Bringing down a Dictator - March 2
February 27, 2006
Hi guys got an email from James in Spain below.
Hi all
I can´t believe I´m going to miss this so please go for me and could someone video tape it?
What is it? well i don´t know about you but I remember watching the news one night several years ago and suddenly the people of serbia had all got up and decided to get rid of Slobodan Milosovic, so they all drove to Belgrade blockaded everything and kicked him out in a nonviolent revolution. well of course it wasn´t quite like that but it was only a few years later that I found out that this group called Otpor had been working towards this for a few years and their whole campaign has been documented in a great film called Bringing down a dictator. The film is being shown in Melbourne on Thursday and best of all one of leaders of Otpor will be there to address the gathering!
so yeah, I can´t believe I´m going to miss this so please go for me and could someone video tape it?
Where and when: Thursday 2 March, 7pm @ Trades Hall, 1 Lygon Street Carlton VIC
Presented by Pt’chang and the Nonviolence Training Project. Entry by donation.
More info from Pt’chang
“A key organiser in the wave of nonviolent, popular uprisings sweeping through Europe will speak at a film screening in Melbourne next Thursday.
In 1998, Srdja Popovic helped form the Serbian student protest group Otpor!, whose "people power" campaign to unseat Slobodan Milosovic met with success on October 2000 when hundreds of thousands of protestors converged upon and took over the Serbian Parliament, effectively ending Misolevic’s rule.
Mr Popovic will be speaking at a screening of the 2003 PBS documentary Bringing Down a Dictator, which tells the story of the popular uprising against Milosovic between 1998 and 2000. His talk will focus on the use of nonviolent tactics by social change movements to win tangible victories for justice, peace and greater democracy.
This is a rare opportunity for activists, community organisers and anyone working for positive social change to hear first hand how "people power" methods such as strikes, boycotts and community organising can win out against seemingly overwhelming odds.”
So feel encouraged from Spain to go to the movie 
Age
Bubble Cat
February 27, 2006
Age
Cafe Praxis Program @ Forest Edge Fest
February 24, 2006
Our days will look like this - great speakers, people, coffee and chatting.
Friday 10
4-5pm Gates Open
6:30 Music – Jane McGeough
7:30 Music – Adam Cousens
8:30 Bible Study - Called to be agents of Change. - Age
9:30 Open House
Saturday 11
8am Café Opens
10 Main Stage Worship - John Smith
11:30 Workshop - A God of Justice - Caz Coleman
2 Workshop - Simplicity & Prosperity -Greg Hewson
3 Art & Soul in the Sacred Space - Rice Mandala - Chris R
4 Workshop - Walkabout With Jesus - Vince Ross
7:30 Radical Discipleship - the long haul - John Smith
8:30 Bible Study - New Eyes - Steve Said
9:30 Open House - Tear Short Termers, JIM, Greg, Steve
Sunday 12
8am Café Opens
10 Main Stage Worship - Hugh Evans
11:30 Workshop - Incarnation Mission to the Poor - UNOH
12:45 Workshop - John Smith - God’s Squad
2 Workshop - Poverty & Theology - Hugh Evans
3 Art & Soul in the Sacred Space - Micah Prayer Stations
4 Workshop - Archetypes of Eve - Meaghan Paul
5 Coffee with John Smith
5:30 Music – Adam Cousens
6:30 Music – Jane McGeough
7:30 Music – Kim Beale?
8:30 Bible Study - Subversion & Discipleship- Age
9:30 Open House - UNOH, Hugh? About Face 7
Monday 13
8am Cafe Opens
10 Main Stage Worship - Marcus Curnow(Urban Seed)
11 Cafer Praxis - Farewell Blessing thingy
So register already. Forestedge festival
Age
The Ultimate Youth Group Game…
February 21, 2006
LED Throwies 
Developed by the Graffiti Research Lab a division of the Eyebeam R&D OpenLab, LED Throwies are an inexpensive way to add color to any ferromagnetic surface in your neighborhood. A Throwie consists of a lithium battery, a 10mm diffused LED and a rare-earth magnet taped together. Throw it up high and in quantity to impress your friends and city officials.
Watch the clip and be inspired
Rus
Bubble Girl
February 20, 2006
Age
Compassion can never coexist with judgement
February 18, 2006
More from Henri Nouwen
If you would ask the Desert Fathers why solitude gives birth to compassion, they would say, ‘Because it makes us die to our neighbour.’ At first this answer seems quite disturbing to a modern mind. But when we give it a closer look we can see that in order to be of service to others we have to die to then; that is, we have to give up measuring our meaning and value the yardstick of others. To die to our neighbours means to stop judging them, to stop evaluating them, and them to be come free to be compassionate. Compassion can never coexist with judgement because judgement creates the distance, the distinction, which prevents us from really being with the other…..
…. Abba Ammonas, advanced to the point where his goodness was so great that he took no notice of wickedness.” Thus, having become bishop, someone brought a young girl who was pregnant to him, saying’ “See what this unhappy wretch has done; give her a penance.” But he, having marked the young girl’s womb with the sign of the cross, commanded that six pairs of linen sheets should be given her, saying, “It is for fear that, when she comes to give birth, she may die, she or the child, and have nothing for the burial.” But the accusers resumed, “Why did you do that? Give her punishment.” But he said to them, “Look, brothers, she is near death; what am I to do?” The he sent her away and no old man dared accuse anyone any more.
Age
Solitude – Furnace of Transformation and Struggle
February 16, 2006
From Henri Nouwen’s - The way of the Heart
Solitude is the furnace of transformation, Without solitude we remain victims of our society and continue to be entangled in the illusions of the false self. Jesus himself entered into the furnace. There he was tempted with the three compulsions of the world: to be relevant: (‘turn stones into loaves’), to be spectacular (‘throw yourself down’) and to be powerful (‘I will give you all these kingdoms’). There he affirmed God as the only source of his identity (‘You must worship the Lord your God and serve him alone’). Solitude is the place of the great struggle and the great encounter – the struggle against the compulsions of the false self, and the encounter with the loving God who offers himself as the substance of the new self…….
…we think of solitude as a place where we gather new strength to continue the ongoing competition in life. But the is not the solitude of St. John the Baptist, of St.Anthony ….
..In solitude I get rid of my scaffolding: no friends to talk with, no telephone call to make, no meetings to attend, no music to entertain, no books to distract. Just me – naked, vulnerable, weak, sinful, deprived, broken – nothing. It is this nothingness that I have to face in my solitude, a nothingness so dreadful that everything in me wants to run to my friends, my work, and my distractions so that I can forget my nothingness and make myself believe that I am worth something. But that is not all. As soon as I decide to stay in my solitude, confusing ideas, disturbing images, wild fantasies, and weird associations jump about in my mind like monkeys in a banana tree. Anger and greed begin to show their ugly faces. I give long, hostile speeches to my enemies and dream lustful dreams in which I am wealthy, influential, and very attractive – or poor, ugly, and in need of immediate consolation. Thus I try again to run from the dark abyss of my nothingness and restore my false self in all its vainglory…..
….That is the struggle. It is the struggle to die to the false self. But this struggle is far, far beyond our own strength. Anyone who wants to fight his demons with his own weapons is a fool….
Reading Henri’s writings again leaves me wondering about the true depth of my soul life. What does it mean and what do we learn when we drop our roles as friends, neighbours, children, family, partners and workers and simply exist in the presents of the holy other in solitude? And what of the flip side? Is there enlightenment in being submerged in these roles and relationships to the point of losing the false self?
Age
West Papua Forum - Wed 15
February 14, 2006
Public Forum - West Papua Asylum Seekers
Wednesday 15 February,
6.30pm: @ Kaleide Theatre, RMIT University, 350 Swanston St, Melbourne (between LaTrobe and Franklin Sts, diagonally opposite Melbourne Central train station).
Speakers Pamela Curr, Aslylum Seeker Resource Centre; Senator Kerry Nettle (Australian Greens), just back from Christmas Island; Herman Wainggai (video from Christmas Island), West Papua Asylum seeker; Scott Burchill, Deakin University.
Info 0409 268 978I
manukoreri@riseup.net
Age
Art for Peace
February 13, 2006
The Medical Association for the Prevention of War is holding an Art for Peace exhibition and auction, opening on 26 January 2006 at the Counihan Gallery, 233 Sydney Road, Brunswick. The auction will be held on 18 February. The exhibition will be opened at 6pm - 8 pm on Thursday 26 January and runs 26 January - 18 February. For further information contact either the Counihan Gallery on (03) 9389 8622 or the Medical Association for the Prevention of War on (03) 8334 1637.
Valentine’s Bubble
February 13, 2006
Age
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