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 20 Oct 2002 @ 23:07, by ashanti. Nutrition, Cooking
* In the developed countries, the debate about GMO (genetically modified) foods is relatively straightforward. Either you believe they are harmful, with as yet unknown and untested ramifications, or you agree with the multinationals who produce them - they are just fine. Most intelligent, health-conscious people reject the imposition of GMO foods on humanity and our children.
* However, in Africa, the issue becomes rather more complex. The USA is offering GMO food aid to African countries blighted by famine. (Presumably, they have nowhere else to dump it, with the Western rejection). What does one do? This has generated a huge controversy, as many African leaders are wary of accepting the frankenfoods, but their people are starving. The USA tells Africa, - Eat GMO foods, or starve. It is a kind of blackmail, because the USA says it will not be able to send food that is certified non-GMO.. Some countries, such as Zambia have banned GMO foods. President Levy Mwanawasa told the BBC he would not allow Zambians to eat "poison".
* Other countries in the region see no other alternative but to accept the Frankenfoods to feed their starving people. Given that Africa is perfectly capable of growing her own food, but has become trapped by the system of growing cash crops for the West, accepting cash to then buy back the food from the West, the situation is ridiculous. There is no need for the people of Africa to be starving, none at all.
* A way out of the starvation trap is for families and communities to group together and grow Food Gardens. This creates healthy, natural fresh fruit and vegetables, and protein can be sourced from growing legumes. Using permaculture models, Food Gardens can be a sustainable, natural way of feeding people. It's that simple - and doesn't require huge amounts of money to gather seeds for planting. Food and Trees for Africa is one South African group that are working on spreading this solution, and empowering people to be self-sufficient. More >
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19 Oct 2002 @ 15:15, by sharie. Spirituality
As beings of light, our multi-faceted brilliance allows us to experience the manifestation of anything we choose. The question is "what do we choose?"
If you wonder what you choose, the answer is:
you choose what you experience.
If you want to choose to experience something different than what you have been experiencing, you can choose that too.
The question is "what do you want to choose?"
I choose the best of all possible worlds, and since anything is possible, I choose heaven on earth, which I think must surely be better than heaven in the sky. It seems to be that the Earth is such a wonderful and marvelous place. And that *heaven after death* place is not that appealing to me.
So I've been focusing my investigation on heaven on earth, and have been discovering quite a lot about it. It's a way of life with loving kindness and heavenly place. A magical, miraculous realm of beauty and wonder. I believe in this more than I believe in anything, so I'm choosing to focus my heart and mind on the realm and the kingdom of heaven on earth.
I'll keep you posted of my progress.
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 16 Oct 2002 @ 23:03, by ashanti. Medicine, Healthcare
* AIDS is a subject that looms large over Africa. In South Africa alone, it is estimated that if the current rate of infection continues, in a mere five years' time, 45% of households will be headed by children whose parents have died of AIDS. That means they have no parental nurturing, no schooling, and have to scramble to eke out a living. Government social grants are not even going to touch the tip of the iceberg. In addition, to gain access to government grants, they have to supply their identity numbers, and many of these children have no identity numbers. Aids in Africa requires intelligent strategy to deal with it.
* Personally, I have lost two friends and one work colleague to this cruel disease. Another two work colleagues are infected. There are so many theories about AIDS, HIV, and what caused it. One is that the virus was artificially manufactured by the CIA, to target black people specifically.
(This was reinforced when South Africas' Dr Wouter Basson, nicknamed "Dr Death" because he was considered to be responsible for working on biochemical weapons aimed specifically at black people, was testifying at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings. The United States and British governments immediately put pressure on the South African government to seal Dr. Bassons' testimony.As a result of this, many Africans believe that the USA and UK were assisting with the programme.)
* This explains the African governments' (South Africa in particular) resistance to providing access to anti-retroviral treatment (western solutions imposed on Africans again). The politics over AIDS has delayed the formulation of effective strategy to manage and address the issue, and has resulted in a number of civic organizations, such as the Treatment Action Campaign, forming to rally and pressure government to allow its HIV-infected citizens to be treated with what is currently available. Government has been influenced by a school of thought that denies that HIV is the cause AIDS, and this has led to years of court-wrangling and battling, while people die daily.
* Traditional solutions, such as awareness campaigns, education, promotion of safe sex and monogamy have not yet proven effective. In cases where safe sex and monogamy have been practiced, the infection rate has reduced. However, monogamy is not a culturally accepted norm in Africa, and it is unlikely that the majority will start practicing what is again, another Western concept. Strategies for managing two aspects need to be developed - 1) the management and treatment of the disease for people currently infected 2) the prevention of the futher spread of the disease. Denying that the disease exists, has not helped.
* On the brighter side, the awareness that AIDS is a problem that needs to be confronted, has increased. Some creative solutions and strategies are emerging. More >
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 15 Oct 2002 @ 11:19, by adexlf. Personal Development
Sometimes I feel like running away and abandoning all the binds that I constantly tangle myself with in this material world. But to do this I need to find the place that is beyond material, that is with out substance and form. And after many years searching, I have come to terms that this place exists somewhere else beyond the earths pretty face. It can become overwhelmingly difficult when you are on a quest to find the greater than what you know, like trying to be invisible in a visable world. After all my struggling, and don't think twice, my struggles are ever present, I begun to use my struggles as alies on my quest for the perfect in perfection For so long I have denied everything I know to be true because somewhere I heard that there was more, a better than what I am kind of more. So I took this too literaly and lost myself believing it. But know as time rolls on, I realize that the more is not something entirely different than what I am and what I understand up to this moment, it is simply the evolvement of my individual aspects. Its like a scientist who spends his whole life in a labratory and in text creating theories in his mind of what it is all about, but all the while never actually going out to collect data from his obsevances of the true existance of things, all of his reaserch consists of others interpretations of their own experience. But when this scientist finally makes his pilgramige to experience first hand the topics he has studied his whole life, there is no way that all he has learned so far is false or mislead, and that he has to start over and destroy all he knows thus far, his mind is simply developing and learning to view an object from all spectrums of its entirety. So what I have had to come to terms with is the fact that I am evolving and constantly growing, and to run away from what I understand is like the apple that denies the tree its attached to, it just makes the growth process a continuous struggle. I stand where I am and how I am for a reason that is not comprimisable, imagine a flower that wishes not to grow towards the sky or never wants to open to reveal its beautifull colors. You can't. So instead of trying to close yourself out from the world in hopes to find a more spiritual existance, open your eyes wide and learn from all that is around you, we wouldn't have eyes if if we weren't meant to use the world to develope our mind. And, oh yeah, have some fun, it simply IS a fun quest we are on, there is no way to mature with out your sense of humor, so be what you dream and and dream of what you want to be. More >
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 14 Oct 2002 @ 16:34, by ming. Social System Design
It occurred to me that there's some kind of philosophical point to be made by the fact that humans will often be most creative and successful when they can place something 'outside' themselves, at least temporarily. A couple of examples:
When I'm being a counselor, and a client needs to change something about their own behavior, it isn't going to happen before they're willing to put it 'outside' themselves and examine it. "Aha, I'm doing so-and-so, and that causes so-and-so, and that's not really what I want. I see now." That opens the door to them changing that aspect of themselves. And then they might re-integrate it back into themselves, so to speak.
In economic endeavors in a capitalist society, the people who are most successful tend to be those who think as businesspeople rather than as workers. I.e. you don't just work hard and try to do your job well. You work towards setting up a system, a machine, a racket, a company - something that 'automatically' will be making money for you. Ideally, even when you sleep.
Does the parallel between those scenarios make sense? Well, it does to me. When we can see something a little bit at a distance, we can use a lot of our human intellectual faculties better. We can be more 'rational'. Which is useful when we're trying to fix something or plan something or make it work in an optimum way. More >
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 11 Oct 2002 @ 14:06, by ming. Investigation, Intelligence
Some more thoughts and hints about recognizing false or misleading information.
So much information is passing through our lives that we most of the time have to rely on the word of somebody else in deciding what is true or false. Often it is relative strangers talking to us about events and people far away. Journalists, scientists, public officials telling us about what goes on in Iraq, on the moon, in laboratories, or many other places where we can't easily go and verify the story. And we usually wouldn't know how to verify it.
So, what we do is:
We examine the story itself, to figure out if it is internally consistent. I.e. does it agree with itself? We look at the presented credentials of the people who present the story to us. I.e. does their position or qualifications seem to match the story they're telling us?
We look for any claims of endorsenment or verification from people we might know or trust. I.e. who else says this is true? We assess the presentation of the material. Body language, writing style, tone of voice. Is it consistent with somebody telling the truth?
None of that is really any evidence of whether we're being told the truth or not. But they act as initial, superficial steps of due dilligence in trying to verify whether something is real or not. In many cases we don't have time to do anything more than that. More >
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8 Oct 2002 @ 11:21, by sharie. Relationships
I lived and worked in downtown Chicago, in its oasis of wealth along the coast of beautiful Lake Michigan.
I lived in a hi-rise and worked in another hi-rise along the Magnificent Mile. Across the street from my office building was a famous museum with marble floors, famous paintings and even more famous sculptures... all were hundreds and hundreds of years old.
Inside the buildings and on the sidewalks, men carrying briefcases, wearing business suits and expensive shoes, who drove luxury cars, and no doubt lived in homes costings hundreds of thousands of dollars, were rushing from place to place.
Some of the men were lawyers, some were Judges, earning $5,000 to $100,000 every month, on average.
Yes, there were women, but most were men.
It was all very impressive and respectable.
Just around the corner and down the street, lived babies and children in public housing, the *squalor* of inhumanity.
In these war zones for children, they learned at an early age, that life was hell. They were treated like worthless trash, and they learned that *life* was worthless.
Just down the street and around the corner was that famous museum, with the famous paintings and even more famous sculptures.
And there was I, a Forensic Psychologist, paid by the State to conduct psychological interviews, psychological tests, psychological assessments and to write report recommendations to the Court Judges.
There I was in the middle, between the war zone for children treated like worthless trash and that posh marbled-floor museum with their works of art, and those dashing lawyers and Judges in their business suits rushing to meetings to proclaim their value, their entitlement to public funds which the public paid to help the children.
We were all blind and stupid.
The *real* works of art are the children.
Rather than public funding going to the pockets of *lawyers representing the State" and "lawyers representing the child" and the Court Judges... rather than public funding going to the pockets of Psychologists and Social Workers, none of whom did anything to help the children, all this money should be used to provide decent housing for the children. Not segregated buildings where they'd be set apart as "the poor" but in half-way homes in small towns, which would cost half the price of the inner-city slums (built by politicians so they'd have *voters*). The new half-way homes would have a working stove and refrigerator, and a house-mother to help with the cooking and childcare, so the children could get the nurturing and nutrition they need.
In that moment of insight, I lost respect for my culture. I lost respect for my profession. I lost respect for lawyers, for Judges, for politicians, for teachers, for everyone greedily grabbing for their share... while the children are relegated to filth and abuse.
Children are the *real* works of art, and until they are treated *better* than the paintings and sculpture, we are not a civilization, but a bunch of blithering idiots.
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 7 Oct 2002 @ 20:51, by ming. Knowledge Management
I have a persistent vision of a multi-dimensional information storage system. It flashes before my eyes frequently. I dream about it at night. I'm missing it many times each day. The world needs it.
In my dream vision it seems rather simple. A virtual space with an arbitrary number of dimensions. There is always an obvious place to put something, or you just make the place on the fly, and you can find it again along any of the available dimensions. You can add a new dimension whenever you need one. A dimension can be regarded as a storage bin, a category, a trait, a degree of freedom, whatever suits you at the moment. It all seems simple and obvious. You just make connections between the things that ought to be connected.
But if I sit down and try to make a computer program to implement it, or even if I just try to diagram it really well, I quickly get lost, and it suddenly seems to be an impossible problem to wrap one's mind around. A universal database structure that will represent any kind of structure at any scale, in an efficient manner. More >
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7 Oct 2002 @ 15:05, by sharie. Activism
We can continue to be slaves
to the economy - the false economy -
that's been engineered to benefit a few -
at the expense of our lives.
We can continue to be slaves -
sacrificing our health and sanity
to the economy.
We can continue to be slaves -
believing "The economy needs this... factory."
"The economy needs that... tax break for the wealthy."
We can continue to be slaves -
allowing the experts (call them *mad scientists*)
to pollute our water,
our air, our bodies, and our minds
("It's for the economy").
We can continue to be slaves -
and let the experts (*mad scientists*)
destroy our natural environment/our life support system.
We can continue to be slaves -
buying what they tell us we need to buy,
borrowing money to pay for it,
and paying them thousands of dollars
in interest fees year in and year out.
We can continue to be slaves -
owning homes that prove we're decent and responsible
(except if we don't pay their taxes, they'll take it away
from us and we'll be homeless).
We can continue to be slaves -
believing the experts have the answers.
Or...
We can wake up to the fact that this *culture* with it's economic and scientific beliefs is a madhouse.
There's a better way to live.
Stop sacrificing your life, your happiness, your health and the lives of your children for that dangling carrot that's poisoned.
The economy promoted by the establishment is false.
The science promoted by the establishment is corrupt.
The education is distorted.
The social policies are self-sabotage.
The foreign policies are murdering babies and children.
Stop feeding the monster that's killing us all.
Break away.
Find a way.
Find a way to be happy, to be healthy, to live with your sense of well-being nurtured.
We can do it.
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5 Oct 2002 @ 20:11, by stardream. Peace
We create our world by our thoughts, intentions, feelings and actions.By using collective conscious intention we can change the world in which we live. 80,000 people are asked to join in the intention of Peace and Freedom with the thought and affirmation "ONLY LOVE PREVAILS" More >
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