Double Visioned

Stuff BAD Parents Do!

2012-01-27T21:41:00.000-08:00

Call for Reverse Missioning

2012-01-27T20:53:00.000-08:00

Mormons are very proactive on youtube (although they censure anyone that expresses dissent on their vids), but I noticed that their tactics are facing smart resistance from people. For instance, their '... and I am a Mormon' campaign to make themselves seem more mainstream has absolutely backfired and now there are probably more testimonies of joy and liberation with videos entitled '... and I am an EX-Mormon' than there are videos of '... and I am a Mormon'.

Official Mormon Church records will deny this, but HORDES of people are leaving the LDS church faced with the facts that are being presented on youtube videos and online. So ... I went on mormon.org and discovered that they have virtual missionaries that we can email or chat with, and sent an email inquiring what their church teaches them about the 30-odd wives of their prophet :)

I got a reply from this mormon missionary lady saying that 'not much is known about the prophet's wives' and that in ancient times prophets also took plural wives.

So I replied saying that actually there is A LOT of information online about his wives, including their names, the fact that some were 14 year olds when married off to him and some were married to other men and Joseph took them as wives, sometimes while their husbands were on mission. I sent her about four youtube vids with discussions on these things and the sources they cite, and even asked her to ignore the Christian propaganda that usually comes with these videos (as many Christians try to recruit Mormons using this information).

... am looking forward to her response.

I figured every single ex-Mormon has needed to have some sense talked to them by someone who already questioned their faith and is not under Mormon hypnosis. Reverse missioning has a lot of potential, it's fun and after viewing the video on how atheists are the most knowledgeable group when it comes to religious matters, I decided that it would also constitute a waste of gray matter to not reverse-mission to Mormons.

Plus considering how important being missionaries is for Mormons they deserve a taste of atheist missionaries!

I invite others to visit mormon.org and other missionary sites, but the only thing that I'd request is no vicious attacks or insults, let's use a respectful tone please if you do wanna join this experiment and maybe we can help some of them see the error of their ways!

Chat with a Mormon missionary today! (And please, if you do, share your anecdotes in the comments section)

Speechless!

2012-01-22T11:08:00.001-08:00

Best Marijuana Argument Ever: Given By Superior Court Judge James P. Gray

2012-01-21T11:51:00.000-08:00

You're a Mormon. And?

2012-01-20T17:16:00.000-08:00

"God is greater than the United States, and when the Government conflicts with heaven, we will be ranged under the banner of heaven against the Government. The United States says we cannot marry more than one wife. God says different...". - John Taylor, the third president of the LDS Church

RIP Etta James :(

2012-01-20T10:41:00.000-08:00

2012-01-05T20:11:00.000-08:00

The gods that we've made are exactly the type of gods that you'd expect to be made by a species that's about half a chromosome away from being a chimpanzee. - Christopher Hitchens

The Reason Rally

2012-01-01T13:18:00.000-08:00

FINALLY secularists are seriously working on getting visible and becoming a voice in politics during an election year. Non-theists make up between 16-20 percent of the US population, a larger minority than Blacks, Gays, Jews, Mormons, Muslims, and overwhelmingly made up of young people, yet they are virtually invisible in American politics. Polls indicate that atheists are among the most hated minorities in the US. The Reason Rally will take place in Washington, D.C. on March 24th, 2012 from 10:00AM – 4:00PM at the National Mall.

"Most people are bothered by those passages of Scripture they do not understand, but the passages that bother me are those I do understand."

— Mark Twain

Sade is the spice of life :-)

2011-12-30T07:45:00.000-08:00

The Stoned Ape Theory

2011-12-24T23:38:00.000-08:00

Although some of Terence Mckenna's ideas are admittedly outlandish, the idea of mind altering drugs as having had something to do with the sudden growth of the human brain in our ancestors deserves further study and consideration.

The fossil record does demonstrate a quite sudden doubling in size of the human brain in a matter of an evolutionary blink of an eye (approximately a million years). Traditionally, the official theory that the anthropologists favor says that the shift was owed to an increase in the consumption of meat, and therefore of protein. One theory does not contradict other theories, however, and I think protein definitely fed the brain.

But another major change that happened was that as humans became savannah animals, and as they became meat eaters and hunters, they began following the herds. Mckenna's theory suggests that magic mushrooms would have been found in the dung of the animals that they herded or hunted.

Neuroscientists have recently begun to study the effects of meditation on the brain, using mainly Buddhists Lamas in their research. What they are finding is that the human brain is much more elastic and changeable than previously thought.

Not many similar studies have been performed with mind altering entheogens and their effect on the brain - and we must separate the chemical poisons that pass for drugs today versus the natural entheogens that shamans of antiquity and modernity have used to alter their perception, such as kava, ayahuasca, cannabis, peyote and mushrooms.

I suspect that funding will be hard to come by for such research in our current paradigm, but the meditation studies do suggest that altered states of mind do change the brain's chemistry and shape within one lifetime. Many generations of psychodelic mushroom users would have, therefore, experienced a huge shift in consciousness.

Some of the symptoms of magic mushrooms include glossolalia, which means that they not only very likely changed the shape of our ancestors' brain but also triggered an increase in more elaborate speech patterns.

I only had one experience with sacred mushrooms. It was when I was 18 years of age, it lasted about eight hours and I was laughing and in a state of ecstatic joy the whole time. The moon was full and the next day when I woke up, the entire Earth was filled with life to me. I felt love and a sense of being in unison with all of nature, including the grass, the trees. It is one of the most profound and beautiful spiritual experiences I've ever had.

Sometimes looking back I wish I had had a shaman to guide me, but when I think about the experience I remember that I did (the guy who provided the mushrooms was a self-denominated initiate who had had very deep shamanic experiences). I simply was not mature enough to understand what I was going through, and that innocence, that openness, was most likely crucial to the experience and I wouldn't change a thing. If I ever do it again, the only thing I would add is maybe the formality of a ceremony with an elder.

These entheogens have been with our ancestors from the dawn of time, and if we look far back enough we'll come across instances inevitably where these drugs must have had a huge effect on our ancestors's perceptions, maybe even for as few as five to ten generations each time. But that was enough for a spurt in brain growth.

My own suspicion is that there were several instances during human evolution where entheogens played a part in increasing and changing our brain and that art (and therefore religion and inventiveness), in any and all of its forms, as well as the parts of the brain engaged in it, most likely arose as part of a process that may have involved altered states of consciousness.

It's important to separate the potentially eureka theory of the stoned ape from some of Mckenna's other, more outlandish ideas (he believes mushrooms arrived on Earth from outer space). And it's also important to keep a broad perspective and not think that one theory excludes the others: the brain of our ancestors doubled in size in a relatively short period, in part due to meat eating, but also in part due to experiences that exercised the muscles of the brain and gave some human groups leverage over others and allowed them to better survive.

Lies and Lunacy

2011-12-20T11:14:00.000-08:00

Christopher Hitchens dead at 62

2011-12-18T02:21:00.000-08:00

April 13, 1949 - December 15, 2011
RIP Christopher Hitchens

Wall St. Sales Tax

2011-12-16T16:23:00.000-08:00

2011-12-15T14:43:00.000-08:00

I AM PROUD TO BE
IN SOLIDARITY WITH CHICAGO HYATT HOTEL WORKERS

PLEASE SUPPORT THE HYATT BOYCOTT

Human-like Life Could Exist on Newly-discovered Planet

2011-12-11T17:03:00.000-08:00

This past Monday, NASA announced that its Kepler space telescope confirmed the first planet orbiting a star in its “habitable zone,” the region where liquid water could exist on a planet’s surface.

Some scientists described this planet, known as Kepler 22B, as “Earth-like” with a star similar to our sun.

If it is truly made of rock, as some speculate, Dr. Boss says it might look something like our own Earth with probably a fair amount of water on it as well.

- Voanews.com article

Juan Crow

2011-11-29T17:25:00.000-08:00

I am reading the article Resisting Juan Crow in Alabama in disbelief, only days after celebrating our national harvest festival, Thanksgiving Day, which conmemorates those first undocumented aliens who arrived in this country centuries ago, the Mayflower pilgrims, and their encounter with the Native Americans.

Do we not know who we are?

There are so many ironies and so much cynicism in this, it just seems like a sick joke. According to the article the new Alabama laws, portions of which were already declared unconstitutional, would "make it a crime for the undocumented to work, travel, or own or rent a home ... and make it a felony for an alien ... to apply for a license plate, driver's license or business license. The law also denies immigrants state medical aid and makes it a crime for individuals or employers to hire, harbor, rent property to, or even give a ride to an undocumented immigrant."

We are the Many

2011-11-15T07:18:00.000-08:00

Hawaiian singer Makana had the audacity to sing this song to world leaders gathered at the APEC gathering in Honolulu. Enjoy!

We Are The Many - Makana from Makana on Vimeo.

Ye come here, gather 'round the stage
The time has come for us to voice our rage
Against the ones who've trapped us in a cage
To steal from us the value of our wage

From underneath the vestiture of law
The lobbyists at Washington do gnaw
At liberty, the bureaucrats guffaw
And until they are purged, we won't withdraw

We'll occupy the streets
We'll occupy the courts
We'll occupy the offices of you
Till you do
The bidding of the many, not the few

Our nation was built upon the right
Of every person to improve their plight
But laws of this Republic they rewrite
And now a few own everything in sight

They own it free of liability
They own, but they are not like you and me
Their influence dictates legality
And until they are stopped we are not free

We'll occupy the streets
We'll occupy the courts
We'll occupy the offices of you
Till you do
The bidding of the many, not the few

You enforce your monopolies with guns
While sacrificing our daughters and sons
But certain things belong to everyone
Your thievery has left the people none

So take heed of our notice to redress
We have little to lose, we must confess
Your empty words do leave us unimpressed
A growing number join us in protest

We occupy the streets
We occupy the courts
We occupy the offices of you
Till you do
The bidding of the many, not the few

You can't divide us into sides
And from our gaze, you cannot hide
Denial serves to amplify
And our allegiance you can't buy

Our government is not for sale
The banks do not deserve a bail
We will not reward those who fail
We will not move till we prevail

We'll occupy the streets
We'll occupy the courts
We'll occupy the offices of you
Till you do
The bidding of the many, not the few

We'll occupy the streets
We'll occupy the courts
We'll occupy the offices of you
Till you do
The bidding of the many, not the few

We are the many
You are the few

Fox News Gets Owned by Protesters Occupying Wall Street

2011-11-15T05:50:00.001-08:00

2011-11-09T08:53:00.001-08:00

‎"We aren’t doing anything for the people” - Sen. John McCain, while admitting that a third (a people's) party will emerge

"You cannot serve both God and Manon" - Yeshua

2011-11-06T16:52:00.000-08:00

One of the most shocking and prominent images of the Occupy Wall Street movement that have gone viral on the internet was the worship of the golden calf scene, where the iconic golden calf was fashioned to look like the Wall Street bull sculpture, shortly after the Occupy Wall Street Journal in its inaugural issue refered to Wall Street as America's financial Gomorrah.

It got me thinking about the role that religion has played historically both on the left and on the right. Just like the banks do in times of war, organized religions have oftentimes provided fuel and funding to all sides of the class war.

Many of the prominent privatizers of education in the US that are making education less a human right and more an unaffordable dream are Christian schools. The Christian Right has also contributed fiscally and with their votes and propaganda to politicians (most notorious and pernicious of all in recent years, the Bush-Cheney-Halliburton-Oil Cartel constellation) who have so faithfully served the interests of the corporate megabanks and the military industrial complex.

Today, one of the most radical and dangerous defenders of the capitalist-military-theocratic doctrine that carried most of the propaganda from the Bush years is Mitt Romney, who is a Mormon.

Of course, there is also a revolutionary Christianity of the left. And perhaps many of those who were carrying the golden calf at OWS represent the uprising of this New Left with a new voice, which is a welcome sight. But nonetheless, it has always been evident to me that religious leaders has been able hands of the ruling class and those in power throughout history, supporting even the most evil dictators: Franco, Hitler, Mussolini, all had faithful servants among the high clergy of the Catholic Church which has always exhibited fascist sympathies.

There are several very specific arguments that I will present on this article on why I think that the Christ was an anti-capitalist revolutionary (dare I say, a socialist?). Certainly, I am sure that if a person like Christ with his radical ideas was born for our generation, he would have been labeled a socialist or communist.

But most importantly, I will accentuate the fiscal and economic philosophy of the Christ - He had one. He was not neutral - and I will also place the fiscal philosophy of the Christ within the context of the current economic crisis.

On money

No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money. - Matthew 6:24

The very much countercultural notion of banking as being an immoral career is noted here. Banking, and 'serving money', is so against God that it is the antithesis of a godly life in the philosophy of the Christ.

Yet the debt-based Federal Reserve notes that we dignify by using as currency in the U.S. have in them the motto 'In God We Trust'. This turns money into a type of fetish, and blind faith in money is sold by the bankers as a godly virtue. THIS IS MANONISM.

I should note that our word 'credit' originates from the Latin word for faith, or creed. Money derives its value from the faith people put in it. It's a form of faith.

And so the very first issue that should be tackled has to do with the distortion or even hijacking of Christianity (and religion in general) by capitalism, particularly by the idea of the supposed inherent value of money. Now, in the Gospels this is what Christ said of the currency of his day:

Give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s. - Matthew 22:21

... refering specifically to the face on the currency. This is the first of the ironies. We live in a country where the ruling class (the banking cartel) is accusing those who do not favor the use of the FOR-PROFIT currency that they issue, which is the chain that enslaves us through perpetual debt, of not trusting in God. What an interesting warning, then, are these words of Jesus when read within this context.

The bankers involve religious ideology into the scheme of faith-based currency backed by nothing of inherent value: and they do so while proposing a debt-based economy and interest-charging currency that enslaves everyone BUT the bankers and enslaves everyone TO the bankers, our masters.

In the temple courts he found people selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. To those who sold doves he said, “Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market! - John 2:14-16

It requires a visceral disgust to perform an act such as this one. The problem was not just how lucrative the business of these merchants was, but the faith-based structure that supported it.

Jewish priests created a religious legal system based on guilt that called for animals to be sacrificed for a variety of sins, many of which were victimless crimes. Each one of these sacrifices had to be paid for (the Levite priests lived off the faith of the people) and each animal had to be purchased. It was a great business model, sustained by a well established religious tradition. That these sacrifices were unnecessary, and that people were being taken advantage of, seemed obvious to Jesus.

On Free Universal Health Care

Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received; freely give. Do not get any gold or silver or copper to take with you in your belts: no bag for the journey or extra shirt or sandals or a staff, for the worker is worth his keep. - Matthew 10:8-10

While he calls for a living wage for people who provide health care, he clearly did not believe in for-profit health care. This is a very specific verse.

On Private Property

Jesus was against consumerism and encouraged his followers to own very few things.

These were his instructions: “Take nothing for the journey except a staff — no bread, no bag, no money in your belts. Wear sandals but not an extra shirt. - Mark 6:8-9

On Debt Forgiveness

As critical as I am of Islam, one of the things that stand out in the current crisis is how much more sensible than ours the Islamic banking system is, with its strict prohibition of usury (charging interest) and its commonsense ideas about how currencies must have tangible value IN them (the approved Islamic currencies, the dirham and dinar, are silver- and gold- based).

In contrast, the central banks that dominate the world today issue debt-based, interest-charging currencies that produce wage-slavery everywhere and the appearance of scarcity in a planet where resources are vastly available.

Our economic system creates for many misery and wage-slavery in the midst of tremendous wealth. I propose that this is a serious moral crisis and a moral issue related to our values, not just a fiscal one.

One of the moral imperatives of our generation is to stand up to the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and their national representatives including our own Federal Reserve, and to challenge their debt-based scheme. What follows is a parable about debt forgiveness.

The Parable of the Unmerciful Servant

Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold was brought to him. Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.

At this the servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.

But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred silver coins. He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded.

His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it back.’

But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. When the other servants saw what had happened, they were outraged and went and told their master everything that had happened.

Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.

- Matthew 18:23-34

The context for the original parable was forgiveness of all debts, including moral transgressions, but the choice of imagery and themes, and the assertion of the fact that in antiquity those who could not pay their debts were sold into slavery makes a clear statement of the power exerted by the banking cartel, and their abuse of that power can be fully appreciated if we contrast the bank bailout versus the foreclosure crisis in light of this parable.

That is to say, the banks were forgiven their debts and taxpayers even paid the banks' private debts with public money, but then the banks foreclosed on the properties of millions of homeowners who were unable to pay their own, infinitely smaller, debts. Again, economic justice is one of the most serious moral issues of our day.

Later, in Matthew 25:26-27 the banking class and the practice of usury is compared here with a master who 'harvests where he has not sown and gathers where he has not scattered seed'. In other words, the act of hoarding money and then charging interest on money without producing anything is parasitical. The bankers reap the harvest and eat the fruits of other people's labor.

While it may not be said that Christ advocated for a Christian version of the banking system in the way that Muhammad advocated for an Islamic banking and monetary system, it does seem clear that he had much to say about the current economic paradigm that our civilization finds itself in.

It may be appropriate for progressive-minded Christians to consider the notion of developing an interest-free, ethical, conscious Christian banking system in light of the relevance of revolutionary Christianity as a doctrine of social justice when measured against the degradation of Manonism.

Class conscience in Christ's kingdom

Here is one of the most prominent Marxist aspects of the teachings of Jesus. Marx called for poor people to develop a strong sense of class consciousness and loyalty, he called for them to get organized and serve each other's needs, to abandon a false sense of class identity by identifying with the ruling class or allowing the ruling class to define their identities (in our case, as consumers).

A Marxist is required to identify with the poor, and ultimately the ideal is to have a classless society. The living Marxist tradition is a set of experiments, some more scientific and efficient than others, at creating something that approaches this classless, communist society. Many of these experiments are radical and utopian -and these usually have failed- whereas others like the social democracies of Scandinavia and Canada, are more pragmatic and successful.

The Christian message -and by this I don't mean the Bible in its entirety but the message of the Christ, which often rebels irreconciliably against Biblical tradition- is specifically designed for the poor and it specifically excludes the rich. In this sense, it is a revolutionary message and deeply resonates with Marxist tradition -as liberation theologians are quick to point out.

Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied. - Luke 6:20-21

The good news is proclaimed to the poor. - Matthew 11:5

Jesus said to him, “If you wish to be complete, go and sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.” But when the young man heard this statement, he went away grieving; for he was one who owned much property. "Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God". - Matthew 19:21-24

The rich man was told to sell everything he had and give it to the poor: this is today known as a socialist revolution. And it's presented as a non-negotiable pre-requisite to even consider oneself Christ's follower.

What this means is that in God's Kingdom, as Christ understood it, there were no social classes. The rich man had to identify as poor, he had to become poor, before he could enter the kingdom. For as long as there was poverty no one had the right to be rich and wealth was to be shared and made productive, not hoarded.

When I studied Christian teachings, I noticed that there was little commentary on Manonism as the counter-philosophy, the philosophy of injustice, of big fish eating the small fish. Now, from a distance and immersed in the current events in history I can much more clearly appreciate these teachings and their contrast with capitalism. Unfortunately very few modern churches will elaborate on this contrast as I have. But as for me, I offer this as a challenge: the current economic justice issues that we face today are more of a moral problem, and a crisis in values, than anything else. We cannot act in service of righteousness and of profit at once.

Remember Remember the 5th of November: Bank Transfer Day

2011-11-04T03:24:00.000-07:00

"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." - John F. Kennedy

Solidarity!

Message from Anonymous to the 99%

2011-10-10T16:04:00.000-07:00

"We have reached a tipping point", says Anonymous

International Credit Union Day, Complementary Currencies and the New Economy

2011-10-07T09:13:00.000-07:00

A pyramid-scheme debt-based economy that funds wars and benefits only the wealthy can only preserve itself if funders keep enough money in their deposit accounts that the banks can then LOAN to other customers.

All the banks in this Republic borrow from and pay their interest, in turn, to the Federal Reserve and the call to End the Fed which is heard time and time again among occupiers of Wall Street must include various fronts of mass, organized action by the People.

I have decided to close my account with Chase Bank after learning that it's funding the militarization of Wall Street with its recent 4.6 million dollar donation to the NYPD and I invite you all to do the same: close your accounts with all the major players in the banking cartel and choose a small Community Bank, or Credit Union, to do your banking so that your deposit is re-invested in your local community. Please, also encourage all your friends and business partners to do the same. We should only bank at ethical banks that fund ethical business ventures and keep wealth flowing in their communities.

October 20, 2011 happens to be International Credit Union Day, and I believe that the momentum carried by the Ocuppy Wall Street movement is a perfect wave on which this drive can ride and change the way Americans do their banking. It's a great chance to educate ourselves and each other on the community initiatives that our credit unions and community banks are involved in and to be part of those local initiatives. It's one of the many things that we have the power to do.

The movement to move money away from the for-profit corporate banks and into non-profit credit unions and smaller local community banks is actually a growing movement, particularly since the 2008 crisis.

The National Credit Union Administration (www.ncua.gov/) as well as
www.creditunion.coop/ actually provide searchable databases where one can enter one's zip code or city and the page provides all the credit unions in the vecinity.

PLEASE KNOW THIS: every penny in your bank is used by your bank to create debt and loans, and to fund whatever model that bank is invested in so that YOUR dollar in a non-profit credit union helps to fund the particular initiatives of that C.U. and is re-invested in your community. The money that you keep in for-profit banks, on the other hand, simply creates more worldwide parasitic debt.

Complementary Currencies rising

With the US dollar facing almost certain collapse in the coming years, with it losing its status as the petrodollar, and with the very real possibility that the Federal Reserve is going to be audited and maybe even abolished (if Ron Paul becomes President, or if the current uprisings successfully translate into political action), and even if some even argue that having one's own means of production is the only thing that can save us in the coming storm, I believe it's still advisable to diversify the currencies in which we hold our assets into gold, silver and other tangible and exchangeable goods instead of the Federal Reserve notes that we use as currency and that we begin to participate in alternative currency networks.

Ron Paul has proposed a return to the gold and silver currency that was in place in the early years of the U.S. but several states and localities also issue their own local currencies. Charlotte has a 'plenty'; Ithaca, New York has 'hours' (a time-based currency); D.C. has a local currency called 'potomac'; and the Lakota and Anishinabe nations also issue complementary currencies, all of which are entirely legal. Detroit also, in response to the current crisis, issues a local scrip known as 'cheers'.

Utah recently passed a law where gold and silver coins issued by the U.S. Mint can now be used to pay state taxes and are considered legal tender. Other states are following Utah's example.

The most successful example of a complementary currency are the berkshares from Massachussetts which trade at 100 berkshares for every 90 US Dollars at community banks in Berkshire, Mass. One must then spend the berkshares at one of the more than 400 local businesses that accept the berkshare. Groceries, cafes, theaters, produce, pretty much all that is local can be purchased in the local currency.

Businesses who accept berkshares are also encouraged to buy and trade with each other in order to take advantage of the 10 % discount that the local currency offers. Goods are bought and sold for the same amount in both currencies.

What this ensures is that wealth stays local for the long term, that local produce are consumed and keeps the community loyal and fiscally strong. It also gives small local merchants leverage against major corporations, since their goods can be purchased at a 10 percent discount. More info on the berkshares: www.berkshares.org

I learned about community currencies or complementary currencies through the film '2012: Time for Change'. Gift certificates are the most recognizable example of scrips (another name for them). There are also virtual currencies, the most popular one being bitcoins.

Mutual credit societies have had popularity in Japan for some time, and these models are being replicated in parts of the US where great numbers of people have been chronically jobless and have a need for alternative ways to pay for basic goods. The currency in mutual credit societies is usually time-based (an hour of labor or service) and can be exchanged with any one person on the network, which is usually comprised of neighbors, family and people we trust. In this way, the flow of goods within that community is facilitated and basic needs are much more easily met without relying on the wage-slavery system. In New York, the Ithaca 'hour' is one such currency. It's currently worth ten US dollars.

One other way to stimulate a local economy, particularly in agricultural or rural communities, would be to go back to a previous age when the currency was set as tied to the value of a crop, like when the Aztecs used the cacao as currency. Units of corn, or other goods, can also be tied to a currency: the idea again is that the currency must have SOME tangible value, it's not based on debt and its credibility is not tied to the shady practices of the international banking cartel.

One negative aspect of crop-based currency, however, is that once the produce has gone bad the currency devaluates so that the currency's value is affected by the freshness of the product. It can only efficiently serve as a seasonal currency, and must be used creatively and with other complementary currencies within a dynamic economy.

The international banking cartel are a dangerous bunch that no one votes for and they're above and beyond all of our legal, political and democratic systems. They can't go into a country and plunder its resources like during the colonial era, but they can give Haiti or Zimbabwe loans at 29 % interest rate and there aren't any international banking regulations to keep them from sucking the blood of the entire human race and enslaving the entire planet through debt.

This is all food for thought. I didn't even know a month ago that many currencies that aren't tied to bank debt are already in existence, and cities or neighborhoods with strong merchant associations, Community Banks and Credit Unions are perfect experimental grounds that already have the beginnings of the community infrastructure needed for implementing new complementary currencies.

Also, by participating in local community currency networks, if and when the Fed is abolished, those of us that can't afford to buy silver or gold these days won't find it so hard to adjust during the coming crisis. Learn more at opencurrency.com.

WE ARE LEGION!

2011-10-05T15:45:00.001-07:00

I'll believe a corporation is a person when Texas and Georgia start executing corporations. - Roger Rice

Thomas Jefferson's prophecy fulfilled

2011-10-04T21:47:00.001-07:00

"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. Already they have raised up a money aristocracy that has set the government at defiance. This issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people to whom it properly belongs. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of the moneyed corporations which already dare to challenge our Government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country"

- Thomas Jefferson, 1791

Flash forward to 2011, millions have had their homes foreclosed, are in debt, jobless and angry: Wall Street is occupied.

Most shockingly: know that the Federal Reserve note that we use today as our fiat (debt-based) currency is entirely illegal. Let's see:

Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution
The Congress shall have Power . . .
To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;
To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States; . . .

Also Section 10 of the Constitution forbids anything except the values of gold and silver to be fixed as legal tender. In other words, not debt but tangible assets, specifically gold and silver, must be fixed as legal tender.

Here's what kwaves.com has to say about the irony of our currency being used globally:

George Washington and the Dollar

It is unfortunate that the picture of George Washington is reflected on the $1 dollar bill today. His gift to us was a solid currency backed by gold and silver. He despised the false promises of fiat money, enough to encourage Congress to impose a death penalty for issuing the type of money he is now pictured on.

Ergo:

1. Only Congress has the power to create and fix the value of our legal tender, not a PRIVATE BANK owned by foreigners, such as the Federal Reserve;
2. The establishment of the Fed was inconstitutional;
3. George Washington would have punished the several banking families at the top of our financial pyramid with the death penalty;
4. Again, the Federal Reserve note that we use as currency is illegal;
and
5. It's undeniable on this day that Jefferson's prophecy is sadly fulfilled. It's as if the Founding Fathers were watching the day of judgement scenario taking place on Wall Street from above and saying: "We told you so!".

LEARN THE HISTORY OF THE FEDERAL RESERVE

RIP Wangari Mathaai

2011-10-04T15:23:00.000-07:00

American Revolution has begun!

2011-10-03T14:48:00.000-07:00

Deputy Inspector Anthony Bologna maced women in an act of clear, unwarranted police brutality, and then there were mass arrests on the Brooklyn Bridge for absolutely no good reason. So, as if the NYPD didn't already look like total jerks, there's more disturbing news coming out about who's backing their movement to break up the peaceful Occupy Wall Street demonstration.

JPMorgan Chase -- one of the biggest banksters that Occupy Wall Street is standing up to -- made the largest donation in the history of the New York City Police Foundation to the NYPD's nonprofit organization ... just in the nick of time! They donated $4.6 million, supposedly to fund new laptops in patrol cars and security monitoring software.

$4.6 Million Donation to NYPD Smells Like a Payoff, news by The Stir

I encourage everyone to please find alternative news sources since conventional, Wall-Street-owned media refuses to cover the occupation of Wall Street, and stay informed. Cases of mass arrests and police brutality have been recorded by witnesses there and posted on youtube.

DemocracyNOW, RTAmerica, and a few other popularly controlled youtube channels and media outlets are doing the job that corporate media refuses to do. Please support them.

If a gathering of pro-corporatocracy Tea Partiers had manifestations this big, and most especially if 700 of them were arrested for no apparent reason or suffered police brutality, mainstream media would be on it. But this is a popular movement. These are the OTHER 99 %, and they're not puppets to the corporate powers.

The fact that the banking cartel is blatantly purchasing our military at the onset of the occupation of Wall Street, which is set to become America's Tahrir Square, shows that the banks are trembling before the mobs of people, but also that these powers are unscrupulous and dangerous and in spite of mass media's boycott of the reality there, all ears and eyes should be on Wall Street right now to ensure that violations of human rights do not continue to occur.

I am posting this in solidarity of my American revolutionary comrades who are there. I am proud of all of them. Please support alternative media outlets!

The official demands of the Occupy Wall Street Movement

2011-10-02T19:37:00.000-07:00

also known as "We are the 99 %" whose wealth is the equivalent of only the top 400 wealthiest people in the US.

Official Demands
Proposed List of Demands

700 people were arrested over the weekend, and this was suspiciously not covered, or if covered it was dismissed by Wall-Street controlled conventional media. But they won't go away: they will stay on Wall Street until they get a fair hearing. I am very proud of these fellow Americans and in solidarity, will keep my readers posted.

SUPPORT ALTERNATIVE MEDIA
AND SUPPORT THE 99 %!

The 'New' American Revolution

2011-09-07T16:34:00.000-07:00

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation...

The Declaration of Independence

Jesse Ventura's open letter to the elite
You control our world. You've poisoned the air we breathe, contaminated the water we drink, and copyrighted the food we eat. We fight in your wars, die for your causes, and sacrifice our freedoms to protect you. You've liquidated our savings, destroyed our middle class, and used our tax dollars to bailout your unending greed. We are slaves to your corporations, zombies to your airwaves, servants to your decadence. You've stolen our elections, assassinated our leaders, and abolished our basic rights as human beings. You own our property, shipped away our jobs, and shredded our unions. You've profited off of disaster, destabilized our currencies, and raised our cost of living. You've monopolized our freedom, stripped away our education, and have almost extinguished our flame. We are hit... we are bleeding... but we ain't got time to bleed. We will bring the giants to their knees and you will witness our revolution!

Sincerely,

The Serfs.

American wage slavery hits a new low

2011-08-29T21:14:00.000-07:00

I've been working for two companies that send temporary servers and bartenders to catered events, usually weddings, university and corporate events. Sometimes private homes. Lately the amount of work has dwindled to one or two shifts per week, and now like many Americans I'm having trouble paying my mortgage.

I'm already a frustrated worker, was displaced by Bank of America when they took over Lasalle Bank in 2008 and have been underemployed since. I'm noticing that employers are taking full advantage of the competitive job market by offering only part time and/or temporary work. Corporations are cutting costs and avoiding paying medical and other benefits. And as usual, our government is entirely pro-corporatocracy and hates poor and working Americans ...

But the powerlessness that I feel culminated in panic when I went to a job interview with a catering company a couple of days ago and was told that because they have a contract with one of the employment agencies that I work for where they're not able to take employees from them, that they're unable to offer me work. The contract includes a buy-out clause which makes it expensive for them to buy me out so that they can employ me.

After realizing that he had just informed me that I'm, well, a slave, that my labor and my person is entirely OWNED by a company that only offers me one shift per week, if that, and will not allow me to gain the dignity of a living wage through another employer, my interviewer felt uneasy and perhaps guilty about this arrangement that the two employers have and informed me that one way to get around it is to still hire me for the position we were discussing, but to do so through the employment agency, as a temp.

What this means is that they would more likely be paying MORE money for my labor, since instead of paying me directly they have to pay a portion of my labor to the temporary agency ... who, without performing any work, exploits my labor and takes a portion of the fruits of my hands. I signed away my labor when they hired me.

I imagine that if I hear back from this catering company, it will most likely be for a part time job through my temp agency, since other employees will constitute even cheaper labor by virtue of being hired directly and not through an agency.

And so in this new American labor culture of cutting costs and paying slave-masters for the wage of poor workers, I am basically fucked.

I don't know what it's gonna take for this country to get straight, for the American poor and working class to get its fair share of the pie. I'm so demoralized, so down, feel so betrayed by my corporatocratist government and the way it hates the poor and working American.

It's such a huge insult to our intelligence when the Republicans and capitalists in this country speak o 'trickle down economics' and all their rhetoric and propaganda. Wealth has NEVER trickled down. Those 'up there' are too greedy to let the trickle get to those of us 'down here'. They want more and more, and they're getting more because they OWN our government. For the last four decades, the wealth of the rich has literally multiplied while the wealth of the poor has remained static.

I recently read that a full third of the new home purchases were the result of foreclosures. There are numerous ways that the banking cartel and the wealthy are ensuring that more wealth passes from the hands of the poor, even the new poor who can't afford our homes, to the hands of the already wealthy who are still now able to buy new homes. The foreclosure craze is big business for long-term investors.

So is war. Costly as it is for the taxpayer, we know full well the connection between oil investors, military investors, and the Bush presidency. We know full well that Cheney used to be on the board of Halliburton and gave this corporation most contracts in Iraq. How much money was transacted in all this, that we'll probably never know. It may be so vulgar a truth, that it better stay hidden.

But this we allowed to happen because we thought ourselves powerless, and because so many ignorant and/or religious voters allowed themselves to be hypnotized and ensnared by media and by their leaders and voted against their own class interests.

Dear Fellow Americans: please realize that if you are living from paycheck to paycheck, YOU ARE NOT MIDDLE CLASS. YOU ARE POOR. You belong to a class of people who are voiceless, nameless, and when you watch the news, realize that they're being packaged by a particularly greedy breed of parasites that keep you poor.

I remember watching a news channel after the Japan earthquake earlier this year where, rather than a humanitarian crisis the discussion revolved around what stocks to buy in order to turn a quick profit: timber, they said, was to be the next bubble because of all the construction that was needed. Yesterday, hurricane Irene had not even left the northeastern tip of the U.S. and they were concerned for stockholders who held insurance stock. The news ended on a positive note, because only 40 % of the damage was covered and the insurance industry would not be hit so hard. How do these people sleep at night? Where are the values of those who watch and really believe this to be 'the news'?

They feed us so much bullshit! There's even a career description for capitalist propagandists, which was concocted specifically in order to avoid the word 'propaganda': Public Relations. This 'career path' was proposed by none other than the nephew of Freud, Edward Bernays, who effectively taught companies to use Freudian ideas regarding appealing to unconscious desires of people in order to sell them products and even ideas. This is a vast and interesting subject that I won't delve into, but anyone interested in pursuing will find much information online.

I refuse to close with a positive note. Things are not okay. I'm so ashamed of how my American dream was stolen. I don't know if I can recover it. I don't know what else to say. Or do. In my eyes we are, officially, a poor country plagued by a minority of powerful, vocal, wealthy, greedy pigs.

Stop Coddling the Super-Rich

2011-08-15T14:30:00.000-07:00

Stop Coddling the Super-Rich is a letter written by the third richest man in the world, Warren Buffet, and published today in the New York Times.

OUR leaders have asked for “shared sacrifice.” But when they did the asking, they spared me. I checked with my mega-rich friends to learn what pain they were expecting. They, too, were left untouched.

While the poor and middle class fight for us in Afghanistan, and while most Americans struggle to make ends meet, we mega-rich continue to get our extraordinary tax breaks. Some of us are investment managers who earn billions from our daily labors but are allowed to classify our income as “carried interest,” thereby getting a bargain 15 percent tax rate. Others own stock index futures for 10 minutes and have 60 percent of their gain taxed at 15 percent, as if they’d been long-term investors.

These and other blessings are showered upon us by legislators in Washington who feel compelled to protect us, much as if we were spotted owls or some other endangered species. It’s nice to have friends in high places.

Last year my federal tax bill — the income tax I paid, as well as payroll taxes paid by me and on my behalf — was $6,938,744. That sounds like a lot of money. But what I paid was only 17.4 percent of my taxable income — and that’s actually a lower percentage than was paid by any of the other 20 people in our office. Their tax burdens ranged from 33 percent to 41 percent and averaged 36 percent.

If you make money with money, as some of my super-rich friends do, your percentage may be a bit lower than mine. But if you earn money from a job, your percentage will surely exceed mine — most likely by a lot.

To understand why, you need to examine the sources of government revenue. Last year about 80 percent of these revenues came from personal income taxes and payroll taxes. The mega-rich pay income taxes at a rate of 15 percent on most of their earnings but pay practically nothing in payroll taxes. It’s a different story for the middle class: typically, they fall into the 15 percent and 25 percent income tax brackets, and then are hit with heavy payroll taxes to boot.

Back in the 1980s and 1990s, tax rates for the rich were far higher, and my percentage rate was in the middle of the pack. According to a theory I sometimes hear, I should have thrown a fit and refused to invest because of the elevated tax rates on capital gains and dividends.

I didn’t refuse, nor did others. I have worked with investors for 60 years and I have yet to see anyone — not even when capital gains rates were 39.9 percent in 1976-77 — shy away from a sensible investment because of the tax rate on the potential gain. People invest to make money, and potential taxes have never scared them off. And to those who argue that higher rates hurt job creation, I would note that a net of nearly 40 million jobs were added between 1980 and 2000. You know what’s happened since then: lower tax rates and far lower job creation.

Since 1992, the I.R.S. has compiled data from the returns of the 400 Americans reporting the largest income. In 1992, the top 400 had aggregate taxable income of $16.9 billion and paid federal taxes of 29.2 percent on that sum. In 2008, the aggregate income of the highest 400 had soared to $90.9 billion — a staggering $227.4 million on average — but the rate paid had fallen to 21.5 percent.

The taxes I refer to here include only federal income tax, but you can be sure that any payroll tax for the 400 was inconsequential compared to income. In fact, 88 of the 400 in 2008 reported no wages at all, though every one of them reported capital gains. Some of my brethren may shun work but they all like to invest. (I can relate to that.)

I know well many of the mega-rich and, by and large, they are very decent people. They love America and appreciate the opportunity this country has given them. Many have joined the Giving Pledge, promising to give most of their wealth to philanthropy. Most wouldn’t mind being told to pay more in taxes as well, particularly when so many of their fellow citizens are truly suffering.

Twelve members of Congress will soon take on the crucial job of rearranging our country’s finances. They’ve been instructed to devise a plan that reduces the 10-year deficit by at least $1.5 trillion. It’s vital, however, that they achieve far more than that. Americans are rapidly losing faith in the ability of Congress to deal with our country’s fiscal problems. Only action that is immediate, real and very substantial will prevent that doubt from morphing into hopelessness. That feeling can create its own reality.

Job one for the 12 is to pare down some future promises that even a rich America can’t fulfill. Big money must be saved here. The 12 should then turn to the issue of revenues. I would leave rates for 99.7 percent of taxpayers unchanged and continue the current 2-percentage-point reduction in the employee contribution to the payroll tax. This cut helps the poor and the middle class, who need every break they can get.

But for those making more than $1 million — there were 236,883 such households in 2009 — I would raise rates immediately on taxable income in excess of $1 million, including, of course, dividends and capital gains. And for those who make $10 million or more — there were 8,274 in 2009 — I would suggest an additional increase in rate.

My friends and I have been coddled long enough by a billionaire-friendly Congress. It’s time for our government to get serious about shared sacrifice.

Warren E. Buffett is the chairman and chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway.

2011-08-11T17:38:00.000-07:00

If you want a quality, act as if you already had it.

-William James

Westboro Baptist Church family disowns daughter

2011-08-07T10:15:00.000-07:00

... on a lighter note, enjoy this WBC parody!

Barsoom will come to life!

2011-08-06T17:09:00.000-07:00

I just finished watching the Rise of the Planet of the Apes, which I must say, is a great movie and now am looking forward to John Carter ...

Pearls

2011-08-04T19:09:00.000-07:00

More than 29,000 children under 5 have died from starvation over the last 90 days in Somalia due to a drought. This song is dedicated to our shared humanity.

Banking on Heaven

2011-08-02T15:18:00.000-07:00

A film that raises serious concerns about polygamy, as it is practiced by fundamentalist Mormons today.

2011-07-24T01:10:00.000-07:00

"One person with a belief is equal to a force of 100,000 who have only interests."

- Fundamentalist Christian terrorist Behring Breivik, quoting British philosopher John Stuart Mill

RIP Amy Winehouse

2011-07-24T00:42:00.000-07:00

I'm very saddened by the news of her death :(

2011-06-02T12:51:00.001-07:00

Learn to speak what you feel,
and act what you speak

- Sai Baba

2011-06-01T19:25:00.001-07:00

‎"The immune system, what it does is distinguish between me and the other, and when one falls in love, the loved one is not perceived as other by the body." - Amit Goswami, quantum physicist

Yeah, Focus on YOUR Family!

2011-05-31T09:48:00.000-07:00

Focus on the Family Head: "We've Probably Lost" on Gay Marriage

Last week, a Gallup poll showed that a majority of Americans support gay marriage. It was the third such survey this spring, and if you add in the number of Americans who support civil unions, public support for same-sex relationships has become the dominant position ... Even Jim Daly, president of the right-wing group Focus on the Family, seems to be waving the white flag. Here's what he told the evangelical World magazine in its June issue:

We're winning the younger generation on abortion, at least in theory. What about same-sex marriage? We're losing on that one, especially among the 20- and 30-somethings: 65 to 70 percent of them favor same-sex marriage. I don't know if that's going to change with a little more age—demographers would say probably not. We've probably lost that. I don't want to be extremist here, but I think we need to start calculating where we are in the culture.

... This isn't a permanent cease-fire; Daly merely thinks that Christians need to get their own marriages in order before lecturing from the moral high ground: "What if the Christian divorce rate goes from 40 percent to 10 percent or 5 percent, and the world's goes from 50 percent to 80 percent? Now we're back to the early centuries. They're looking at us and thinking, 'We want more of what they've got.'" As he puts it, "we should start with how to get dads reconnected to the family and committed to their marriages."

Come to think of it, isn't that what an organization called "Focus on the Family" should have been doing all along?

— By Tim Murphy

Gays are the Cause of End of World

2011-05-20T22:24:00.000-07:00

... says Harold Camping of Family Radio, who predicted that the world ends today.

Shiva Station

2011-05-19T09:36:00.000-07:00

In the world of ecstatic bhajans, or Hindu devotionals, Jai Uttal is a major talent that most of the secular has missed out on. Please enjoy this talented musician with a BIG heart!

Housewife

2011-05-11T10:44:00.001-07:00

Death and the Skeptic

2011-05-09T11:19:00.000-07:00

The world will end the day I die. - Badger Clark

As much as the anthropocentric arrogance and the subjectivity of the above statement contradict obvious facts, it could be said that every mind is a world and that the world ends, to each one of us, upon death. This is a kind of insight into the limited nature of the knowability of things to mortals.

As a non-believer I have pondered and sought meaning for death, or at least respite from the pain caused by death, in Buddhist and Epicurean ideas. Death is the parent of religious fantasies and beliefs of all kinds, which all contradict each other making their fraudulent nature immediately apparent.

When faced with the picture of a cousin recently who died a couple of years back, I was flooded with memories and bursted into tears, wishing that the dead could speak again and that they could hug us and give us comfort. It is this vulnerability that gives birth to religions and beliefs in the supernatural ... but provides no factual evidence for such beliefs.

One tale about one of my beloved spiritual teachers, Siddhartha Buddha, says that there was once a mother whose infant child died and she could not bear the pain. She heard of the miraculous man called Buddha and went to him in the hope that Buddha could resurrect her child. But Buddha's teaching centered on the acceptance of the impermanence of all things in order to avoid unnecessary suffering. How could he perpetuate the notion of eternal life?

And so Buddha told her to knock on every door in her village until she would find a household that did not know death. She began knocking on every door and every time that she visited a home, the families would tell her that they were sorry but that a mother, a son, a brother, a father had died, and they fondly shared memories of their loved ones with her. As she went from home to home, she realized that death was universal and the negative energy of her suffering was transmuted into empathy and shared suffering.

And so finally she understood and went to Lord Buddha and took refuge at his feet, thankful for and humbled by his teaching about impermanence. She became a most devoted follower, thanks to her insights on human suffering.

This is where compassion originates: in realizing that this is not my pain but our pain, that we're all in the same boat. For this reason, Buddha is a humanist icon. All virtues can be cultivated by contemplating our human experience with mindfulness.

There is no need for gods or supernatural theories in Buddhism, but putting our hands in the the hands of fellow human beings is essential to the realization of humanist virtues. Epicurus, who is to me the most revered of all Greek philosophers, also said that good friends are one of the most important ingredients for happiness. We can suffer through anything, as long as we have wholesome associates and friends who walk the path with us and make us stronger. Alone, we are weak but together, with our tribe, we are strong.

It was Epicurus who said "Death is nothing to us". Here is the full quote:

Get used to believing that death is nothing to us.
For all good and bad consists in sense experience, and death is the privation of sense experience.
Hence a correct knowledge of the fact that death is nothing to us makes the mortality of life a matter for contentment, not by adding a limitless time [to life] but by removing the longing for immortality.
For there is nothing fearful in life for one who has grasped that there is nothing fearful in the absence of life.
Thus, he is a fool who says that he fears death not because it will be painful when present but because it is painful when it is still to come.
For that which while present causes no distress causes unnecessary pain when merely anticipated.
So death, the most frightening of bad things, is nothing to us; since when we exist death is not yet present, and when death is present, we do not exist.
Therefore it is relevant neither to the living nor the dead, since it does not affect the former, and the latter do not exist.
But [most people] flee death as the greatest of bad things and sometimes choose it as a relief from the bad things of life.
But the wise man neither rejects life nor fears death.

- Epicurus, in his Letter to Menoeceus

Some critics of Epirucus claim that he does not factor in the complex human reaction to the finality of human life, particularly when such strong bonds exist between us. But this, again, is not unique to humanity. Apes and Elephants form bonds that last throughout all life and death of loved ones is extremely painful, especially in the case of elephants who are known to visit the graves of their family members and mournfully observe a solemn state when in presence of the bones of their ancestors.

This, some may argue, sounds like the beginning of spirituality in other species in the animal kingdom, and it probably is. At least it demonstrates a sophisticated level of philosophical curiosity among elephants. But it does not provide factual evidence for an afterlife: those are two quite different claims. Loving bonds between family members serve an evolutionary purpose, but they are not in any way evidence for the eternality of our individual minds, as painful as this realization may be.

I respect the maturity with which Buddha preached on the universality of impermanence, which in Buddhist doctrine is considered one of the three marks of existence. Rather than the infantile insistence in other religions of entertaining religious fantasies and the persistence of belief in the afterlife, Zen Buddhists accept that there is only now.

This is not a denial of our humanity and our vulnerability, of which we are also called to be non-judgementally mindful of by Buddha. One must cry when one needs to cry. The fact remains that death of loved ones and our own finality are painful experiences but that we can be adults and recognize these as facts, and that the more we accept these facts just as they are, the less suffering their unavoidability will generate.

Richard Dawkins in the book The God Delusion ends with a chapter on the wonder of science where he speaks of the miracle of the now, the fact that we are creatures that evolved on this planet after four billion years to be intelligent enough to be able to realize our unique place in this universe and our uniqueness. Only we can look to the skies and barely begin to discern the distances whereas all the other earthling species only have the ability to know either their habitat, or at least their immediate surroundings.

WE ARE the gift that Earth gave us. Life, not death, should be the object of our awe.

Happy Star Wars Day!

2011-05-04T15:17:00.000-07:00

MAY THE 4TH BE WITH YOU

I've always loved the Binary Sunset scene and song! A part of me imagines that one day in the far, far future the sons and daughters of humanity will reach a world with two suns and play this music and reminisce.

Peace Is Non Theistic - Statistical Data

2011-04-26T14:52:00.000-07:00

Draco

2011-04-25T22:16:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite musicians has just been diagnosed with cancer. I'm saddened. This is an homage to Robi Draco Rosa :(

I'm here
so care for me
laugh with me
While I'm here smile just for a while

- Robi Draco Rosa

2011-04-22T23:56:00.000-07:00

"The idea that business has a social responsibility is fundamentally subversive" - Milton Friedman, proponent of the failed policies of trickle-down economics

Money breeds crime: 'Give people what they need'

2011-04-12T16:50:00.001-07:00

"Help stop "Don't pray Don't say"

2011-04-08T13:28:00.000-07:00

As the economy struggles, US Military has spent THOUSANDS of US TAXPAYERS' DOLLARS in unconstitutional efforts to evangelize soldiers:

Archaeologists Discover First ‘Gay Caveman’

2011-04-08T10:49:00.000-07:00

Kamila Remisova Vesinova and her team of researchers from the Czech Archeological Society believe they have unearthed the remains of an early homosexual man. The remains date from around 2900-2500 B.C., on the outskirts of Prague.

That claim stems from the fact the 5,000-year old skeleton was buried in a manner reserved for women in the Corded Ware culture: its head was pointed east rather than west, and its remains were surrounded by domestic jugs rather than by hammers, flint knives and weapons that typically accompany male remains.

“From history and ethnology, we know that people from this period took funeral rites very seriously so it is highly unlikely that this positioning was a mistake,” Vesinova said at a press conference. “Far more likely is that he was a man with a different sexual orientation, homosexual or transsexual.”

- Archaeologists Discover First ‘Gay Caveman’

2011-04-08T10:47:00.000-07:00

... young people who were exposed to the most music, compared to those who listened to music the least, were 8.3 times more likely to be depressed.

... “At this point, it is not clear whether depressed people begin to listen to more music to escape, or whether listening to large amounts of music can lead to depression, or both. Either way, these findings may help clinicians and parents recognize links between media and depression,” Primack said.

“It also is important that reading was associated with less likelihood of depression. This is worth emphasizing because overall in the U.S., reading books is decreasing, while nearly all other forms of media use are increasing.”

- Teens More Into Music Than Reading More Likely To Be Depressed, a PsychCentral.com article

2011-03-31T13:11:00.001-07:00

Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.

- Seneca

Man is the joy of man

2011-03-24T18:13:00.000-07:00

I counsel thee, Stray-Singer, accept my counsels,
they will be thy boon if thou obey'st them,
they will work thy weal if thou win'st them:
be never the first with friend of thine
to break the bond of fellowship;
care shall gnaw thy heart if thou canst not tell
all thy mind to another. - Havamal 120

Young was I once, I walked alone,
and bewildered seemed in the way;
then I found me another and rich I thought me,
for man is the joy of man. - Havamal 47

Hast thou a friend whom thou trustest well,
from whom thou cravest good?
Share thy mind with him, gifts exchange with him,
fare to find him oft. - Havamal 44

Two Of Exodus' Founders Come Out As 'Ex-Ex-Gay'

2011-03-21T11:00:00.001-07:00

Also: Former Ex-Gay Leaders Apologize

Milk Men

2011-03-20T14:36:00.000-07:00

Turns out men have the exact same mammary glands and organ as women do and can breastfeed and the taboo against male lactation is only cultural and social, it has no biological foundation. For as long as men's nipples are frequently stimulated by suckling, they are perfectly able to produce milk.

Men in the Akan tribe in Africa breastfeed just as often as the women of their tribe do, and there have been notorious documented cases of breastfeeding fathers in Sri Lanka, Britain and the US including the case of a man who produced the full supply of milk for his baby for several months. Male breastfeeding is an ancient practice, in fact, and is even mentioned in the Bible.

Another fact that turned up as I researched male lactation is that when men spend long periods of time fasting, the body produces the hormone that starts the process of milk production. My theory is that this means that if there's a major famine and the community has scarce resources, male lactation is supposed to be the back up for female lactation to ensure that children get enough nutrients. This may be the evolutionary purpose of male lactation, which occurs in most mammal species to some degree or another: communities that embrace this practice may increase their survival rates in the future if there's a major global famine crisis.

2011-03-19T06:36:00.001-07:00

“Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.”

- Epicurus, my favorite Greek philosopher

Diversity 301: Learning from Temple Grandin

2011-03-01T10:52:00.000-08:00

My interest in autism stems from the recent diagnosis of my niece as autistic. There is a wide range of symptoms, most of which are believed to be caused by genetics although there has been speculation on the possibility of processed foods and heavy metals in the environment today as the cause but this has not been definitely proven.

My sister did have a history of eating disorders prior to giving birth, so I do suspect that processed foods in the American food market has much to do with the huge increase in the amount of autistic children born in our generation.

I just finished watching the movie Temple Grandin. I have a new hero. Here is a person with autism who was able to gain not only a sense of normaly but who earned a PhD.

Dr. Grandin opened the way for future generations of autistic people and showed the world the potential that these children have. Some people who have a new agey mindset have even included these children among the 'indigo' children, the new breed of highly evolved humans who think outside the box, who see the world differently, who have a different mind.

This is Diversity 301. I truly believe that our use of the idea of diversity as a human value, learning to respect people of different ethnicities and sexualities, that is only the beginning of a journey towards a fuller understanding of human nature. Diversity must also include what psychotherapists refer to as different personality types.

To truly understand human diversity, we need to understand the human mind in all its capacities, most of which we never fully develop because our education system is meant to help us gain job skills and be productive and oftentimes does not take into consideration individual psychological configurations. Autistic people think differently. They see the world in images, some live in a world of sound or process their thoughts as images because their brains are wired differently.

Different does not mean less: some autistic persons are geniuses. Mozart was autistic. So was Einstein. So is my niece :) She's in pre-school now in a special ed class, and is well ahead of her class in terms of her ability to put symbols or letters together, she can count and she leads the class when they sing songs! She appears to easily tune into songs and that makes her a very cheerful child.

Many of these persons, because of their peculiar gifts, in other cultures have been considered shamans and cultural scouts who discovered or invented new ways of doing things based on a new way of seeing reality, and then brought those gifts back to their tribe or culture.

Dr. Grandin gave a talk at TED entitled Temple Grandin: The world needs all kinds of minds where she talked about how she was able to think like a cow and engineered the infrastructure that is in use today in most of the farms in the US that ensures that cattle are treated humanely: her focus was on making sure that the animals remained calm throughout most of the process of the feeding, treatment and even slaughter. This is born from her compassion, but also from her ability to easily think like a cow, of mentally being able to become a cow which is something that shamans of more primal cultures are able to do: they are able to think like animals they see in nature and hence they are able to harness the abilities of these animals.

In the movie, the constrast in her mind between the cow that lives and how she suffers, experiences reality, thinks and feels during life versus the piece of meat that is left once the cow leaves her body in the slaughterhouse is enormous. Upon seeing the bodies of animals or people who had just died, she used to ask: "Where did it go?". In other words, she is attuned to the presence and the mind of the being who is there.

Most of the people that work in slaughterhouses are so used to their own cruelty and to the idea of cattle as commodities that the concept of a living being who thinks, suffers, experiences panic or calm, who has specific needs and who thinks in a certain way escapes them.

The comparison of Dr. Grandin with ancient shamans turns a bit sour when we consider that she was mockingly and dismissively called 'Dr. Doolittle' by one of her employers because she was trying to understand what the different kinds of mooing meant. In the end, she helped us to see the world as cows see it, and to more efficiently and compassionately handle them.

But there are also introverts and extraverts who all have different needs and skills, as well as people who have more of an emotional brain versus rational or intuitive brains. Many job descriptions require persons to be outgoing and people-persons, and while it is good to put in the extra umph and go outside of one's comfort zone, a person who is naturally predominantly introverted (about 50% of the population) may not have those skills and may instead have many other skills that involve the use of critical thinking and other skills that might be useful for the same position. By discouraging introversion, the job market robs itself of talent in order to appease mere superficiality.

Western culture has not yet embraced this idea of diversity in terms of how our brains differ and the kinds of gifts that autistic people or people of different brain configurations may bring to human civilization. Dr. Grandin gives all of us who have loved ones who are autistic hope, and she also represents an important paradigm shift and challenge in terms of human values and how we value and appreciate others.

Epicurus: My Kind of Philosopher

2011-02-14T09:24:00.000-08:00

I hold the Epicurean philosophy in great respect. I find it to be the most wholesome and complete of the Greek philosophies, in fact it is the European version of Buddhism and I wish that the Christians in antiquity hadn't destroyed all of the philosophical schools, including the Epicurean Gardens.

These Gardens were great centers of learning and for friends to bond with friends. They were also very egalitarian. Epicurus dealt with women and even slaves as equals and all were invited to join in the philosophical discussions without anyone feeling like their intelligence was being insulted or underestimated. This was extremely progressive for his times.

Epicurus also was a great defender of the idea of science and the empirical search for truth. If Epicurean schools had been allowed to exist uninterrupted until our day, the cultivation of science would be far more advanced than it is today.

Here is an entertaining look at Epicurus' wisdom. Cheers!

On Regulation

2011-02-07T21:00:00.000-08:00

The following essay was written as a response to the video by Max Borders on Regulation as part of the Threats to Freedom contest:

I was immediately interested in responding to the video on Regulation as he touched on issues of interest groups and big business. These are matters that became prominent and worrisome for me recently after watching movies like Food, Inc. and the Future of Food, among others.

His mention of farmers' markets called my attention even more because one of the companies mentioned in these documentaries is Monsanto. This is a company that, with the help of its army of attorneys, has removed hundreds, perhaps thousands, of small American farmers from the market by using litigation and other means available within the legal infrastructure.

I would advocate anything that safeguards public health ... if I believed that the government had the interests of public health at heart. But knowing what I know, I have to say I distrust our government.

The problem within our current system is that profit is more powerful than health or ethical concerns. Monsanto, for instance, injects hormones on its cows to increase the production of milk that are illegal in Canada and Europe as they have been proven to cause cancer and other conditions. Monsanto is so powerful that many of the government functionaries employed by the FDA, which is charged with regulating Monsanto, are themselves former prominent Monsanto employees.

Clearly, health is not a major concern in the food and pharmaceutical industries: only the bottom line is. Evidence of this is that the health crisis in the United States is one of the worst on planet Earth. Even children are developing symptoms of morbid obesity, diabetes and heart problems at a very young age. And they're usually not the children of the wealthy: they are eating the foods that the government makes the most affordable by subsidizing their production. Healthier foods are not promoted or subsidized by the government as much as processed and mass produced foods are.

And so regulation is unveiled as serving the interests of big business in a corporatist-controlled state like America. Part of me hates admitting this because years ago I worked for the banking industry and was all about the idea of capitalism, but the peculiar corporatist form of capitalism on steroids that we have in the US has become, among other things, a major public health problem.

The pharmaceutical industry today spends more money promoting its agenda in D.C. than any other industry except, if I'm not mistaken, the oil industry. As a result, when we see ads for certain drugs on TV oftentimes the list of side effects and possible dangers associated with these legal drugs is scarier than the symptoms of the person taking the drug. How can drugs that can increase suicidal thoughts on depressed patients be made available? Only when free markets and lobbyists determine what's available for consumption can this be the paradigm we find ourselves in. The pharmaceutical industry has nothing to do with being a health industry. Health is not its goal or purpose.

Therefore I do not trust that the FDA is doing its job, or that the medicines and foods that we are sold necessarily are safe. One out of every two Americans we'll ever meet will develop cancer at some point in their lives. We take that for granted, but people in Japan live on average ten years more than we do. They do not eat the red meat or drink the milk that most Americans eat and drink, which has been injected with Monsanto hormones. They instead eat their veggies and marine vegetables, which are nowhere to be found in the food pyramid that the corporate-controlled government has tried to sell us, no doubt as a piece of propaganda developed in cohort with the industries that represent the unwholesome foods being proposed.

Losing our freedoms is a legitimate concern but I have my own quite different reasons to agree with the maker of this video. Sadly, due to the nature and the reality of our economy, I see no point in trusting that our regulations are serving the interests of public health. If they did serve to protect public health, things would be different.

Long Live the Republic of South Sudan!

2011-02-07T11:39:00.001-08:00

In celebration of the recent independence vote and the birth of a new nation, and in memory of all those who suffered and sacrificed so that the new generations will be able to taste freedom, I invite you to enjoy this video by Emmanuel Jal, a warchild and survivor of the Sudanese civil war.

Hospitality verses from the Havamal

2011-02-06T14:31:00.000-08:00

Hail, ye Givers! a guest is come;
say! where shall he sit within?
Much pressed is he who fain on the hearth
would seek for warmth and weal.

He hath need of fire, who now is come,
numbed with cold to the knee;
food and clothing the wanderer craves
who has fared o'er the rimy fell.

- Havamal, Stanzas 2-3

2011-02-06T10:56:00.000-08:00

2011-01-23T10:38:00.001-08:00

Never tell the truth with anger or bitterness
nor tell a lie with sweetness.
Tell the truth with sweetness:
that is good character.
- Sai Baba

2011-01-20T20:23:00.001-08:00

Named must your fear be before banish it you can. - Jedi Master Yoda

Tron

2011-01-01T21:32:00.001-08:00

I just finished watching the movie Tron: Legacy, and I must say for all the bad reviews it got, it was a decent movie. I do not feel that it deserved bad reviews.

I do think the themes have been explored differently before. But that's something we should be getting used to. Movies that were scary in the 80's no longer shock us today, as desensitized to violence as we've become.

Tron reminded me of the Matrix in many ways. It incorporated the philosophical and existencial questions raised by the Matrix, and even explored mythology as a sci-fi genre. Granted, the Matrix was not liked or understood by everyone. If you liked the Matrix, you'll probably like Tron.

2010-12-28T18:28:00.000-08:00

MIND
YOUR
BUSINESS

- Buddha

2010-12-27T22:06:00.000-08:00

Two are better than one,
because they have a good return for their labor:
if either of them falls down,
one can help the other up.
But pity anyone who falls
and has no one to help them up.
Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm.
But how can one keep warm alone?
Though one may be overpowered,
two can defend themselves.
A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.

Ecclesiastes 4:9-12

Toward a Zombie Un-Theology

2010-12-20T10:59:00.000-08:00

I read the blog entry Toward a Zombie Theology today from the viewpoint of the Buddhist premise of anatta, which is the doctrine of no-being. According to Buddhism there is no soul, no particle that can be termed spirit but an interaction of events and factors that creates for a time the experience of being. This experience is real in the sense that the human brain registers what we experience as being, but it's conditional, subjective, impermanent and has no inherent reality outside of the factors that comprise it. This, in Buddhist parlance, is known as 'co-dependent origination'.

Following this line of thinking, identity is only a mental phenomenon, the product of socialization and largely an imaginary construct.

In this sense, the idea of zombies, and of zombie theology, is apparently irrelevant. We would all be zombies, anatta taken literally. Yet in Buddhism exists, like in Western popular culture, a version of the zombie. It's known as 'hungry spirits', and according to a Zen Buddhist master who explained the concept once to me, it is the label that describes our minds when they do not cease to desire after things, when they are never satisfied because they constantly seek things that are external. Satisfaction and happiness only truly comes when one is sated and has tamed all desires, according to Buddhist psychology and doctrine.

This is to say, that Buddhism denies the megalomaniacal obsession with immortality and the afterlife that some religions are built upon, but it does not deny our humanity and vulnerability. In that sense, Buddhism does have a 'soul' in the poetic sense that many Westerners seem to think of. I think the author of the blog article on zombie theology does blur, or fail to define, the notion of a soul - particularly when he speaks of how consumerism and capitalism make us soulless beings. This is not theology --in the absense of a god and of a clear definition of god, theology is also impossible to define clearly--: it's really a veiled, shy critique of capitalism.

Can one have a mortal soul, instead of an immortal soul? If so, then I'll be the first one to admit that we do have souls, in the humanist, classical sense of the word. Let's not forget that the Greek word psyche, which today is used in psychoanalysis to refer to the MIND, is translated as soul. The human mind is the human soul, just as the elephant mind is the elephant soul. There is no other soul, and it's a mortal, impermanent, conditioned soul.

And so I profoundly and absolutely disagree with people who claim that a naturalist philosophy which denies our immortality is 'soulless'. I think this is a disturbing claim because it denies not only our ability to acquire human values without fear-based superstition and death cults, but also it denies the philosophical and spiritual heights of humanist religions and philosophies that have given us some of the most elaborate insights into human nature and how we can be more human and live happy and wholesome lives. Buddhism in particular, as well as Epicureanism and other intellectual achievements of the classical as well as the modern era, have or have had behind them entire civilizations that were nurtured for millenia by progressive, humanist ideas.

Having diluscidated some the basic definitions and premises that might help us read the original blog article, and having removed the confusions that arise out of 'theologizing' and entertaining religious fantasies around notions that should be so familiar, natural and human, I would like to now point out why I think this discussion on zombie theology is culturally relevant and important.

I am not so much concerned with the diverging viewpoints on the issue as I am with the fact that the discussion is taking place and that new scientific fields, like neuroscience and the scientific study of death, including brain death, are being taken into consideration and can no longer be ignored even by religious people. This, I believe, is a hugely important (and healthy) leap and paradigm shift in the cultural discourse.

The article presents the case, effectively I think, that zombie folklore brings up questions of soul, immortality, and death and that these ideas are changing. The transformation of these ideas in our culture is undeniable: the first zombie movies were based on Voodoo-like storylines that invoked supernatural elements whereas almost all the recent zombie movies resort to the more scientifically acceptable idea of viruses and diseases that cause a zombielike state. Death is also entering the realm of science in this way today. This is a very radical development, if we ponder it.

I am reminded of the brilliant article that Sam Harris wrote for Shambhala Sun, a Buddhist publication, entitled Killing the Buddha where he said:

... We need to develop an utterly nonsectarian way of talking about the full spectrum of human experience and human aspiration. We need a discourse on ethics and spirituality that is every bit as unconstrained by dogma and cultural prejudice as the discourse of science is. What we need, in fact, is a contemplative science, a modern approach to exploring the furthest reaches of psychological well-being.
- Sam Harris

Sam Harris has participated in Zen retreats. He's also a neuroscientist who has studied the brain under the influence of meditation, and a prominent atheist writer.

The intersection between religion and popular horror media also unveils a very intimate relationship between them. There is a death cult that is part of most religions. Islam is not the only religion that vehemently praises violence: there's ancient Viking religion and its modern variety Asatru also. The scene of the crucifiction itself is a horror scene, and it features very prominently in many Christian cultures. I am reminded of the Mexican Day of the Dead and of the public crucifictions that take place every year during the Holy Week in many Central American cultures and in the Phillipines in memory of the historical human sacrifice that is at the center of Christian mythos.

Curiously, when religions embelish these horror scenes with meaning, they become sacred. When pop culture produces similar scenes, or even the crucifiction itself if it's outside the bounds of religious orthodoxy, then it becomes horror media and sometimes a sacrilege.

One thing I learned when I studied the psychoanalists' views on the archetype of the victim is that humans will go through any kind of suffering, as long as they can find meaning for it. Meaning gives dignity to our pain. We cannot bear to suffer for no reason.

This, I believe, is at the heart of why zombies and horror media have been denied official access to the realm of the sacred, in spite of the fact that they feature prominently in all religions throughout all of history.

I am not refering only to Voodoo and other Afro-diasporic faiths. In Christian eschatology and theology, zombies are a central theme. The suggestion that Christ, who according to the Gospels resurrected after he had been dead for three days, is a zombie is considered sacrilege by the orthodoxy still today ... but it's the truth. He even floated into outer space in his zombie body where, presumably, he remains in orbit to this day. The unbelievable assertion by the authors of the Bible --and by Jehova's Witnesses and many other fundies-- that people will PHYSICALLY return to life at the end of days is also the subject of zombie pop culture, even if it's not called for what it is.

Blasphemous as my words sound, I'm sure that my readers understand why this is an insult to our intelligence and why it's important that we challenge supernatural and superstitious claims within the discourse on what it means to have a soul and what it means to be a zombie. I will not deny the existence of zombies, in fact I share Morehead's reasoning with regards to mindless consumerism and mindlessness in general - in particular because this resonates with the Buddhist idea of hungry ghosts whose desires are never sated. In fact in this economy, a frugal lifestyle is not just about being mindful, it simply makes sense: it's more intelligent.

2010-12-15T07:32:00.001-08:00

Truth is, everybody is going to hurt you; you just gotta find the ones worth suffering for. -Bob Marley

The elephant and Earth's intelligent life

2010-12-13T08:28:00.000-08:00

I recently woke up after having a dream about an endearing baby elephant that was lovingly being taken care of by the whole village in some random place on Earth, and so I googled elephants to learn more about this beautiful species of intelligent mammals.

I already have a profound respect for them: they are naturally vegetarians and therefore are naturally inclined to practicing non-violence. When I was involved in the Hare Krishna movement I learned to love animals like cows and elephants who exhibit non-violent behavior.

Elephants have brains bigger than human brains and are incredibly intelligent. Scientists now know that they have an extremely complex language and that they even mourn their dead. This may not be as outlandish as it may sound to some: dolphins also have a complex language and every member of the group even has a name that they answer to.

Humans have traditionally believed that we are the only species on Earth with the capacity for speech and complex communication, or the only intelligent species on Earth. It's only a myth. We merely are lucky enough to combine speech with our hands' dexterity so that we are able to complete tasks that other animals can't. We already know that other apes and monkeys with similar hands also have cultures and build tools to catch ants, break open nuts, for battle and for other tasks.

We even began to understand the communication biotechnology of ants and other insects, who use chemical signals and scent to let each other know where they are going and what they are doing so that, to an outsider, it appears that the entire ant colony operates as if it had a single mind. Much of the chemical communication system is orchestrated by the queen: she rules through chemistry and scent. We have begun using this knowledge to lead ants to specific places, leading them to think they are following the trail of other ants.

Ant communication is not limited to other ants: plants are able to communicate with ants and other insects in order to develop relationships that benefit both. The most intriguing case is the case of the lemon ant, who has evolved to live in the Amazonian lemon tree. The ants produce a pesticide that kills all the surrounding plants, which benefits the lemon tree by letting it monopolize all of the sunlight in the vecinity while the ants find safety, foodsources and are protected from the weather by building their colonies inside the trunk of the tree. Both species benefit.

Is the lemon tree instructing ants to do this (just as, say, carnivorous plants attract certain insects in order to trap them), or are the ants recognizing their special relationship with this plants and engineering an empire? It's intriguing either way, because it requires that all of these hundreds or thousands of little ants be on the same page, and recognize the complexity of the project that they're undertaking.

It also invites the possibility that, if we decode plant chemical communication, we may be able to use chemicals to configure the behavior of certain plants in our favor and develop symbiotic relations similar to the one that the lemon ants and the lemon trees have bioengineered.

There is so much more that could be said about the intelligence of ants. They have complex ventilation and other systems of engineering and building, their civilizations include millions of members with complex social and caste relations, they take care of each other and especially of their queens, and they wage war and enslave each other. All this intrigue happens daily in millions of ant colonies on Earth: in our anthropocentricity we forget that everyday empires crumble and rise beneath our feet.

Another recent elephant epiphany I had was the youtube video of the elephant that paints a self-portrait of an elephant handing a flower to someone. Some speculate that this elephant might be trying to communicate with people, others dismiss this as a trick he learned from his trainer. Regardless, it takes a special skill and level of intelligence for any non-human to be able to paint as precisely and skillfully as this elephant does.

All the science fiction movies that we make about similar things happening in other worlds cannot compare with the facts of nature and the realities of Earth life: especially because the intelligence and language and other features of other Earth species is truly astounding. We have become an arrogant ilk of apes. The movie Earthlings spells this out by labeling our particular forms of prejudice against other creatures of our planet, 'speciesism'.

The fact that we use words like 'beast' or 'animal' in a derogatory way is testimony of our sense of superiority. It is true that we ARE superior in many ways to other creatures, but we should one day strive to speak of how 'deelephantizing' it is for an elephant to work as a slave at a circus just as it is 'dehumanizing' for a human to work at a sweatshop. There is a moral problem there that we have to discern our way through as Earthlings.

The more we learn about the other species, the more we realize that we are just one of the many intelligent species on Planet Earth. This should be a refreshing insight. Some day, thousands or millions of years into the future, we will hopefully develop ways to communicate with other species more effectively and we may be able to continue to cooperate and work together effectively for the common good, just as we and the elephants did in the Thailand relief efforts after the 2004 tsunami.

"I Saw A Hole In the Man" ~ A Mayan Story of Why Humanity Suffers

2010-12-07T16:50:00.000-08:00

2010-11-29T22:03:00.000-08:00

"Your god is your ultimate barrier."

- Joseph Campbell

2010-11-27T07:11:00.000-08:00

The greatest tragedy in mankind's entire history may be the hijacking of morality by religion

- Arthur C. Clarke

Two Spirits

2010-11-24T18:36:00.000-08:00

I believe this is a hugely important historical film and encourage everyone to watch it. It deals with the hate crime against a nadle, or two-spirit Navajo youth.

Two Spirits are transgendered or gay people in Navajo culture. Virtually all native american cultures had their own version of Two Spirits, who were the shamans and keeper of lore.

Because of how history has been told in a dishonest way in our school system, not many people are aware of the connections between the indigenous and the queer struggles in this hemisphere. But I remember while watching the documentary 'Zapatista' on the Chiapas resurrection and struggle in Mexico, that there was deep awareness of the solidarity between the gay and indigenous struggles among Chiapas leaders, who used to tell stories to encourage people to be more tolerant of gays and spoke against homophobia all the time.

Two-spirit persons were both gay, lesbian and transgender, and before the europeans came they used to marry people of the same gender in THIS LAND, OUR LAND, regardless of what the xtian reich might wanna have us believe. They used to be the ceremonial and spiritual leaders and were afforded total and complete normalcy, not as a matter of civil rights or 'tolerance' but as a matter of basic human dignity.

There were several major massacres of two-spirits that were carried out by the whites during the expansion into the 'wild west', including some where dozens of two-spirits were mass murdered out of fear, hatred and panic and for no other reason.

What people need to understand, and the reason why this movie is so gravely important as a historical document, is that the killing of two-spirits represented the destruction of entire living libraries. Since they were the keepers of the culture and traditions, killing them represented the dismanteling of the cultural infrastructure of the native american, comparable to the extinction of the buffalo for some first nation peoples.

Please take the time to watch this movie if and when you can, and please share it with others.

2010-11-24T14:42:00.001-08:00

2010-11-19T21:23:00.000-08:00

When the trunk of a tree grows upward, its roots develop deep underneath the earth. The progress of upward and downward growth are in positive proportion. Thus, the tree remains strong, firm and stable. This is nature's wisdom. Weeds grow fast; they are neither strong nor stable.

- Comments to Oracle 53 of the I Ching, entitled Gradual Development

2010-11-13T07:57:00.001-08:00

When the people fear the government, there is Tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is Liberty.
-Thomas Jefferson

2010-11-10T16:26:00.000-08:00

It’s obvious that if you repeat something often enough, in an authoritative voice, listeners will begin to believe what you say. That’s the theory behind both advertising and conservative media.

The oft-repeated barrage of verbal assaults lobbed at Barack Obama - that he’s a commie/foreigner/infidel/Nazi - confirm this. Indeed, an April 2010 CBS/NY Times poll found that 52 percent of Americans believe that the president is moving the US toward socialism, something they clearly regard as bad, and maybe even dangerous, for the US and its people... That these assertions are insane - and more than a little frightening - goes without saying. But they also reveal a profound lack of knowledge about socialism, the class struggle, and theories of governance.

Alan Maass’ The Case For Socialism goes a long way in rectifying this information gap, and should be required reading in every high school and college civics class. Clearly and accessibly written, it posits socialism as a viable and necessary alternative to capitalism.

- From the http://www.truth-out.org blog

Anne Rice leaves Christianity

2010-10-24T09:39:00.000-07:00

Today I quit being a Christian. I'm out ... in the name of Christ, I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control. I refuse to be anti-democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular humanism. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life. In the name of Christ, I quit Christianity and being a Christian, Amen.

- Anne Rice, author of Interview With the Vampire

American Socialism rising

2010-10-23T17:49:00.001-07:00

Newsweek, in their article We Are All Socialists Now, explains how ironic it is that the Bush years paved the way for an American socialist revolution ... and that the fear mongering that pervaded Republican rhetoric during the last election, where the word 'socialist' was thrown around like it was to be feared, made people seriously look into socialism as an alternative to the corporation-run duopoly that currently exists, which lacks transparency and efficiency.

According to alternet, Thomas Geoghegan points out in
Were You Born on the Wrong Continent?:

Germans have six weeks of federally mandated vacation, free university tuition, and nursing care. But you’ve heard the arguments for years about how those wussy Europeans can’t compete in a global economy. You’ve heard that so many times, you might believe it. But like so many things, the media repeats endlessly, it’s just not true.

Since 2003, it’s not China but Germany, that colossus of European socialism, that has either led the world in export sales or at least been tied for first. Even as we in the United States fall more deeply into the clutches of our foreign creditors — China foremost among them — Germany has somehow managed to create a high-wage, unionized economy without shipping all its jobs abroad or creating a massive trade deficit, or any trade deficit at all. And even as the Germans outsell the United States, they manage to take six weeks of vacation every year. They’re beating us with one hand tied behind their back.

The most mindboggling thing about Germany's exports is not the six week mandated vacation that every worker gets: it's outcompeting China! China is the largest country on Earth, with 1.3 billion people, whereas Germany is about the size of a large state of the U.S. One out of every five human beings is Chinese. That's how efficiently the German economy is being run.

It would be refreshing to have multi-party elections again in the US, and to finally have a truly liberal party representing liberal concerns in Washington. The Democratic party, like Bill Maher and Michael Moore have repeatedly claimed, is centrist. It does not truly speak for a liberal base, which has been powerless in American politics for way too long.

It would be refreshing if corporations were unable to purchase the politicians, if we had people in positions of power that were able to truly curb corporate control of our country, which in effect annuls democracy. What is the use of voting for my favorite candidate if the pharmaceutical industry, or worse yet Monsanto, are able to pay millions to get laws passed that are detrimental to the consumer, and to public health?

The anti-capitalist values of socialists would bring a new set of checks and balances that is sorely needed in the US. If we had a robust, vocal socialist party as part of the public discourse in American politics, the public in general and especially the consumers would be better educated about the corporations that keep the US from progressing, that keep the health of Americans poor, and that keep people sick ... because socialist leaders would create awareness about the roots of diabetes, obesity, cancer and many other health problems that arise from having powerful food and pharmaceutical industries whose lobbyists push for laws and regulations that are anti-consumer.

But for as long as only money speaks in DC, the consumer will be voiceless.

2010-10-17T11:54:00.000-07:00

There will be no swastikas this time but seas of red, white and blue flags and Christian crosses. There will be no stiff-armed salutes, but recitations of the Pledge of Allegiance.

- How Radical Christian Conservatives May Succeed in Destroying Democracy

Beautiful Truths

2010-10-14T18:46:00.000-07:00

I am about to share with you what the pharmaceutical industry does not want common folk to know because it would set us all free ...

The Beautiful Truth is an immensely important film, sort of along the lines of The Future of Food and Food, Inc. but it's much more personal: it follows the admiration of a young Alaskan for a 20-th century Doctor who cured many people from cancer, and it also paints an alarming picture of what the movie calls the 'cancer industry'.

It reminded me of the lawsuit that was filed by unscrupulous drug companies from first world nations in South Africa some years back. These corporations used the legal resource of patented medicine to ask for exagerated amounts of money for their AIDS/HIV drugs when South Africa, in the midst of one of its worst health crisis in recent history, was trying to acquire cheaper versions of the meds from Brasil and India. Meanwhile thousands were dying because they could not afford their medicine in this extremely poor corner of the world.

I respect the right of an inventor to hold the patent to his inventions ... or of a writer or owner of other forms of intellectual property. But when a CORPORATION owns the patent to a life-saving medicine, our lives are at risk.

When medicine becomes a for-profit venture and health services are not seen as a fundamental human right, which is what they are supposed to be, humanity always loses. But the more dehumanizing fact is that corporations are not people, they have no conscience, they can't be put in jail if they commit crimes, they can't be shamed ... and not only does it seem that they are far more powerful than people in our day and age, but oftentimes in the case of Big Pharma we are told that we have no choice but to put our lives in their hands. The desperate need to feel better leaves people at their total mercy.

And so, to know that we can go back to nature, and get our medicine from it like the shamans of ancient times did ... and to be able to do so using the science and the vast knowledge that is available to us today, that's very liberating. This is, in part, what this eye-opening film did for me.

Another documentary to watch is Simply Raw, where a group of diabetic patients sheds all the symptoms of their condition by only eating living foods during 30 days.

Good Reply!

2010-10-01T08:54:00.000-07:00

Personhood

2010-09-28T21:50:00.000-07:00

I may have an issue with anatta, the Buddhist teaching on non-being. Or maybe I'm struggling with trying to understand it. My mind, being attached to the idea of my personhood, fears the experience of non-being and death ... quite an interesting observation and act of mindfulness.

Because awareness of non-being brings freedom from fear of death.

Awareness that we are not these persons, that these are circumstances, that this will change and I will not be here. That brings feedom.

Nothing is constant. Everything changes.

I sang the song of dispossession, of timelessness, non-being and of impermanence multiple times. I sang the song and saw it happen.

Pain is delivered by expectation. Expectations gone, there is no pain.

And so there is freedom in the denial of personhood. This is pure rhetoric, pure doctine. But there is an awareness, an insight, at the core of this koan.

Richard Dawkins' Speech at Protest the Pope March

2010-09-19T19:32:00.000-07:00

2010-09-18T03:56:00.000-07:00

Winners look for solutions.
Losers look for excuses.

- Adrienne Laris Toghraie

Greg Gutfeld: I’m raising money to build a Muslim gay bar next to the Ground Zero mosque

2010-08-10T20:01:00.000-07:00

I’m announcing tonight, that I am planning to build and open the first gay bar that caters not only to the west, but also Islamic gay men. To best express my sincere desire for dialogue, the bar will be situated next to the mosque Park51, in an available commercial space.

This is not a joke. I’ve already spoken to a number of investors, who have pledged their support in this bipartisan bid for understanding and tolerance.

As you know, the Muslim faith doesn’t look kindly upon homosexuality, which is why I’m building this bar. It is an effort to break down barriers and reduce deadly homophobia in the Islamic world.

The goal, however, is not simply to open a typical gay bar, but one friendly to men of Islamic faith. An entire floor, for example, will feature non-alcoholic drinks, since booze is forbidden by the faith. The bar will be open all day and night, to accommodate men who would rather keep their sexuality under wraps – but still want to dance.

- Greg Gutfeld

Prop 8 brought down and declared unconstitutional

2010-08-04T15:56:00.000-07:00

Proposition 8 fails to advance any rational basis in singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license. Indeed, the evidence shows Proposition 8 does nothing more than enshrine in the California Constitution the notion that opposite sex couples are superior to same-sex couples. Because California has no interest in discriminating against gay men and lesbians, and because Proposition 8 prevents California from fulfilling its constitutional obligation to provide marriages on an equal basis, the court concludes that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional.

... Plaintiffs have demonstrated by overwhelming evidence that Proposition 8 violates their due process and equal protection rights and that they will continue to suffer these constitutional violations until state officials cease enforcement of Proposition 8. California is able to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, as it has already issued 18,000 marriage licenses to same sex couples and has not suffered any demonstrated harm as a result ...

Because Proposition 8 is unconstitutional under both the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses, the court orders entry of judgment permanently ... prohibiting the official defendants [state of California] from applying or enforcing Proposition 8...

Ruling excerpts from U.S. District Chief Judge Vaughn Walker

2010-08-01T10:34:00.000-07:00

Imagination is more important than knowledge.
Knowledge is limited.
Imagination encircles the world.

- Albert Einstein

Agora

2010-07-24T09:35:00.001-07:00

I finally saw the movie Agora and would definitely recommend it to anyone who cares about the history of science, empirical thinking, and how religion has stopped the expansion of human knowledge.

It deals with the murder of philosopher Hypatia by a mob of Christians in Alexandria during the fourth century of Common Era, and with the destruction of the Great Library of Alexandria which held all the scientific knowledge that people had accumulated up until that time.

It was actually in Alexandria where scientist and philosopher Eratosthenes had speculated about the Earth being round and orbited around the sun. Eratosthenes worked at the Great Library of Alexandria and successfully calculated the circumference of the Earth two centuries before Common Era!

Another reason why we know that Egyptian scientists knew that the Earth was round is because they have found coca (the plant that cocaine of made from) in Egyptiam mummies from 4,000 years ago, but coca only grows in the Andes region of South America, which means that the Incas or their predecessors had traded with Ancient Egyptians long before Colombus sailed to the New World.

In other words, the destruction of the Great Library of Alexandria held humanity back for about 1,500 years: it wasn't until the Renaissance that we would be able to finally question Christianity again enough to reacquaint ourselves again with all these ideas.

Please watch Agora. It is a very important history lesson for all of us.

2010-07-19T11:37:00.000-07:00

"Love and hate met in St. Louis. And love outnumbered the hate, in poetic thousands. Hate left. But love stayed. + Together, we sang."

Lady Gaga, refering to a protest by the Westboro Baptist Church (from the godhatesfags ministry) at one of her concerts

For Neda

2010-07-19T10:13:00.000-07:00

This documentary deals with the personal story of Neda who was killed by the Islamic authorities of Iran while protesting against the government. As the documentary unfolds, Neda appears to have been rebellious from the beginning, successfully challenged the government's rules on wearing a hijab in her high school and she got away with it!: she was the first and the only teenage girl who didn't wear it in her school ... and then the documentary goes into how women are treated in Iran. This is where my tears started flowing.

I know that the video of her death is very morbid and shocking, and they do show it at the beginning, but I would invite everyone who is unfamiliar with what the current islamic regime has done to the Iranians, to please take the time to watch the documentary and share it with others. Neda has become a symbol of Iranian people's resistance and especially of Iranian women's resistance and courage.

Another movie that shows an Iranian woman's story is Persepolis. It's also based on a true story and the woman who tells the story is a very good storyteller.

Oh, and Neda's name appropriately means 'Voice' in Persian.

Argentina OKs Gay Marriage in Historic Vote

2010-07-15T14:39:00.000-07:00

Good Omen

2010-07-11T23:45:00.000-07:00

I woke up this morning randomly dreaming about this one song from a Brasilian Lounge CD that I have. The music is mellow and relaxing and I've always had good times to this music, but never thought of it as healing music of any kind. In my dream I was in ecstasy, in a very good mood, and entirely relished the song.

The name of the song is Bom Sinal, which in Portuguese translates as a Good Omen. The Native Americans speak of healing songs that sometimes we receive from shamans, or via dreams, and this is one. I thought it was an entirely secular song. And it is, which is odd. The vibe of the song is so awesome that it immediately raises my spirits.

It reminds me of the many months I spent in ecstasy chanting the Hare Krishna mahamantra in the loving company of Krishna devotees. It really beautified our character to engage in such an innocent, happy activity. Everyone should have a couple of healing songs to lift their spirits throughout the day.

I counsel thee, Stray-Singer, accept my counsels,
they will be thy boon if thou obey'st them,
they will work thy weal if thou win'st them:
in sweet converse call the righteous to thy side,
learn a healing song while thou livest.

Hávamál, Stanza 119

Happy Independence Day

2010-07-04T12:55:00.001-07:00

Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner. -James Bovard, Civil Libertarian (1994)

Atheism Rising

2010-07-02T08:58:00.000-07:00

Traditionally, the studies that have been carried out on religious attitudes, beliefs and on the psychology of belief have focused on religious people. I believe that a thorough understanding of religious phenomena requires that non-religious people's attitudes and psychology also be the subjects of study. That is what the Atheism Rising study is all about. If you are a non-believer, please support this Study of Values, Attitudes, and Personal Histories of Atheists, Humanists, and Skeptics.

No Mosque at Ground Zero!

2010-06-05T13:29:00.000-07:00

I think this is a very bad idea and that if they do build a mosque at ground zero it's just a matter of time before it will become a huge, HUGE, HUGE source of conflict and mutual hostility. Many Americans have very visceral reactions to the idea of 9/11.

This mosque will end up becoming America's version of Jerusalem's Temple of the Dome, which is nothing but an excuse to desecrate the previous culture's most sacred site in order to install Islam and assert its supremacy and where thousands have died over centuries due to mutual hostility. It will end up becoming another excuse to perpetuate the mutual hatred between Islam and America into the rest of history. It's the last thing that we need.

Some lessons are learned the hard way ...

2010-04-19T15:32:00.000-07:00

I rede you, Loddfafnir! and hear my rede,—
Profit you have if you hear,
Great your gain if you learn:
Exchange of words
with a witless ape
You must not ever make.

- Havamal 122

... nuff said.