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2 May 2003 @ 12:48, by sharie. Networking
NCN is a great place to create anything we want.
When your personal life is great, and you're happy with your work, and your home life is wonderful... you may want to get a broader perspective on the global situation, and NCN is the place to do it.
If your personal life sucks, you have no friends, you can't get along with anybody, you can come onto ncn and point fingers at other people, and get a bunch of other people to point fingers and then you'll feel better about yourself. And NCN is the place to do it.
If you want to focus on compiling research so you can contribute toward creating a new civilization... and then offer your work for free on your newslog... NCN is the place to do it.
If people want to interfere with your work and waste your time on things that are unimportant to you, you can ask them to leave you alone, and when they don't, you can block them. Thank you Ming for that. NCN is the place to do anything you want, and that's why NCN works for me.
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2 May 2003 @ 12:22, by sharie. Business
Corporate billionaires are polluting and poisoning and drugging and mass murdering us so they can be rich and rule the world. The question is "why?". The only answer I can see is they have a serious mental illness. If you have the power to create a hellhole, then you have the power to create a wondrous world... why would anyone choose to create a nightmare from hell when they can create a wonderful, magnificent life for all of humanity?
The choice is simple. The ultimate result will impact their sense of self-worth... do they want to rule over a sespool of poverty-striken urchins or do they want to benefit from living in a wondrous world among magnificent human beings?
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 26 Apr 2003 @ 17:05, by raypows. History, Ancient World
This site is highly incomplete at this point. We will continue to add pictures over the next few weeks as we acquire them; a searchable object database is planned as a second phase for the website, to be developed over the next few weeks.
In the world of Mesopotamian archaeology, no other museum could rival the collections from the Iraq Museum. Spanning a time from before 9,000 B.C. well into to the Islamic period they included some of the earliest tools man ever made, painted polychrome ceramics from the 6th millennium B.C., a relief-decorated cult vase from Uruk, famous gold treasures from the Royal Cemetery at Ur, Sumerian votive statues from Tell Asmar, Assyrian reliefs and bull figures from Assyrian capitals of Nimrud, Nineveh, and Khorsabad, to Islamic pottery and coins--an unrivaled treasure not only for Iraq, but for all of mankind.
In the days following the conquest of Baghdad the Iraq Museum was looted. Reports on the damage vary--the number of lost or stolen objects varies between 50,000 to 200,000. Irrespective of numbers, the losses not only to the world of a archaeology but to mankind in general are tremendous .
This site contains Oriental Institute images of objects from the Iraq Museum, sorted by categories. Other images were scanned from books and are posted here with permission of the publishers:
Eva Strommenger. Fünf Jahrtausende Mesopotamien. München: Hirmer Verlag. 1962.
In addition, several institutions and individuals generously contributed pictures from their own holdings--their help is gratefully acknowledged here. It is hoped that it will be of use as a reference tool in the recovery of artifacts should they appear on the antiquities market.
Naturally, this site is highly incomplete at this point. We will continue to add pictures over the next few weeks as we acquire them; a searchable object database is planned as a second phase for the website, to be developed over the next few weeks. More >
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 26 Apr 2003 @ 15:55, by magical_melody. Music
One day, while spending some time with Jack over the summer, we became inspired together to improvise some music. Spirit opened the inspiration for Jack to create a strumming guitar piece that opened me to start singing with a Celtic feel. The melody and lyrics that came were about a man who lived by the sea, and about how this man and I would be coming together to experience a magical adventure. This magical melody (my log name) and lyrics were recorded on CD that day and we recorded the complete version a month later. This song on CD was sent across to New Zealand from Minnesota, and ultimately it helped to bring Max and I together. It was truly a real songline that started weaving real magic in my life! Jack is creating his own type of magic performing nationally on television twice now and on local programs at the young age of 12.
Also see A True Love Story at log More >
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 26 Apr 2003 @ 06:40, by raypows. Ideas, Creativity
This is everything,
All there is,
A sapling on the mountain side,nursing from the soil,
Ancient Mother's arms.
Crisp steps I take in chilling mornings dawn,
Life, it courses as sun rays split the sky.
Not only in the air,
There is magic in my bones,
A faint glimmer of mysteries I have known before.
The Art and Music of Raymond Powers More >
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26 Apr 2003 @ 01:57, by waalstraat. Visual Arts, Graphics
I just felt like sharing my latest art work with my new friends at NCN...hope you enjoy it, I finished it in the early morning hours on Saturday...with love and blessings to all--Bernard More >
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24 Apr 2003 @ 22:50, by ming. Technology
Many people I know are at O'Reilly's Emerging Technology conference in Santa Clara right now. Or rather, pretty much ALL the a-list tech bloggers are there. And I feel a bit left out, as they're talking about many things I'm into. But I just can't defend spending a couple of thousand dollars going to a conference for three days, even if I could squeeze it out of my budget. I'm sorry, I only make 100K per year. Well, last year, when my economy was looking better, I did set myself the target of going to a conference or so per month. And each time that would usually end up costing close to 1000 dollars total, including air plane tickets, hotels, etc. The typical conference I go to would, if it wasn't free, be $2-300. I just can't even wrap my mind around paying even $995 (the early bird, several months in advance price), let alone $1600, just for the conference itself. For sitting on a chair and listening to some people talk, and for the opportunity of meeting some people in the hallway. Oh, great talks and great people that I would like to hang out with, but it somehow doesn't add up. Of course my great visionary tech acquaintances mostly aren't paying for being there, because they're the speakers, or they're journalists. I suppose it is geared towards corporate folks who come to hear what these guys have to say. Anyway, other people seem to have something to say on the money thing too: here, here and here More >
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 23 Apr 2003 @ 23:16, by nemue. Ideas, Creativity
The glen is alive you can feel the spirit,
The water nymph dances across water and sky,
The dragonfly hovers above the reeds,
and life is good.
The birds gather to share their thoughts,
The clouds in the sky are fluffy and white,
The deer graze on grass lush and green,
and life is good.
The fairy dell is ablaze with colour,
The flowers with faces smiling bright,
The bees sup until they fall to sleep,
and life is good.
The earth worms slither through growth thick and moist,
The insects chatter and scavenge for food,
The sun is shining and full of warmth,
and life is good.
The trees stand tall protecting the earth,
The rains gentle mist forms a gossamer veil,
The guardians of the earth are in their heaven,
and life is good More >
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 23 Apr 2003 @ 08:22, by spells. Government, Public Sector
Mounting attacks on free speech in US
By Henry Michaels
23 April 2003
Even as the Bush administration claims to be bringing democracy and political liberty to Iraq, it is spearheading a deepening assault on basic democratic rights at all levels in the United States.
At a Pentagon media briefing on Monday, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said of US plans for post-war Iraq, “We hope (for) a system that will be democratic and have free speech and free press.”
What Rumsfeld means by free speech can be gauged by a growing number of incidents in the United States itself. Police and government authorities have seized upon the war against Iraq to extend the onslaught on freedom of expression that has accelerated since the September 11 terrorist attacks.
Emboldened by the military conquest of Iraq and armed with the Bush administration’s Patriot Act, which authorizes far-reaching restrictions on civil liberties in the name of the “war on terrorism,” officials at federal, state and municipal levels are taking draconian steps to stifle political dissent.
In Oregon, for example, right-wing radio show hosts and Republican legislators are pushing a state anti-terrorism bill that would allow authorities to jail street-blocking protesters for at least 25 years. State Senate Bill 742 defines a terrorist as a person who “plans or participates in an act that is intended, by at least one of its participants, to disrupt “business, transportation, schools, government, or free assembly.” The bill contains automatic sentences of 25 years to life for the crime of terrorism.
Its supporters openly state that the police need stronger laws to break up protests such as those that have occurred in Portland, Oregon, where thousands of people have marched and demonstrated against the war in Iraq. “We need some additional tools to control protests that shut down the city,” said Lars Larson, a talk show host who has aggressively promoted the bill.
In New York City, police admitted last Thursday to conducting political interrogations and compiling a database of people arrested during recent antiwar protests. Detectives used a “Criminal Intelligence Division/Demonstration Debriefing Form” to record information on hundreds of people arrested since mid-February.
Police violated participants’ constitutional rights of free speech and free association, forcing them to answer questions about their political affiliations and beliefs, prior protest activities, and their educational backgrounds. Civil rights lawyers said police asked detainees about their party affiliations, views on Palestine and Israel, and whether they thought the US should have entered World War II.
Protesters were taken to police headquarters after being charged with minor offenses (such as blocking a sidewalk) and then interrogated. Those arrested were not advised of their right to counsel, requests to see counsel were ignored or met with threats of prolonged detention, and lawyers seeking access to those being questioned were kept outside One Police Plaza.
To head off a constitutional lawsuit, New York Police Department chief spokesman Michael O’Looney said the department had agreed to halt the use of the “debriefing form” and had destroyed the database. Police would continue to tally the names of organizations, supposedly to help in deciding how many officers to assign to future demonstrations. There is no guarantee that this concession, made only after the end of large-scale military hostilities in Iraq, will be honored.
New York City’s legal representative, Gail Donoghue, continued to defend the police interrogation. “The plaintiffs ignore the fact that the people who were questioned had been arrested because they had committed criminal acts,’’ she said. “The fact that they were arrested at a demonstration does not insulate them from being asked questions about their conduct.’’
Thursday’s disclosure came just weeks after a judge cited “fundamental changes in the threats to public security” in lifting 20-year-old restrictions on the New York Police Department’s license to spy on political groups. At the city administration’s request, US District Judge Charles S. Haight Jr. on April 8 permitted wider police monitoring of political groups.
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) official Donna Lieberman commented: “As a city and a nation, we are at a crossroads about civil liberties. The city’s initiation of these interrogations reveals how willing government is to abandon basic First Amendment values in these difficult times.”
Police intimidation of antiwar protesters is far from confined to New York City. In Denver on April 17 police admitted photographing, recording license plate numbers and intercepting email of peaceful demonstrators. Police chiefs pledged to discontinue these practices under a legal settlement reached between the city and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Colorado.
A week earlier, in Alamosa, Colorado, the ACLU reached an agreement with city officials to allow a local book and music store owner to resume displaying the American flag upside-down in his store window to express his disgust with the war on Iraq.
John Fleming, owner of The Roost store, showed the flag as a symbol of the US in distress. Alamosa’s police chief threatened him with prosecution under an old Colorado law that says “contempt of flag” is a crime and makes it unlawful to “mutilate, deface, defile, trample upon, burn, cut or tear any flag in public.” The police threat flew in the face of Supreme Court rulings that the US Constitution protects the use of the US flag in political protests.
Teachers suspended
Teachers, librarians and T-shirt wearers are among other victims of the war on democratic rights.
Four high school teachers in Albuquerque, New Mexico have filed a lawsuit in federal court after being suspended in March for refusing to remove antiwar signs from their classrooms. Albuquerque Public Schools (APS) declared that the signs breached its “controversial issues” policy. Yet its schools are full of military recruitment posters and photographs of US troops fighting in Iraq.
The teachers have since returned to their schools and are back on the job, but without back pay. They are asking for reinstatement of pay, that “letters of reprimand be removed from personnel files and [for] enforcement of their right to free speech,” ACLU lawyer Jane Gagne said. The lawsuit claims the school district violated the free speech and equal protection provisions of the First and Fourteenth amendments to the US Constitution and similar provisions of the state constitution.
“APS has clamped down on antiwar expression that did not in the least interfere with the educational process,” Gagne said, “and where nothing indicates that the teachers and the counselor forced their views on anyone. In fact, they encouraged open and free discussion among pro-war and antiwar students.”
At a recent school board meeting, educators, students and community members read statements of support for the teachers’ actions. They plan to publish a petition in a local newspaper and present it to the board, proving the teachers have the community’s support. “I feel proud the teachers expressed their dissent to their bosses,” said Sue Chavez, an APS speech pathologist. “They modeled the kind of behavior they expect from their students.”
In Fayetteville, Arkansas a young man was arrested for criminal trespass April 5 at the Northwest Arkansas Mall when he and other members of a University of Arkansas student group attempted to enter the facility wearing T-shirts emblazoned with antiwar slogans.
Daniel Vaught, 22, said he tried to enter the mall’s north entrance to have lunch after he and fellow students had demonstrated in Fayetteville. Their shirts bore the slogans, “Support the troops, not war or Bu$h.” Mall security officers confronted them and quickly called the Fayetteville Police Department.
Vaught said the group was inspired by the recent case of a New York lawyer who was arrested at Crossgates Mall in Albany after refusing to remove a T-shirt bearing the slogan “Peace on earth” on the front and “Give peace a chance” on the back.
Library records
Across many states, librarians are fighting provisions of the Patriot Act that give federal intelligence agencies greater authority to examine all book and computer records at libraries. The law requires investigators to get a search warrant before seizing library records, but those proceedings are secret and not subject to appeal. It also forbids libraries from informing patrons that their reading or computer habits are being monitored by the government.
In Monterey Park, near Los Angeles, every public computer inside the city’s library has a defiant warning taped to its screen, warning users that anything they read is subject to secret scrutiny by federal agents. “We felt strongly that this had to be done,” librarian Linda Wilson told the Washington Post. “The government has never had this kind of power before. It feels like Big Brother.”
Earlier this year, the American Library Association, which has 64,000 members, formally denounced the Patriot Act provision and passed a resolution urging Congress to repeal it. Since then, some two dozen state library groups—from California to Georgia—have taken a similar stand.
Some libraries are destroying nearly all the records they keep of what their patrons read, as well as sign-up logs of computer use. Others are scrapping plans to use new computer technology to profile the reading habits of patrons and inform them when works they enjoy are published. Some library officials are distributing pamphlets against the Patriot Act provisions. “How can you tell when the FBI has been in your library?” the pamphlet asks. “You can’t,” it answers.
Several libraries in Maine recently launched a campaign to encourage lenders to read the George Orwell novel 1984, which depicts a world in which an all-powerful government known as “Big Brother” punishes citizens for thought-crimes.
According to a survey conducted by researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, about 550 libraries across the country reported receiving requests over the past year from federal and local investigators for patrons’ records. More than 200 libraries said they had resisted such requests.
Justice Department spokesman Mark Corallo defended the Patriot Act, arguing that it targeted only “suspected foreign spies and terrorists,” but refused to say how many or what kind of requests federal agents had made for library records. To do so, he said, could compromise national security.
These incidents are the tip of the iceberg of a sustained attack, led by the Bush administration, on intellectual freedom, civil liberties and political rights. Already, anti-terrorism and immigration laws have been used to dismiss and arrest pro-Palestinian professors, round up hundreds of foreign-born residents from selected countries, illegally detain more than 600 so-called “enemy combatants” offshore in Guantanamo Bay and imprison two US citizens—Jose Padilla and Yaser Esam Hamdi—without trial.
There is a growing recognition among not just librarians and civil rights activists, but entertainers, artists and ordinary working people that the most fundamental democratic rights are under threat.
American actor and director Tim Robbins, addressing the National Press Club in Washington earlier this month, said: “In the 19 months since 9/11, we have seen our democracy compromised by fear and hatred. Basic inalienable rights, due process, the sanctity of the home have been compromised in a climate of fear.”
Speaking after the Baseball Hall of Fame cancelled an event featuring him and his wife Susan Sarandon because of their opposition to the Iraq war, Robbins said the couple had received threatening emails and telephone calls. “A chill wind is blowing in this nation,” he said. “A message is being sent through the White House and its allies.... If you oppose this administration, there can and will be ramifications.”
He concluded: “Our ability to disagree, and our inherent right to question our leaders and criticize their actions, define who we are. To allow those rights to be taken away out of fear, to punish people for their beliefs, to limit access in the media to differing opinions, is to acknowledge our democracy’s defeat.”
There is a profound connection between the Iraq war and the official offensive against democratic rights. A program of neocolonial conquest can be implemented only through the suppression of domestic political opposition. Increasingly, the military occupation of Iraq is mirrored by the makings of an internal police state regime.
See Also:
US: Republicans seek to make Patriot Act provisions permanent
[15 April 2003]
Baseball Hall of Fame cancels film ceremony in attack on antiwar performers
[14 April 2003]
Police fire rubber bullets at anti-war protesters in California
[8 April 2003]
Pittsburgh police lock up antiwar protesters for 30 hours
[29 March 2003] More >
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 20 Apr 2003 @ 14:49, by jewel. Personal Development
I am wondering about the inner patriarchal ideas each of us carry from culture and family. And mine. I know someone’s whose inner critic views her life and all others as either a failure or success. Those who ‘can do it’ and those who simply, can’t won’t or … fate is against, consciousness, luck or whatever. But to me, I always knew it wasn’t about wining or loosing. Rather it’s about the journey and experience, knowledge and wisdom, the Great Mystery and the remembering of something Bigger…
But I just think I figured out what mine is, my ‘inner polarity’. I don’t know if that is a psychologically correct term. The inner Split as I have often referred to ‘it’ as… the one that skews the world into a false sense of division. It is generally linked back to the type of western dysfunctional family, tribe or community one participated in. The Split that keeps the shared hallucination of false models or institutional thought in place. There is a natural Flow… that we Know, feel, dream and hope to return to… the Life we are actually always participating in which is organic, authentic and whole in it’s own non-duality. And then the outer false ideas of heaven and hell that the shared human nightmare makes up. The night mare that gallops through Forget-me-land… full of division and conquering separation. (And yet the ability to self-reflect. Could we do that without the scism?… )
So I figure MY personal polarity is about being ‘right’ or ‘wrong’. That I think I am going to be proved ‘wrong’ and therefore am sort of always trying to cover up that I am NOT ‘wrong’. But inevitably someone will find out I AM ‘wrong’…. I don’t want it to be about that… and I want to think it isn’t I have to prove myself ‘right’… but the emotionality is that I am afraid of being found out to be ‘wrong’. I always think I need to have a case for my NOT being wrong… but the fact that I can’t really figure out the logic in a box of rational thought… makes me terribly confused. Because I have a sense of knowing in the kaleidoscope of information and senses I get from the many worlds I walk in, and because I put things together in a sort of multi-dimensional process… I feel I need to be more specific, grounded, and linear in order to ‘prove’ something that I naturally experience in a sort of a spiral awakening, coming into a knowing from many different directions and points. And I have allowed myself to feel wrong about that, that that is NOT the way one is ‘suppose’ to ‘do it’… whatever ‘do it’ means. As in yesterday’s featured article, ‘By WHOSE Standards?’ --- yes, indeed, by WHOSE standards, am I comparing myself? I think that if only I can think like them, talk like them, ‘Be’ as grounded with that same ‘iron in my soul’ on the earth plane as all the other ‘right’ ones in the box, then inevitably I can figure out their game, and show them I am not ‘wrong’ for being, actually, from another game entirely. And isn’t this the loneliest experience, then? This inner polarity? That we each walk around carrying an idea of how we will be judged… and therefore, the thought of it --- in ITSELF --- is what keeps us divided?
In a whole world, in a connected universe, can anything in the path of discovery --- EVEN when we are in ‘reaction’, experience, or a limited view --- can any of it really be ‘right’ or ‘wrong’…? And isn’t this duality just as preposterous as the one that figures life is only about the winners and losers?
The madness continues to set in. Deeper in and further in… I feel more divided, more awake, more alone, and more and more closer to the great inner abyss. El Mystere’~~
- - -
I just wrote the above and decided to look up ‘inner polarity’ on google. I found a section on the website of Ken Page, a new age healer. Although I don’t think he really touches upon most important part of the issue in his own story, I found a similar idea from his as my own ‘Ah-Ha’ of the day:"Usually our inner piece of polarity is locked or hidden in a space of our lives between our conscious recollections. Most times our inner piece of polarity is hidden in a place where we 'lost our heads', either out of fear, anger or rage, or we have become unconscious. It is different for every person. When you find your own inner piece of polarity (and it can usually be found within about five minutes), there will almost be a physical feeling of release, like a puff of smoke going poof.” And I found a site on the Tao Te Ching also using this concept:”Resolving one’s inner polarity is the key to spiritual growth. There is a tendency for people to undo their good efforts through the action of this inner polarity. The first step is to recognise the action of this polarity and relate this action to the action of outer polarity - seen in societal affairs and in Nature generally. The polarity cannot be abolished only balanced. For example the libido should be balanced against a heightened sense of responsibility. One cannot go around copulating indiscriminately, the consequences would be dreadful. So the desire to copulate must be converted into wanting to improve oneself and others.” I would agree with this Taoism idea. Instead of wanting to transcend or eliminate our polarity – For me, it’s like a layer of an onion, to ‘detox patriarchy’… to continue to come back into balance with what is ALWAYS in unison with true Life. The experience of being human, to react and to respond… doesn’t mean we are ‘less’ (again, polar idea) enlightened, or more ‘done’ with our ‘spiritual work’… it doesn’t mean the separated experiences even, are somehow separate from the WHOLE one. It’s just that we ‘forget.’ Hence the Tao idea of balance. To witness and use ‘Subtle Powers’ for our dance between many worlds … between the broken whirld and the Reality that is within and behind all experiences..
(Later, when I shared this realisation with Ming, he told me he has a technique in his counselling that deals with identifying/ healing the 'inner polarity'. More on this soon~ ) More >
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