Politics seems to have devolved into a game played only by and essentially for the benefit of those with wealth and power. Theoretically, politics is the medium through which all of the people’s business is conducted in a reasoned, orderly and respectful fashion. Theoretically, politics is the medium through which civil societies progress. This is the way it is supposed to be in a democracy. But democracies cannot function if governments are corrupted by wealth and its influences and the population remains pathetically uneducated, for an ignorant people can be readily duped into believing that which is patently not true. Such a population is primed for the fearsome manipulation that is the hallmark of demagoguery.
The fact that this nation is rapidly sinking should be no great surprise. America was founded on blood, on slavery, on forced labor. The vast majority of Americans live on stolen land. We have built an economy based on the endless exploitation of foreign labor while allowing the domestic work force to fester. We have allowed our infrastructure to undergo a steady and inexorable collapse from persistent neglect. We have turned over many of the essential aspects of the Commons, such as healthcare, over to the practices of those who live for profit. As a result tens of millions of human beings have been knowingly deprived of access to health care so that a certain few can make hundreds of millions of dollars. These dollars have been built upon needless suffering and unnecessary death. We have placed profit above all else allowing for the sanctioned production of such toxic products as tobacco, Agent Orange, depleted uranium weaponry and napalm. This is a kind of brutality and butchery that is not essentially different than the practices of so-called “organized crime.”
We have failed at educating our people so abysmally that superstition and crazed religious beliefs have trumped science. As a result, the plundering of the planet continues since the threat of climate change is seen as a nasty little hoax perpetrated by godless scientists. We have become a people that are essentially asleep and numb to our own supreme foolishness.
America has been conducting a foreign policy based upon the bankrupt concept of exceptionalism i.e. that we, as a nation, are somehow inherently allowed to behave in regards to other nations anyway we choose regardless of how criminal that behavior might be. As a result, tens of millions of human beings, mostly of different color, have been literally crushed under the weight of massive and brutal military power.
The cumulative weight of our past has left its indelible imprint on character of the nation. We should fear for the future. This fear is misplaced, however, if we focus on the national debt or the supposed threat of socialism or unemployment, for example. We should be concerned, instead, for the people that we have become. If we wish to change the future, we must change ourselves.
Saturday, December 4, 2010
Friday, December 3, 2010
"The Bard"
William Shakespeare (baptised 26 April 1564; died 23 April 1616) was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon". His surviving works, including some collaborations, consist of about 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and several other poems. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright.
Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London as an actor, writer, and part owner of a playing company called the Lord Chamberlain's Men, later known as the King's Men. He appears to have retired to Stratford around 1613, where he died three years later. Few records of Shakespeare's private life survive, and there has been considerable speculation about such matters as his physical appearance, sexuality, religious beliefs, and whether the works attributed to him were written by others.
Shakespeare produced most of his known work between 1589 and 1613. His early plays were mainly comedies and histories, genres he raised to the peak of sophistication and artistry by the end of the 16th century. He then wrote mainly tragedies until about 1608, including Hamlet, King Lear, and Macbeth, considered some of the finest works in the English language. In his last phase, he wrote tragicomedies, also known as romances, and collaborated with other playwrights.
Many of his plays were published in editions of varying quality and accuracy during his lifetime. In 1623, two of his former theatrical colleagues published the First Folio, a collected edition of his dramatic works that included all but two of the plays now recognised as Shakespeare's.
Shakespeare was a respected poet and playwright in his own day, but his reputation did not rise to its present heights until the 19th century. The Romantics, in particular, acclaimed Shakespeare's genius, and the Victorians worshipped Shakespeare with a reverence that George Bernard Shaw called "bardolatry". In the 20th century, his work was repeatedly adopted and rediscovered by new movements in scholarship and performance. His plays remain highly popular today and are constantly studied, performed and reinterpreted in diverse cultural and political contexts throughout the world. (read more)
Look To The Skies
Look at the United Kingdom of Great Britain, covered, very neatly under a blanket of snow, it’s white and crisp, children are having time off school and a new concept has come into the workplace, “Snow days” in the temperate climate that we enjoy in the UK have we ever before experience such a universal coving in snow? We are a long island, facing the Atlantic, our weather is variable up and down the country, Scotland very often does see snow, and the south coast, with unique micro climates very seldom enjoys the universal blanket that we have at the moment.
Perhaps, grounds for suspicion in these days of Chemical trails and HAARP weather changing technology, certainly it has been a long time since clear blue skies we seen over our green and pleasant land. However for the past five days I have seen no sky at all, a blanket of low lying white obscures any sight of the sky, I have not seen the sun or the moon for nearly a week, and I look, there is zero visibility, and yet planes still fly overhead to and from Heathrow airport. I miss both the sun and the moon; perhaps many others do without realising it. (read more...)
"charlie"
Charles Bernard "Charlie" Rangel (born June 11, 1930) is the U.S. Representative for New York's 15th congressional district, serving since 1971. He is a member of the Democratic Party. As the most senior member, he is the Dean of New York's congressional delegation. In January 2007, Rangel became Chair of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, the first African-American to do so. He is also a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus.
Rangel enlisted in the United States Army, and served from 1948 to 1952. During the Korean War, he was a member of the all-black 503rd Field Artillery Battalion in the 2nd Infantry Division.
In late November 1950, this unit was caught up in heavy fighting in North Korea as part of the U.N. forces retreat from the Yalu River. In the Battle of Kunu-ri, Rangel was part of a vehicle column that was trapped and attacked by the Chinese Army. In the subzero cold, Rangel was injured by shrapnel from a Chinese shell. Some U.S. soldiers were being taken prisoner, but others looked to Rangel, who though only a private first class had a reputation for leadership in the unit. Rangel led some 40 men from his unit, during three days of freezing weather, out of the Chinese encirclement. Nearly half of the battalion was killed in the overall battle.
Rangel was awarded a Purple Heart for his wounds and the Bronze Star with Valor for his actions in the face of death. His Army unit was awarded the Presidential Unit Citation, the Republic of Korea Presidential Unit Citation, and three battle stars. In 2000, Rangel reflected with CBS News that
"Since Kunu Ri – and I mean it with all my heart, I have never, never had a bad day."
Rangel later viewed his time in the Army, away from the poverty of his youth, as a major turning point in his life: "When I was exposed to a different life, even if that life was just the Army, I knew damn well I couldn't get back to the same life I had left." After an honorable discharge from the Army with the rank of staff sergeant, he returned home to headlines in The New York Amsterdam News.
Rangel finished high school, completing two years of studies in one year and graduating in 1953. Rangel then received a Bachelor of Science degree from the New York University School of Commerce in 1957, where he made the dean's list. Then, on full scholarship, he obtained his law degree from the St. John's University School of Law in 1960.
Rangel is a member of Alpha Phi Alpha, the first intercollegiate Greek-letter fraternity established for African-Americans. He is also a member of the fraternity's World Policy Council, a think tank whose purpose is to expand Alpha Phi Alpha's involvement in politics and social and current policy to encompass international concerns. (read more)
"Charlie"
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Dear Santa . . . a letter from Ireland
WE KNOW it’s been a very long time since we last wrote to you and indeed, we wouldnt be bothering you now, at a time when you are so hectically busy, if we didnt truly believe that you were our last hope. As youre probably well aware, given that the NPN (North Pole News) covered the story in graphic detail, things haven’t been great in Ireland for some time now, but of late, we’ve reached an all-time low.
Firstly however, we feel we must point out that although you saw fit to give us nothing but coal in our Christmas stockings for the last couple of years, we assure you that unlike Portugal, Spain and Greece, the Irish people were most grateful for your gift as without it, we may not even have survived the last few bitter winters of discontent.
Of course, you of all people, will know if we’ve been naughty or nice over the past 12 months but we beg you to be particularly forgiving and understanding this Christmas, given that our nerves are somewhat frayed and frazzled after three years of austerity, hardship and deprivation.
Now, just to be crystal clear about this Santa, where we are beseeching you to look on us favourably, this is not a begging letter as such, as we no longer covet luxury goods such as private jets, helicopters, four-wheel drives, minimalist mansions and designer clothes. In fact, weve gone clean off all of that stuff of late.
Indeed, if we had one magic Christmas wish, it would be to turn back the clock to 2005 (a year before things got completely out of control) where we would auction off every single square inch of our little island to the highest international bidders and convert the sale proceeds into gold bars, which we’d then hide under the beds in our (rented) homes. Needless to say, we’d also have astutely avoided investing in bank shares, pension funds and property syndicates. But since it’s unlikely that even you, Santa Claus, can turn back the clock, we ask instead for the following:
If you could possible spell it out clearly to the Irish Government, the IMF, EU and the ECB that our national economic mess and our bank crash are two separate and distinct problems and should not be bundled together for the sake of saving the euro.
You might also remind them that there are limits to how much pain we can take, all in the name of saving our corrupt lending institutions. And forcing us to pay 5.8 per cent interest on our loan in the hope that such a punitive fee will put off other countries from following our lead is simply ridiculous, as no sovereign state in its right mind would purposely choose to go down this rocky route.......read more
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Biomimicry
Notes from Bioengineering Conference, Nov 25, Long Beach, CA
I like to follow developments that that are the result of ‘biomimicry’. Then again, I’m weird like that. However, I think it’s something that merits attention. Biomimicry is the practice of overcoming obstacles by seeing what works in nature. Naturalistic observation is just as valid as ‘laboratory observation’ in science. According to the speakers today, discovering how things work in nature has inspired breakthroughs in computer technology, renewable energy and regenerative medicine, just to name three.
Renewable energy: Biologists observing the motion of humpback whales have found more efficient ways to capture energy from the wind. They noticed how the saw-tooth bumps (tubercles) that line the edge of a whale’s fin help them perform better in slow-moving water. When they line the edge of blades on a wind-turbine with similar bumps; the blades rotate faster in response to slow-moving wind. This has led to the installation of more efficient and lower-profile ‘wind-mills’ in the desert outside of Palm Springs.
Regenerative medicine: Psychologists observing the natural development of language have made contributions to the field of regenerative medicine. They saw how children learn grammar as a result of social interaction ..with little or no coaching. When they simulate the social environment of early childhood; stroke victims make faster progress toward recovering language skills. This has led to the design of training-programs, hosted as video games ..that are more interactive and engaging. Results can be seen in speech performance as well as on MRI scans of the brain.
Closing remarks: Geoffrey Spedding, an engineer from USC, talked about limits to what we can learn from nature. He says “… the designs that come through evolution are just good enough to survive, that’s all. Nature has yet to come up with a decent wheel.” I had to disagree. In my humble opinion, evolution did produce an information-processing device capable of infinitely more ..the human brain. So, however indirect ..nature did invent the wheel.
Rosa
Rosa Louise McCauley Parks (February 4, 1913 – October 24, 2005) was an African American civil rights activist, whom the U.S. Congress later called "the first lady of civil rights", and "the mother of the freedom movement".
On December 1, 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama, Parks, age 42, refused to obey bus driver James Blake's order that she give up her seat to make room for a white passenger. Her action was not the first of its kind. Irene Morgan in 1946, and Sarah Louise Keys in 1955, had won rulings before the U.S. Supreme Court, and the Interstate Commerce Commission, respectively, in the area of interstate bus travel. Nine months before Parks refused to give up her seat, 15-year-old Claudette Colvin refused to move from her seat on the same bus system. In New York City, in 1854, Lizzie Jennings engaged in similar activity, leading to the desegregation of the horsecars and horse-drawn omnibuses of that city. But unlike these previous individual actions of civil disobedience, Parks' action sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
Parks' act of defiance became an important symbol of the modern Civil Rights Movement and Parks became an international icon of resistance to racial segregation. She organized and collaborated with civil rights leaders, including boycott leader Martin Luther King, Jr., helping to launch him to national prominence in the civil rights movement.
At the time of her action, Parks was secretary of the Montgomery chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and had recently attended the Highlander Folk School, a Tennessee center for workers' rights and racial equality. Nonetheless, she took her action as a private citizen "tired of giving in". Although widely honored in later years for her action, she suffered for it, losing her job as a seamstress in a local department store. Eventually, she moved to Detroit, Michigan, where she found similar work. From 1965 to 1988 she served as secretary and receptionist to African-American U.S. Representative John Conyers. After retirement from this position, she wrote an autobiography and lived a largely private life in Detroit. In her final years she suffered from dementia and became embroiled in a lawsuit filed on her behalf against American hip-hop duo OutKast.
Parks eventually received many honors ranging from the 1979 Spingarn Medal to the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Congressional Gold Medal and a posthumous statue in the United States Capitol's National Statuary Hall. Her death in 2005 was a major story in the United States' leading newspapers. She was granted the posthumous honor of lying in state at the Capitol Rotunda. (read more)
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
An English Student
The "kettling" that Barnaby talks about here is when the police surround demonstators and hold them, in this case in the freezing cold.
Who built the moon ?
The Moon is certainly the most puzzling object in our corner of the universe. The many visits made by mankind to the Moon during the 20th Century did little to answer any of the pivotal questions regarding its origin or importance. Our closest neighbor in space is probably more of an enigma now than it has ever been. In Who Built the Moon (Watkins 2005), authors Christopher Knight and Alan Butler have opened a discussion for new questions regarding the existence of the Moon.
Although it is extremely large relative to the Earth, the Moon is very light in mass, in fact only 1/81st part the mass of the Earth, despite being just under 1/3rd the size. This is all the more perplexing now that it is known for certain that the Moon is made from exactly the same sort of rock as the Earth – though with very few of the heavy metals that give our world is mass.
The same observable facts about the Moon that made it so attractive and mysterious to our ancient ancestors still display themselves on a regular basis. The most significant of these is the Moon's ability to exactly cover the face of the Sun at the time of total eclipse. This is possible because the Moon is 'exactly' 1/400th part of the size of the Sun and also that its orbit takes it to a position 1/400th of the distance between the Earth and the Sun. In so large a universe as ours outrageous coincidences are certain to happen but this is far from being the end of the story. Such are the orbital characteristics of the Moon that its movements in the sky, when seen from Earth, exactly mirror those of the Sun. As an example, when the Sun sets north of west at midsummer, the full Moon sets south of west at the same time. Although not immediately obvious, this phenomenon might be even more remarkable than the possibility of total eclipse.
The size of a planetary body such as the Moon has little or nothing to do with its orbital characteristics, which are specifically tied to its speed. Yet time and again Knight and Butler came across number parallels that simply defy logic. For example the Earth is 3.66 times larger than the Moon and takes 366 days to go around the Sun. Another peculiarity emerged when it was realized that the Moon, which orbits the Earth in 27.322 days, takes a very neat 10,000 days to complete 366 orbits.
"We discovered so many peculiar mathematical relationships that we were astounded, but we eventually pared them down to a few very specific facts," said Knight. "It amounts to this: The Earth is 109.3 times smaller than the Sun and the Moon is 400 times smaller than the Sun. This inevitably means that the Moon must be 3.66 times smaller than the Earth. Add to this the fact that the Moon orbits at a distance exactly 1/400th that between the Earth and the Sun and what you are left with is so unlikely that it cannot be accounted for by simple chance." (read more)
The Mystery Of Water
Take a multi faceted cut glass crystal wash it well. Hang it at a sunny window, take note that the crystal is blessing you with rainbows on your ceiling or walls. Use a large glass, rinse well and fill with water. Hold the glass by the crystal so that tiny intense rainbows are held within the water. As you do this look out of the window into the world, relax and watch as the crystal continues to charge the water.
When you feel ready drink the water, sip it, as you do so visualize the spirit of the rainbow in you life. Feel yourself filling up with crystal light. If you do not finish the water keep it with you and drink it through out the day.You may find that you see things differently in all aspects of your life and the rainbows will continue to bless you with energies that will make your work in the mundane much simplified. Leave the crystal hanging in the window, remember to wash it regularly.
In these short winter days a candle will do just as well for sun light.
American Isolation
I have been worried for some time now about the attitudes coming from American individuals, there seems to be even more sensitivety than usual lately, which is why I’m writing this, to clear the air and try and get a grip on what is really happening. Americans, along with everyone else are being asked to “Wake up” to look at our respective governments and cultures and challenge what we see to be part of the conspiracy to enslave all of us. Yet time after time when it comes to the crunch Americans will retreat into a defensive position, quoting propaganda such as “We are Free” yet when a definition is sought for “freedom” none is given.
Clearly we are none of us free and are all the victims of the propaganda machine. We each have to see through it for ourselves, find our way through the rabbit hole, learn critical thinking and make our own minds up, as long as it really is our own minds then rational debate and discussion will not be a problem. What concerns me, particularly recently is that rational debate is very hard with brothers and sisters across the pond, not only for me, many friends of mine are finding that American people are becoming very emotional when their programming is challenged and cut themselves off from further contact.
The whole body scanner in the US and TSA scandal and lack of funds has stopped Americans travelling abroad, this together with the false flag of terrorism means that for the past ten years we have seen very few American tourists in England, travellers are open to new ideas and concepts and may well have taken some home with them. Now with the TSA and body scanners many people will be put off from travelling to America. People who could have told you what is really going on here will not be visiting.
The Wikileaks seems to be designed to ridicule the US government and to highlight the prejudices you may have against foreigners and has already caused a lot of anti American rhetoric here. The call from US senators to make Wikileaks a terrorist organisation has met with sighs and shakes of disapproval, many here are already astonished at how much the American individual will allow their own government to get away with, and are perhaps beyond words.
My worry at the moment is that Americans, the individual men and women that we know and love are becoming increasingly isolated from the rest of the world, that real communication is becoming harder and harder, debate, already hard is now becoming impossible. As even the gentlest attempt at waking up an individual is met with emotive accusations at everyone "hating America" we don’t, we hate enslavement of us all, and most truly believe that unless we are all free no one is, many people are putting up with all sorts of abuse just to stay in touch, we don’t want to loose you Americans, we want your freedom too!
Isolation is a real danger to Americans, you are living in a huge country with a well-oiled propaganda machine, and you have been “dumbed down” for generations both through propaganda and through your diet. You can be told what it’s like out here and many of you will believe it. You government is already shutting down web sites, with out warrants and it seems this situation will escalate. Your government has already built 600 internment camps in the US and the whole Denver Airport situation seems very creepy.
Please, please do not allow yourselves to be isolated any further, dislike me and other “alien nationals” all you want, debate with me all you want, prove me wrong, which I would love, I do not want to think we are all so easily manipulated and I would hate to loose any more friends from over the pond. My maiden name is Alden, highly likely therefore that one of my ancestors sailed on the Mayflower, and I do, as do many others, all over the world think of you as brothers and sisters, members of a great family that is man, my hand will always be held out in friendship, many others are here for you too, please remember that through the days ahead.
With love and best wishes, always
Monday, November 29, 2010
Leslie Nielsen
Leslie William Nielsen, OC (February 11, 1926 – November 28, 2010) was a Canadian-American actor and comedian. Nielsen appeared in over 100 films and 1,500 television programs over the span of his career, portraying over 220 characters. Born in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, Nielsen enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force and worked as a disc jockey before receiving a scholarship to Neighborhood Playhouse. Beginning with a television role in 1948, he quickly expanded to over 50 television appearances two years later. Nielsen appeared in his first films in 1956 and began collecting roles in dramas, westerns, and romance films. Nielsen's lead roles in the films Forbidden Planet (1956) and The Poseidon Adventure (1972) received positive reviews as a serious actor.
Although Nielsen's acting career crossed a variety of genres in both television and films, his deadpan delivery as a doctor in Airplane! (1980) marked a turning point in his career, one that would make him, in the words of film critic Roger Ebert, "the Olivier of spoofs." Nielsen enjoyed further success with The Naked Gun film series, based on a short-lived television series Police Squad he starred in. His portrayal of serious characters seemingly oblivious to (and complicit in) their absurd surroundings gave him a reputation as a comedian. In the final two decades of his career, Nielsen appeared in multiple spoof and parody films, many of which were met poorly by critics but performed well in box office and home media releases. He was recognized with a variety of awards throughout his career and was inducted into both the Canada and Hollywood Walk of Fame. Nielsen married four times and had two daughters from his second marriage. On November 28, 2010, Nielsen died in his sleep in a Fort Lauderdale, Florida hospital of complications from pneumonia.
(read more)
Wikileaks
WikiLeaks is an international non-profit media organization that publishes submissions of otherwise unavailable documents from anonymous sources and leaks. Its website, launched in 2006, is run by The Sunshine Press. Within a year of its launch, the site claimed a database that had grown to more than 1.2 million documents.
The organization has described itself as having been founded by Chinese dissidents, as well as journalists, mathematicians, and start-up company technologists from the U.S., Taiwan, Europe, Australia, and South Africa. Newspaper articles and The New Yorker magazine (7 June 2010) describe Julian Assange, an Australian journalist and Internet activist, as its director.
WikiLeaks has won a number of awards, including the 2008 Economist magazine New Media Award. In June 2009, WikiLeaks and Julian Assange won Amnesty International's UK Media Award (in the category "New Media") for the 2008 publication of "Kenya: The Cry of Blood – Extra Judicial Killings and Disappearances", a report by the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights about police killings in Kenya. In May 2010, the New York Daily News listed WikiLeaks first in a ranking of "websites that could totally change the news".
In April 2010, WikiLeaks posted video from a 2007 incident in which Iraqi civilians were killed by U.S. forces, on a website called Collateral Murder. In July of the same year, WikiLeaks released Afghan War Diary, a compilation of more than 76,900 documents about the War in Afghanistan not previously available for public review. In October, the group released a package of almost 400,000 documents called the Iraq War Logs in coordination with major commercial media organisations.
WikiLeaks was launched as a user-editable site, but has progressively moved towards a more traditional publication model, and no longer accepts either user comments or edits, which means, according to Jimbo Wales, that it is not a wiki.
(read more) (wikileaks.ch)
Sunday, November 28, 2010
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"Man needs difficulties; they are necessary for health" C.C. Jung
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Saturday, November 27, 2010
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