Great Horned Owl Chicks: What's the Neurophysiology of 'Now'?, Berkeley Student Fee-Rise Protest, Zil-lions of motifs & rifs for Loving Bliss

What's the neurophysiology of 'now,' that quality of experience in life which some research (e.g. Csikszentmihalyi's "Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience" and traditions (e.g. Hinduism, New Age) point to as optimal or heightened, - what's its biochemistry?

And at World University & School:


worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Biochemistry_of_%27Now%27

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Tofu and vegetables! And there's something about the jostle-dance in the too-crowded Saturday afternoon Berkeley Bowl {almost co-op} Grocery Store which is cooperatively beautiful :)

... especially among the amazingly varied, richly hued fruits and vegetables ...


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There's a student protest at Berkeley yesterday against a 22% tuition increase.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/11/20/BA611ANSAB.DTL

And here's a related youtube.com video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7MQfWABkDw

And Judith Butler on the protests:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/sep/30/california-university-berkeley-budget-protest


Police were in riot gear. Students were protesting for a just cause.

Police had completely surrounded the Bancroft library and Wheeler Hall, which building students had occupied.

Students were angry and chanting.

What else can students do except protest, when the historic University of California at Berkeley propounds the idea of free education, and the Regents keep raising fees, - for more than a century now?

(web site)

I went to this protest with a student friend from China and a Cal graduate student.


We talked about interpreting this demonstration as a touristic event. We also took photos of each other with police in riot gear, with very serious faces behind us. And one of us took a photo of another of us taking a photo of the third person in our party with a backdrop of dour-faced riot police (with weapons, I think).



As we were walking toward the protest, I wondered out loud (to my friends) who in the Alameda County financial office, was counting (accounting for) the costs of this event to the taxpayer and the university, and whether media saw this as performative event, even - something symbolic or emblematic of Berkeley, which they could capitalize on through advertising. Here the police and students become actors in, and products of, capitalism. They also become an emblem or symbol understood around the world. {I can imagine media interests thinking the Scandanavian countries need a good Berkeley protest for these particular Scandanavian politicians}. They were also performing protest.

What's Berkeley without a good student protest?

And these Berkeley protest memes ('replicating cultural units') come through time with remarkable authenticity.





Here's what I wrote to my Chinese friend:


Nice to go to the Berkeley protest with you and Sandy. It's an old (45+ years) Berkeley pattern ... As I think about it, these protests in Berkeley over the years against the UC Regents very much echo what that Chinese man did in standing down those Chinese tanks in Tiananmen Square about 15 years ago (1989 actually). Talk to you later.

(en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiananmen_Square_protests_of_1989)

I observed to my friend that there's a kind of civil contract between Berkeley police and UC Berkeley students, for example, which feels very different to me than in China, which I've visited for 5 days only (in 1999). Violence against student protesters is relatively unlikely these days in California.


~

I also saw the irony and the significance of my developing the free, open World University & School which may make great educational opportunities, including Berkeley, free to students around the world.

The rising costs of one of the greatest public universities in the world, in contrast to its original mandate and charter is fascinating to me.

There's a lot of Berkley nostalgia for the 1960s these days, I think, as well.


****

Exploring in an ongoing way ...

bodyminds as musical instruments' metaphor & loving bliss neurophysiology as music. How would this work? Zil-lions of motifs & rifs. Players?


Contact Improv brings everything together neurophysiologically in great ways ... the movement, the teach, the improvisation are wonderful ...



To get to bliss ... ? Harbin pools ? MMmmmm .... :)








(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2009/11/great-horned-owl-chicks-whats.html - November 21, 2009)