Wednesday, November 07, 2007
all we need is love
A change of heart changes everything
All you need is love, sang John Lennon.
True, according to most people.
The only challenge: how do you create love?
A quite startlingly simple answer was found to that question in the redwood forests of Boulder Creek, California, south of San Francisco. Since 1991, the Institute of HeartMath has generated a large body of convincing scientific evidence that it is indeed possible to create love. HeartMath’s research shows that emotions work much faster, and are more powerful, than thoughts. And that—when it comes to the human body—the heart is much more important than the brain to overall health and well-being—even cognitive function—than anyone but poets believed. Its dominance inside the body is now clearly demonstrated. Thinking clearly with your brain is useful. But feeling positively from your heart provides an amazing boost to health and creativity...
~ full article ~
Monday, November 05, 2007
Dr. Helen Caldicott: 'On Star Wars, Space War & Death Merchants'
The US Space Command, under the control of the US Air Force, is intent on dominating space. For years, under the romantic guise of space exploration, NASA has been mapping the planets, the moon and asteroids for rare minerals. Manned colonies planned for these bodies, powered by nuclear reactors, are to mine these deposits and return the minerals to the US.
If America invests heavily in space it must protect its investments and dominate it. To this end, the US Space Command is developing sophisticated technologies including anti-satellite weapons to disarm foreign military and commercial satellites; cyberspace warfare; and laser and particle beam weapons. In 1998, the US Space Command, in conjunction with 75 military industrial corporations, published a long-range plan with these basic goals:
1. To assure the means to get to space and to operate once there; 2. To surveil the region to achieve and maintain situational understanding; 3. To protect America's critical space systems from hostile action; 4. To prevent unauthorised access to, and exploitation of US/allied space facilities; 5. To negate hostile space systems that place US and allied systems at risk.
In other words, the militarisation of space. Not only does the US plan to wage war in space but it plans to "hold at-risk", "high-value Earth targets" with "near instantaneous force application". In English, that means the ability to target cities, and to kill millions of people, from space.
The Australian people would rise up as one if they understood the implications of these US plans and that our Government, in our name, is complicit in them..."
'Is there Peace without God?'
And [on account of] their saying: “We killed the Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, Messenger of God.” They did not kill him and they did not crucify him, but it was made to seem so to them. Those who argue about him are in doubt about it. They have no real knowledge of it, just conjecture. But they certainly did not kill him. God raised him to Himself. God is Almighty, All-Wise. (Quran, Surat An-Nisa’, 4:157-158)
Jesus is a symbol that pre-dates Christianity. He is the man who stood up for the truth and no one could kill him because even in his alleged death, his message prevailed. And that message was clearly reasonable. Those who are killed for speaking the truth are never dead. They are the very soul of mankind.
[ ... ]
It is simply an ethnic trait that has been adopted by the entire peace movement, which I believe is destructive because at least 80% of Americans believe in God. So that is a big part of why I think the peace movement up to now has been a self-defeating political movement. We need to acquire a language that we can use to connect with people who are very different from ourselves.
Most of all, we need to train our minds to get beyond ourselves in order to let go of what we know and let our deeper unconscious give us the solutions to our problems both personal and global. Clearly, what we consciously know right now is not adequate to run this planet smoothly. But I believe that humans have the answers within our DNA.
We have to create wisdom. We have to create it out of ignorance. That leap is a miracle.
[ ... ]
There is a problem within the anti-war movement, which is that the most radical peace activists are so aggressively hostile to the thing in life which gives the majority of humans on the planet a sense of peace. Obviously, if my personal focus in life is to strive upon a path of purification of my worship, and the other person views me for this reason on some level as a stupid idiot or mentally ill, we do not have an equal relationship. If I am politely avoiding saying “Praise the Lord!” in your presence and never mentioning my personal relationship with Jesus so as not to upset you, but you feel like it’s ok to disrespect God, or to devalue someone’s Faith, we don’t have an equal relationship. Our “peace movement” is stuck in a rut.
My main reason for wanting to have an academic sort of theological discussion about religious texts is precisely so that those people who engage in the anti-religion/anti-Gentile polemic won’t come, so that new potential leaders and organizers, letter-writers and shleppers for the movement, fresh blood, can come in. There are so many people who have been marginalized by the peace movement because they can’t open their mouths without having to deal with all this intense, blind, secular fundamentalist dogma. So what I’m looking for is an emotionally safe environment free of anti-God hostility, where the Meek can speak quietly.
There are ways to align your mind with the forces of the universe to maximize your effectiveness and joy in life. My Zen teacher referred to these methods as “spiritual practice.” The disciplining of the mind to polish the mirror of the heart through meditation on eternal questions is just like raking leaves. It can be done with or without religious belief.
~ link ~
Pool Boy to the First Family
Razsa cleans former President George H.W. Bush's pool, in Kennebunkport, Maine.
An enduring American figure, the pool boy has long stood for one lowly half of the nation's class gulf. When the pool owner happens to have been the most powerful man on the planet, and the pool boy happens to be one of the planet's great despisers of power, the metaphor explodes into 1,000 points of light.
"If every American had to pool-boy for these people for a day, you'd have a revolution on your hands," is how he sees things.
[ ... ]
Granted, the stakes are high at that level. Razsa recalls one day when former first lady Barbara Bush was on her way over, and it looked like there wouldn't be time to bring the pool's temperature up to her desired 82 degrees in time. The family's caretaker was in a panic, he says.
"He kept shouting, 'Barbara will go crazy! Barbara will go crazy!'" Razsa recalls. "This is the same woman who after Hurricane Katrina said (of the Houston Astrodome refugees), 'You know, they're underprivileged anyway, so this -- this is working very well for them.'" ...
the return of the Karduchoi?
Natonal Geographic: China's Instant Cities
Sunday, November 04, 2007
keeping those JFK assassination files out of sight
"...Lawyers for the Central Intelligence Agency faced pointed questions in a federal court hearing Monday morning about the agency's efforts to block disclosure of long-secret records about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
Three appellate judges probed for explanations of the agency's rationale for withholding records concerning a deceased undercover CIA officer named George Joannides whose role in the events of 1963 remains unexplained.
For the past three and a half years, CIA has blocked the release of the Joannides files, denying my Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request and spurning scholarly appeals for full disclosure. At stake is the viability of the 1992 JFK Assassination Records Act, which mandates the immediate review, and release of all government records related to Kennedy's murder in Dallas on November 22, 1963. One of the strongest open government measures ever enacted, the future of the JFK Act is now in question as the CIA seeks judicial permission to defy its provisions.
The three-judge panel, chaired by Judge Karen Henderson, heard oral arguments in the federal courthouse here about whether the FOIA requires release of the records, most of which are more than 40 years old. These records were never shared with any JFK assassination investigation.
"Do you know where the records are located?" Henderson asked CIA lawyer John Truong in reference to a series of monthly reports that the Joannides was supposed to file in 1963. Truong said he did not know. Judge David Tatel questioned Truong's contention that Joannides was not the subject of congressional investigation in the late 1970s. "Aren't these key records?" asked Judge Judith Rogers.
Joannides served as the chief of psychological warfare operations in the Agency's Miami station at the time of Kennedy's assassination. Using the alias "Howard," he was the case officer for a Cuban exile group whose members had repeated contact with accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald in August 1963 -- rendering any records of Joannides' secret operations at that time potentially relevant to the JFK assassination story.
The JFK Records Act of 1992 was supposed to spur full disclosure on the much-debated subject. Approved unanimously by Congress and signed into law by President George H.W. Bush, the law sought to quell public doubt and confusion raised by Oliver Stone's JFK.
"All Government records concerning the assassination of President John F. Kennedy should carry a presumption of immediate disclosure," the Act declared, "and all records should be eventually disclosed to enable the public to become fully informed about the history surrounding the assassination."
To insure compliance, Congress created an independent civilian review panel, the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) to determine what documents would be made public and to oversee the public release those records. The five-member board -- not federal agencies -- were given final say over what should be declassified. Between 1994 and 1998, the ARRB, chaired by federal judge John Tunheim, oversaw the release of four million pages of once-secret JFK records.
These new JFK files not only illuminate the events that led to the gunshots that took Kennedy's life; they also provide an unprecedented glimpse of U.S. covert operations against Cuba, CIA propaganda and surveillance techniques, U.S. law enforcement action against organized crime figures, and efforts to assassinate Fidel Castro. The JFK Records Act, according to the watchdog group OMB Watch, "is the best example in existence of a successful targeted declassification effort."
The CIA, however, now appears to be evading a signed memorandum of understanding that it gave to the ARRB about the release of JFK records. On September 30, 1998 the Agency committed itself to releasing any newly discovered JFK records under the criteria established by the board. Today the Agency is ignoring the ARRB criteria and blocking the disclosure of records that meet the legal definition of "assassination related" records.
The National Archives and Records Administration has responsibility for maintaining the JFK Records Collection but limited ability to compel the Agency to turn over sensitive documents. Even though the JFK Act states that all assassination records must be made public by 2017, a top CIA official noted in a court filing that the Agency has the right to keep as many as 1,100 still-secret JFK records out of public view beyond that date.
In my admittedly subjective view, the JFK Records Act is being slowly repealed by CIA fiat. In defiance of the law and common sense, the Agency continues to spend taxpayers' money for the suppression of history around JFK's assassination. In the post-9/11 era, you would think U.S. intelligence budget could be better spent..."
