joel marion (dot) blogspot (dot) com
My name is Joel. This is my Blog.

Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Don't read this if you don't want to know how horrible War really is
Because some of the readers of my blog are here for other reasons I offer a warning:

Don't read this if you don't want to know how horrible War really is.
Don't read this if you can't stomach hearing the kinds of pain and suffering happening every day in the world (in graphic detail).

This is not an appeal. This is not a plea. This is just one of millions of stories that happened to cross my path.

I received this email this morning.

(rough english translation follows)

On 3/21/07, toussaint BANSI wrote:
Bien aimé dans le Seigneur, c’est avec un plein plaisir dont je viens pour vous atteindre afin de vous relater l’état de ma vie dont l’avenir me semble incertaine, je suis orphelin rescapé de guerre, après avoir perdu toute ma famille dont le papa a été calciné et brûlé pour avoir refuser leurs injonctions de faire des relations sexuelles avec ma sœur aînée dont sa fille, la maman tuée de même pour le refus de na pas manger le corps de papa. Une famille de 5 enfants dont nous sommes pour le moment en vie et les responsabilités mes sont confiées, nous avons quittés le village en pied vers le centre ville à une distance de 350 Km avec toute souffrance, dont nous habitons la capitale de la république démocratique du Congo, l’orphelinat qui nous a accueilli n’a pas une structure viable pour des personnes en détresse, les gens meurent le jour au jour sans encadrement, sans soins de santé sans logement ni médicament, sans nourriture. Nous sommes logés par terre, considérés comme de bouchers humains dans cette ville étrangère où nous ne connaissons personnes. Franchement, j’ai pitié de vous relater ce désarroi dont nous traversons. Je suis étudiant et l’orphelinat qui a voulu me supporter ne parvient pas de payer les frais académiques je suis buté aux problèmes multiple d’ordre financier, médicament, nourriture, et consort. Dans cette hypothèse je viens très humblement auprès de vous solliciter une modeste somme de 1000$ (USA) pour notre survie d’abord ; je vous supplie de jeter un regard de bonté sur moi et mes petits frères et sœurs. votre geste ne passera pas inaperçu devant le seigneur et toutes les bénédictions vous seront accordées.
recevez mes sincères remerciements
Toussaint BANSI
République Démocratique du Congo
Ville Kinshasa .

(my rough attempt at translation, with some help from http://ets.freetranslation.com/):

Beloved in the Lord, it is with great pleasure that I come to you to relate the state of my life, the future of which seems uncertain. I am an orphan of war, having lost my whole family. My father was burned and charred for having refused injunctions to have sexual relations with my eldest sister, his daughter. My mother was killed the same for having refused to eat my father's body. We are now a family of five surviving children, the responsibility for which falls upon me. We left our village by foot, travelling 350km to the city with all the attendant suffering, and are now living in the capital, Kinshasa. The orphanage that took us in has no viable shelter for distressed people. People die every day unsupervised, with no health care, no medicine, no food. We are sleeping on the floor, treated inhumanely, in this city in which we know no one. Frankly, I am sad to relate to you this disarray that we are undergoing. I am a student at the orphanage, but they cannot pay my school fees, and I am faced with multiple financial, medical, nutritional, and related problems. It is from this situation that I humbly approach you to ask for a sum of (US)$1000 for our survival. I ask you to look favourably on me and my little brothers and sisters. Your gesture will not pass unnoticed before the lord and all the blessings will be accorded to you.
My sincere thanks.
Toussaint BANSI
Kinshasa
Democratic Republic of Congo

--
Written at 2:09 PM by joel.
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Tuesday, March 20, 2007
10,000 Days
In a moment of curious daydreaming (and clearly not doing the studying I had sat down for), I found myself wondering about the name of Tool's album, 10,000 days. How long is that, exactly? I thought to myself. And when will I reach this mysterious milestone?
Well, a quick google search later, and I found a website dedicated to answering exactly this question (something for everyone, eh?!). Turns out on my 10,000th day I will be 27 years, 4 months, and 16 days old... and the date will be September 13, 2008.
...
the irony is perhaps only my own.
Written at 5:36 PM by joel.
2 comments
Monday, March 05, 2007
A deep breath... a moment set upon contemplation quickly turns to chaos... another breath, this time much shallower... conscious of the tensions holding it back. The discord between this sensation and 'the unbearable lightness of being' exacerbates my discomfort.

The fact that the majority of the stress finds root in my mind does little to improve my situation, except maybe to propose a new perspective.

A large part of my discomfort rests in the distance between my interests and the knowledge lending to their accomplishment. My history still lacks the weight of fact.

To a point, I know how to overcome this lack of confidence. The inquisitive mind, transforming problems into challenges - refusing barriers - undertakes the process of exposition.

But should our subject accept the potentiality of insurmountable obstacles? Tautological paradoxes aside (ie: problems the answer to which logically imply divergence from the terms of supposition), can the case be made either for or against what might be called 'that which is obscured from the potential to be known or understood'?

Can we 'know' anything?... or can we 'know' everything? The case might be easier made for the latter, than the former.

Regardless, even at the most base level, absent positive conceptions of development, the concept of learning - of experientially and/or logically affected intellectual change - is undeniable.

Whether or not the process can be fruitful (ie: lending to private or publicly valued ends), is another question altogether.

More to the point: does the will to an end and the logical appreciation of the means imply access to said means? Would it be too simple to say that the redundant question of access to means can be reduced to a utilitarian approach to structure?
Written at 12:11 AM by joel.
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