, Neoplatonism, biology, geology, physics, phenomenology, and his concept of novelty theory.

TNS#70: Legal Topics: Fair Use, Fair Enforcement

2010-05-14T20:10:00.000-07:00

The Next Step show #70 was taped 3/10/10 and featured a discussion of various legal topics of current interest with local attorneys Mark Malachowski (sfcriminaldefenseattorney.com) and James Barrett (jb@jamesbarrettlaw.com) in a return appearance on the show.

We opened with a discussion of Fair Use w/r copyrighted content and the need for copyright reform as espoused by Larry Lessig (lessig.org, fixcongressfirst.org); and of the recent Citizens United Sup.Ct. case giving free speech rights to corporate speech. The discussion of Fair Enforcement was w/r local red light cams, and a recent local case where police broke down the front door and seized all electronics devices at a group house where a rape case suspect apparently tried to compromise an email account of the victim. (The landlord/manager was never even contacted).
The big issue w/r red light cams was: whether in fact you will be held liable unless you identify the true driver, as the Notice of Violation asserts. Our legal panelists seemed to support the view that the registered owner of a vehicle could be held liable for the violation, even if the photo didn't implicate the owner personally. In this case it turned out that, in fact, if the photo indicated someone else was driving, once in court the owner was not even asked to ID the actual driver, and the citation was dismissed. (Yay!)

TNS#69: The Eight-Circuit Brain

2010-03-11T14:12:00.000-08:00

TheNextStep show #69 was taped 2/10/10 with local author/filmmaker Antero Alli, whose most recent book is The Eight-Circuit Brain: Navigational Strategies for the Energetic Body. Antero's also the author of Angel Tech, Towards an Archeology of the Soul, Astrologik, A Modern Shaman's Guide to a Pregnant Universe, and The Vertical Oracle. Gotta love those book titles!
Tim Leary set forth his eight-circuit model of consciousness first in his book Exo-Psychology, based somewhat on someone's earlier schema (as Antero relates... can't remember the name).
Then Robt. Anton Wilson expanded on it in Prometheus Rising and Cosmic Trigger. Angel Tech in 1986 was Antero's take on the model, and the current book expands further the ideas, including an excellent overview, and adding alot of material from the workshops that Antero leads on this subject area. Dang, just remembered I never got a chance to read the last section, How I Got This Way... looking forward to that, for sure.
Lots of interesting material... the 8-circuit model, in brief:
1. Bio-Survival 2. Emotional-Territorial 3. Time-Binding Semantic 4. ‘Moral’ Socio-Sexual 5. Holistic Neurosomatic 6. Collective Neurogenetic 7. Metaprogramming
8. Non-Local Quantum Circuit.
(As Antero says on pg.42, the word 'circuit' should be taken loosely, in the sense of a medium or conduit for energy... "if you like, choose another word that suits your sensibilities"... I take it as more of a predominant mode of operation of one's neural equipment.)
Very interesting show I thought, and it was really a pleasure talking with Antero. Vertical Pool is his publishing company, www.verticalpool.com

TNS#68: It's Not You, It's Biology

2010-02-16T20:16:00.000-08:00

TheNextStep#68 was taped 1/13/2010 with Joe Quirk, author of It's Not You, It's Biology... the paperback edition of his previous hardcover book Sperm Are From Men, Eggs Are From Women. From Joe's website, www.joequirk.com: Here's what you should've learned in high school biology! It's Not You, It's Biology provides insight, ammunition, snappy comebacks, and interesting cocktail party banter for everyone who ever wondered why we behave the way we do. It's Freakonomics for the Relationship-Challenged. "Joe takes a look at the whole issue of relationships through the lens of sociology, biology, anthropology, and some pretty awful dates."
From the book jacket: "Ultimately, Quirk concludes that all living things are conservative, efficient, safe, and drab until it's time to breed, at which point they become extravagant, wasteful, risky, and beautiful." Well put!

I especially like Joe's analysis of how both men and women have powerful but antithetical reproductive strategies: attracted both to risky, challenging partners and to safe, dependable relationships. Homo sapiens is just one out of 235 species of primates, and Joe does a great job illuminating the biological factors behind our choices in looking for a partner or mate.

TNS#67: BurningMan09 Travelogue

2009-12-01T15:31:00.000-08:00

TheNextStep show #67 was taped on 10/14/09, the FIFTH annual Burning Man Travelogue show, this year featuring guests and longtime burners Anne Gelhaus and Lisa Doyle. The show was done MST3K-style as per tradition... (and, just saw the notice that MST3K Vol.XVI (4-dvd set) was released today.) This year I had lots of slides but no video so I included a retrospective look at my photos from BurningMan '96 and '97, in the good old days before the perimeter fence, when there was still a shooting range!
Then we looked thru Lisa's extensive set of slides and short clips, which can be found here: picasaweb.google.com/lisaanndoyle/BM2009# -- many featuring the HotD Hair of the Dog band and camp. Lisa and Anne both are or have been members of HotD as well as various other mutating musical entities! dmomusic.com/hotd
Since Lisa's media was already all on Picasa I decided to play them live during the taping of the show -- risky in case it should hang up. That aspect went well altho I ran into difficulty getting to the full-screen control on Picasa once the video adapter was installed (which cuts off part of the screen)... annoying!
Many fine photos of this year's Temple were viewed, as well as the very creative base of the MAN, which for the first time this year was set up to allow people to write their poems, epigrams, memorials etc on the myriad laser-cut plywood pieces that made up the structure. I think the tradition of having a Temple where everyone can offer up their sorrows or challenges from the past year, and then have them released thru fire, is one of the most valuable parts of Burning Man now. Thank you again David Best! (David was architect of the Temple that first year (2002?) and for many years after... taking a break the past two years...) The other high point of Burning Man 09 for me was coming across the NeverWas Haul steampunk Victorian house on wheels out on the playa, when it was stranded waiting for some repair -- so we got to spend some Quality Time onboard, listening to Kimrick Smythe the principal creator of it telling stories about how it came to be. What a treat! Another epic year on the playa...

TNS#66: The Journeybook: Tales of Altered States

2009-10-20T15:48:00.000-07:00

TheNextStep show #66 was taped 9/9/09 and featured two co-authors of The Journeybook, Tim Parish and Graham St. John. I met them along with co-author Rak Razam at their author event at Sera Phi in SF recently and think they've done a great job with the book, check it out! The book is divided into two halves, one a history of altered states and the other a collection of contemporary accounts. The two dozen contributing writers are mostly Australian but the book is definitely global in scope and the included art is beautiful. Graham is also author of Technomad: Global Raving Countercultures; his site is www.edgecentral.com. Rak is also author of Aya: a Shamanic Odyssey.
From their site thejourneybook.com:
The Journeybook is an essential map of hyperspace for the contemporary psychonaut and the uninitiated alike. Travel through time and space and partake of mushrooms at Harvard, hemp in Nimbin, DMT in the Amazon and anti-depressents in the suburbs of the West, to name but a few of the experiences which await you. Dance at Dionysian festivals, meet alchemists in the laboratories of Switzerland, trippers in the corporate highrises of Brisvegas, and journey to the edge of the universe within our anthology's pages... The Journeybook is a collection of tales of altered states, essays, history and is a manifesto for psychedelic culture in the 21st century. It covers the modern usage of sacramental plants and offers insights into traditional and contemporary shamanism, as well as analysis of the current state of global psychedelic culture and its place in a sustainable future. The Journeybook is an essential handbook for those interested in the subject of consciousness, spirituality and understanding the rich pharmacopia of thought that exists beyond the confines of mainstream cosmology.

TNS#65: Journeying Into Wholeness

2009-10-15T18:30:00.000-07:00

TheNextStep show #65 was taped 8/13/09 and featured a discussion with Deborah Dooley, Ph.D, a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist based in Menlo Park, CA. From the description of her book Journeying Into Wholeness on her site deborahdooley.com:

"Each person will live through many changes requiring many new skill sets. These skills are not obvious or tangible. Unfortunately, they are seldom mentored in our culture or institutions. When new skill sets are required, and they are not learned, stress and negative emotional states result."
Deborah's work focuses on supporting individuals understanding their own development and integrating these new skills sets. Her book, Journeying into Wholeness, explains the developmental stages of growth and the required skills. The work provides a map to understand where you are in your development and what type of skills will currently support you.
Actually the show was originally going to be about recent developments in biofeedback since Deborah's very interested in that area in her therapy work. Since she wasn't quite ready to do a show specifically on that topic we mostly talked about her "five phases of consciousness" model for personal growth (chart on p.83 of her book): Foreign World, Social World, Confused World, Created World, and Unified World. Which in turn had me looking up Leary 8-fold model of consciousness for comparison... Well the two don't really compare in any useful way but I did appreciate Deborah's view of personality growth and recommend her excellent book!
Published by Delphi Press, available thru deborahdooley.com.

TNS#64: Memoirs of a Blind Biker

2009-06-19T11:48:00.000-07:00

TheNextStep show #64 was taped 5/11/09 and was an interview with Russell Targ discussing his new book of memoirs: Do You See What I See?: Memoirs of a Blind Biker.
As Russell put it, the theme of the book might be best described as 'Questioning Reality', as it covers lots of material from Huxley's Perennial Philosophy, quantum physics and nonlocality, advaita non-dualism and dzogchen buddhism. Russell was a laser physicist from NY who came to CA and got involved with psi phenomena and started the Remote Viewing project with Hal Puthoff at SRI in the early 70's, which was quite successful for many years. The memoir goes into lots of detail about remote viewing but also integrates his extensive interests in philosophy and spirituality, which I especially enjoyed. Here is a selection of quotes from the book that I liked, from my notes for the show:
"Questioning reality: the essential first step in the evolution of consciousness"
"The first principle is that consciousness is the fundamental building block of the universe – which is more like great thought than great machine."
"Nothing is actually happening in our world except for the meaning we give it. We give all the meaning there is, to everything we experience."
"Our awareness is limitless in space and time – therefore WE are limitless."
"The Perennial Philosophy: the purpose or meaning of our lives is to become one with universal non-local consciousness."
"The essence of the teaching is that there IS no self – it’s all just a story."

I find Russell's work especially valuable because he's incorporating his psi phenomena research into a framework of quantum physics that offers at least the beginning of an understanding as to how psi phenomena can occur, namely non-locality. As a final comment I also really liked his metaphor that remote viewing is like the image of the moon appearing in calm water -- it was always there but the water (i.e. the mind) has to be calm for it to be visible.

TNS#63: What I Wish I Knew at 20

2009-05-31T20:17:00.000-07:00

The Next Step show #63 was taped 4/9/09 and featured Tina Seelig, Ph.D., talking about her new book What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20: A Crash Course on Making Your Place in the World. Her book is filled with anecdotes and covers many themes, among them how to have a healthy disregard for the impossible, how to recover from failure, and how most problems are remarkable opportunities in disguise. It was a complete delight to talk with Tina for an hour! "Real life is the ultimate open book exam." ...Info on her Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders program at Stanford can be found at etl.stanford.edu.

Tina Seelig, Ph.D. is the Executive Director for the Stanford Technology Ventures Program where she is responsible for strategic planning, operations, and outreach efforts of STVP. In addition, Tina is the Director of the Stanford Entrepreneurship Network and the co-Director of the Mayfield Fellows Program. Tina's latest book, What I wish I knew when I was 20, provides insights on life, leadership, and the little things that make a big difference in an entrepreneurial setting.

TNS#62: Albert Hofmann Retrospective

2009-04-08T23:17:00.000-07:00

The Next Step show #62 was taped 3/12/09 -- a retrospective look at the life and work of Albert Hofmann, who passed away a year ago at the age of 102 -- with Robert Forte and Paul Daley. Robert is a religious historian, psychedelic scholar and editor of Entheogens and the Future of Religion and Timothy Leary: Outside Looking In. Paul is an environmental scientist and photographer who I met at the World Psychedelic Forum in 2006, and he brought clips from a rare audio interview he'd conducted with Albert Hofmann in 1977 as well as many photos of Albert at the WPF in 2006. More recently Paul's been instrumental in helping Sasha Shulgin get his laboratory up and functional again after a dormant period. The REAL star of the show however was all the great footage from Connie Littlefield's film Hofmann's Potion, lots of great clips of Albert, Stan Grof, Ralph Metzner, Myron Stolaroff, Humphry Osmond, Aldous Huxley, Ram Dass and others. Thanks Connie! Thanks Albert... Bodhi Svaha!

From Wikipedia: Albert Hofmann (January 11, 1906 – April 29, 2008) was a Swiss scientist best known for having been the first to synthesize, ingest and learn of the psychedelic effects of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD). Hofmann authored more than 100 scientific articles and wrote a number of books, including LSD: My Problem Child. He was the first to isolate the psychoactive substance in mushrooms, psilocybin. On January 11, 2006, Hofmann became a centenarian, and the occasion of his 100th birthday was the focus of an international symposium on LSD (The World Psychedelic Forum in Basel; psychedelic.info).

TNS#61: The Global Warming Diet

2009-02-28T11:50:00.000-08:00

The Next Step #61 was taped 2/12/09 and featured local author Laura Stec and her colleague Dr. Samia McCully for a show looking at the intersection of nutrition, environment and health. Laura’s new book is Cool Cuisine, described below, and Dr. McCully is a naturopath – her website is www.wellnessarchitecture.com. What I especially liked about Laura's book was all the information about the carbon cycle and the carbon equivalent impact of our dietary choices.

Cool Cuisine - Taking the Bite Out of Global Warming is a new book by San Francisco Bay Area chef Laura Stec with Dr. Eugene Cordero, Ph.D, San Jose State Professor of Meteorology. It addresses why global warming could be the best thing to happen to the culinary world in a long time, and reports on innovative science, business, and savory solutions to the Global Warming Diet. Cool Cuisine tells a story of really interesting people doing really inspiring things, and how you can too.. The reader embarks on a exploration that feeds mind and mouth with art, science, pleasure, culinary tips and recipes on how to cook a globally cool cuisine. (www.globalwarmingdiet.org)

A few more notes from the book: takes about 500 gals oil/yr to produce our 'machine-cuisine' diets... we emit about as much CO2 eating as we do by driving... our fertilizer-based food system contributes almost 20% of U.S. CO2 emissions... takes 17M barrels/oil to make the 30G plastic water bottles used in the US/year... Recipe for one gal/gas: 200k lb plants (100 tons), buried 1 mile deep for 1M years(!)... nearly half of all food harvested in the US/yr goes to waste... we use 380G plastic bags/yr, which take 12G barrels/oil to produce... one cheeseburger takes about 10 lb in CO2 equiv to produce... Great book, thanks Laura!

TNS#60: What to Say to the Cops!

2008-12-03T18:34:00.000-08:00

TNS#60 was taped on 11/26/08, a legal primer show we called What To Say To The Cops, inspired by a conversation I had with old friend Mark Malachowski last summer. Mark's a lawyer now (www.marklawdui.com) and we were joined by his friend James Barrett (jb@jamesbarrettlaw.com) for a lively discussion of various scenarios involving law enforcement that anyone might find themselves in, such as getting pulled over, or detained on the street for questioning, or having an officer asking to come into your house. In my own research for the show I was very impressed with the NORML 'freedom card' which can be found on their norml.org site as a ready-to-print .pdf file, which succinctly describes the various Constitutional rights one may be invoking in any discussion with law enforcement. However James and Mark definitely made their case that really all you need to remember is the magic seven words: "I'd like to speak to a lawyer." This was definitely not a law-enforcement-bashing show but the show guests also made their case about the many ways that people act against their own interest in trying to be cooperative with the police, and how it's usually best just to keep your mouth shut. The discussion did tend to center around DUI scenarios, for good reason this time of year! Thanks Mark and James for a very informative show!

TNS#59: BurningMan08 Travelogue

2008-11-04T16:01:00.000-08:00

TNS#59 was taped 10/22, the 4th annual TNS Burning Man show, using the now traditional MST3K format which shows our heads in profile from behind as we watch clips and slides from the laptop. Gigi Bisson and Diana Maxwell joined me for the show and presented their slides and clips about their work helping create the Entheon Village Pantheogenesis Temple complex at Burning Man this year -- a collection of 5 temple domes that was quite amazing. We copied Diana's iMovie video clips to my macbook and previewed them, but unfortunately when I tried to launch the project during the taping, iMovie noticed that there was now a sync adapter connected and wouldn't play without going into the video settings and changing them... which I wasn't about to try while the show was in progress. Shockingly bad UI 'feature' for the program, that it couldn't just somehow play in lower res! Similarly Gigi's slideshow in iPhoto wouldn't play, because the new iPhoto 08 apparently launches into some kind of edit mode and won't play until you click a little "Done" button in the lower right corner. My iPhoto 06 has worked ok for me on many shows and didn't work that way so I was unable to get it going either... fortunately former Apple engineer Fred Bockmann was helping crew the show and came onto the set to rescue us and remind us about the 'done' button... Surprisingly bad UI decisions coming from Apple!
Anyway Diana and Gigi talked at length about helping create the Sound Healing Divine Feminine Yurt and we saw some amazing photos of the crystals that were assembled and the hundreds of small geodes that were free for the taking apparently. And I think we previewed Diana's clip of Alex with his light sabre talking about the "new technology that is waiting for us in another dimension" and how we need to use these crystals to open a portal to receive it. Hope that new technology includes something about keeping elections tamper-proof! ;-)
Also mucho thankso to Juli 'Peaceblossom' and Ralph 'Cucoman' Kline for contributing copies of their BurningMan 04-06 and 08 videos which I showed clips of. It was nice to see the footage of the Temples from previous years.

TNS#58: A Look at Homelessness

2008-08-01T10:27:00.000-07:00

TNS#58 was taped on 7/30/08 and featured Mena Zaminsky, Ginger Martin and Eileen Richardson in a discussion about many facets of homelessness. Mena's a psychotherapist, expressive arts therapist and teacher in SF who works with many homeless persons; Ginger aka MO/PEACE is a conflict coach, spiritual advisor, trainer, educator and homeless advocate in SF -- her site is www.myspace.com/mo_peace -- also blog.myspace.com/mo_peace. Eileen Richardson is Exec.Dir. of the Palo Alto Downtown Streets Team and was featured in a Feb08 story about Local Heroes that I happened to see just days before the taping -- fortunately I was able to find her contact and she joined us on very short notice. It was gratifying to hear from her about the very pro-active efforts here in Palo Alto to get homeless persons engaged in getting back on their feet. Wikipedia says there are about 100M homeless worldwide; the US number ranges from 1-3M (.3 - 1% of pop). I hadn't known that as of 1981 a class action suit in NY established a NY state constitutional "right to shelter" -- very encouraging! The wikipedia estimate was that 1/3 of all homeless adults have some form of mental illness or disability, however the show panelists were inclined to put the number higher. I closed the show with the Gandhi Test as quoted by Larry Brilliant w/r his work heading up Google.org: "When considering the merits of a course of action, think of the poorest person and consider whether your action will help that person in some way."

TNS#57: IP, Copyright and Creative Commons

2008-07-07T10:25:00.000-07:00

TNS#57 was taped on 6/30/08 and featured local attorneys Chris Ridder, a Residential Fellow at Stanford Law School, and Kurt Opsahl, Sr. Staff Attorney with EFF.org... we discussed Intellectual Property and Copyright and the problems with how it's evolved in the past century and the progress Larry Lessig and CreativeCommons.org have made in providing a more reasonable alternative model for copyrights. Chris is involved with the Stanford Center for Internet and Society -- cyberlaw.stanford.edu -- and talked a bit about their Documentary Film Program -- cyberlaw.stanford.edu/projects/documentary-film-program -- which "provides filmmakers with information about fair use, access to insurance for liability arising out of copyright litigation, and access to lawyers who will defend copyright claims pro bono or at reduced rates." ... good stuff!

The Next Step airing schedule

2008-06-11T11:06:00.000-07:00

the current airing schedule for The Next Step is:

Wed. 11-12 pm chan.30
Sat. 6-7 pm chan.27
Sat. 11-12 pm chan.30
Sun. 2-3 am chan.27
Sun. 6-7 am chan.30

you can watch it in Quicktime whenever it airs: go to www.communitymediacenter.net and click "Watch" for the appropriate channel.

TNS#56: Another Look at Modern Love

2008-06-10T13:16:00.000-07:00

TheNextStep #56 was taped Tue 5/27/08 and featured local authors Anna Broadway (Sexless In The City: A Memoir of Reluctant Chastity) and Wendy Merrill (Falling Into Manholes: The Memoir of a Bad/Good Girl)... a very enjoyable show though we didn't get into issues of strategies for finding partners as much as I'd have hoped... Anna's blog is annabroadway.blogspot.com and Wendy's site is www.fallingintomanholes.com.

ok let's try this again!

2008-05-19T10:29:00.000-07:00

Finally getting a blog going again for The Next Step! ... the first one was at thenextstep.blogsource.com which shut down last fall, then I got it ported to thenextstep.livedigital.com which abruptly shut down in Jan08 before I could even make a backup, embarrassingly. This is the info blog for The Next Step, a monthly Palo Alto, CA-based local cable show. The show began in the 90's as Regular People with MetaBaba and Terry Lavios then transitioned to The Next Step with galen and Terry in 2002. The tag line is "The Next Step: Showcasing the art, music, literature, spirituality and politics of the evolving new consciousness"... galen's vision for the show was to have two sets simultaneously, a 'left brain' set with a panel discussion and a 'right brain' set with music and art. It was a worthy experiment but the shows were difficult to produce and very often marginalized the talk portion of the show. I took over the show in may 2005 and pretty much just stick with the format of a panel discussion on a theme.
The Next Step airs 5x/week and is webcast simultaneously when it airs. The airing schedule and webcast access can be found at www.communitymediacenter.net