Bits and Facts
I once had an old nun, who lives in a small and very old church in Jerusalem, tell me over and over that God works in strange and wonderful ways. I don't know about the God part. Seems to me that the real power and hope lies with folks working together to build a better future. But strange and wonderful I understand. The world is strange and wonderful.
(And yes, that is a picture of me to the left there.)
If you somehow missed it on the way in my name is Jedidjah de Vries. You can read a short autobiography which will give you a good picture of me and my life (so far).
Food, people and books make life worth living. I am quite the nerd and my friends often affectionately call me weird.
I am a Jewish American of Dutch ancestry. Or as I like to put it: as American as kosher-Dutch apple pie. (I am Jewish in culture only — I am not at all religious.) However, I don't regard cultural identity as at all important or a big part of who I am.
I was a philosophy major (at UCSB) with an emphasis in Ethics and Public Policy, and before you ask I do not want to teach; I want to change the world. I am rather to the left in my world view (some might call me an egg-sucking-pinko-liberal but anarchist will do fine) and wish to work in the area of politics, activism and the public sphere to fight militarism, imperialism & capitalism.
I've been a webmaster for the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and Outreach Director for Tri-Valley CAREs, a non-profit watchdog on the Lawrence Livermore Lab which design nuclear weapons. I have always been and always am involved in some form of activism, such as the Santa Barbara Infoshop. Currently I am a graduate student in Social Theory & Public Affairs at the University of Amsterdam's International School for Humanities and Social Sciences.
My name is unusual and since you were wondering…
The first name is Hebrew. It's from the bible (Samuel 12:25) and means friend of god
. The prophet Nathan uses it to refer to King Solomon. I use the actual Hebrew pronunciation so please try to say "Yuh— dee— dyah". My parents did not mean for it to be a religious name — but it was important for them (and me) that I have a Jewish name. My friends often call me Diddy (not in honor of Sean Combs). I will not answer to Jed or Jedidiah (as in Jedidiah Smith).
The middle name is Greek. There is nothing Greek about me. My mother read the name Lisandré
in a French book and decided to use (what she assumed would be) the masculine form Lisander. She had not read A Midsummer night's Dream
, in which a character by the name Lysander appears nor had she heard of the Spartan general by the same name. Personally, I would like to think of my self as named after Lysander Spooner — even if he was an individual—anarchist. If you were wondering the name is from the Greek Λυσανδρος, which means release of a man
, i.e. liberator
.
The last name is a good solid Dutch name. It means the folks from Friesland — an area in Holland. So it's safe to assume I have some ancestors from there.
If there is anything else you would like to know, or if you just want to say hi, feel free to get in touch.