It seems that every time I try to mediate, a barrage of ice-cream trucks come ambling down the street blasting songs on low-fi speakers just to test my focus and patience.

Yesterday I was driving with my son and we pulled up to a light. The guy next to us had his stereo blasting. My son turned on the radio in my truck. I shut it off as he looked at me as if he couldn't stand the guy's radio next to us. I didn't say anything just sat there waiting for the light to change, listening to the noise, and then the light changed and it was gone.And my own radio stayed off. Maybe, like a Great American Smoke Out, we should have a Noise Out. That all noise that comes from all things unliving ie... televisions, radios, machines.... It happens more then so often that people just think everyone wants to enjoy the noise they are making. I would wager to bet that crime would be down at least 50% on a noise out day. Wouldn't it be awesome to just hear the world as it truly is for a full day in the neighborhood or village or countryside that one calls home?

what most of us might think. According to 'The Thiaoouba Prophecy' it can damage our Astral Body. The only other thing that can damage our Astral Body is drugs. Our Astral Body is Eternal and it can take several lifetimes to repair this damage. I wear earplugs when near noise. Read 'The Thiaoouba Prophecy' at www.thiaoouba.com

Oh, tell me about it. Down our road is a main road, and there are sirens sirens sirens most of day and into night.Mostly ambulances (must be doing good business!) People have house alarms, and these sometimes go off, and they will go on and on if person is not home. They can drive you MAD!!!!!! In my lifetime, a lot younger, I can remember lawnmowers that were non-electric and quiet. Now some sound like jumbo jets taking off. And people tend to have this obsessive compulsion to have short freakin grass. I am sure that even in nuclear war they would keep at keepin their precious grass short! I also hate the ice cream van. he plays really loud the tune The Sting. If your walkin round the hood and he passes you it deafens The general noise of the traffic, cause we have the busy road and at the back a motorway. So its this background noise constant At our local park you wonder what it'd be like to have no traffic noise as you struggle to hear the wildlife. And I am sure they struggle to What else what else?? Oh yeah, you got the DIY dudes with their power tools that come out mostly when its sunny. So...get the picture? Its ALL manmade racket When you hear the TV, you find that it is constant chatter. VERY VERY rarely is there any sapce where a mouth isn't spouting out words So when you eventually get to a place in the countryside where you can at LAST hear the natural world you realize what has been lost for many people. It is a BLESSING!

I hear you. Not to add salt to a wound, but it has been a pet-peave of mine for many years: the stench of artificial 'scents' from dryers. 'Laundry day' is another dimension of torment. Where we live, we are blessed with much greenery and a wide diversity of flowering plants, including two of the most intoxicating of our flowering kin: daphney deodora and nicotiana.

Most of my life, come spring the first and in summer the latter have sent me over the moon and both have signalled seasons in very special ways. But in recent times? You smell 'soap' or 'dryer rags'. It is 'odorous noise'.

The fire department is called out whenever someone from the 'old school' trys to burn leaves. Who doesn't know that nostalgic aroma? But, any yahoo with a fire-place can burn plastic and the fire-department just sits by.

Where I live, we have the largest wilderness inside a city-limits of any state in our Union. So we are kinda big-small-town. Urban and rural almost at once. We don't have the 'ice-cream' truck problem so much as the droning of air-planes circling while taking pictures for developers.

Keep your center. Smell your own armpits if necessary. Don't let the *******s get you down. Most of all, start making your reps earn their income. Complain to your reps. You don't have to have a perfect thesis. Letter writers are a big pain in their ass, and it makes them act because they know the power of word of mouth and the movement inherant in one dissatisfied 'customer'. JFK was the first politician to admit this in modern times in his book: Profiles in Courage.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Profiles_in_Courage

I once called a state rep to ask him about the fact he abstained from a vote. He seemed to want to change the conversation from that to my activism and how it might be a good thing to go into politics!

We tend to be insular. All that stuff about being informed and educated when it only means being simply inlets or voicing ourselves in blogs, etc., is mere tinsel; but it can be very potent in making things change when pointed where it needs to be pointed. Know what I mean? This is a practice arena. Formulate thoughts here, but ultimately, if we say nothing to our reps, we are spittin' in the wind or just preaching to the choir.