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 19 Aug 2006 @ 19:50, by swanny. Environment, Ecology
August 19, 2006
Canada, Earth
Saturday
Noon
EMERGING ECONATIONS
Iceland, New Zealand, China and Cuba would seem to be on their
courses of becoming the Earths' first Econations, Iceland and New Zealand
being small but democratic nations as well.
Essentially I would envision that an Econation being a sustainable
nation that lives in global harmony and within its ecological ways
means and budget.
This opinion is based somewhat on research and media reports
and hence is not first hand but would seem to be somewhat consistent
over about 10 to 20 years of received reports.
A.G.Jonas More >
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18 Aug 2006 @ 18:27, by spells. Violence, War
From another newslog....
"May all sentient beings be happy and free of suffering".
[The Buddha]
what appears to be left unsaid is this....unless you are Muslim, Arabic, of different culture, different religion, different color, (many different aspects could be mentioned here) or disagree with "me" in any way. Let's stop the hypocracy people and look at the truth of our woes in the world.
Does anyone dare to be honest? Don't you know that nature is there for everyone...NO ONE owns land or has claim to it. Nature cares not who "was there first".
Let's also be honest about the superior technology of one country over another. Us/Israel against Lebanon is almost like nukes against catapult. How can you begrudge the Lebanese their "techniques" of suicide bombers or use of the internet? What else can they do? They don't have the same caliber (if any) fighter jets with nuclear missles...
So how about it? any honest person out there? Anyone have any inkling that we are all one and all these differences and disputes are petty on a cosmic basis? I've got news for all of you....the Universe doesn't revolve around any of us and the truth doesn't change or disappear just because we would like it to.
FYI...
WSWS : News & Analysis : Middle East
WSWS : News & Analysis : Middle East
Refugees flood back to devastated southern Lebanon
By Rick Kelly
18 August 2006
Hundreds of thousands of refugees have returned to what is left of their homes in Lebanon in defiance of Israeli warnings and threats to stay away. Openly expressing their support for Hezbollah, residents have rushed to reclaim their land in a display of mass opposition to US-Israeli aggression.
Developments since the UN-sponsored ceasefire took effect on Monday have underscored the failure of the US and Israel to achieve their war aims. The Bush administration and the Israeli government of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert hoped to destroy the Hezbollah militia, reduce Lebanon to the status of a semi-colonial protectorate, and drive out the predominantly Shiite population from an Israeli-occupied “buffer zone” in the south.
None of this has eventuated. Lebanese refugees have made their way past destroyed roads and bridges, despite the dangers posed by unexploded cluster munitions and other ordinance, to return to their land. People fear becoming permanent refugees and losing their homeland to Israeli annexation, and are determined not to suffer what the Palestinians experienced. The Lebanese population has first-hand knowledge of the Israeli dispossession of Palestinians—hundreds of thousands of refugees flooded into the country in 1948 and again in 1967.
Returning refugees angrily denounced Israel and the US for the destruction wreaked during the 34-day bombardment. In Beirut’s southern suburbs, almost every building was either destroyed or seriously damaged. Over the ruins of one collapsed structure, a resident hung a banner which read, “Made in the USA”. Another banner in a southern Lebanese village had the words, “Rice, they will not see your new Middle East”. This was a reference to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s now infamous statement on July 22 in Beirut that the war represented the “birth pangs of a new Middle East”.
Almost one million people—a quarter of Lebanon’s population—were forced to flee their homes during the conflict. According to Lebanese estimates, Israeli warplanes carried out more than 4,500 bombing raids. An estimated 35,000 homes and businesses were destroyed by missiles and artillery shells, along with 400 miles of roads and highways, and about 150 bridges and interchanges, one out of every four in the country.
“Southern Lebanon is a travelogue of destruction: town after town pummelled by bombs and mortars that left them in shambles,” the Los Angeles Times reported. Entire towns and villages have been turned to rubble. In Siddiqine, local businessman Ali Bakri described the scene. “It’s like a tsunami, or a second Hiroshima,” he told the Christian Science Monitor.
Almost 1,200 Lebanese were killed, though this figure will probably rise, as corpses are still being pulled from the rubble of destroyed buildings. In Srifa, scene of two Israeli massacres of civilians, another 32 bodies have been recovered. Authorities in Tyre yesterday buried more than 120 victims in a mass grave. In Ainata, Red Cross workers found 18 bodies, including children. The stench of decomposing bodies forced rescue workers to wear multiple facemasks as they travelled between Ainata and Bint Jbeil, scene of much of the heaviest fighting.
Hezbollah militants have openly re-emerged in the south and their banners and flags are again visible to Israeli residents living on the border. Refugees flew Hezbollah flags from their vehicles and homes and expressed their determination to resist Israeli aggression against their country. Numerous media reports have acknowledged the mass support Hezbollah now enjoys. “We are not terrorists,” Faras Jamil, a 39-year-old resident of Aita Shaab, told the Los Angles Times. “My wife is Hezbollah. My children are Hezbollah. Hezbollah is all the people from this town.”
The demonstrations exposed the US-Israeli lie that Hezbollah is nothing but a terrorist arm of Syria and Iran. As is evident from news reports, the organisation has become the focal point for the anti-imperialist and anti-Zionist sentiments of the Lebanese and Arab masses. Hezbollah has a mass base among Lebanon’s Shiites, for whom it provides education, health, and other social services, and has won widespread support among Sunni, Christian, and Druze Lebanese for its resistance to the Israeli offensive.
Hezbollah is also leading the reconstruction efforts. It has promised to provide a year’s rent and new furniture for every family whose home was destroyed. Hundreds of refugees in Beirut have spent the past few days queuing to register for assistance. “There is no central government presence here,” Hamed Harab, a local government official, admitted. “Hezbollah is doing everything.”
The situation is similar in the south. “There is no government here,” Abdul Muhsen Husseini, a government official in Tyre, said. “At least [Hezbollah] are on the ground helping. If you call them at midnight, they come out to help. They are the government.”
There is little prospect of Hezbollah disarming and withdrawing from south of the Litani River, as the Bush administration and the Olmert government demand. The Israeli military was unable to eliminate Hezbollah fighters during the month-long war, and no one expects that either the Lebanese army or the 15,000-strong multinational force being readied will be in a position to enforce US and Israeli dictates.
The Lebanese government has indicated that it will not order the army to disarm Hezbollah. Such a move would risk provoking a civil war throughout the country and a mutiny within the military. “The Shiite population in Lebanon is almost 50 percent,” Yiftach Shapir, of the Jaffee Centre for Strategic Studies, told Israeli Arutz Sheva Radio. “In the army the proportion is even greater, particularly among the officers. Those numbers reach about 60 percent. While not all of them are extremists, the question is whether or not they would have any desire to violently confront Hezbollah.”
European countries preparing to contribute troops to the UN force have insisted that they will not be responsible for taking on guerrilla fighters. “It is wrong to say that our soldiers are going to disarm Hezbollah,” Italian foreign minister Massimo D’Alema said yesterday. Italy has promised to deploy 3,000 soldiers. France was expected to send about 5,000 troops to Lebanon and lead the UN operation, but President Jacques Chirac has refused to commit more than 200 French forces until clear rules of engagement with Hezbollah militants are established.
Condoleezza Rice was forced to acknowledge the European powers’ concerns. “I don’t think there is an expectation that this [UN] force is going to physically disarm Hezbollah,” she told USA Today. “I think it’s a little bit of a misreading about how you disarm a militia. You have to have a plan, first of all, for the disarmament of the militia, and then the hope is that some people lay down their arms voluntarily.”
The setback suffered in southern Lebanon has heightened the political crisis in Washington and Tel Aviv but it is already clear that the Bush administration intends to pursue its broader strategic plans to subjugate the Middle East. Washington was closely involved in Israel’s plans for invading Lebanon, and for weeks blocked demands for a ceasefire. As journalist Seymour Hersh recently revealed in the New Yorker, the Bush administration welcomed the war as a preliminary step towards an attack on Iran.
In comments in the USA Today, Secretary of State Rice ominously pointed out that the UN resolution on Lebanon imposed an international arms embargo and thus a ban on foreign states supplying arms to Hezbollah. The provision gives the Bush administration ample pretexts for new diplomatic and military provocations against Iran and Syria.
In Israel, Haaretz published an op-ed piece today by Avraham Tal, titled “Preparing for the next war now”. “A war that has ended in a tie and without an agreement between the sides being signed is destined to flare up again, sooner or later,” Tal wrote. “In the conflict between Israel and Iran, by means of its proxy, Hezbollah, neither side achieved its strategic aim... One must start from the working assumption that the next confrontation will erupt relatively soon; for purposes of the discussion, let us assume two years from the eruption of the previous confrontation and to act in all areas as though this will happen with absolute certainty. Possibly there will be another round in the format of the second Lebanon war, but we must prepare for the possibility of something larger and more dangerous: an all-out war with regular armies, including the army of a regional power.”
The current ceasefire remains uncertain and fighting could quickly erupt again. Israel still has thousands of soldiers occupying southern Lebanon and is maintaining its illegal naval blockade of the country. In these conditions, it would not be difficult for the Olmert government to resume the war by staging a provocation and declaring that Hezbollah had breached the ceasefire terms.
See Also:
The president gives a press conference
[16 August 2006]
Recriminations erupt in Israel in aftermath of Lebanon ceasefire
[16 August 2006]
On eve of Lebanon ceasefire deadline: US, Israel face political debacle
[14 August 2006] More >
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 17 Aug 2006 @ 15:07, by jhs. Philosophy
(thinking of adding this article to the new edition of the 'Your Personal Archetype' book, in order to address some of the frequent questions)...
The word archetype stems from the greek concept of 'arkhetypon'. 'arkhe' denotes the concept of the first, initial spark that spawned life, much like the aramaic 'or', the primordial light given to the world by the Elohim in the Genesis of the Torah and the Old Testament. 'typon' stands for the 'stamp' that was used to create seals, coins and other things that were marked by humans. In this sense, the word archetype describes the typology of ancient gods as well as human beings, the copies or 'clones' of those gods.
In our times, the concept of archetype is used for all kinds of classifications, most of them useful in their specific concepts. Few, however, have maintained the meaning of the original sense of the word. In most of these classifications, basic attributes of persons, such as 'extroverted' or 'introverted', are made the basis of a typology of human behavior. As useful as these typologies may be, to call them 'archetypical' patterns would usurp a much more specific concept than these systems are able to provide.
One of the more appropriate approaches we can find in the archetypes of CG Jung who recognized the importance of them in the lives and destinies of all humans. Unfortunately, his time and context did not allow for a more precise specification and classification. Archetypal roles such as the hunter or the mother are useful but are missing the point that every human Being has an archetype that can be precisely defined, described, and classified whereas the basic roles in life, such as mother or hunter, are describing roles that can be used by a large number of persons who individually may be very different in their approach to life.
In this book, we follow the original definition of the word: the stamp that was imprinted during the creation of life itself, faintly visible in the stories of the gods and demi-gods of Sumeria, Egypt, and Ancient Greece, and which is present in every human Being still today, determining its behavior much more rigidly and stereotypically than we would like to admit to ourselves.... More >
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 17 Aug 2006 @ 02:25, by paretokid. Education
Now I understand why there is more talk about computers for every child than action -- it takes time and many steps whether you are getting computers for use here in US or overseas. We are blessed with some bulldogs though, so we are moving forward. 400 plus Macs are in Guatemala. Funds are being sought for to build 15 small computer outbuildings at each school. Will Blessing in Massachusetts is still helping by getting an updated wish/need list up on MacInTouch. This is one of the dozens of difficulties you run into. Eighty-five of the Macs need USB keyboards and mice or converters and we are in need of Dram batteries, as well as OS 9 education related software in Spanish, if possible. Will it all come together? Yes! I'll probably be able to share photographs and messages from the kids, teachers and families in 6 months or so. Until then, wish us the best and don't hesitate to help if you find a similar opportunity. Which reminds me. A lot of folks think that projects like MIT's of inventing a laptop for under $100 for every kid in the world sounds really great... until... Who's going to put up say $90 for one billion laptops, the software to go on it, people to train kids on how to use them, and the cost for access to the internet? It's a nice idea but why invent a wind up, solar computer, except to get - sorry for the cynicism - press for MIT? Only a small fraction of computers that could be recycled and donated for use here in the US, ever get recycled and donated. An even smaller fraction of just US computers ever make it overseas for donation. The probable truth? There are enough computers tossed out and not recycled every year in the "first" world to provide a computer to every needful student in the second and third world section of the first world, as well as make a huge dent in the second and third world's needs for computers. Will it happen? It could but it's unlikely... unless people such as you decide to personally do something to at least see that one, two or three computers are recycled to needful students. How about this for a really nutty idea? If you are getting ready to get new computers, find someone who can use the ones you now have. Then deliver it yourself, set it up, and volunteer to do a little start up training. How's that for being really radical? After all, who can you really count on to deliver the goods except yourself. What do you think? I am not bragging but I have recycled four Macs that way - right here in river city - Cincinnati. Why don't you join up in taking action yourself? More >
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 16 Aug 2006 @ 23:23, by poetsong. Ideas, Creativity
We are not taught to question, "why?" We are taught to stop asking questions so that our exasperated parents can finish fixing lunch. "Will you stop asking so many questions...run along and play with your toys!"
"Why?" is in our hearts at birth, and whenever we slow down, "Why?" creeps back into our minds.
Some people are afraid of "Why?" They run from it and try to stamp it out, fearing they won't like the answer. However, if this question was stamped on our hearts, I believe it is like a treasure that calls to our spirit, "Come and find me...I am here!"
N Marion More >
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13 Aug 2006 @ 17:56, by armos. Alternative Money Systems
Consecutive orientation of Power of the Sunlight to creation of conditions for full self-accomplishment (self-knowledge, self-development and self-realization) each citizen of the Power creating the New Civilization, has one more extremely a prominent aspect, aspect improving. The essence of it consists that any disease is connected to a deviation from the Outlined in advance Way, with a deviation from the Supreme Mission. And only return to the Duty, return to the High Applicability will provide to each of us original health as a condition of full physical, spiritual and social well-being More >
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 12 Aug 2006 @ 16:35, by silviamar. Recreation, Fun
I've spent a beautiful week in Alicante, located on the Spanish East coast. The tourists that visit this area usually go to the most touristy spot: Benidorm, full of beaches and pubs. But Alicante has many other interesting places, less crowded and worthy to be visited: Altea, Calpe, Guadalest, Jalón... I invite you to travel there with me through this article and have a look by yourself :-). More >
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 11 Aug 2006 @ 20:21, by hgoodgame. Spirituality
I found this information helpful and hopeful..
(Article reprinted with permission from the author.)
There is something that the Tibetan Buddhists call, "the nature of the mind". The term, when translated into English, is not really very adequate. In order to understand what it means, we need to make distinctions. There is a term for mind that means "thought activity". It is a mind that we spontaneously create whenever we think thoughts or have thoughts. This mind really appears and disappears with every thought we think. It is not a continuous phenomena. It only feels continuous because we are rarely aware of what is going on within us moment to moment. If we were, we would notice small gaps of "no mind" appearing very often. In every 12 second period, there are two second gaps which are easy to discern if you look for them. Within every second, there are microsecond gaps between every thought that we think. What I have noticed is that people are too busy, thinking, thinking, thinking to notice these gaps, too wrapped up in what they are thinking to ever stop themselves from generating and speeding up thoughts, laying them one after another, to notice the gaps between each and every thought. This thinking mind can come completely to an end and when it does we are in satori. We taste the nature of mind and experience enlightenment. We obviously cannot be our thinking mind, because it is not there. It does not exist at all when we are in satori. Then there is another term that means "thought function". This is the capacity to think. If thought is the letters on a page, then the thinking function is like a typewriter that can make those letters appear. When we have satori, our intellectual capacity to think is there, but thinking is not there. It is like a washing machine that has turned off and which can turn on again. Thought activity is like the washing cycle. The nature of the mind is different than both our thought activity and our thought capacity. It is the pure awareness that is behind our thought capacity and our thinking activity. Without this awareness mind, we would literally not be aware of anything at all. From the vantage point of this mind, it is the field of awareness and everything else is content. From the vantage point of this mind, the body is a mental construct formed by synthesizing all our sensations into a unified experience. You could say that the body arises in awareness, rather than us having a self that is inside the body, although the awareness mind is anchored in the heart. More >
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11 Aug 2006 @ 12:21, by vector8. Spirituality
Imagine you're watching a film that is supposed to be a thriller and one character is always grinning. In a scene where he's supposed to be angry he says "I hate you!" but he still has the same grin. In another scene the same character is expressing how sad he is but he's still smiling. You're bound to think there's something not quite right about this character. Maybe, the actor can't act or the director hasn't got a clue. What if the character continues to have the same fixed grin no matter what? Will you continue watching the film? I certainly wouldn't. More >
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 11 Aug 2006 @ 05:41, by koravya. Communities
Fences: August 10, 2006
Imagine the day when there were no fences on the North American continent. Pick any continent you want, or pick ‘em all. We are all surrounded by fences, with corridors of asphalt threading our cities together. When someone wants to get-out-of-town, they follow one of those corridors to its remote end lost in the forest or the prairie, or the desert or wherever it leads to that is not another city. All of the cities are one city, attached to the wilderness through a few loose threads. No one goes through the wilderness from one city to another. One goes back and forth on the road between the city and the wilderness. The road within the city extends through corridors that have nothing to do with the wilderness except in so far as the latter is background scenery. When the horses are unhitched from the chariots, those chariots shall be essentially useless, likewise their asphalt corridors. Where will be the places that one will go, to and fro? As the corridors become meaningless, the fences will fall into disrepair and irrelevance. Communities finding each other and themselves through trusting relationships shall last forever, and the others are marking the path of mutually assured destruction. Keep a candle burning for your friend in the darkness.
******-----********* More >
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