Smashing brain cells

I’m sitting here shivering on a beach near Refugio around sunset ..and wondering why Hurricane Jimena never delivered the 5-foot waves it promised. I’m not terribly disappointed though. I’m OK just sitting here feeling composed. Watching the water. Looking back. I believe that riding waves in my early days instilled confidence that has persisted throughout my life. And transferred to a lot of other things. It’s helped me ride out broken relationships ..negotiate tricky business deals ..and basically overcome a lot of the major fuck-ups of adult life. I’m not saying that I’m a perfect example of a self-assured human being or anything. Far from it. But I do believe that a small measure of mastery early in life goes a long way toward helping people weather storms later in life. For me, I’d say it was summers spent riding waves at sunrise in Newport ..catching the ferry at noon ..riding waves at Laguna until sunset ..then crashing campsites in San Clemente till dawn. It made me realize that waves aren’t just something I ride ..they’re cycles of energy I follow. They pick me up in the morning, heightening my senses ..and hurl me down slopes of fluid exhilaration ..refreshing my mind and deconstructing any networks of negative thought I may have built up since last time. It is most therapeutic. I have a profound reverence for the dynamics of the ocean and, by extension, a high regard for the forces of nature ..the nature of people and, in some small and inexplicably visceral way ..the dynamics of the universe at large. That’s probably saying a lot, I know, but sitting here with my feet buried in the sand and watching sunrays shoot across the water .. I’m not sure I care a whole heck of a lot.

K-PAX

Change the way you look at the world

My Enemy

If I destroy my enemy.....


I destroy myself.....


If I save my enemy.....


I save myself.....


If I know my enemy.....


I know myself.....


If I love my enemy.....


I love myself.....

Coastal zone

We used to call them swamps. Oil companies dumped sludge into them. Real estate developers excavated them ..and built pricey coastal communities like Marina Del Rey. Just north of there, surfers in Santa Monica began getting sick ..with symptoms ranging from skin rashes to heart attacks. I used to get ear infections. Investigators discovered high levels of toxins in the water ..both natural and man-made ..and began closing beaches for like months at a time. We don’t call them swamps any longer. They’re ‘estuaries’ ..and they serve a purpose .. filtering runoff before it goes into the ocean ..removing contaminants .. keeping the shoreline hospitable ..and the ocean sustainable (ask a fisherman). The Bolsa Chica wetlands is the only one remaining in Southern California that hasn’t been developed to the point where it’s lost all of that. A 40-year old feud between developers and environmentalists has kept it that way. Fanatical environmentalists. I’ll bet you there’s not one person surfing the nearby river jetty who hasn’t gotten sick.

The New Deal

In 1935 as part of the New Deal in the United States,
the Farm Security Administration (FSA) was an effort
during the Depression to combat American rural poverty.


The FSA is famous for its small but
highly influential photography program, 1935-44,
that portrayed the challenges of rural poverty.


You can see a portion of this collection at the
Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress

Numbers

Today is 09/09/09


it's just another day


not an "evil" day

What USA Seeks to Destroy and How Muslims will React

This article was written in response to an e mail from a very senior US policy maker addressed to me in May 2002.

Basically it was a re-phrasing of what I told him how Muslims will react in response to US invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq.

Although I am a leftist and free thinker this is how I thought Muslim extremists would react.

Over passage of years I believe in it more and more.

Freud was right as I read many years earlier his " Future of an Illusion " in 1985.

USA is neither Christian nor rightist.It is a minority ruled state at war with all the worlds oppressed regardless of whether they belong to any race or religion.


Article I wrote for Daily Nation Lahore 21 June 2002. The Nation published it again in AUGUST 2002. Also published on www.orbat.com the article drew some very outraged responses from US readers:---



WHAT USA SEEKS TO DESTROY

A.H Amin

The three cardinal attributes of today's geopolitics are "globalisation", "non ideological international themes" and "emphasis on economics" rather than "ideological conflict" as the key theme in international relations. It is another thing that below the surface "ideology remains a key issue", "the desire to enslave smaller or weakerstates by larger or stronger states" remains the key issue and "globalisation" is but another name of capitalism practiced at a globalscale.

The so called unipolar system also has limitations and is being repeatedly challenged, if not conventionally, then unconventionally as proved by events of 9/11. The famous philosopher Toffler may have re-defined power but human nature remains the same as it was 2,500 years ago. US Think Tanks and so called experts may advance subtle theses but the underlying conflict is the same i.e. a West which adopted Eastern Christianity and refashioned it as per Barbarian ideals versus an East with a different mindset and a different set of values.

The international capitalist order was challenged by French Revolution and the Communist Revolution in Russia but the power of the imperialistic exploiters could not be broken. Nonetheless without USSR military aid the Arabs could not have survived Israeli hegemonism. This is an irrefutable historical reality.

Long ago the West's present dilemma was summed up by one of its greatest historian Gibbon in the following words "Yet this apparent security should not tempt us to forget that new enemies and unknown dangers may possibly arise from some obscure people, scarcely visible in the map of the world". In the same paragraph Gibbon cited the example of the Arabs who had "languished in poverty and contempt" till the advent of Islam when in Gibbon's words Islam" breathed into those same bodies the soul of enthusiasm".

When modern US thinkers with links with US State decision making and analytical bodies state with confidence that "ideology is no longer fashionable" and that "international terrorism" is the key issue who are they fooling. If this line of thinking is to be followed, whenever any White Man or a Jewish man dies it is terrorism while whenever any non-White or Muslim dies this is casualty inflicted in sheer self defence in the war against terrorism. A stooge is a man who was protected by USSR and a King or Emir or a president protected by US Forces or US aid is a perfect patriot.

Take the "Firebombing of Tokyo" on the fateful night of 9/10 March 1945. On that night the US Airforce in the proud words of an American writer" conducted the most destructive air raid in history". Sixteen square miles of Tokyo were destroyed and some 83,793 Japanese civilian were killed mostly by third degree burns while some 40,918 were injured. A US General proudly exclaimed "It made a lot of sense to kill skilled workers". Compare this with US position on 9/11. If for a moment we accept that 9/11 was a great outrage in which some 3,000 were killed not all of them skilled, what was Tokyo Raid of March 1945?

There is a subtle motivation here. An ulterior geopolitical agenda. The West still fears ideology which it abandoned after 1945 in favour of shameless materialism. It fears men who cannot be bought, who have no fear for the tomorrow, who cannot be stopped by a NATO or the wide Atlantic or wider Pacific. USSR may have been a more synthetic state but the men motivated to die without motivated by the CIA pumped dollar via Silent Soldiers is a more dangerous specie. Enters the Asian and African Collaborator Regimes. Liberal Presidents, subtle Emirs, Egalitarian Kings, all mustered like Sepoy Jahan Khan in the First World War to fight the War against Terror. The Soviets were more naïve if less morally defective than the American decision makers. The Americans seek to accomplish enslavement through more sophisticated methods. Thus one of their intellectuals states in an article that "unlike centuries past, when war was the great arbiter, today the most interesting type of power do not come out of the barrel of the gun".

Today this man says "there is a much bigger pay off in getting others to want what you want". And there is no shortage of collaborators, ambitious men who usurped power whether it was after the downfall of Ottoman Empire with British or French money or in Egypt or Pakistan or in Indonesia.

Somewhere deep inside the US decision makers are at a loss to admit as to how with a 30 Billion USD intelligence budget, 13 Federal Organisations dealing with Intelligence and some 30,000 eavesdroppers employed by USA's National Security Agency was the Al Qaeda able to strike. Compare 30 Billion USD per year spent since two decades with maybe 4 Billion USD lost in 9/11. If the East or the Islamic World has any edge over the West it is in willingness to sacrifice rather than materialism and selfishness.

What the West and particularly the USA fears is not nuclear weapons but men motivated by ideology. Men who cannot be bought like the so many Emirs, Kings and Military Presidents from Morocco till Pakistan.

The world has not changed from Gibbons' times. The New Barbarians as the USA sees the Muslim radicals are more dangerous because they cannot be bought. Because they have operational talent and strategic acumen. Because they do not beg like Sadat for a Camp David but fight with their limbs rather than Stingers. What the US seeks is destruction of ideology which as per one theme presently floated in the so called prestigious National Defence College at Islamabad is no longer fashionable.

This is the Clash of Civilisation and will continue till this world exists or till the USA discovers a new planet where human beings can survive and to which the Americans will migrate after all the mineral resources of this world are exhausted and we are left to die without water or fuel.

If this is so and if low intensity war is the only way in which the conventionally weaker forces can defeat the conventionally stronger forces then so be it. If extremism in thought or ideology is out of fashion and out of favour with USA and its camp followers, so be it. If we are in any case condemned to be sub humans in a world order dominatedby the G-7 and have no other recourse but to fight with bomb, dagger or suicide explosive pack then so be it.

Jala kay Mashal-i-Jaan, Hum Junoon-Sifaat Chalay. Jo Ghar ko aag lagaay,hamarey saath chalay.

Translation of the above verse in Urdu done for my dear friend Oberon who cares to read what I write

God Bless You Oberon

(lighting the oil torch of passionate faith we the fearless fanatics proceed into the arena,anyone who accompanies us to fight must first set his own house and all his /her assets on fire)

Altered states

Notes from Cuzco, Peru ~ April 1977

On the slopes of the Andes, in a yurt overlooking a sage-green valley, I’m participating in a peyote ceremony that has taken place here for over 1,000 years. I’m collecting data for my senior thesis: ‘The neurological basis of hallucinations’. However, none of my faculty advisers know I’m here, and if they did ..they would probably deny any involvement. I’m here because I want to experience, first hand, the psychological effects of a guided peyote session the way it’s practiced by South American Indians ..and not for purposes of recreation the way I used to. I have a theory that human nature follows a cycle; it fluctuates between the need for ‘order and stability’ ..followed by the need for ‘exploration and rebellion’ against order and stability. I arrived at this theory from reading books by Aldous Huxley, as well as personal experience. I’m hardly able to sustain a committed relationship for more than a few months. Anyway, I believe that early Indian cultures had less destructive ways to deal with this cycle that didn’t involve excessive alcohol, domestic violence or broken homes. The peyote ceremony is, in a sense, a ‘guided’ exploration into altered states of consciousness ..followed by a gentle period of ‘re-entry’ that allows participants to integrate their extra-ordinary experiences with the ordinary reality of everyday life. It satisfies the need for exploration in a way that is far less disruptive, and way more conducive, to the well being of the individual and the tribe.

Exploration: The session begins ..our Guide is waving a rope of burning incense ...intended to awaken our senses. A drum beat softly repeats ..intended to strengthen our bond to the present. Tea is poured and cups ceremoniously passed between participants sitting cross-legged around a low bronze table. The simple act of sharing also helps bring us back to the present. I feel grounded and eagerly await whatever forms my altered perception may take. After experiencing several waves of nausea ..followed by tea .. images of early childhood begin to appear ..rising and falling .. over and over .. leaving me clutching at something for security (later I find my shirt lying bunched-up and wet on the floor beside me). Our Guide gently reminds us to watch these images flow until they vanish. Next, the blows of adolescence appear ..rising and falling ..leaving me feeling bruised and vulnerable until I’m barely able to hold back my tears. Our Guide gently reminds us to watch these images flow until they vanish. Now I hear someone playing a flute. Sounds soothing. Now I feel alternating sensations of tea and mango splash down my throat. Sweet and refreshing. I pass the plate from one grinning face to another. Now I’m grinning. Now it looks like I’m sitting between two huge grinning masks ..suspended in space. One of them starts laughing ..then another ..and another ..until everyone is rocking with waves of laughter. I feel a grip loosening, and worries, stretching back as far as I can remember ..lift like fog. I feel euphoric. But it isn’t long before the feeling of euphoria turns into panic. I’m looking down and there’s nothing there ..it's like I’m hanging over an abyss. Without the customary sense of worry, my psyche collapses like a house of cards. I scream and lose consciousness. When I awake, I recall lying with my head in the lap of one of the female assistants ..while she wipes my face with cool water. I’m shaking.

Re-entry: I’m listening to our Guide give instructions for re-entry (we were also given a copy of these to take with us). It went something like this: “..as you return, remember ..a river comes out of the mountains ..flowing and cohesive. Its power comes from yielding .. overcoming what’s hardest with what’s softest. As you return, remember ..follow the watercourse way ..choose harmony over quarreling. As you return, remember ..follow the watercourse way .. throw the portals of your tent open and pay homage to what’s light in the world. As you return, remember ..follow the watercourse way .. the soft quality of your mind will overcome the hardness of the obstacles you face. Remember, follow the watercourse way …the watercourse way …the watercourse way ..” and I could hardly forget. I could still hear these words echoing in my head for weeks afterward while I finished writing my thesis and submitted it for a round of grueling final arguments. I think it helped. Either that or they just caved.

"Hillary-The Movie"

Hillary: The Movie, a slashing critique of then-Sen. Hillary Clinton, is taking center stage tomorrow at the U.S. Supreme Court, where the film's producers are using it to challenge the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law.

During the 2008 presidential primary campaign, a conservative advocacy group called Citizens United produced Hillary: The Movie, a 90-minute documentary that was available on DVD and came and went quickly in theaters. The group wanted to run it on cable TV as an on-demand movie and maintained that it was not subject to federal campaign rules because the movie did not say explicitly that people should vote for or against Clinton.

Now this case, involving the Hillary movie, has morphed into a broad attack on McCain-Feingold again. It is also an attack on the notion, first put forth by the Supreme Court more than 100 years ago, that corporate contributions from general treasury funds can be banned.

Representing Citizens United on Tuesday is Ted Olson, who as solicitor general in the Bush administration successfully defended the McCain-Feingold law in the Supreme Court six years ago. This time he is on the other side, attacking the law as it has been applied and contending that corporations should be allowed to spend unlimited amounts of their general treasury funds in campaigns.

"What is the matter with corporations? Are they inherently evil? Corporations — just as much as individuals — are entitled to protection under the First Amendment," Olson says.

But Larry Noble, former general counsel for the Federal Election Commission, counters that this case is not really about small nonprofit corporations and their corporate contributors.

"What Citizens United is doing here is its actually making a broadside attack on the corporate prohibition," Noble says.
(read more)

(Would you accept a ruling that gives corporate entities the same rights as a person?)

Finding Footing

Transience is one thing

Detachment is another

Kills me when you say

To never even bother

I hate it when you’re right

But not because I’m wrong:

I’m scared of how it is

And I knew it all along

Sincerity is everything

But watch it fade away

Emotional obscurity

When nothing’s here to stay

Struggling to find

Common middle ground

Impermanence has got me

Completely overwhelmed

To love is to let go

Is there even time for that?

Wanting not to bother now

That’s my epitaph

Can’t do it though

I never really could

My sincerity will kill me

Sometimes I wish it would

Transience is one thing

Detachment is another

Kills me when you say

To never even bother

A Culture of Corruption

Published on Thursday, April 6, 2006 by the Washington Spectator

A Culture of Corruption

Let's Save Our Democracy by Getting Money Out of Politics
by Bill Moyers

Money is choking our democracy to death. Our elections are bought out from under us and our public officials are doing the bidding of mercenaries. So powerful is the hold of wealth on politics that we cannot say America is working for all Americans. The majority may support such broad social goals as affordable medical coverage for all, decent wages for working people, safe working conditions, a secure retirement, and clean air and water, but there is no government "of, by, and for the people" to deliver on those aspirations.

Our system of privately financed campaigns has shut regular people out of any meaningful participation in democracy. Less than one-half of one percent of all Americans made a political contribution of $200 or more to a federal candidate in 2004. When the average cost of winning a seat in the House of Representatives has topped $1 million, we can no longer refer to that chamber as "The People's House." Congress belongs to the highest bidder.

At the same time that the cost of getting elected is exploding beyond the reach of ordinary people, the business of influencing our elected representatives has become a growth industry. Since President Bush was elected the number of registered lobbyists in Washington has more than doubled. That's 16,342 lobbyists in 2000 and 34,785 last year: 65 lobbyists for every member of Congress. The total spent per month by special interests wining, dining, and seducing federal officials is now nearly $200 million. PER MONTH!

(read more)

Self medication

I’ve learned through experience that delusions, brought on by capricious mental activity, are best left ignored. Like passing clouds, there’s not one worth hanging on to. There’s a practice I learned called ‘grounding’ that I find valuable. It helps me disengage from delusional thinking by anchoring to something in my immediate surroundings. The goal is to bring myself out of the grips of a delusion, or an intrusive memory, by way of the senses. Anytime symptoms come on, whatever form they may take ..it’s a good time to practice this exercise. I start by looking at five things nearby and begin naming them ..being specific and detailed. For example, I see my dog and say: “ ..shaggy brown hair and wet nose ..” or “..black computer speakers with silver lettering” and so on. Next, I name five things I hear, like the humming of a fan or the whoosh of passing cars, and so forth. Then I name five things I feel by sense of touch, like the jeans against my legs; the soles of my feet on the ground, and so on. I concentrate on sensing things the way they actually are ..careful not to replace them with the way I think they should be. I repeat the whole process a couple of times ..earning extra points if I become so wrapped up in my senses that I lose count. The idea is to make delusions disperse and fade into the background like the meaningless noise that they are.

Subterfuge of Dinosaurs

"Left-wing, chicken-wing, it's all the same to me".....Woody Guthrie.

Why would anyone have contempt for an educated person? I'll tell you why, it's because new information and discoveries have always challenged the beliefs of the past. The evolution of perspective inevitably changes the way we see reality and the world we live in. There are many who take up the mantle of conservatism to protect and insulate themselves and their beliefs from the perceived attack on their reality of the truth. The more extreme fundamentalist conservatives create and promote their own limited views by enshrining them in "legitimate" vehicles such as museums and encyclopedias. So today, for the purpose of shining the light of truth into the darkness of ignorance, I offer but two examples of how this practice can be harmful and dangerous and, dare I say it, specious, subterfuge, deception, dishonesty, etc.

______________________________________________

The website "Conservapedia" is a "copy-cat" online encyclopedia that mimics Wikipedia in order to gain "legitimacy" on the internet.

"The Conservapedia project has come under significant criticism for factual inaccuracies and factual relativism. Conservapedia has been compared to CreationWiki, a wiki written from the perspective of creationism, and Theopedia, a wiki covering the Bible. Some writers have compared it with new conservative websites competing with mainstream ones, such as MyChurch, a Christian version of social networking site MySpace, and GodTube, a Christian version of video site YouTube. The Guardian of the United Kingdom has referred to the Conservapedia's politics as "right-wing".

Thomas Eugene Flanagan, a conservative professor of political science at the University of Calgary, has argued that Conservapedia is more about religion, specifically Christianity, than conservatism and that it "is far more guilty of the crime they're attributing to Wikipedia" than Wikipedia itself. Matt Millham of the military-oriented newspaper Stars and Stripes called Conservapedia "a Web site that caters mostly to evangelical Christians". Its scope as an encyclopedia, according to its founders, "offers a historical record from a Christian and conservative perspective." APC magazine perceives this to be representative of Conservapedia's own problem with bias.

The project has also been criticized for promoting a dichotomy between conservatism and liberalism and for promoting relativism with the implicit idea that there "often are two equally valid interpretations of the facts". Matthew Sheffield, columnist for The Washington Times and contributor to the conservative Media Research Center blog NewsBusters, argued that conservatives concerned about bias should contribute more often to Wikipedia rather than use Conservapedia as an alternative since he felt that alternative websites like Conservapedia are often "incomplete". Author Damien Thompson says Conservapedia "is to dress up nonsense as science".

Allegations of homophobia have also been raised against Conservapedia. Bryan Ochalla, writing for the LGBT ("lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender") magazine The Advocate, referred to the project as "Wikipedia for the bigoted." (read more)

______________________________________________

The "Creation Museum" is a laughable use of the word museum and another example of mimicry to gain a sense of legitimacy. Mimicry can be another form of deception.

"The Creation Museum is a "museum" that presents an account of the origins of the universe, life, mankind, and man's early history according to a literal reading of the Book of Genesis. Its exhibits reject universal common descent, along with most other central tenets of evolution, and assert that the Earth and all of its life forms were created 6000 years ago over a six-day period. In particular, exhibits promote the claim that humans and dinosaurs once coexisted, and dinosaurs were on Noah's Ark. The museum exhibits are at odds with the vast majority of scientists who accept that the Earth is approximately 4.5 billion years old, and that the dinosaurs became extinct 65.5 million years before human beings arose. The museum has generated criticism by the scientific community, several groups of educators, Christian groups opposed to young Earth creationism, and in the general press.

Professor Lord Robert Winston visited the museum and remarked, "I admit I was dismayed by what I saw at the Ken Ham museum. It was alarming to see so much time, money and effort being spent on making a mockery of hard won scientific knowledge. And the fact that it was being done with such obvious sincerity, somehow made it all the worse."

Educators criticizing the museum include the National Center for Science Education. The NCSE collected over 800 signatures from scientists in the three states closest to the museum (Kentucky, Indiana, and Ohio) on the following statement: "We, the undersigned scientists at universities and colleges in Kentucky, Ohio, and Indiana, are concerned about scientifically inaccurate materials at the Answers in Genesis museum. Students who accept this material as scientifically valid are unlikely to succeed in science courses at the college level. These students will need remedial instruction in the nature of science, as well as in the specific areas of science misrepresented by Answers in Genesis."

NCSE director Eugenie Scott characterized the Creation Museum as "the Creationist Disneyland." The Guardian called the facility "quite possibly...one of the weirdest museums in the world." Physicist Lawrence Krauss has called on media, educators, and government officials to shun the museum and says that its view is based on falsehoods. Krauss said that the facility is "as much a disservice to religion as it is to science."

The museum has also been criticized by Christians who are not young Earth creationists. Notable among them is geologist Greg Neyman of Answers in Creation, an old earth creationism ministry. Neyman released a press kit dealing with the museum's grand opening in which he said: "They will see the museum, and recognize its faulty science, and will be turned away from the church.

The Rev. Mendle Adams, pastor of St. Peter's United Church of Christ in Cincinnati, Ohio, said it calls into question the whole Christian concept and "makes us a laughing stock." Roman Catholic theologian John Haught sees little merit in the museum, saying it will cause an "impoverishment" of religion. Michael Patrick Leahy, editor of the magazine Christian Faith and Reason, says that by replacing the scientific method with biblical literalism, the museum undermines the credibility of all Christians and makes it easy to represent Christians as irrational.

Lisa Park, a professor of paleontology at University of Akron who is also an Elder in the Presbyterian Church was particularly disturbed by the museums depiction that war, famine and natural disasters are the result of a belief in evolution. She stated: "I think it's very bad science and even worse theology...and the theology is far more offensive to me. I think there's a lot of focus on fear, and I don't think that's a very Christian message...I find it a malicious manipulation of the public."

The museum has also been accused of using 19th century human evolution theories, since refuted, to promote the idea that different human races came from Noah's descendants dispersing after the Confusion of Tongues at the Tower of Babel. In August 2009, more than 300 people part of the Secular Student Alliance took a tour of the venue, along with P.Z. Myers, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Minnesota, Morris. Scientists in the group, such as chemist William Watkin, commented about how scientifically wrong the displays are. Myers posted an account of the tour on his blog, including condemning the venue for "promoting the Hamite theory of racial origins, that ugly idea that all races stemmed from the children of Noah, and that black people in particular were the cursed offspring of Ham."

In a March 2007 Newsweek poll conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International, 48% of respondents agreed with the statement "God created humans pretty much in the present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so." According to an ABC news poll, 60% of Americans believe that "God created the world in six days." (read more)

______________________________________________

A warning to those who would attempt to subvert the truth, it will bite you in the end. Perspective cannot be used to change or distort the truth, the truth is, with or without your perspective. There has always existed an age old battle between old and new, liberal and conservative, there is nothing inherently evil about either but both can be usurped. The neo-conservative is a wolf in sheeps clothing, an injured wolf, just like the ultra-liberal, both are extremists dealing in absolutes, both are undesirable. I understand how new and conflicting truths can threaten to destroy an entire life of belief, don't be afraid of the truth. And what of the holdouts? We will have to drag them, kicking and screaming, into the 21st century.

"The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy, that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness".....John Kenneth Galbraith.

Slipstream

There’s a stream running through my head. I sit and watch it go by ~ one instance after another. When I try to push it ~ or tweak it ~ I disperse it. Now I’ve got several streams running through my head. I see images of my father holding me on his knee ~ Jisho Perry stops by; but can’t stay for tea ~ my neighbor Don appears telling me it’s going to be a good day. I see images of Big Sur smoldering after another fire and I start to feel anxious. Now I’m trying to peek at instances that haven’t arrived yet. I hear Jisho's voice gently reminding me that I’m leaning forward too far ~ but it’s too late ~ I’m tumbling head over heels ~ hoping I’ll land someplace soft. I’m lying on my back when Dr. Jones leans over and says I gotta’ get a grip ~ I'm having an out-of-sequence experience. Now I’m behind the wheel of a jeep and the warning signs are coming up fast ~ curva peligrosa ~ I swerve to avoid them when I hear sirens begin to wail. But ‘la policía’ are all in my head ~ it's my wheels that are screeching ..spraying dirt and sand from the desert bed.

Alive

So I'm alive.
But I drown myself in an ocean of ideals.

I know reality well.
But my dreams I know even better.

I'm stuck in the way things are.
But maybe my freedom is the first step to the world's.

The magic of knowing

Diego Garcia - Indian Ocean

This is Diego Garcia.

I spent a year of my life on "the rock"

as a meteorologist and upper air specialist.

On July 1,1974 we became Naval Weather Service

Environmental Detachment Diego Garcia.

Being an original member of the N.W.S.E.D.

I became a "plank owner", Diego Garcia.

I own a piece of this rock.

It was the best time of my life.

Google Speaks

Google's homepage logo for today

contains a cryptic message about something

once only whispered about with trepidation.

The question of other-world visitors has been

the subject of intense scientific study

by our government for more than 60 years.

They won't tell you the truth,

they are afraid you will go crazy.

Most of all they are afraid that this truth

will change the world, and they are right.

The truth is much stranger than any fiction.

They are here...they have always been here.


The Disclosure Project
Lunomaly Research Group
Dr. Edgar Mitchell-Apollo 14
Travis Walton-Fire in the Sky

Coastal poem

I hike up to a shady grove
and sit beside a wandering stream.
Watch water splash over polished stones
of silver, red and green
then disappear through the ferns
and whatever else that grows
under a canopy of redwood trees
somewhere above the coastal zone.

Space Shuttle Video STS-80

Buddha road

Buddha’s observations on the nature of the mind come closer to modern-day neuroscience than any other philosophy I’ve read ..and his investigations did not end there ~ they had just begun. He saw how mental activity was mostly noise. A mixture of chatter ..imaginary offenses ..anticipatory dread ..feelings of betrayal and other fabrications. For six years he practiced watching this stream of debris flow by and vanish ..until he realized that there was nothing substantial or permanent about any of it ..and that believing so only created suffering. He continued down this road ..going past the conceptual ..through the neuro-sensory ..and beyond the phenomenal layers of consciousness. The further he went ..the freer he felt ..until he punched a hole through the ceiling and found an ever-expanding universe where all living beings are interconnected ..and he saw, first-hand, how the true nature of existence lay beyond the momentary vicissitudes of thought and feeling. He felt relief .. the fear of separation vanished. He chose to return and help others find the way out. We still hear the echo of his teachings resonating today. I do anyway.

Summer Commentaries

The incessant rhythm of the ocean is reminiscent of the
beginnings of life and the
relentless beauty of the human heart.
_____________________________________________
The seemingly limitless ocean
vast and mysterious
is a wondrous organism
whose vitality is a measure of the
planet’s well being.
_____________________________________________

As i watch a pair of twin white butterflies
cavort among the daisies and a
hummingbird defy gravity with
lusty and diaphanous wings,
i realize that summer has taken hold of me.

I am prepared for such sweet surrender
_____________________________________________

Gliding through shallow inlets on
lake washington near the arboretum
in our steadfast canoe,
we chance upon a
great blue heron in all his
majestic stature and
magnificent indifference to our
uninvited appearance.

An eagle, an osprey
circling majestically overhead
lifted by the exuberant summer air,

soothed by such delights,
we imbibe the present like the
inhabitants we were meant to be.
_____________________________________________

Madronna -
gnarled aching branches
sheds its orange filamentous coat
like a desert snake,
revealing its hardwood resilience.

Nude Descending A Staircase

painting by Marcel Duchamp 1912

Good and Evil

There is nothing

either good or bad,

only thinking makes it so.


Fear is the mother of morality.

...Neitzsche...

Holocaust Of The Americas

It is estimated, based on archaeological data and written records from European settlers, that from 8 to 112 million indigenous people lived in the Americas when the 1492 voyage of Christopher Columbus began a historical period of large-scale European interaction with the Americas.

While the population of Old World peoples in the Americas steadily grew in the centuries after Columbus, the population of the American indigenous peoples plummeted.

A controversial question relating to the population history of American indigenous peoples is whether or not the natives of the Americas were the victims of genocide. After the Nazi-perpetrated Holocaust during World War II, genocide was defined (in part) as a crime "committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such."

Historian David Stannard is of the opinion that the indigenous peoples of America (including Hawaii) were the victims of a "Euro-American genocidal war." While conceding that the majority of the indigenous peoples fell victim to the ravages of European disease, he estimates that almost 100 million died in what he calls the American Holocaust.

(read more)

Movie Morality

I once believed in the death penalty,

then I saw "The Life of David Gale."



Executions in 2008

People's Republic of China (1718+)

Iran (346+)

Saudi Arabia (102+)

United States (37)

Pakistan (36+)

(more)

What's wrong here?

How can the light be off

if the switch is on?




















Because it's broken

it doesn't work

fix the broken thing

King Of The World

Muhammad Ali training underwater

Photograph by Flip Schulke

Miami, August,1961

-John Locke,

"Our incomes are like our shoes;
if too small, they gall and pinch us;
but if too large,
they cause us to stumble and to trip."

High above

High above
on a switch back trail.
Drinking ice cold glacier ale.
There’s a half frozen lake
at twelve thousand feet
with smooth boulders to sit on
in a cathedral of jagged peaks.
The sky falls into shape
Water rises up
to fill the space
and lap the shore
rising and falling
always full
always finding
a level of it’s own.
In a place so simple and pure
shards of bitter memory
form on my tongue
I spit them out and think
Those are what make things taste
so complicated and unclean.

"The Washington Merry-Go-Round"

(click title)

The American Way

IN THE RED

http://www.usdebtclock.org/

Synæsthesia

I wake up with badly congested information-channels ~ I see shifting patterns of different colors entering an open window ~ and watch the walls dissolve into orange dots before they reach the ceiling. I sit up and swing my feet over the edge of a pillowy sensation I comfortably rely on as my bed ~ but now the floor has dropped out of sight. I count the number of times this has happened and figure the odds of landing with both feet on the floor are in my favor. I decide to play it safe ~ take one step at a time ~ stopping frequently to make sure I am where I’m accustomed to be, and not where I appear to be, because I know my senses are deceiving me. Downstairs, scattered waves of light travel in every direction ~ except through the channels of my visual receptors. I find something likely to be my CD player and punch it in the vicinity of the on/off switch. A punk rock CD, left in there from the night before, starts to blare. The light waves begin bouncing to the rhythm, and, like little drops of colored water ~ they enter into the proper channels and float down streams of sensory-energy ~ until they fall into pools of stored-memory ~ and form the image of what I’m supposed to see. Like adjusting the focus of a camera lens ~ it all becomes clear. I drop to my knees and pay homage to the deities of music ~ then crank up the volume and go in the kitchen to prepare myself a thermos of coffee. Looks like it’s going to be a good day.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama

March 24, 2008

"China accuses

His Holiness the Dalai Lama

of being a terrorist."

HA!

5 Myths About Health Care Around the World

By T.R. Reid
Sunday, August 23, 2009

As Americans search for the cure to what ails our health-care system, we've overlooked an invaluable source of ideas and solutions: the rest of the world. All the other industrialized democracies have faced problems like ours, yet they've found ways to cover everybody -- and still spend far less than we do.

I've traveled the world from Oslo to Osaka to see how other developed democracies provide health care. Instead of dismissing these models as "socialist," we could adapt their solutions to fix our problems. To do that, we first have to dispel a few myths about health care abroad:

1. It's all socialized medicine out there.

Not so. Some countries, such as Britain, New Zealand and Cuba, do provide health care in government hospitals, with the government paying the bills. Others -- for instance, Canada and Taiwan -- rely on private-sector providers, paid for by government-run insurance. But many wealthy countries -- including Germany, the Netherlands, Japan and Switzerland -- provide universal coverage using private doctors, private hospitals and private insurance plans.

In some ways, health care is less "socialized" overseas than in the United States. Almost all Americans sign up for government insurance (Medicare) at age 65. In Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands, seniors stick with private insurance plans for life. Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is one of the planet's purest examples of government-run health care.

2. Overseas, care is rationed through limited choices or long lines.

Generally, no. Germans can sign up for any of the nation's 200 private health insurance plans -- a broader choice than any American has. If a German doesn't like her insurance company, she can switch to another, with no increase in premium. The Swiss, too, can choose any insurance plan in the country.

In France and Japan, you don't get a choice of insurance provider; you have to use the one designated for your company or your industry. But patients can go to any doctor, any hospital, any traditional healer. There are no U.S.-style limits such as "in-network" lists of doctors or "pre-authorization" for surgery. You pick any doctor, you get treatment -- and insurance has to pay.

Canadians have their choice of providers. In Austria and Germany, if a doctor diagnoses a person as "stressed," medical insurance pays for weekends at a health spa.

As for those notorious waiting lists, some countries are indeed plagued by them. Canada makes patients wait weeks or months for nonemergency care, as a way to keep costs down. But studies by the Commonwealth Fund and others report that many nations -- Germany, Britain, Austria -- outperform the United States on measures such as waiting times for appointments and for elective surgeries.

In Japan, waiting times are so short that most patients don't bother to make an appointment. One Thursday morning in Tokyo, I called the prestigious orthopedic clinic at Keio University Hospital to schedule a consultation about my aching shoulder. "Why don't you just drop by?" the receptionist said. That same afternoon, I was in the surgeon's office. Dr. Nakamichi recommended an operation. "When could we do it?" I asked. The doctor checked his computer and said, "Tomorrow would be pretty difficult. Perhaps some day next week?"

3. Foreign health-care systems are inefficient, bloated bureaucracies.

Much less so than here. It may seem to Americans that U.S.-style free enterprise -- private-sector, for-profit health insurance -- is naturally the most cost-effective way to pay for health care. But in fact, all the other payment systems are more efficient than ours.

U.S. health insurance companies have the highest administrative costs in the world; they spend roughly 20 cents of every dollar for nonmedical costs, such as paperwork, reviewing claims and marketing. France's health insurance industry, in contrast, covers everybody and spends about 4 percent on administration. Canada's universal insurance system, run by government bureaucrats, spends 6 percent on administration. In Taiwan, a leaner version of the Canadian model has administrative costs of 1.5 percent; one year, this figure ballooned to 2 percent, and the opposition parties savaged the government for wasting money.

The world champion at controlling medical costs is Japan, even though its aging population is a profligate consumer of medical care. On average, the Japanese go to the doctor 15 times a year, three times the U.S. rate. They have twice as many MRI scans and X-rays. Quality is high; life expectancy and recovery rates for major diseases are better than in the United States. And yet Japan spends about $3,400 per person annually on health care; the United States spends more than $7,000.

4. Cost controls stifle innovation.

False. The United States is home to groundbreaking medical research, but so are other countries with much lower cost structures. Any American who's had a hip or knee replacement is standing on French innovation. Deep-brain stimulation to treat depression is a Canadian breakthrough. Many of the wonder drugs promoted endlessly on American television, including Viagra, come from British, Swiss or Japanese labs.

Overseas, strict cost controls actually drive innovation. In the United States, an MRI scan of the neck region costs about $1,500. In Japan, the identical scan costs $98. Under the pressure of cost controls, Japanese researchers found ways to perform the same diagnostic technique for one-fifteenth the American price. (And Japanese labs still make a profit.)

5. Health insurance has to be cruel.

Not really. American health insurance companies routinely reject applicants with a "preexisting condition" -- precisely the people most likely to need the insurers' service. They employ armies of adjusters to deny claims. If a customer is hit by a truck and faces big medical bills, the insurer's "rescission department" digs through the records looking for grounds to cancel the policy, often while the victim is still in the hospital. The companies say they have to do this stuff to survive in a tough business.

Foreign health insurance companies, in contrast, must accept all applicants, and they can't cancel as long as you pay your premiums. The plans are required to pay any claim submitted by a doctor or hospital (or health spa), usually within tight time limits. The big Swiss insurer Groupe Mutuel promises to pay all claims within five days. "Our customers love it," the group's chief executive told me. The corollary is that everyone is mandated to buy insurance, to give the plans an adequate pool of rate-payers.

The key difference is that foreign health insurance plans exist only to pay people's medical bills, not to make a profit. The United States is the only developed country that lets insurance companies profit from basic health coverage.

In many ways, foreign health-care models are not really "foreign" to America, because our crazy-quilt health-care system uses elements of all of them. For Native Americans or veterans, we're Britain: The government provides health care, funding it through general taxes, and patients get no bills. For people who get insurance through their jobs, we're Germany: Premiums are split between workers and employers, and private insurance plans pay private doctors and hospitals. For people over 65, we're Canada: Everyone pays premiums for an insurance plan run by the government, and the public plan pays private doctors and hospitals according to a set fee schedule. And for the tens of millions without insurance coverage, we're Burundi or Burma: In the world's poor nations, sick people pay out of pocket for medical care; those who can't pay stay sick or die.

This fragmentation is another reason that we spend more than anybody else and still leave millions without coverage. All the other developed countries have settled on one model for health-care delivery and finance; we've blended them all into a costly, confusing bureaucratic mess.

Which, in turn, punctures the most persistent myth of all: that America has "the finest health care" in the world. We don't. In terms of results, almost all advanced countries have better national health statistics than the United States does. In terms of finance, we force 700,000 Americans into bankruptcy each year because of medical bills. In France, the number of medical bankruptcies is zero. Britain: zero. Japan: zero. Germany: zero.

Given our remarkable medical assets -- the best-educated doctors and nurses, the most advanced hospitals, world-class research -- the United States could be, and should be, the best in the world. To get there, though, we have to be willing to learn some lessons about health-care administration from the other industrialized democracies.

T.R. Reid, a former Washington Post reporter, is the author of "The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care."

Something to be sure of

Will we ever be safe...?

no...

death stalks you.

Teddy joins his brothers

"The work begins anew.

The hope rises again.

And the dream lives on."

Rest In Peace.

Head case

A model for the fabric of the mind has been tentatively settled-on. It’s one that characterizes what’s inside my head as a 3-dimensional network of delicately connected instances of prior experience and feeling. Under ordinary circumstances, incoming sensory and verbal events produce ripples that spread out over this fabric, like stones on a pond, activating network-connections until a clear mental representation is formed. However, when something goes wrong, and there’s a disturbance in the fabric, activation may become amp’d, unfettered and diffuse ..compounding insubstantial phenomena until, what may have started out as a gentle hummingbird, for example .. becomes a ferocious beast. Sometimes I think it’s only a matter of degree between clarity and delusion ..especially when I consider how many times I mistook a perfectly innocent remark as hostility.

Dovima with Elephants

Richard Avedon

Dovima with elephants

evening dress by Dior

Cirque d'Hiver, Paris

August 1955

Galileo Galilei, 1564-1642

It is the 400th anniversary of Galileo's telescope, a moment defined as the beginning of the end of the childhood of mankind, a moment when our eyes where opened to the truth of the universe.

Galileo had lived a long and very productive life before he revolutionized astronomy by turning a telescope to the sky. He learned medicine and mathematics at the University of Pisa and became an able instrument builder. He performed many experiments in the motion of bodies and convincingly toppled some of Aristotle's notions, most notably the notion that heavier objects fall faster. Galileo proved soundly that all falling objects fall at the same rate, regardless of mass.

While a professor of mathematics at Padua, Galileo heard descriptions of a recent Flemish invention, the telescope, built with two convex lenses. Galileo worked out the geometry of this arrangement and built a telescope that magnified objects by a factor of ten. After getting a pay raise for this, he designed a more powerful version and pointed it at the sky, thereby changing astronomy forever.

"The moon was seen to have mountains, craters, and sea-like dark smooth areas. The sun had blemishes, or sunspots. The planets were seen as disks! The stars remained point-like. Venus showed phases like the moon. Jupiter had four moons, the inner ones revolving faster than the outer ones."

Around 1611, Galileo ran into some trouble with the Church, which had embraced the Aristotlean cosmology. He was made to promise not to publish anything that implied that the Copernican view was real. He was careful to keep any remarks on the correctness of the Copernican sun-centered view repressed or expressed hypothetically until 1632, when, emboldened by good relations with the pope and some cardinals, he published his "Dialog on the Great World Systems" which was blatantly pro-Copernican.

In 1633, at age 70, Galileo was ordered to stand trial on suspicion of heresy. The sentence of the Inquisition was in three essential parts:

Galileo was found "vehemently suspect of heresy," namely of having held the opinions that the Sun lies motionless at the centre of the universe, that the Earth is not at its centre and moves, and that one may hold and defend an opinion as probable after it has been declared contrary to Holy Scripture. He was required to "abjure, curse and detest" those opinions.

He was ordered imprisoned; the sentence was later commuted to house arrest.

His offending Dialogue was banned; and in an action not announced at the trial, publication of any of his works was forbidden, including any he might write in the future.

It took nearly 400 years but, on November 4, 1992 Pope Paul II issued a formal and public apology concerning the treatment of Galileo saying, "The error of the theologians of the time, when they maintained the centrality of the Earth, was to think that our understanding of the physical world's structure was, in some way, imposed by the literal sense of Sacred Scripture...."

Religion should embrace science, to seek the truth is to seek god, there is nothing to be gained by replacing truth with belief.

(excerpts from astro.wsu.edu and wikipedia.org)

Nothing

No-"thing" is inherently evil...


it's like guns, drugs and money...


the important thing...


is what WE DO with them.

TALIBAN EXCHANGE PROGRAM - HEROIN, OPIUM AND HASHISH FOR WEAPONS

John Podesta on Disclosure

Art Imitates Life

District 9 earned overwhelmingly positive reviews from critics. On the film review website Rotten Tomatoes, it currently holds a "Certified Fresh" rating, with 89% of critics giving it a positive review, with the consensus being, "technically brilliant and emotionally wrenching, District 9 has action, imagination, and all the elements of a thoroughly entertaining science-fiction classic".

Some critics have been ecstatic about the film. Sara Vilkomerson of The New York Observer writes, "District 9 is the most exciting science fiction movie to come along in ages; definitely the most thrilling film of the summer; and quite possibly the best film I've seen all year." Christy Lemire from the Associated Press was impressed by the plot and thematic content, claiming that "District 9 has the aesthetic trappings of science fiction but it's really more of a character drama, an examination of how a man responds when he's forced to confront his identity during extraordinary circumstances." Entertainment Weekly's Lisa Schwarzbaum described it as "...madly original, cheekily political, and altogether exciting..."

Merchants Of Death

Individuals, companies and corporations have always taken advantage of warfare to make enormous economic profit. For centuries, ordinary people, who suffer most from war, have resisted these war profiteers. One of the major factors in Harry S. Truman's (Give 'em Hell, Harry!) rise to the U.S. presidency was his relentless pursuit of war profiteers.

But now the nature and power of these war profiteers have changed. Instead of racing in after the war begins, they're stepping up before a war even starts. In the last 20 years or so, these war profiteers have acquired more and more power over U.S. policy-making. Our Stop the Merchants of Death [SMoD] program uncovers the many ways these corporations are literally calling the shots when it comes to deciding what weapons systems to buy, what countries to invade, what foreign resources to seize. At the War Resisters League we say, It's not so much true anymore to say that they make profit from war. They have such power that it's more accurate to say they now make war for profit.

In 1992, then-Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney hired a private company to answer the question: Is it economically feasible to outsource military logistics from the Department of Defense to private companies? That is, should we let private companies take care of building barracks, delivering fuel and ammunition, delivering and cooking and serving food, etc? Of course, the private company said, yes.

The private company's name was Halliburton.

In 1992, Cheney left public office and with no previous business experience at all, became the CEO of a major private company.

The private company's name was Halliburton.

For the next eight years, thousands of military logistics contracts were outsourced. One thousand of these contracts went to one private company.

The private company's name was Halliburton.

In 2000, Dick Cheney became the Vice President of the United States. A little over a year later, the United States went to war against Afghanistan. Halliburton's profits jumped.

About two years after that, the United States went to war against Iraq. Halliburton, whose former CEO was now Vice-President of the United States, got hundreds of no-bid contracts. That is, contracts for Iraq were simply given to Halliburton, with no competitive bidding at all. Half a billion dollars worth in 2003, three billion dollars in 2004, and eight billion dollars in 2005.

Halliburton's profits spiked again. And so did the value of Dick Cheney's 433,000 deferred stock options in Halliburton. We cannot help but wonder if there is a conflict of interest here. With so much personal profit at stake, can we honestly say that Dick Cheney was using his voice solely for the well-being of the United States?

The War Resisters League wants to stop all war profiteering. And we want to start by getting Halliburton out of the business of war-making. Halliburton has multi-billion dollar contracts for military logistics. Through their subsidiary, Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR), they have a multi-billion dollar contract for Iraqi oil.

Make no mistake. Halliburton's first priority is that of most corporations, to make as much money as they can. One set of results is predictable: shoddy supplies and service, and at least a billion dollars in charges not considered acceptable by the Defense Contract Audit Agency.

The other set of results is also predictable, the Merchants of Death and its agents are going to continue to push for war because there is so much profit in it.

(read more)

happiness

...is a warm gun!

(just to share the huge amount of love and happiness we've got during this trip... the kind of thing i wish every being on earth to achieve! ...and the same way i use to share my worries here i thought that this time i should share this another mood!)

Permanently Protect the Arctic Refuge!

Click here ~> Urge Congress to Permanently Protect the Arctic Refuge! - The Petition Site

North West Passage

The ice age is melting and the Arctic is turning into water. On some days temperatures can hover around 70 degrees fahrenheit ..turning ice shelves into tropical zones. For me, this conjures up images of smooth sailing, sunbathing on sandy beaches and swimming in emerald lagoons. But I’m a fucking dreamer who needs to see things the way they are. What this really means is greater opportunity for fortune-seekers looking for trade routes to China. What is now home to Eskimos, who still hunt whales and live in igloos ..is about to become an international trade zone ..occupied by oil barons ..land developers ..and casino operators. I have the feeling we are looking at the next wild frontier. Now I picture myself sailing through the North West Passage like it was California during the gold rush ..shooting polar bears instead of buffaloes.

I'm Going Home

The Un-training

The "un-training"...

everything you've been taught

is a lie...

well, not everything

and...

there are only two levels

above death...

acceptance and sharing