The Virtual Peace Garden

I would just like to extend my thanks once more to the class Topics in Rhetoric and Writing, one for which the Virtual Peace Garden is itself an appropriate extension. I took that class only some four months or so ago now from Dr. Kevin Brooks, and some of the central concepts that I learned pertaining to writing and especially to personal expression within English studies are proving highly useful to me as I push forward in my academic career.

Yoko Ono's "Imagine Peace Tower" is a tribute to John Lennon and their peace-seeking life together.

http://imaginepeace.com/news/imagine-peace-tower

When we were reading WPGV, I kept asking myself (and anybody who was listening)--what image of peace is needed? What image of peace would be powerful, fresh, successful? what does peace look like? A Flickr and Google Image search shows the peace symbol and a lot of great nature shots, but in the context of WPGV, a different image is needed. I kept saying "infrastructure" is the image needed, but infrastructure is not very photo generic. The following quotation, however, from a story about the Duk Lost Boy Clinic in Duk County, Sudan, is a verbal picture of peace.

Sarah is ready to start posting text in our SL Peace Chapel, so I made a video collection of many of the quotations that line the wall of the real Peace Chapel. I hope she will be able to pull this video into SL, as well as create text on the walls.

Sarah and I have actually met in world a few times, but tonight we met f2f. Sarah showed me the work she had done on a model of a chapel, she showed me the parameters of our 1/2 a sim (having a full sim would be sweet), and we talked through a plan. We sketched out where the six "peripherals" could go. We talked about how to blend ideas from the IPG and the Garden of Cosmic Speculation; I should have scanned my sketch. I felt like Frank Gehry; I rambled and made chicken scratches, Sarah will turn them into a work of art.

I attended two SL presentations tonight. Rusty Carpenter (which seems like a great SL name, but isn't) from UCF talked about the way their writing center uses SL, but I got particularly interested in his use of Ulmer, his own attempts to construct a MEmorial, and things like that. I hope he stops by our little garden, perhaps joins the club.

I spent about 90 minutes in SL today: first upgrading my client, then upgrading my account, buying some Lindens so I could set up a group (The Virtual Peace Gardeners), then setting up the group including invites for Valerie and Lazarus.

If all the original Gardeners want to join the group, just email me or contact me in world.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/02/17/new.york.beheading/index.html?iref=m...

I saw this on CNN last night. I haven't added it to my MEmorial yet. I am waiting to see what comes out. Not yet sure if she was a victim of faith or "just" domestic violence. Certainly the manner of her murder is indicative of my MEmorial... I am thinking about how my proposal suggested the global village would put actions like this more our ethnocentric radar....

An introduction is necessary I suppose! I'm Sarah, and I'm a Junior majoring in Zoology at North Dakota State University (Go Bison!). I love music, writing, travel, my family, and you guessed it, computers. I certainly wouldn't be here if I didn't! So, now that you know a little bit about me, however brief and short (I might add onto this later if I feel like it...), let's dive into my Second Life experience.

As I reflect on the MEmorials that we did last semester, I have developed a new and increasing concern for all matters pertaining to the environment and the current state of affairs that encompasses all of our concerns as students, citizens, and human beings. My reflection has prompted me to switch gears from taking a personal interest in planetary matters to simply taking an interest in the problem that is facing everyone these days--and an increasing problem at that. The problem is the economy, of course; and I am now convinced that a MEmorial to our current predicament would serve a necessary purpose. The MEmorial could, at the very least, present some logical solutions to the problem.

Although my own knowledge on the current economic situation is limited to what I see and hear at a more passive level, I am not without my own opinions on the matter; and I think and fear that if everyone does not come together now and attempt to generate some logical solutions and/or steps to this problem, then we are all going to be in some serious trouble. A MEmorial to the current economic situation, therefore, could best be used to present some logical solutions and, at the very least, to generate some much-needed jobs.

I know that I personally have always managed to have enough money, jobs, etc; but I am very worried about those who cannot say that. I therefore believe a MEmorial targeted at those in severe economic strife would certainly be much appreciated.

I also appreciate now in retrospect Landon’s MEmorial most of all because his attempted to cast some light on some real economic problems.

Later Gardeners.