I...... am a Liberal and a DFH. Proud of it.
I have a liberal arts education from an anti-war college.
I don't wear Birkenstocks or drive a Volvo, but I do likes me some espresso and I am an unrepentant coffee snob.
Not that I like to just blow what little money I have on coffee: coffee isn't necessarily all that good for you so intake should be somewhat limited and therefore, in my calculus, coffee should be as good as it can be for a reasonable price.
Whole Payhceck er... Foods has had, in the past, an exellent deal on organic coffee, but I stopped shopping there partly because of the expense of other things and partly because I now never drive near one.
I now buy almost all of my coffee exclsuively from Sevananda in the Little 5 Points area of Atlanta.
Sevananda, (pronounced "SEY-vuh-NAHN-dah"), cooperatively owned since 1974 was created to empower the community to improve its health and well-being. Sevananda is a Sanskrit word meaning The Joy of Service!
It is a very eclectic, pro-vegan, supper-hippie kind of place.
They have hemp milk.
They also have a great selection of organic and fair trade coffees all under $11 a pound. My current fave is to use about 1/3 Organic Peruvian dark roast with 2/3 organic Sumatran. it is a wonderful pot of coffee and probably cost about $1.50 to make a full pot.
So I have been going there at least every other week for a couple years now.
There's a man at the grocery checkout there that is a fine example of the diversity there. He appears to me, for all the world, to be from India with the unique and colorful garb he always wears.
He's from Indiana, he tells me. I'm from Indiana but he doesn't look like the regular Hoosier.
He appears to be fully dreadlocked with his locks up in a matching headwrap. His beard is dreadlocked and grey. He appears to be in his mid-50's. He needs some dental work but he always seems happy and positive.
We have become somewhat familiar as I always say hi to him and get in his lane if he's working and we talk.
Everytime I come in I say hi and ask him how he's doing.
He always replies with a happy and definitive "PERFECT!"
This puts a smile on my face. I'm the guy who always answers that question "not bad" to "pretty good". I am apparently not as sure of things as my distinguished acquaintance is. Things can change rapidly during the day.
This last time I went through he tells me he is perfect again Something comes up - I can't remember what - but I make a comment about the people giving their money to the rich in the big tax giveaway recently. I feel like we're just cattle for the slaughter.
He said something like we are seeing the beginning of the end of the old system. He was not concerned about the surface issue: artifacts of an underlying system. He felt that change is already afoot and we are already on a path to major changes sometime in 2012.
I commented on his positive attitude and he said "I'm not positive: I have transcended!"
And then he told me about the 100th Monkey.
"Have you ever heard of the 100th Monkey?" he asked.
"Nope", I said.
I found a description at Wikipedia
The hundredth monkey effect is a supposed phenomenon in which a learned behavior spreads instantaneously from one group of monkeys to all related monkeys once a critical number is reached. By generalization it means the instantaneous, paranormal spreading of an idea or ability to the remainder of a population once a certain portion of that population has heard of the new idea or learned the new ability. The story behind this supposed phenomenon originated with Lawrence Blair and Lyall Watson in the mid-to-late 1970s, who claimed that it was the observation of Japanese scientists.
The Holy Man, as I now call him, out of basic respect, told me that the idea that we have to rely on each other - as opposed to institutions like banks and government - is the idea that is spreading and it is reaching critical mass in human society in general.
The wikipedia article goes on to report that the idea of the '100th monkey effect' was discredited, it appears it would have been somewhat overstated to begin with.
But as a teaching analogy for where humans are now particularly with our global telecommunications and travel, we are all more and more able to communicate. So a '100th monkey effect' is entirely possible with humankind without any sort of actual mysticism involved.
Capitalism is the old system. It is based on greed and selfishness and has run its course.
And it has damaged the planet and countless numbers of people in its greedy exploits.
The most recent massive giveaway to the wealthy is part of the old pattern. Capitalists take for the poor and feather their own massive nests.
The Holy man seems to think that system is going to end far sooner than I do, that is is already underway and irreversible.
Here's hoping he's right.