Sheelagh's coming out!

Sheelagh's coming out!

Hypothetical sequence of events:

1. An announcement

2. A history relating to the announcement

3. The reason for the announcement and

4. the final summary
               
Actual sequence of events:

Sheelagh Fromer, a female human being is, was and has always been the writer of this blog.

The end.

Remember i've always maintained this blog isn't about me; its about all of you and how we can make this world a better place for all of us.

Recently in my excursions on the inter tubes i came across a blurb for a piece about the use of surveillance cameras.  The short introduction details a point i have made over and over here, one that speaks to my optimistic side.  The one that says the sky isn't falling in, crime isn't as all pervasive as you might be led to think, there is more good going on than bad and improvements have been made.  You don't need to give up your liberty for security.

Apparently, England gets the award for the most surveillance cameras of any country in the world.  One statistic said there was a camera watching for every 14 people; gathering information 24 hours a day 7 days a week(as long as they are functioning).  But have they made a difference in crime?

Not really.

Cameras record details that are in its immediate view.  They do not prevent crime and rarely do they solve crime.  They merely record details.  Mostly they are a device to produce a fictional feeling of security for those invested in having them record activity.  They collect a lot of data, they track the movements of the general public, but too few humans are available to review it and crime goes on.

Cameras do not reduce crime, cameras record crime.  Mayor Giuliani increased the police force on the streets of New York and guess what? Crime dropped to the point where it became one of the safer cities in the western world.   England placed 4.2 million cameras all over the country and guess what?  Violent crime continued to increase, while petty crime went down.  No camera will prevent your mugging, rape or murder if someone is bent on doing it.   More often than not the camera is malfunctioning anyway.

Studies have shown that increased lighting and more police on the beat reduce crime.

Rather than tackling crime at the root (poor housing, lack of jobs, parental problems, drugs) installing a camera squander's public and private money on surveillance.  Cameras need maintenance; they need upgrading and cleaning to ensure good picture quality; and add in the cost of having operators to man them in order to watch the images to alert the police of potential criminal activity.

i read a number of articles on the use of surveillance cameras, pro and con and this comment (snark)at the end of one article had me laughing.

The reason for the cameras is that today fewer people believe in God.

In the old days there was a general consensus that He was looking over your shoulder watching all your actions. Now that God is dead (in the opinions of the liberal elite anyway) we are deemed to need actual cameras watching over us to deter crime and keep us subservient.

Hahahahah....God is dead so we need cameras......where in the world do people come up with these things?

There is the argument in favor of cameras that says they can catch the criminal after the crime has been committed.   For those who are now dead that is too late and what about all the times when the results are so blurry and grainy you can't identify the perpetrator anyway. 

Another argument is why are you against being watched, you must be guilty of something illegal.  Well, do you have an objection to being watched in your bedroom, are you guilty of something illegal, or do you just believe in privacy?  Most of us believe in privacy and don't want to be subjected to monitoring by surveillance cameras.

Today surveillance is the next biggest thing.  We are all bombarded constantly, through the papers, tv and radio stations about how dangerous this world is.  Surveillance is big business and it is growing but please remember; cameras are used to control ordinary citizens by creating an atmosphere of uncertainty, they remind you that you are not in control of your own life.

As Benjamin Franklin once said:

"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both."

paper flower

There is a plant that a French botanist discovered in the late 1700's in Brazil; the "paper flower" as it is sometimes called comes in many colors and thrives in any soil as long as it is well drained.  If put in soil that retains water these conditions can induce root rot.  Although quite hardy they have been cross-pollinated many times creating the more papery look.

The attributes of these plants sound very human ....ovate to rounded, pale to corky, leathery in texture and hairy underneath, the flowers can be slender or large depending upon the variety...but care is needed as they can be quite thorny.

We humans are "paper flowers", we can thrive anywhere but develop root rot when negative conditions turn our world up side down.  Our bailouts, WARS, unemployment and housing bubbles have all contributed to a wealth inequality that is turning so many "paper flowers" thorny.

Today we see a growing gap between the rich and the poor.  We have been

programed to believe that prejudice, greed, elitism and exclusion should be understood as facts of life.  We are directed to accept these aspects of humanity for our own good rather than understanding them as being unjust.  We are hammered daily in the media with articles proclaiming why some(immigrants or welfare queens) are described as less deserving and others(businessmen) are paragons, shining examples of the demigods we should all look up to.

We are taught that inequality is assured, fixed and fated and greed is good.  Upon reflection we find that an examination of the history of this country shows that we had less wealth disparity from the 50's through the 70's than we do today. 

Inequality fluctuates throughout history and there is nothing "natural" or "inevitable" about the present levels.  Our political and economic "elites" encourage us to support the status quo.  We are bombarded by television and talk radio; Government is the culprit not those that prey upon the uninformed. 

But what is the impact of a low wage?  Why aren't more demanding answers for the enormous wage gaps?  Why aren't teachers who mold and shape our children compensated the way some celebrity is for one week of work?  Why are the lower wage workers who slave day in day and day out viewed as less valuable to society?

Back in the middle ages the poor were referred to as 'unfortunates' meaning that they had experienced some form of bad luck and therefore poverty through no fault of their own; hundreds of years of evolution has resulted in us now seeing the poor as "welfare queens" and "lazy."  No longer enjoying "bad luck" as an option instead they must be engaging in fraudulent activities or just plain lazy.  Losing a job, a medical catastrophe, or a life changing disability never enters the conversation.  In reality those actually committing fraud or just plain lazy are a very small percentage of welfare recipients but you wouldn't know that by listening to the radio or watching television.

Consider where you were born.  You and the rest of humanity had no control over your birth location, parents, or community.  But being born into wealth or poverty has a bigger impact on your life than any other event.  There are real life long effects from being born in the right or wrong place and most can't escape that fact.  Here is a small racial sample:

While the median white family has roughly $90,000 to its name, the median Latino family has just $8,000, and the median Black family has only $6,000.

What liberals favor is equality of opportunity. When we talk about a level playing field, we're not saying guarantee us victory, we're saying give us a fair chance. Not one liberal i know would say that everything should be equal.

Sadly, way too many conservative policies, especially in the last couple of decades, have been explicitly predicated on denying the majority of our citizens equality of opportunity.

Editors at the Nation had this to say about income inequality.     "Over the past three decades, market-worshiping politicians and their corporate backers have engineered the most colossal redistribution of wealth in modern world history, a redistribution from the bottom up, from working people to a tiny global elite.

This three-decade war against common sense has preached that tax cuts for the rich help the poor, that labor unions keep workers from prospering, that regulations protecting consumers attack freedom. Duly inspired, our elected officials have rewritten the rules that run our economy--on taxes and trade, on wage policies and public spending--to benefit wealthy asset owners and global corporations."

The unemployed and the poor reap these trickle up benefits.  Complex partnerships, not-so-blind trusts and dubious real estate schemes have helped the super-rich sidestep billions in taxes, shifting the burden to lower and middle income Americans.  In fact Lord Griffiths, vice-chairman of Goldman Sachs International and a former adviser to Margaret Thatcher, said banks should not be ashamed of rewarding their staff.

Speaking to an audience at St Paul's Cathedral in London about morality in the marketplace last October, Griffiths said the British public should "tolerate the inequality of bonus' as a way to achieve greater prosperity for all."  

In light of the charges against Goldman Sacs you might think the public today would see the Republican Party's phony populism and cries of "socialism" for what they really are: an attempt to perpetuate the economic inequality they helped to create at the expense of the very people they claim to be fighting for.

"If my well-being can exist only at the expense of the suffering of others, then I bear some responsibility for that suffering, whether or not I choose to admit it.  I am complicit in their suffering.

If I allow their hopes and dreams to be irrevocably crushed, then I should not complain when they no longer choose to be bound by the rules and laws that make this an ordered society." teacherken

visual rhythm

Visual rhythm follows the intonation and beat of speech.  Understanding this rhythm occurs through the eyes not the ears.  So today for your eyes i've decided to do a bit of a world wide wrap and tap.

China... another earthquake, 7.1 on the Richter scale and so far 400 dead and 10,000 injured, how many have been displaced and how much destruction took place will unfold over the coming days.

Thailand...rioting in the streets has abated and the sides are regrouping.

Australia...the captain and watch officer of the Chinese ship blamed for causing unprecedented damage on the Great Barrier Reef will face court today.

Russia... U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov have signed a $3 billion deal to dispose of 34 metric tons of plutonium by burning it in nuclear reactors.

Gaza...Hamas has ordered the shut down of tunnels used to transport food, fuel, construction materials and animals from Egypt following a security alert warning Israelis of abduction.

Iceland...a volcano buried under a glacier came back to life today and 800 people were evacuated from their homes.

Saudi Arabia...Saudi Arabia's highest religious authority issued a fatwa (edict) denouncing all acts of terrorism and criminalising its financing, Asharq al-Awsat daily reported today.

Iraq... A bomb ripped through a busy central Baghdad commercial district on Wednesday, wounding at least three people, an official and witnesses said.

From AP:

USA...Republican backlash over President Barack Obama's health care overhaul had little effect in the nation's first U.S. House race of 2010.

Florida Democratic state Sen. Ted Deutch handily won Tuesday's special election to replace retiring Democratic U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler after his underdog GOP opponent attempted to make the contest a referendum on the massive health care bill.

And as the visual rhythm progresses a little riff on some more aspects of the health care bill flow
below.

Text is quoted from the Kaiser Family Foundations summary of the health care reform that was passed recently.  Most don't understand what is in the bill so here are seven more aspects.

   1. Multi-State Plans
          * "Require the Office of Personnel Management to contract with insurers to offer at least two multi-state plans in each Exchange. At least one plan must be offered by a non-profit entity"

   2. Health Care Choice Compacts
          * "Permit states to form health care choice compacts and allow insurers to sell policies in any state participating in the compact."  (A Republican plan to sell across state lines)
          * Compacts may not start until Jan 1, 2016.

   3. State Demonstration Programs To Evaluate Alternatives To Current Medical Tort Litigation
          * "Award five-year demonstration grants to states to develop, implement, and evaluate alternatives to current tort litigations." (Republicans wanted to reduce tort litigation, here it is, but it attacks malpractice instead of stripping consumer rights)
          * Starts in 2011, 5 year grant

   4. Grants For Small Businesses To Provide Comprehensive Workplace Wellness Programs
          * "Provide grants for up to five years to small employers that establish wellness programs."
          * Starts in 2011, 5 year grant

   5. Nutrition Labeling Of Standard Menu Items At Chain Restaurants
          * "Require chain restaurants and food sold from vending machines to disclose the nutritional content of each item." (More information and transparency, always a plus for the consumer)
          * Go into effect 1 year after enactment

   6. Nursing Home Transparency and Improvement: Required Disclosure Of Ownership And Additional Disclosable Parties Information
          * "Require skilled nursing facilities under Medicare and nursing facilities under Medicaid to disclose information regarding ownership, accountability requirements, and expenditures."

   7. Increasing the Supply of the Health Care Workforce
          * Involves loan programs, recruitment and retention programs.

In Haiti the response of the nations of the world to earthquake victims is an example of "morally guided collective action."   The world wide giving happened not as a result of religion and its teachings but because humans naturally want to help. 

Ta da...da visual rhydum is done.

structured procrastinators(tax time)

Have you done your taxes yet?  Do you seek pleasure instead of pain?  Do you have an underlying social disorder that allows you to delay filling out tax forms?  Are you a procrastinator?  Do you put things off until the last minute, believing as some do that when under pressure to get something done you will do a better job?

Well welcome to the life of a structured procrastinator, one who can get the job done, times it just perfectly, but just by the skin of their teeth.

Structured procrastinators all over the US are calculating how many days they still have left before they REALLY have to do their taxes.  i was one of them until i gave up my hedonistic ways yesterday and bit the bullet.  Pleasure took a back seat to pain, i slaved away and  my taxes are done, well... not completely, i still have eight days left to mail them.

Taxes are a rite of passage every year and every year i wonder where it all goes.  One year i went to the government website and wrote down all the millions and millions of dollars that were being spent on different areas of the government.  It was mind boggling, i had sheets of paper listing budgets for each office and department.  i had great intentions, i was going to work out the percents and alert the masses to the real amounts that were being spent in their names. But...the structured procrastinator that i am, the totals wallowed in a file somewhere and got old before i ever found a way to use the information.

But this year, i've done it,  i've found a website that has already done the heavy lifting and  if you are like me and seek out information you may be interested in these tax factoids i picked up out there on the internet tubes.

For every tax dollar we contribute to the Federal government the breakdown for 2009 is as follows:

26.5¢ Military

20.1¢ Health

13.6¢ Interest on Debt...5.4¢ Military...8.2cNon-Military
   
9.8¢ Government

8.5¢ Income Security & Labor

7.2¢ Housing & Community

3.7¢ Food

3.5¢ Veterans' Benefits

2.5¢ Environment Energy & Science

2.0¢ Education    

1.3¢ International Affairs

1.3¢ Transportation

Jo Comerford who is the executive director of the National Priorities Project, which analyzes federal government budget choices said on April 5th: "In 2009, health received 20.1 cents of every tax dollar while interest payments on the national debt claimed an additional 13.6 cents, of which 5.4 cents was directed to interest on military-related debt. When 5.4 cents of military-related interest is added to the 26.5 cents dedicated to paying for core military-related spending, the total military allocation is 31.9 cents of each 2009 federal income tax dollar. Education received 2 cents; the combined category of environment, energy and science got 2.5 cents; and transportation and international affairs took 1.3 cents apiece."

Take special note of these statistics. The military one isn't completely accurate if you put a little more thought into it. The break down is accurate but it's split.  Here's how i see it, add the initial military expense of 26.5 cents to the 5.4 cents for interest on military, veterans benefits is another 3.5 cents giving an actual military expense of 35.4 cents.  Under health(20.1 cents) there is probably another 8 cents for the Veterans Administration for medical coverage for veterans making the total number actually closer to 44% which is in line with other sources i have read.

The military and its related aspects take a huge chunk of our tax dollars, 44 cents.  For some of us this is OK but for others of us(me) the amount we spend on keeping the war machine going is tough to swallow.  We spend more than all the other nations of the world combined on our military.

When i speak of Peace having a place at the Federal Level i don't say it lightly.

When you are done calculating the amount of tax you will pay this year click on this link http://nationalpriorities.org/taxchart/2010 to see how your tax dollars will be spent.  All you have to do is put in the amount of tax you pay this year.  i just did mine and it is shocking how much goes to the war machine.  i hate it just as much as those on the right hate paying for poor people, give me a poor person any day for my taxes to go to.

So often the tax chatter concerns these enormous sums going to welfare recipients.  Well the reality is that the bulk of our taxes goes to the military and to pay off the national debt.
Everything else suffers.  Poor people get 7.2 cents and with education only getting a measly 2 cents we need a champion, someone with vision--and clout--who can clearly articulate why a free society requires an informed citizenry, and why investing in children means investing in the future of this nation. 


I'll bet you didn't know how your taxes are divided up.
i said this two weeks ago and i'll say it again this week.
It will be a good day when sick people get all the care they need, and the government has to hold a bake sale to buy bombs.

tuning out

Every once and a while i do a piece on connecting.  i usually detail some method we can all use to get closer to nature, get closer to each other or something we can use to try to get along.  i like to talk about how some do it naturally while others have to work hard at slowing down and tuning in.  i write about others lucky like me who realize most of the time they are connected and only notice the other world when something happens to disturb the tranquility.

Well this week my neighbor has been bulldozing a new driveway access.  The contractor brought up two heavy bulldozers that are either hard at work or idling during down time all day long, starting at the crack of dawn.  The neighbor was kind enough to warn us ahead of time that they would be working and that they hoped it wasn't going to be too much of a bother.  All of us neighbors said no problem, we understand, we won't cause any problems without really comprehending what the distraction would mean in real terms.

Noisy is not an apt description to describe the top of the hills new reality.  The heavy equipment squeaks, squeals, sounds like grating metal with high pitched chalk board sounds and it blocks out any other natural sound with its overly loud engine roar. To say it has disturbed the wild life and myself and the rest of the neighborhood is the least of it.

For over a week now every time the driver spends some down time thinking about the job or just taking a break we all breath a sigh of relief.  Everything gets a little quieter, you can hear the birds, hear the wind, and listen to the pleasant roar of the ocean over the idling engine.

When he gets back to work the dogs give me this long lingering look as if to say, "What!  Its not over yet, you mean we still have to suffer through this excruciating noise, can't you stop it."  i try to tell them with my eyes that when four o'clock rolls around all will go quiet and peace will reign, but they don't believe me.

The reality of this noise has added another dimension to our lives and to thinking about people who live with noise on a daily basis.   How in the world do they cope?

Living in the islands we are blessed with a fairly noise free environment.  It isn't something we contemplate too often unless our day to day living is impacted, like it is now.  But if you live in a city or an urban environment that is heavily populated long lasting noise can have harmful affects on your health.  It can endanger ones life, destroy the ability to hear, and add levels of stress that can create disease.

Noise comes at us from all directions, road traffic, airline noise, indoor and outdoor neighborhood noise and of course natural noise that can also cause problems.  Scientists studying the effect of noise have realized problems with your heart, tinnitus, hearing loss, cognitive impairment, general annoyance and sleep disturbance can be directly linked to high levels of noise.

One study has shown that noise distraction can be more harmful to introverted students than to extroverted students when it comes to study time. Introverted students can experience more difficulty understanding what they are reading in a noisy environment, making failure a real outcome.  Sometimes we don't realize how much background noise can affect our performance in general.

At work, open offices have been shown in two recent studies to clearly show that loud speech distraction is rated by employees as the No. 1 problem that affects their satisfaction and productivity. The two most prominent office acoustical problems are excess speech noise distraction, and a lack of protection for confidential conversations in private offices.  Noise makes workers very unhappy and less productive.

Believe it or not there is a society called the Noise Abatement Society in England that raises awareness and finds solutions to protect, improve and respect the aural landscape for the public benefit, wildlife and marine life.  Now celebrating its 50th year, the Society was established in 1959 by John Connell OBE who successfully lobbied the Noise Abatement Act through Parliament in 1960, establishing noise as a statutory nuisance for the first time.

Luckily, i may only have to suffer through the noise for another week.  If i had to live with a steady stream of traffic noise, sirens, loud music from cars etc. and a whole host of other noises i would definitely go bonkers.

This past week has made me think that maybe some hearing loss is not such a bad thing when bombarded on a daily basis.  Imagine how satisfying life could be if while being blasted with any kind of excruciating noise you could just reach up to your hearing aid and turn it off.




Spend some time listening, tune in to the noise in your life and see how you might reduce it, it could make you healthy.

sources

Last week some questioned whether the bible actually talks about the breath of life.  Here are a few quotes for those wanting sources.

Genesis 2 "7": And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

Ezekiel Ch. 37 "5": Thus saith the Lord GOD unto these bones; Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live:

Job Ch. 33 "4": The Spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life.

Psalms 33 "6": By the word of the LORD were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth.

Psalms 150 "6": Let every thing that hath breath praise the LORD. Praise ye the LORD.

Isaiah Ch. 42 "5": Thus saith God the LORD, he that created the heavens, and stretched them out; he that spread forth the earth, and that which cometh out of it; he that giveth breath unto the people upon it, and spirit to them that walk therein:

                               
Any of you reading here know that i'm in favor of a single payer health delivery system.  The landmark legislation that was signed into law this week is a baby step towards that eventual goal,  even baby steps are something we can all rejoice over.

So in the spirit of rejoicing the next six months should see these ten things becoming part and parcel of our health care delivery system.

   1.  No more rescission--You can't lose your insurance because you get sick.

   2.  Children under 19 can not be excluded for pre-existing conditions

   3.  Lifetime or annual caps on coverage are banned

   4.  Adult children may remain as dependents on their parents' policy until their 27th birthday

   5.   Small businesses are entitled to a tax credit for 2009 and 2010, of up to 50% of what they pay for employees' health insurance.

   6.  Adults with pre-existing conditions can buy into a national high-risk pool until the Health insurance exchanges are running. While probably not cheap, they are an improvement over no access and create a bit of a pool of insureds for cost savings.

   7.  Free preventative care --new private plans must cover preventive care services without co-payments and with those services being exempt from deductibles. Free preventive care rules apply to all existing plans by 2018.

   8.  The "donut hole" is smaller but not completely gone yet for Medicare patients, making prescription medications more affordable.

   9.  All insurers are required to publicly post balance sheets and disclose all administrative costs, executive compensation packages, and benefit payments.

  10.  Accelerated funding of community health centers in all 50 states to provide primary care as well as, dental and vision services to people based on a sliding scale based on ability to pay.

And by next January 80 to 85 percent of the money the plans get Must be spent for Health care, not on excessive compensation or operating costs.

Alan Grayson a Democratic Congressman with b**ls who represents Florida already has 80 signed on to a three and a half page bill that allows anyone to buy into Medicare.  Grayson, along with loads of us believe that a public option offers not just another choice but a new kind of choice.
If you are interested in reading the bill you can find it here http://grayson.house.gov/UploadedFiles/Public_Option_Act.pdf

Republicans are already talking about repealing the law.  They are gearing up for a fight that is pea-brained on the face of it.  How in the world is a minority in Congress going to get enough legislators to repeal a piece of legislation that the President in office signed?  Did they forget that he must sign their repeal too?   These legislators are promising to waste your taxpayer money and their time in Washington to do the most ineffectual, impotent, symbolic "work" imaginable.  But I guess their base likes pandering too.  Please, please, pretty please... end the 35% tax credit for small business to ... help...buy...health insurance. 

Really makes you wonder doesn't it.

As more and more of the population wake up to the advantages of this legislation those fighting against it are going to appear more and more ridiculous.

There used to be a bumper sticker that i'll close with.

It will be a good day when sick people get all the care they need, and the government has to hold a bake sale to buy bombs.

love the sin, hate the sinner

Today i had thought i would write about the term “love the sinner, hate the sin.”  i started out by going to numerous web sites collecting information about the various approaches to sin in the worlds religions (some define sin and others don’t believe in sin).  i had been having a back and forth e-mail exchange about what taking away the right to choose to have an abortion meant in broader terms.  The person i was in communication with admitted to being conflicted but was very religious.  One response ended the piece with the above statement which turned our writing away from abortion and towards sin.

i digress a bit here.  i have a friend that married a man who had already given birth to a child that was adversely impacted by the mans genetic makeup.  The birth of this child destroyed his first marriage and the child has spent his whole life in an institution.  The man had a gene that when transmitted to an egg had an end result that left the child a vegetable, needing twenty four hour care.  He had decided he would not father again in order to spare another human the incredible suffering he watched his son endure. 

My friend wanted a child so they consulted with physicians and geneticists to learn more about the chances for a normal child being conceived.  The odds of having a normal child were about 60/40 against.  The man said he would only consider a pregnancy if after the genetic test came back she would abort if the child would be born like the first son.  They agonized over it for years.  She was getting older and wanted to try.  He finally relented, for he loved her and understood her need for a child, but only after she agreed to the abortion should the test come back negative.  She got pregnant waited until she was far enough along to have the amniocentesis and unfortunately the test was bad.

But that wasn’t the worst part of this story.  The worst is yet to come.  She traveled out of town because no one there did abortions.  Her husband went with her to the clinic and as they were approaching it on foot they were bombarded with right to lifers screaming baby killers at them as they walked down the path.  One woman tried to hold her back.  These righteous people had no idea why she was going for an abortion but they knew she was aborting a “living breathing human being” not a horribly defective fetus.  My friend had already made one of the most agonizing decisions any woman could make and those righteous folk just knew better than she that it was a bad one.  They tortured a woman who was already tortured.  She was not a sinner.

i have a mantra i repeat when confronted with that line "love the sinner, hate the sin."  It goes "love the bigot, hate the bigotry" or "love the rapist, hate the rape" or love the "hypocrite, hate the hypocrisy" or...you get what i mean.

Regardless of what the law is affluent women will always find a way to have a safe abortion regardless of whether they have insurance or not, and regardless of what the law says.  They will just fly to wherever they need to go.  This was the case before Roe v Wade and it will be the case if we loose the right to choose.  The ones that will suffer will be the poor while  the molester-enabling, coathanger-selling, health-shattering, woman-hating, forced-pregnancy campaign will be in full force if choice is taken away.

i am in favor of choice.  Its probably pretty obvious if you have read this far.  We have no business second guessing why anyone is having an abortion and our taxes may even be saving a real live “living breathing human being” when the woman’s life is in danger.  It is not our place to decide or to make laws outlawing abortion.  We aren’t God.  The bible has no law outlawing abortion and even states that life doesn’t start until the baby takes its first breath.  You are not a human being until you can breathe on your own according to the bible.

Our job is to make sure abortion happens rarely.  To make sure teenage boys and girls are given enough information to make logical decisions.  Information includes talks about abstinence, condoms, birth control, std’s, AIDS, etc.  If teenagers are informed and can talk openly with their parents about their sexuality, be it homosexuality or heterosexuality the outcomes will benefit society as a whole. 

Telling a teenager to abstain from sex until marriage then throwing them out in the world to battle their natural urges is child abuse in my book.  Give them the tools to make informed decisions and help to reduce the need for abortion but don’t take away a woman’s right to choose.

Remember it is our job to make sure abortion happens rarely, but it is not our job to outlaw it for we are not in a position to know all the details.

On a side note i came across a website that is called “Do something good day”

http://www.dosomethinggoodday.com/

 The Giving Card is marketed by them and tracked by them.  When given the card you are requested to do something good.  Of course you have to buy the card to pass along then you can write in what your good deed was on the website and pass the card along to someone else, which starts a chain of doing good.  It is a nice idea but we can all “Do something good” without having to pass a card along to motivate us.

So if any of this moves you…go out and do something good today.

ideas

In a continual effort to wage peace i would first like to thank all of you  for reading here and ask you to visit change.org and vote to establish a US Department of Peace.  If we took just 2% of the money that goes to wage our wars we could start germinating more peaceful solutions for our quest to spread freedom and democracy.  If the button doesn't say voted after you clicked keep trying until it does.  You will have to sign in.  Go now and then come back and finish reading this piece. http://www.change.org/ideas/view/establish_a_us_department_of_peace

Karen Armstrong started early adulthood in a Catholic nunnery at the age of eighteen.  She remained there until quitting while in graduate school seven years later.  One of her many books details the difficulties she encountered in trying to establish herself outside the nunnery, another with her failure to fit in while inside the nunnery and the rest deal with her unending passion for creating a venue for human understanding

Although she started out devoting herself to God today we find her devoting herself to helping others understand the commonalities of all religions.  She tries to help us understand that all religions give us tools to use to cope with day to day life.

Her most recent work called the "Case for God" is just one of many that "cautions us that religion was never supposed to provide answers that lie within the competence of human reason; that, she says, is the role of logos. The task of religion is "to help us live creatively, peacefully, and even joyously with realities for which there are no easy explanations." She emphasizes, too, that religion will not work automatically. It is, she says, a practical discipline: its insights are derived not from abstract speculation but from "dedicated intellectual endeavor" and a "compassionate lifestyle that enables us to break out of the prism of selfhood."

In 2008 Ms. Armstrong was invited by TED to give an eighteen minute talk that would then later be voted on.  If you have never been to their site it is a wonderland of highly informed speakers on any topic imaginable  http://www.ted.com/ TED invites speakers from around the world to discourse on their passions for change. She, along with two others, won that year, was awarded $100,000 and asked what she wanted to see happen.  Her goal, she stated, was to establish a "Charter for Compassion". 

In November of 2009 the Charter for Compassion was launched.  i've reproduced the Charter here and if so moved after reading it please go to the web site and sign your name. http://charterforcompassion.org/ i read somewhere that it only takes 10,000 people to get the ball rolling and implement new ideas.  The site has over 40,000 signatures from people you will recognize and those you won't.

Charter for Compassion
The principle of compassion lies at the heart of all religious, ethical and spiritual traditions, calling us always to treat all others as we wish to be treated ourselves. Compassion impels us to work tirelessly to alleviate the suffering of our fellow creatures, to dethrone ourselves from the centre of our world and put another there, and to honour the inviolable sanctity of every single human being, treating everybody, without exception, with absolute justice, equity and respect.

It is also necessary in both public and private life to refrain consistently and empathically from inflicting pain. To act or speak violently out of spite, chauvinism, or self-interest, to impoverish, exploit or deny basic rights to anybody, and to incite hatred by denigrating others—even our enemies—is a denial of our common humanity. We acknowledge that we have failed to live compassionately and that some have even increased the sum of human misery in the name of religion.

We therefore call upon all men and women ~ to restore compassion to the centre of morality and religion ~ to return to the ancient principle that any interpretation of scripture that breeds violence, hatred or disdain is illegitimate ~ to ensure that youth are given accurate and respectful information about other traditions, religions and cultures ~ to encourage a positive appreciation of cultural and religious diversity ~ to cultivate an informed empathy with the suffering of all human beings—even those regarded as enemies.

We urgently need to make compassion a clear, luminous and dynamic force in our polarized world. Rooted in a principled determination to transcend selfishness, compassion can break down political, dogmatic, ideological and religious boundaries. Born of our deep interdependence, compassion is essential to human relationships and to a fulfilled humanity. It is the path to enlightenment, and indispensible to the creation of a just economy and a peaceful global community.

Please go to the web site and sign your name.
http://charterforcompassion.org/

free market

Why do we convince ourselves that there is some profound truth in the words "free market"?

We are a conglomeration of laws that work for and against the idea of a "free market".  Purists believe that without regulation the market will sort itself out.  Certainly economic entities will sort themselves out but is it in a manner that is conducive to actually doing business that will positively impact the bulk of society and our nation as a whole? That will "raise" everyone up?

Or will greed rule?  Will we have whole levels of society relegated to slave wages because a "free market" will seek out the lowest payment for services rendered.

Today we have a managed economy not a "free market" because without regulations the greedy would ride roughshod over all of us.  Coercion would rule.  They would manipulate things in their favor and create environments for sucking out every bit of profit available. 

Our failure, over the past decade, to monitor the unregulated in our financial markets is a direct result of a belief in the myth of "free markets".  Recently the natural checks and balances of a "free market" failed to materialize until a catastrophe of unimagined proportions descended upon the worlds intertwined economies.
All governments around the world had to intervene to prevent total collapse of the "free market".

Is there such a thing as a "free market"? 

The closest you can get to a "free market" is what we have today and understand as a "managed market" or a "mixed economy".  Not a socialized economy.  For government doesn't run all aspects of the economy.

Most conservatives believe Adam Smith's strong support for the "Free Market" implied that Smith wanted no regulation. The reverse is true. Smith felt that, to have a functional Free Market, a great deal of regulation was required. Caps on interest rates and a complete separation from government are amongst his most oft-repeated necessities for his Market.  But the myth of the Adam Smith "free market" that goes unregulated lives on.

Conservatives support unregulated markets based on a misunderstanding of Smith.  Adam Smith was a staunch supporter of the regulation of corporations and felt that they should be excluded from political participation entirely.  (Unfortunately our Supreme Court Justices just recently voted in favor of giving corporations free reign in our political process).  Today we can look forward to political manipulation by corporations interested in controlling their market environments and increasing their profits.  For a free reign in the political process means votes and corporations owe no allegiance to any nation.  If you think this is a country devoted to "We the people" get over it.

There is a term in the study of economics called the Pareto efficiency which states that in an economic system the "inefficient implies that a certain change in allocation of goods (for example) may result in some individuals being made "better off" with no individual being made worse off, and therefore can be made more Pareto efficient through a Pareto improvement." Wikipedia

A Pareto improvement is compensation made to balance the imbalance when there are only some individuals being made "better off".  (Ex. Infusion of government money into the economy to stimulate jobs.)

In an ideal "free market", of which there is none and can never be one, the Pareto efficient should work to raise all participants in the economy.  In reality it has been demonstrated mathematically that, in the absence of perfect information or complete markets,(how can anyone have perfect information?) outcomes will generically be Pareto inefficient meaning some will be better off but most not.

Today we see this with our high levels of executive compensation, homeless, the unemployed, our stagnating wages, and lack of jobs.  "Free markets" require government intervention when they have "failed". Why?

 "Because no national economy in existence fully manifests the ideal of a free market as theorized by economists, some critics of the concept consider it to be a fantasy - outside of the bounds of reality in a complex system with opposing interests and different distributions of wealth." Wikipedia

What do you think...is the term "free market" a fantasy?

According to Lenny Flank "We now live in a global corporate planet—World, Incorporated. “Nations” are merely wholly-owned subsidiaries."

a square is a rectangle but a rectangle is not a square

In the 1950's, we had vision, we built the interstate highway system, linking all our states together. It has a total length of 46,876 miles (75,440 km),^[1] making it both the largest highway system in the world and the largest public works project in history.  The distribution of virtually all goods and services involves Interstate Highways at some point.^[5]Our government did this to benefit everyone all across America. 

The highest tax rate back then was 90% and the rich anted up.  Many today would say it was to their detriment but was it?  

No.

Have you ever considered how many companies all across this nation have benefitted financially from the use of those roads.  Interstate commerce exploded, without those highways most companies would never have grown as large as they have. 

One thing never considered in the tax cutting mania is how our infrastructure has suffered.   All across the country roads, bridges, rail lines, airports, sewers and water systems etc. need repair to keep us competitive with China which has built 40 high speed rail lines to our one in California.  China is investing in its future while we let everything rot and fail to plan for ours.

Today, we don't want our taxes to raise because we are short sighted.  We don't see Universal Health Care, high speed rail transit or anything else as being beneficial to all companies that compete against each other.  We don't see a healthy workforce as one that can keep our economy competitive with others around the world.  We don't see investment in infrastructure as a positive, instead we fight to keep the nation at a disadvantage.

This is what I think but many on the other side of the aisle disagree with me. 

So.

How do we talk to those that don't agree with us, how do we use empathy to communicate?

Would some form of nonviolent communication allow us all to further discussion even in times where the hatred is palatable?

We all have the inclination to defend ourselves, withdraw from communication, or attack when we perceive we have been criticized or wronged.  This happens daily in our political discourse and our failure to listen to any side.  Winning no longer means wining the argument it means damaging the country, damaging the family, damaging our troops, and increasing taxes. 

The offender who delivered the criticism may have been direct or shrouded his criticism in language meant to disguise the attack.  Nevertheless, it was delivered and it was unwelcome.  But was our reaction to this unwelcome exchange one that could further understanding or end it?

Today the conversation ends far too frequently without any resolution.

I've been reading a lot about nonviolent communication and the use of empathy to diffuse situations that could develop into violent outcomes.  The thing to remember is that empathy does not mean sympathy, empathy is trying to understand the other person or the other side and their feelings.  You don't have to agree or disagree with them you just have to try and understand. 

Today understanding the other side is lacking and the divisiveness is getting nastier and nastier.
                                           
Marshall B. Rosenburg works all over the world to train and educate people on the benefits of non violent communication.  His website http://www.cnvc.org goes into much more detail about the methods he uses and how to get training.  While examining his site i came across the use of four words that are key to keeping the lines of communication open.

The first word, observation, is something we all do when we communicate.  Each of us observes the other to try and understand them without actually evaluating or judging them.  From that first observation we move on to how we feel about the interchange.  Did it make us angry, happy or a host of other feelings we need to recognize before we proceed.  The third word is need and how our needs have been affected by the other persons discourse.  With the fourth word being request.

What is it we want done?  What is it we want that would change things?

These four words, observation, feeling, needs and request can be used in both directions.  You can use it to get your needs acknowledged or you can use it to acknowledge the needs of someone else that you may have been misunderstanding.  The four words are so easy to remember that the time it takes to activate them in your mind can make the difference between an uncomfortable encounter and a really positive one.

But now I'm getting back to the tax issue.  Both sides of the political animal, that we call our government, act to the detriment of the nation as a whole.  Today there is gridlock in Congress.   We have two wars draining the tax base, we have unemployed people draining the tax base, we have corporate welfare and regular welfare, medicaid etc. draining the tax base, along with a host of other departments draining the tax base. Nothing gets done, neither side can move their reforms forward.  So how would non violent communication change the dynamics in Congress?

Who knows but something has to give or we will jettison this whole country into third world status real soon.

I cut and pasted these 10 simple steps from the non violent communication website.


These methods can be used in all types of environments from the home, the work place, politics to international disputes.

The most simple tactic in communicating is listening first to what the other person is trying to express.  We need both sides to listen to the needs of the other side.  It can't be a lopsided endevor with one side trying and the other side grandstanding.  Both sides have to be willing to come to the table in good faith.

If we can do that with our Conservative and Liberal friends maybe it can happen in Congress too.

We can try out Rosenburg's list in our daily lives.  Try it in your living room.  Try it with your friends that don't agree with you.  If we can do it, our representatives in government can too.


(1) Spend some time each day quietly reflecting on how we would like to relate to ourselves and others.

(2) Remember that all human beings have the same needs.

(3) Check our intention to see if we are as interested in others getting their needs met as our own.

(4) When asking someone to do something, check first to see if we are making a request or a demand.

(5) Instead of saying what we DON'T want someone to do, say what we DO want the person to do.

(6) Instead of saying what we want someone to BE, say what action we'd like the person to take that we hope will help the person be that way.

(7) Before agreeing or disagreeing with anyone's opinions, try to tune in to what the person is feeling and needing.

(8) Instead of saying "No," say what need of ours prevents us from saying "Yes."

(9) If we are feeling upset, think about what need of ours is not being met, and what we could do to meet it, instead of thinking about what's wrong with others or ourselves.

(10) Instead of praising someone who did something we like, express our gratitude by telling the person what need of ours that action met.

The Center for Nonviolent Communication (CNVC) would like there to be a critical mass of people using Nonviolent Communication language so all people will get their needs met and resolve their conflicts peacefully.
2001, revised 2004 Gary Baran & CNVC. The right to freely duplicate this document is hereby granted.

other...self

Humanity is a broad term that includes every living human being on planet earth.  The word lumps us all into one category without distinction.  Squared is that multiplied by itself and it can never be a negative. 

Other means you need a self to define it, for other is nothing without self. 

When you see yourself as consisting of either self or other you have created a barrier which you continue to patch through out life.  When you see yourself as self and other you break the wall down.

The web of life connects us, we can stretch it, pull it, shape it and mold it but ultimately we all must leave it.

The question is how do we want to leave it?

"The one who gives up cultivating the moral force when no instant effect can be seen is like one who farms but would not tend to the weeds."  Mencius

I'll leave you with those few short sentences for they deserve a lot of thought.
                   
Today is a picture day. 
This past weekend was the Agriculture Fair. 
Can you guess what those 4 items are?

 

  

i love the Ag Fair.  It is one of my favorite things to do on St. Croix.  The food, the people,the exhibits, the animals, they bring us together to share what we love about living here.

sunrise...sunset

There was a question posed on a blog i was reading yesterday that stuck with me.
The question was why are so many Americans passive while millions lose their homes, their jobs, their families, their hopes for justice and the American Dream?

Why aren't we like the Europeans who congregate en mass on the streets and demand answers and change? Where did our fighting spirit go the article asked?

The causes for this passivity were five fold, a crisis of ethics and a lack of concern for our fellow citizens, the dying of the economic dream, economic desperation and the erosion of families, isolation from each other, and the drugging of America.

The drugging of America had an immediate impact on my mind as i thought about how our nation is drugged.  Are we asleep at the wheel, working too hard, taking too many anti-depressants that numb the fact that our media has been complicit in the "dumbing down" of America? 

Are anti-depressants the SOMA pills of our world, leaving those drugged little time to use their critical thinking skills.  Could it be that is why so many were deluded into thinking Iraq was a threat to our National Security.

But are we really passive, are we really drugged as badly as those in "A Brave New World?"  i think not.

Voters in Oregon shook the bars of their cages and did fight back recently, they refused to raise money by cutting teachers, firefighters, homeless shelters, etc. Instead, they decided to tax incomes over $250,000 a year and add an even higher tax on incomes over $500,000 a year. They also raised a tax on corporations, all things unheard of in the past twenty years.

The unconquered take risks all the time.  They do battle with those trying to subdue them, they use various tactics and voting is a powerful one.

The unconquered are everywhere, all over the world.  They fight quietly and loudly for reform.  They fight for everyone, for change happens incrementally. 

One overlooked aspect the unconquered use is forgiveness, it is a human condition that the perpetrators of violence and other injustices have no weapon against.

"There is a tendency to think that what we see in the present moment will continue. We forget how often we have been astonished by the sudden crumbling of institutions, by extraordinary changes in people's thoughts, by unexpected eruptions of rebellion against tyrannies, by the quick collapse of systems of power that seemed invincible." Howard Zinn

Using military might, death squads, prisons and other forms of violence and propaganda to subdue people usually fails in the end.  Yes, there are massive die offs, but the "conquerors" eventually lose power and the unconquered regain their prominence. 

Today we are still waging war all over the world.  The "war on terror" and the "war on drugs" means we have a hand in almost every country that exists on our planet.  And yet, there are those of us that believe there is a different way to battle these fires.  That the struggle for justice must include the invocation of peaceful methods.

Teddy Roosevelt gave a speech in 1910 at the Sorbonne which included this passage.

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

Those who have appeared in that arena in recent memory include Aung San Suu Kyi,  
Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King.  They never gave up their fight even with the threat of overwhelming power.  They pushed on, they convinced others to join them, and they created that incremental change.
 

i don't think Americans have become passive.  There are too many unconquered out there that have found new methods and ways to communicate ideas that are beneficial to large numbers of inhabitants of this planet.

For me personally, i want to know who we are fighting a war with in Afghanistan? Why are we spending billions on a band of a few thousand cave-dwelling extremists with no air force, no navy, no missiles, no helicopters, no tanks and no heavy artillery.   And why are we still in Iraq?   

i haven't given up believing we should be out of both of those countries, i haven't been made passive and neither should you.

allegory of the cave

So often the writing i get involved with begins with a word that embeds itself upon my brain a few days before i post.  This week the word has been shadow.  

Before my dogs departed part of our routine would be to take a walk at night after dinner.  We all loved and looked forward to walking in the dark.  The air was cool, the evening's quiet, they could go off their leash and i could think.  Some nights, when the moon was up it would cast beautiful shadows upon the dirt road.  Shadow nights i don't use my light and always find myself stopping to enjoy some phenomenal patterns placed in my way.  Everything is illuminated in a special way in the dark and many times i'd find myself connecting with the images and mulling over the shadows in our lives. 

As usual, when it comes to writing, something has caused me to delve deeper into shadows.
i remembered that Dr. Carl Jung, the psychologist, believed we all had shadows.  He thought that when we saw something in another person that we didn't like it was a shadow of ourselves, that needed acknowledgment.  If we didn't confront it the denial would lay heavy upon our souls.

Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is
embodied in the individual's conscious life,
the blacker and denser it is.
At all counts, it forms an unconscious snag,
thwarting our most well-meant intentions.

But this isn't really the journey i was meant to explore today so this morning while reading an e-mail newsletter concerning philosophy a link caught my eye and off i traveled to investigate Plato and the nature of justice.  My first stop had nothing to do with the word shadow but the second stop did.  For it lead me to Plato's piece on the Allegory of the Cave.

i have always meant to read the Republic but to date haven't.  So i get Plato in small doses and this morning it was very small.  The Allegory of the Cave can be read in five or ten minutes on line(scroll down to where the conversation starts).  i was going to reproduce it here in totality but i found an excellent short (3 minute) video done using clay figures that illustrate Plato's lesson  so if you don't read it on line, watch the video.
You really should do one or the other if you are not already familiar with it.

In the Allegory of the Cave,  Plato insinuates that we are prisoners, not of Form(ideas) but of shadows .  We perceive much in our every day lives and yet are blinded by our limited realities, knowledge may be nothing but a shadow. 

All of us have the ability to think outside our caves but we are blinded by the nature of our upbringing, the chains of our immediate society.

Plato's story has prisoners being held in one position, unable to turn their heads, since birth.  They are facing a wall upon which the shadows of those passing behind them are cast.  The shadows are created by a fire that is lit and placed behind the prisoners. 

In the cave there is a walkway between the prisoners and the fire that is used by people, animals and the objects they both carry as they make their way across.  Sounds that the people and animals make echo in the cave and become attached to the shadows on the wall.  The prisoners only reality is the shadows they observe and the echos they hear.

One day a prisoner is brought out into the light and is freed from his limited world view.  He is blinded by the sun but finally recovers his sight and takes in everything.  The prisoner can now see he was living in a world of trickery.  He sees the sun and understands where the light comes from.  His life time illusion has been shattered and he goes back to the cave to inform the other prisoners, only they can't hear him.  He is but another echo blending in with all the other echos.

Unfortunately the other prisoners can't escape the reality of the cave.  Their view is limited and they can't hear the returning prisoner, or his truths.  The returning prisoner has been given a gift that he wants to pass on but he can't, for the prisoners in the cave misunderstand his message.  They only know the shadows, that is their reality, they can't see that knowledge is available.

Plato throughout his life believed that the world revealed by our senses is not the real world but only a poor copy of it, and that the real world can only be apprehended intellectually;

Plato's idea that knowledge cannot be transferred from teacher to student, but rather that education consists in directing student's minds toward what is real and important and allowing them to apprehend it for themselves was one he put great store in.

 He was also convinced that enlightened individuals have an obligation to the rest of society, and that a good society must be one in which the truly wise (the Philosopher-King) are the rulers.
To date we haven't had this kind of ruler but we have had examples of the possibilities.

Plato did believe, as I do, and had faith that the universe and all of us in it are ultimately good.

In the region of the knowable the last thing to be seen, and that with considerable effort, is the idea of good; but once seen, it must be concluded that this is indeed the cause for all things of all that is right and beautiful – in the visible realm it gives birth to light and its sovereign; in the intelligible realm, itself sovereign, it provided truth and intelligence – and that the man who is going to act prudently in private or in public must see it" (517b-c).Plato

And so in the Allegory of a Cave Plato encourages us to throw off the chains that bind us in our caves.
Open up to that which you won't consider for it may be the shadow you are denying.

i don't know if you have ever read the "Hitchhikers Guide to the Universe" but Douglas Adams comes up with some whoppers and i'm going to end with this one.

"There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.

There is another theory which states that this has already happened."