A Sea of Plastic

Just for worldwide consumption of bottled water in 2004 alone it took roughly 87.4 million barrels of oil. You can imagine that with statistics for 2008, we have a figure in the hundreds of millions of barrels of oil being used just to produce bottled water. Don't buy water in plastic bottles, water is free!

America and the world’s addiction to plastic doesn’t end there. Plastic bags take oil, just like plastic bottles to produce. Currently the U.S. consumes 100 billion plastic shopping bags in a year and worldwide consumption is estimated to be from 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags a year. That is roughly 1 million plastic bags a minute being consumed and less than 1% is recycled. If we legalize hemp we could make bags from a profitable and sustainable source and avoid wasting all that oil and energy making "trash that lasts forever."

I guess it's okay to pollute our waters now because, "we can $ell them clean water in a pla$tic bottle." Clean water is a right, not a commodity to be exploited. I bet next they will try to $ell us air and fire and dirt.

California Marijuana Tax

Assemblyman Tom Ammiano will announce legislation on Monday to legalize marijuana and earn perhaps $1 billion annually by taxing it.

Quintin Mecke, Ammiano's press secretary, confirmed to SF Weekly that the assemblyman's 10 a.m. Monday press conference regarding "new legislation related to the state's fiscal crisis" will broach the subject of reaping untold -- and much-needed -- wealth from the state's No. 1 cash crop.

Mecke said Ammiano's proposed bill "would remove all penalties in California law on cultivation, transportation, sale, purchase, possession, or use of marijuana, natural THC, or paraphernalia for persons over the age of 21."

The bill would additionally prohibit state and local law officials from enforcing federal marijuana laws. As for Step Two -- profit -- Ammiano's bill calls for "establishing a fee on the sale of marijuana at a rate of $50 per ounce." Mecke said that would bring in roughly $1 billion for the state, according to estimates made by marijuana advocacy organizations.

Catch-22

You're damned if you do

and you're damned if you don't

you have to be crazy

to live in an insane world

Some Life

From July 6th to July 10th I was at something my church calls Kids Kamp.

Last year I didn't know what to expect, but it was a great escape from a troubled mind.

This year though it was no escape, what it was, was a wonderful experience.

So today I say "for the sake of the kids",

and "for the sake of my love and the love of others":

We can't give up.

Things can change.

People do grow up,

and others can.

Life is about the maintenance of life.

There's gotta be a balance.

And you gotta know what your doing.

Good luck, cause we all need some of mine sometimes.

I wish I could say more, by I truly can't.

This experience, can it be put into words?

!!!

~{R}~

"SiCKO"

SiCKO is a 2007 documentary film by American film maker Michael Moore. The film investigates the American health care system, focusing on its health insurance and pharmaceutical industry. The film compares the for-profit, non-universal U.S. system with the non-profit universal health care systems of Canada, the United Kingdom, France and Cuba.

Sicko opened to positive reviews, but also generated criticism and controversy. Some policy specialists have praised the film while others have criticized the film for its positive portrayal of the publicly funded health systems of Canada, the United Kingdom and Cuba, and for its negative portrayal of the health care system in the United States.

In his first television interview since leaving the health insurance industry, Wendell Potter tells Bill Moyers why he left his successful career as the head of Public Relations for CIGNA, one of the nation's largest insurers, and decided to speak out against the industry. "I didn't intend to [speak out], until it became really clear to me that the industry is resorting to the same tactics they've used over the years.

My Precious

Life is short

Life is hard

Life is precious

excluded duties

I am disabled by all
the time it takes to maintain
the healthy balance of sanity.
To exercise as many physical therapy
prescriptions that it take to progress.
I prescribe less mandatory work mandatory.
It is the industrious imbalance that created
commercialism of domination qualities.

Maintenance depart-mental-izes.
Discouragement is from the critical side
so supportive reflex is natural balance

The use of desire can be healthy respect for
education appreciation as better attitudes evolve
healthy indulgence can (and should ) mean
(individual or shared) experiencing encouragement.

Personal value is an entitlement of individual rights
but the difficulty of defining equality
is institutionalized with certifications.

Time spent being healthy could become credit
that doesn't enforce indebted tensions.

Sperm

In the 1950's the average sperm count was 120 million per milliliter. The average sperm count today has been halved to an average of around 60 million per milliliter in the Western world, a decrease of 1-2% per year.

My guess is that all the poisons, chemicals and female hormone mimicking compounds we've introduced into our environment and food have begun to concentrate in our bodies and are slowly trying to turn boys into girls. Male infertility will be the method of our self-annihilation. We are killing ourselves and the planet with our waste.

spywhere?

I wiretapped my subconscious
so I might know what
I could be thinking...

WHAT A JOKE WITH US TAX PAYERS

THE ONGOING US OPERATIONS IN AFGHANISTAN ARE AT BEST A POLITICAL STUNT.

KEEPING IN VIEW THE PUNY US FORCE RATIOS NOTHING WILL BE ACHIEVED.

ONLY PRIVATE CONTRACTORS WILL MAKE MONEY CONSTRUCTION ACCOMODATION AND SUPPLYING US FORCES.

THE MAIN LOSER WOULD BE THE US TAX PAYER.

BUT WHO CARES.

CLICK ON THIS MAP TO ENLARGE

I CAN CHALLENGE ANYONE IN US STATE DEPARTMENT PENTAGON OR ANY ONE TO HAVE AN OPEN DEBATE TO DISCUSS IF THIS OPERATION WILL ACHIEVE ANYTHING?

AGHA

The Zippo

"Disposable" lighters are only one of the many items being made of plastic. "Trash that lasts forever" is the only phrase that can describe "disposable" plastic items. This "disposable" plastic finds its way into the ocean and collects in rotating ocean currents like the North Pacific Gyre, an area of concentrated plastic trash the size of Texas. The plastic to food ratio in this area is 6:1.


As you can see, this bird ingested several plastic "disposable" lighters along with other various plastic bottle tops and miscellaneous "disposable" plastic items. This bird died because it mistook our "disposable" plastic trash for food. Only 3.5 % of worldwide "disposable" plastic is recycled.


Zippo lighters are reliable and re-usable, a quality American made item not made of plastic. Buy a Zippo and stop using plastic "disposable" lighters and avoid buying "disposable" plastic products and packaging. It may even stop a bullet and save your life. "Disposable" plastic is the bane of our age.

The Dark Side of The Agro-Industrial Complex

suffering govt.

This national deficit may be perfectly timed to prove government is reflexively opposing the social best interest.
I will try to suggest that the deficit created for taxpayers is actually owed to us.
The governmental responsibility is relative to economic balance.
Aggressive tendencies are too expensive and are being overly represented in military spending and corporate favors.
The energy that flows through our currency has become so powerful it has burned out our infrastructure and delivery systems.
The industrious motives of the corporate Federal Reserve conglomeration needs the healthy balance of National Service Departments to keep our values diverse enough to remain democratic.
The socialistic request for bail-out proves the mutation of getting too big to maintain itself is an obsolete domination behavior.
Branches of economy could be created to represent victims of industrious disregard for better intentions to represent integrity.
The whole purpose of government is as an example of self-supportive resource management.
The authority to create credit from the debt has been attempted by presidents before when private money dissolved trust by buying into toxic power exploitation.
"Power to the people" (democracy) can only come from a national credit for participation in supportive behavior.
Most of the jobs today seem to be for discouragement and thus need downsizing.
Healthy behavior allows for proportional emergency compensation as an indicator of care full education.
Government only half cares for this social imbalance of prerequisites and conventions.
I would like to offer observations of concern.
People of indulgent needs that create (production) needs for others to pay for are committing crimes of entertainment like watching their victims suffer for improvement.

The Government could declare Federal Reserve currency creates illegally unequal cultural values unless balanced with a U.S.Note for the Health support that could create a service branch of economy inclusively networking medical and educational departments.
The multi-branching of government is in public interest that yields more appreciation (when needed) if viewed as self-supported.

It's Time For Another Revolution

Tragic Haiku

Capitalism

Ruthless daunting consuming

Quest for cash

The Revolutionary

My idealism is something farther than some people can imagine.

Can you imagine the accomplishment with this idealism as a goal?

What the world would be with everyone's such hopes and dreams?

My mind is clear.

Clearer than scientology.

Attempting unbias.

Reconstructing tradition.

I will continue with this liberal touch, its advance.

And hopefully you will be enlightened as well.

Flying Dinosaurs

Infinite time

Infinite space

What is not possible?

Cynical Conclusion

Slightest touch of breeze upon my face

Faintest wafting scent upon the air

Almost imagined whispered song

Hinted caress’ pressure on my skin

It’s where you must have been

Familiar aching, straining heart

Sinking defeated soul’s despair

Recurring hopeless lethargy

Blinding broken willful fight

You’re more than out of sight

No resilience resonating now

Drained desire to connect

Fatalistic -inspired apathy

Another brick in wall of self defense

To love again does not make sense

Regarding the Human Brain

Regarding the human brain- It intrigues me that in the current era with all the knowledge that has been made available through the remarkable work of neurobiologists, a controversy still remains regarding the source of our humanity. There are those who maintain that the human mind is separate from the organic brain and that the self resides in that ethereal and indefinable quantity referred to as the soul. Descartes, the father of modern calculus, believed that the soul resided in the area of the brain now known as the pineal gland. This gland is now known to be the site of the neuronal activity that is responsible for regulating the biological clock. He can be forgiven for this error on account of the total lack of understanding of how the human brain functions during his lifetime.

The preponderance of scientific evidence regarding brain function strongly suggests that the totality of the self, including thoughts, perceptions, beliefs, emotions, ideas and imagination is a natural and necessary outgrowth of the functioning of the organic brain. The idea, often stated, that thoughts, ideas and imagination being insubstantial cannot emanate from physiological processes, is nonsensical, especially since there is no other rational explanation.

I am convinced that this line of thinking is a rather intricate rationalization for the belief that humans are products of a special creation and are, therefore, not bounded by biology and its inherent limitations. To accept the reality that our organic brains, destined to dissolution, are the seats of our humanness, is to accede to the obvious truth of our own fragile mortality.

quest of jest

We all need to laugh.
There is a style of recognition
that could develop the truth.
The paradox of humor is how
it can reveal insight beyond science.
Within every HA HA is an AHA

The sad death of Michael Jackson

I wonder how long it will take before someone declares that Michael Jackson isn't dead?
That it has all been an elaborate hoax, one designed by Michael to either escape the glare of publicity or possibly a fraudulent way not to perform his forthcoming tour.
We had it with Elvis didn't we? The few wacko's who said they had seen him eating burgers in a diner downtown.
Already Michael's family are speaking of something sinister having happened to their son and sibling and of having another autopsy. Perhaps they are right but for this weary Englishman far too many conspiracy theories have driven me to the conclusion that most are the overactive imaginations of those who have little else to do with their lives than to create madness where there was once only insanity.
God's bless Michael where he rests but let us all hope he is allowed to rest in peace before the media slice his myth into pieces.

Let's be Peace-Makers

In these past ten years or so we in Ireland, North and South, have been enjoying a stable and hopefully lasting peace. The thirty years of conflict, bloodshed and loss of life are more or less over. (It ended in the early to mid-nineties of the last century) Yet, as peace-makers we can never become too complacent, because there is much hatred and bitterness North of our border. Now, I am not saying for a minute that our brothers and sisters in the North of Ireland have a monopoly of these two vices - far from it. I readily admit that there is not a little hatred and bitterness in the hearts of some South of the border. However, statistics show that the North of Ireland is an extremely racist country. A report recently declared that some 20 or so Romanian people of the Roma ethnic minority had to flee back to their homeland because they had literally been burnt out of their homes. I am old enough to remember such happening in the Catholic areas of the North of Ireland in the early to mid 1960s. So, all people of good will, North and South of the border, and, indeed, all people of good will everywhere must be peace-makers with a deep compassion for all our fellow human beings! There is too much conflict in the world today - and there probably always was - but in these more enlightened days let's be conflict breakers or conflict busters.

Sadly religions of all hues have been more often than not repositories, and indeed often promoters, of hate and bitterness. Anywhere in the world where there is inter-national and indeed intra-national war oftentimes religion or interpretations of that phenomenon lie at its heart. We have to go beyond religion and find a spiritual ground or baseline - the only solid foundation for intra and inter-national peace. With these thoughts in mind I offer here some words from the wonderful Dalai Lama on the matter of the difference between Religion and Spirituality:

I believe there is an important distinction to be made between religion and spirituality. Religion I take to be concerned with belief in the claims to salvation of one faith tradition or another--an aspect of which is acceptance of some form of meta-physical or philosophical reality, including perhaps an idea of heaven or hell. Connected with this are religious teachings or dogma, ritual, prayers and so on. Spirituality I take to be concerned with those qualities of the human spirit--such as love and compassion, patience, tolerance, forgiveness, contentment, a sense of responsibility, a sense of harmony, which bring happiness to both self and others.

-His Holiness the Dalai Lama
From "The Pocket Dalai Lama," edited by Mary Craig, 2002. Reprinted by arrangement with Shambhala Publications, Boston, www.shambhala.com.

Dark Side Of The Moon

The moon is a mysterious place


The moon hides an incredible secret


The only thing they haven't told you


Is that the moon is already inhabited

A SHORT MENTION OF THE DEATH OF MICHAEL JACKSON

(Note: This is a slightly revised form of a comment I left in Amrit Hallon's blog, Writing Cave.)

I find myself unable to ignore the death of Michael Jackson, as much as I might like to. The death of this sad man-boy-freak has become the usual media circus and I'm a bit sorry to join in. I do, however, have a few thoughts and ideas of my own to express.

This reminds me of the hoopla when Anna Nicole Smith died. There IS a difference, of course. Michael Jackson was a talented performer who actually did something of note with his talents. He has been at least on the periphery of my life since the late 1960s. Someone who had "always" been there is gone. It leaves a blank space.

Love is a strange thing. I have learned, to paraphrase R. A. Heinlein, the more I love, the more I CAN love. Each love teaches me to love a little more.

I care deeply about poor people, hungry people, cold people, sick people, oppressed people, hurting people - but I have learned that if I don't distance myself a bit, I'll go mad. (Some say I already have.) I do what I can, mostly by alerting people online, as I am physically unable to do much and my financial resources are small and dwindling. Then I do just a little more than I can, push myself.

My friends and doctors insist that I cut down on these 16-18 hour days, the world will go on just fine if Mai takes a nap in the park. They are right. Sometimes I wonder if all I try to do has any impact on anyone. Still, love compels me to try.

Was he a pedophile or simply a strange guy who had an innocent interest in children, being childlike himself? Was he an ogre of immorality or merely eccentric? I do not know. It is possible he did all the nasty things he was accused of. It is also possible that those were all false charges from people who wanted to open their wallets to put in large amounts of Michael's cash.

The death of Michael Jackson is just this: He brought music, dancing and joy into the lives of millions. He gave us a lot to talk about with his weirdnesses and eccentricities. He made our lives a little more interesting, a little less mundane. And that, my beloved readers, (as Martha Stewart would say) is a good thing.

Good-bye, Michael! The human heart is big enough to care about you and all suffering humanity at the same time.


In memory of two people who deserve to be remembered, this is my martyred son Sandeep's favourite MJ song. I must admit that there is something endearing about a love song to a (literal) rat!



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSqo17o2a1w

Google Contest: Project 10 to the 100

I entered GlobaLove Think Tank in the
Google 10 to the 100th contest months ago.
I was expecting to get the results of the
contest in January but it seems the response was
so great it bogged down the process and the
announcement date is up in the air.
Here's Google's comment.

Thank you to everyone who submitted an idea.
We received over 150,000!

Due to the enthusiastic response we received,
it's taking us longer than we expected to review all the ideas.
Check back later, or sign-up to receive an email
update when we've announced the top ideas.

Link: project10tothe100

Psychotherapy

Every day

in every way

I'm getting better

and better


(repeat)

Young and Beautiful

When we're young

we don't think about the end


The end is always near

Rest in peace Farrah and Michael

Michael Jackson

Michael Jackson's life, in my estimation, is in many ways a testimonial to the convoluted and rapacious nature of the modern world. He was a person of extraordinary talent that faced many obstacles, including race, in his personal quest for meaning and recognition. Ultimately, his own personal insecurities could not withstand the withering power that fame can bring. He possessed a kind, loving and unconventional spirit that made it difficult for him to live in the stark human world where behavior outside of the limiting confines of "normalcy" is immediately held suspect. He attempted to construct a world hewn from his own inner life and nearly succeeded. I will always remember him for the depth and breadth of his immense talent and remarkable grace.

Ghost of Corporate Future

Click on the title to hear Regina Spektor's haunting voice tell the story of her song:

A man walks out of his apartment,

It is raining, he's got no umbrella

He starts running beneath the awnings,

Trying to save his suit,

Trying to save his suit.

Trying to dry, and to dry, and to dry but no good

When he gets to the crowded subway platform,

He takes off both of his shoes

He steps right into somebody's fat loogie

And everyone who sees him says, "Ew."

Everyone who sees him says, "Ew."

But he doesn't care,

'Cause last night he got a visit from the

Ghost of Corporate Future

The ghost said, "Take off both your shoes

Whatever chances you get

Especially when they're wet."

He also said,

"Imagine you go away

On a business trip one day

And when you come back home,

Your children have grown

And you never made your wife moan,

Your children have grown

And you never made your wife moan."

"And people make you nervous

You'd think the world is ending,

And everybody's features have somehow started blending

And everything is plastic,

And everyone's sarcastic,

And all your food is frozen,

It needs to be defrosted."

"You'd think the world was ending,

You'd think the world was ending,

You'd think the world was ending right now.

You'd think the world was ending,

You'd think the world was ending,

You'd think the world was ending right now."

"Well maybe you should just drink a lot less coffee,

And never ever watch the ten o'clock news,

Maybe you should kiss someone nice,

Or lick a rock,

Or both."

"Maybe you should cut your own hair

'Cause that can be so funny

It doesn't cost any money

And it always grows back

Hair grows even after you're dead"

"And people are just people,

They shouldn't make you nervous.

The world is everlasting,

It's coming and it's going.

If you don't toss your plastic,

The streets won't be so plastic.

And if you kiss somebody,

Then both of you'll get practice."

"The world is everlasting

Put dirtballs in your pocket,

Put dirtballs in your pocket,

And take off both your shoes.

'Cause people are just people,

People are just people,

People are just people like you.

People are just people,

People are just people,

People are just people like you."

The world is everlasting

It's coming and it's going

The world is everlasting

It's coming and it's going

It's coming and it's going

Mother Earth

Thank you mother,

thank you for my life.