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7 Jan 2004 @ 12:54, by craiglang. Business
An interesting series of questions passed through my mind in the last week or two - mostly relating to the ups and downs of the corporate environment - what I lovingly call CubeWorld.
I had a couple of weeks off for the Christmas holiday, so I was able to spend much of my time writing, seeing clients, and spending time with Gwyn enjoying things that we wouldn't normally be able to do. It was a delight spending the day at the Science Museum, seeing alot of movies, etc... It was an enjoyable break, and best of all, I had no thoughts about the current goings-on at the company. Not a thought of corporate politics passed through my brain.
I talk about how I enjoy working in the design engineering of healing technology. Yet with the next breath I grouse about working in CubeWorld. Anyone notice a duality there?... :-)
Like anything else, CubeWorld has both advantages and disadvantages. Many of the disadvantages are obvious - politics, a power and ego orientation, schedule pressure, a hierarchical food chain, and all of the foibles that go along with it. And it was this that I so much enjoyed being away from. For two weeks, I got to live for me - no boss(!!!) It was wonderful to work with clients without any agenda of a company getting in the way. I could concentrate on writing and service.
But the other thing I noticed was that when you get away from the world of the workplace and start to work for yourself, your overall people exposure drops way off. Being a bit of an extrovert, I find that I need alot of people contact on a daily basis. That's probably what I like most about the day-job, and why I'm still there. It's the people I work with.
During the days that I spent working on my book and writing articles, I found myself going from one end of the day to the other, hardly seeing a soul. It was clear to me that if this became a regular thing, depression might not be too far off. The people-outlet problem is described by quite a few work-at-home'ers and telecomuters, and by therapists who are in private practice. While CubeWorld has some very clear disadvantages, it does at least provide you with an automatic people-outlet.
As I contemplate the coming changes, I can imagine myself at some point possibly going into private practice as a healer, hypnotherapist, and maybe a freelance programmer. And last week I concluded that it will be a challenge to restructure life such that there is sufficient regular people contact to prevent the sense of isolation. Clearly, when going it alone, some other creative type of people-outlet will be needed to replace that aspect of CubeWorld.
So, chalk this up as a little lesson that I learned from a tiny little dry run of the freelance life - two weeks of time off from CubeWorld. More >
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3 Jan 2004 @ 12:10, by ming. Economics, Financing, Banking
I just ran into this article about "Project Hammer - Covert Finance and the Parallel Economy". And, well, I'm always interested in good conspiracy stories and possible scenarios for what is going on behind the scenes. But here it sticks a little deeper, as I happen to know some of the players in the story. Project Hammer is apparently a high-yield investment program of gargantuan proportions that was run by intelligence operatives and shadey bankers. Dealing with amounts that, as it says, would challenge whatever reality you had about international banking, just by their fantastic and unbelievable amounts. Multi-trillion dollar funds."Research shows that gold recovered by the forerunner to the CIA--the Office of Strategic Services (OSS)--was deposited in Citibank (and many other banks, too), not in the name of the OSS or CIA but in the name of one of their operatives, Severino Garcia Santa Romana.
On his death in 1974, some--but not all--of Romana's "assets" appear to have been illegally acquired by former Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos, who was at one time Santa Romana's attorney. According to Santa Romana's widow, her husband gave Marcos a limited Power of Attorney for use solely in the Philippines, since he travelled abroad regularly. It seems that Marcos somehow made use of this to gain control over Santa Romana's gold and other assets.
It also appears likely, based on documents in this writer's possession, that considerable quantities of gold once held by Santa Romana were later placed under the control of former CIA covert operator Major-General Edward Lansdale. However, these assets were lodged with the Union Bank of Switzerland. Again, it is worthy of note that they were placed in Ed Lansdale's name, not in the name of a US Government agency. These assets are very clearly off the books.
Large quantities of gold held by Citibank remained in the account names of Severino Garcia Sta. Romana and José Antonio Diaz de la Paz (the latter being a well-known alias for Santa Romana) under reference codes "Fanerst King Fisher" and "Burgst Harbor King" respectively.3 These have been the subject of a legal wrangle between Santa Romana's heirs and Citibank's John Reed.
The fact that the gold held by Citibank and others may not have been in the name of the Central Intelligence Agency or the Federal Reserve--but, rather, was in Santa Romana's name--may have been all Citibank needed to wriggle out of a poorly crafted question."
Severino Santa Romana's widow's name is Luz Santa Romana. I've met her several times. Mindblowing of course that this frail little old philippino lady would be potentially the richest person in the world. She was the primary heir as well as the executor of the estate of Severino Santa Romano. We're talking about 1.3 trillion dollars in gold and cash in well-documented accounts. Yeah, ok, most "normal" people will instantly get overwhelmed with disbelief and will stop listening, after hearing such outrageous amounts and fantastic stories. But, well, confirmations keep appearing from many corners. And, personally, after spending time with some of the key people, my initial disbelief gradually turned into the realization that things probably were pretty much like they presented them.
Luz re-married to Jim Brown, an American businessman who had already spent years researching such matters. And together they went to work on trying to access her inheritance. And they were having loads of problems with it. One time after another it was really close, but the bank pulled out at the last moment, suddenly deciding they needed another piece of paper that wasn't available. Or an assortment of other strange things happened.
It isn't very strange of course. If we're talking about a behind the scenes operator, moving around large sums of ill-begotten wealth, which is used for dealing arms, covert operations, bailing out banks behind the scenes, etc, and some of the funds incidentally were still in his name when he died, it is not just going to be handed over to his little old widow in a plastic bag. Because the people who were using it didn't consider it his personally, whatever it said on the accounts. And the amounts are so large that they can only be moved around very carefully without crashing national economies. You can't just go and withdraw hundreds of billions of dollars and put them in a briefcase. Anyway, Jim and Luz didn't even succeed getting a few million withdrawn. Because, of course, if they succeeded at that, they could much better demand the rest. Besides, the point is that the funds mostly weren't there any more. They had been snatched up by some of the people who were used to playing with them, plus by some people who found ways of gettting their clammy hands on some of them, like Marcos.
My reasons for being interested was in part that these were otherwise normal and pleasant people, and they were having problems they needed help with. Some rather weird, interesting and unusual problems, but still. Secondarily, in case they did happen to get access to even a portion of the lost billions, I could certainly think of ways of helping them flow them in good directions. I'm not thinking of myself, but rather, you could make a hell of an influential non-profit organization with just a very small chunk of the amounts we're talking about. So, in part what I did was to invite a group of people to think together about how one might do that, and how we could present it. And a team of dedicated folks worked for several months and came up with a draft plan for the New Civilization Foundation. The general idea was to support viable distributed alternatives to the oppressive and centralized way things otherwise are done.
I handed the plan to Luz and watched her as she read it over carefully. She didn't blink over the suggested 10 billion dollar yearly budget. As a matter of fact she nodded and said she'd really like to support it, but she had to apologize that it unfortunately wasn't possible at that exact moment.
It didn't particularly get much closer. Luz passed away now a couple of years ago. Jim is her heir, so in principle it is all in his hands. But increasingly unlikely. And he's tired of trying. So, he's concentrating on his book about the whole affair. Here's the simple site I set up for him earlier. The book was initially the "insurance policy". He would publish it, with all the juicy details and names and documents, if the banks didn't cooperate. Well, they didn't and probably won't. And bringing the story to light is more where Jim is at now. The book has grown from the initial one volume to four volumes. He hopes to make the actual publishing happen shortly, and I'm working on a new version of the site for him. More >
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 2 Jan 2004 @ 20:31, by mre. Internet
At this point, the plans for a voice of humanity are sketched out and time has come to begin coding. Fact is, though, a combination of the flu and the holidays has slowed me down and I'm finding it hard to switch over from the 2 percent inspiration stage to the 98 percent perspiration long haul, so I've decided to recap what has been developed so far before settling down to work. More >
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 2 Jan 2004 @ 13:07, by ming. Systems Thinking
Here's a couple of patterns that might be useful for various things. First of all, you can divide life into various spheres that encompass more and more, but that each work according to different rules. You could see them as somewhat concentric circles, starting with you as an individual as the innermost circle. So, like this, for example:
Personal domain - One individual person and everything that pertains to maintaining an individual existence. This includes one's body, one's name, one's belongings, one's personal interests and preferences.
Relationship domain - The interactions between two or more individuals close to each other. That includes friendships, marriages, family, but also temporary connections and interchanges between individuals.
Group domain - Several people associating to form group activities. That can be a company or club or cause, or any other association, permanent or temporary. A group tends to take on a life of its own, beyond the dynamics of the participating individuals.
Society or Culture domain - Larger groups of people co-exist in adjacent space to form societies or cultures or movements. A society can consist of many diverse groups and interests, but something ties them together. Maybe it is shared history or traditions, or maybe it is just geographical boundaries. A country would fit in there, as would a religion, or a social movement.
Global domain - A whole planetary system is a global domain. That includes societies and whatever else exists on a planetary sphere, like other life forms. This includes concern for ecology and whatever else is needed to manage co-existence of diverse groups and species and resources within a closed system. Ours is planet Earth.
And we could continue and describe domains of a solar system, a galaxy, a universe, a multi-verse, and All-that-is. Which is interesting too, and gets a bit more meta-physical. And it could be done in various kinds of ways.
But the point I wanted to stress is that each of such domains or spheres of influence will work according to different rules. And there's a key principle there:
A problem that can't be solved in a certain domain can often be solved if we move up to a higher domain, with more degrees of freedom
It makes sense if you think about dimensions. These areas don't exactly match physical dimensions, but the principle is similar. If you live in a two-dimensional world, certain things can much better be sorted out in three dimensions. Like, two dimensional beings can't see what's inside two-dimensional constructs. But that's no problem at all for three-dimensional beings. E.g. you can easily look at a piece of paper and see everything on it, even stuff that's inside spheres or rectangles with no openings in them. Sounds elementary, but it wouldn't be for a flatlander living in the plane of the page. Same thing if you live in 3D. A 4D person who came along could very easily see and deal with things that you'd have trouble with. If you had swallowed a ballpoint pen, he could just grab it for you, without having to go through your skin. Just as easily as you could go and erase some of the contents written on the paper inside a circle, without breaching the outer rim of the circle. Elementary if you operate in a higher dimension.
OK, that was a little digression to explain that it works a little similar with the domains of life outlined above. If you add more degrees of freedom, often found in the next higher domain, things can be resolved that couldn't be resolved in the lower domain.
Take an individual. There are lots of things one might figure out all by oneself, by sitting thinking about it, by noticing what one feels like, or by putting order in one's stuff. But when one really gets stuck, one often can't. And the answer is usually to ask somebody else about it. Somebody else you know might come along, and have a very different perspective, or a skill or piece of knowledge you don't have. And you talk a little with them, or they help you, and your problem gets sorted out. Many problems that are unsolvable for an individual all by himself get easily solved by relations with other people.
There are certain mechanics that exist in any relation of two people. They can, for example, agree on something. They can listen to each other's views and wishes and then decide on a common agreement between them. And, most of the time, two reasonably sane people can work out something between them that is mutually satisfying. Even if they agree to disagree on some particular subject. These mechanics are, however, very different from the mechanics of what an individual all by himself would do. So if any of the two parties don't notice the different rules, and try to continue acting as only an individual, they might have difficulties getting along with other people.
Whereas a unit of two people will pretty much have to agree in order to get anywhere, a bigger group does not. A bigger group might have a shared agreement, but it is more like a framework and general intention, and it isn't usually required that everybody in the group agree with everybody else on everything. On the contrary, a group works in part because it has internal diversity, and different people take on different functions. Like in a company or in a family. Somebody does the dishes, somebody does the accounting, and it wouldn't really be desirable that we all do the same thing at the same time.
So, some of the problems of a two-person relationship can be sorted out with the help of a group. If I like sports and you don't, I can just go to a soccer match with my buddies and you can go to a dance class. Or, amongst the diverse abilities available in a group, we might find some that might help us out in various situations. If two people in the accounting department don't get along, one of them might go and work in another department instead.
If individuals or relationships or groups have serious problems doing the right thing or getting along, it falls upon a next higher sphere or a society or culture to sort it out. An individual will be assisted by people who know them. A couple might be assisted by people around them. If that fails, it might come to society. Legal recourse is a crude form of that. Somebody can come along and apply some general moral principles and cut through and decide matters. More generally, a higher domain offers more variety of constellations of people, some of which will transcend the problem at hand.
A group might have clear rules of how one becomes a member, and whether one belongs to the group or not. A society typically doesn't. If you're born in a certain country, you can't just be thrown out. So, the rules are different. Deciding who's in or out is no longer part of the tools of that domain.
If somebody tries to run a country like it is just a group, it won't work well. If you just try to make sure the right people are inside the country, and they all get with the program, and the bad people stay outside - it won't work well, because it is the wrong level, the wrong domain to operate in.
On the planetary domain, again, it is different rules. Quite obviously there, nobody can just be kicked out. There needs to be room for everybody, even for the people you don't like, even for the people and plants and animals that don't have economic value. And you can't just make a uniform culture that everybody must belong to. That's the wrong level. A mono-culture might work for a smallish group, but works badly for a large group or a society or a planet.
If humanity can not figure out how to operate well, somewhat harmoniously with the rest of life on the planet, the next higher domain will sort things out by itself. I.e. humankind might go extinct and life will go on without us. Because the mechanics of how life works is of a higher order than how politicians might choose to manage foreign relations and environmental policy.
So, to summarize, different domains in life work by different rules. If what is going on isn't working, it might be because somebody's applying rules from too low a level. Or it might be necessary to involve a higher level in getting things sorted out. If a problem can't be solved, you usually need more degrees of freedom, not fewer. More >
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2 Jan 2004 @ 02:00, by gili. Violence, War
In Israel/Palestine there is a grassroots peace movement of Moslems, Jews and Christians. It is the Sulha, or reconciliation.
[link]
It is being led by religious leaders. Those of Hamas and those of the settlers, it seems that by choosing the language of "The Land of the Prophets" and "The Children of Abraham" there is a common ground, literally...From my brief glimpse of the sulha process, I see one state in Israel/Palestine, one state for two nations.
[link]
The common religous roots of the Palestinians and the Jews can be used as a bridge between them. It is a radical idea for me and I am not sure about it. It seems impossible, yet the more I think about it the more sense it seems to make. The two government bodies would be merged. There would be a truth and reconciliation hearings much like in South Africa where people would recieve amnesty for their testimony. The Israeli Defense Forces would be transitioned into providing relief and refugee for the two peoples.
The issue of the Palestinian Right of Return has been the most problematic issue for the negotiations between the Israeli and Palestinians. Israeli society is very much against the Right of Return and sees it as the end of the Jewish homeland.
Yet, the Palestinians need to be heard, their Right of Return must be honored. This is where sulha comes in. This is where the religious and spiritual leaders need to show the rest of the population that peace is possible by coming together. And they are doing just that.
Another related article...
[link]
I want to believe in the one state solution but I am scared to. It seems so simple, yet it is very radical, almost too radical. I do not know...There is so much to forgive...so much suffering...
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1 Jan 2004 @ 17:07, by craiglang. Ideas, Creativity
We just got home from seeing Return of the King. For Gwyn it was the first time she had seen it. For me it was the second. In the last couple of days, we had re-watched the first two movies, and I also looked up a few websites that talked about some of the ideas portrayed in the movie. One of the best is Jay Weidner's website: "Tolkien at the End of Time". It discusses a lot about the history behind the rings, and Tolkien's thinking about the current cycle of history where we presently reside.
In seeing the movie several times, particularly in the context of having just seen the first two again, alot of interesting connections fell into place - some of which had long escaped me. On his site, Jay Weidner discusses the idea behind the third and fourth ages of Middle Earth. In Lord of the Rings, Tolkien presents the tale of the close of the third age (the Bronze age), and the beginning of the fourth age (The Iron age, the age of Men, Power and Machines).
Jay states that this is the age of technology, when the mechanical and technological would be very much dominant over the spiritual and magical. It is the cycle known in Hindu mythology as the Kali Yuga. This age has lasted for the last 6000 years (recorded history), and is the final age of this great-cycle or maha yuga.
In the astrological lore of many cultures: Mayan, Babylonian, Indo-European, etc, the close of the present age occurs at the winter solstice of 2012. At this point, the cycle begins again with the Satya Yuga, or Golden Age. This is the time when Heaven and Earth become close together - and I suspect that it is at the core of most new-age thinking. At this time, humanity again lives as one in a deep spiritual communion with both Earth and Sky. It is the beginning of a long time of peace for all on the Earth.
The time at the close of each age, and especially the boundary between the Kali and Satya Yugas is said to be a time of tremendous upheaval - wars and cataclysms being their main characteristic. And based upon this model, we can imagine that the time of 2010 to 2012 will be an entertaining time, indeed.
In that time, I can imagine that the polarities that make up the Kali Yuga will intensify, until they come to a head at the close of the age. At the end of that time, or at some time around then, the transcendence or enlightenment occurs. Is this the time of the second coming? The time when all humanity (at least all that remains) Awakens? Perhaps. But how many will be here to see the answer?
Many of the prophets have described a fork in the road at about that time. On one path is the path of darkness - which many will choose to take. On the other path, is the road that leads to the light - which others will follow. And in the end, at the close of the age, the two paths diverge, with the path of light leading into a new world.
The Return of the King portrays a fascinating picture of Tolkien's composite of modern/western mythology, from Norse, Germanic and Celtic tribes, as well as a heavy influence from Hindu/Vedic cosmology. It will be interesting to see how this plays out, how accurate this model of history is, as we approach the end of the Kali Yuga - the Iron Age - the age of Machines and Power. More >
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 1 Jan 2004 @ 03:33, by magical_melody. Relationships
Solara 2004 Overview for the year.
The Year of the Monkey. (Chinese Year - Some Information)
Is he the one on your back, or the trickster simply trying to get your attention? More >
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31 Dec 2003 @ 21:28, by inanna. Performing Arts
Starring: Shahrukh Kahn, Manisha Koirala, & Preity Zinta
Dil Se is a movie that captures you on so many levels. The actors are wonderful and itÂ’s a pity that Shahrukh Khan is not better known here in the USA, because he is pure magic. Maybe if you think of Al Pacino and Robert De Niro combined with someone with great moves, who can really dance, you just might come close to describing Shahrukh. More >
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31 Dec 2003 @ 14:08, by sharie. Spirituality
What most people think of as *the real world out there* is really an illusion... a delusion created by the criminally insane... created by the billionaire's grubbing for more, their paid *economists* telling us that building a toxic factory will save our children's future... on and on the delusion and sickness goes...
Once we look beyond the mental illness of those who propose to lead the way, beyond the *reality* manifested by beliefs about wealth, superiority, economics, nature, humanity...
beyond what we're taught about *science* and the world we live in...
Once we look beyond the lies, and insist upon the truth,
we see who we are and what we're capable of, we see the truth of our magnificent Mother Earth and what she's capable of, we see *Life* ... the *spirit of Life* as the only reality... Everything else is an illusion that fades with time.
Only the Spirit of Life is real.
The Spirit of Life is Light, Love, Truth, Peace, Bliss, Eternity...
Everything else is just a temporary passing.
When we know ourselves as the Spirit of Life manifesting our bodies, our thoughts, our experiences, we have such a liberation of all we are.
Reject the *illusion* imposed upon us by the media, by the industrialists, the economists, the universities, the pharmaceutical companies, the weapons companies... don't believe in lies...
There is a truth far more beautiful...
and it lives in you.
The truth *is* you.
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 31 Dec 2003 @ 12:44, by ming. Personal Development
Another year is walking by. I guess it was a pretty eventful year. We moved and live in another country now. Different circumstances, different stuff, different people. But some engineered external change just makes it easier to notice the stuff that is more permanent. Consciousness, exploration, learning, sharing, warmth, laughter, love. The things that one cares about in life, no matter the circumstances. The continuous finding and re-finding of that which makes life worth living. For me there's a red thread going through all of it. Often a rather elusive thread. I know it is always there somewhere, but I might lose it or forget it for a while. Which is easy to do because it always changes. It is never a thing or a place or an idea or a label or a system. Never something you can just grasp and hold on to. Maybe it is a quality. I notice the thread as a feeling. A sense of being in the flow, where something both new and familiar is happening. Where you have a sense of recognition, despite being on an adventure you've never seen before. Where you wake up a little, and realize how life is really simple and mostly joyful, while at the same time vast and mysterious. It is an amazing thing. To life! More >
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