Brain lies to you?

This article talks about how selective perception and interpretation happens.

Click on the link.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/06/29/opinion/edwang.php

Tradition, science, law, "utang na loob"

In Yemen, very young girls can be wed.

Najood Ali, 10 years old, walked out of her husband of 30 years. She asked a judge for a divorce and she was granted.

In Yemen there are tradition of early marriage due to a religious model and of course the ubiquitous situation called poverty.

We know in public health that an early pregnancy exposes a girl to dangers due to child birth. Much of these girls wanted to play more.

In Romania a girl asked to have an abortion at age 11 because she felt it violates her right being a child. She was raped by her 19 year old uncle.

Click link for the full article:

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/06/29/mideast/yemen.php

Leading a nation

What Kind of a President Does America Need?
by Rabbi Michael Lerner

Lets start with what America does NOT need:

It does not need a President who is deemed (by the media, the pundits, the chattering classes, the owners of capital, and the mavens of the Democratic and Republican party) "realistic," "pragmatic," "knows how government works," "not too partisan," or "savvy."

All these terms are short hand for this: they will accept the existing contours of power (both economic and political) and work within them to accomplish some limited but valuable reforms. In the prophetic tradition of Judaism, we think of "being realistic' as the functional equivalent of idolatry. Idolatry is: Accepting "That Which Is" as the criterion of "That Which Can Be."

To believe in God, on the other hand, is to believe that there is something, a force, a being, a reality, an ineffable "no-Thing" or "nothingness" or Ayin or boundarylessness-Eyn Sof, which makes possible at all times the transformation from "That Which Is" to "That Which Ought to Be." In fact, in my interpretation of Judaism, whatever that is, that is what is meant by YHVH or what in English called God.

That's why it has always seemed particularly perverse that some Christians call the God of the Jews "Jehovah," trying to sound out four letters that Jews have always said were unpronounceable. The Hebrew word YHVH is a concept, not a proper name. The root of the concept is HVH, which in Hebrew means approximately what the words "To Be" mean in English-the present tense of the verb to be. And when you put a 'yud' (Y) in front of a root of a verb in Hebrew you are indicating future tense. So the word can't exactly be translated, but it would mean something like "the movement into the future of the Being of the present." In context, it means the transformative force, that which makes possible the movement from what is to what should be, the force that breaks the repetition compulsion (the tendency in human life to pass on to others the pain and cruelty that has been passed on to us) and allows us to transcend our conditioning history and act freely in accord with our God nature to be loving, peaceful and just.

So we need our next president to be filled with the spirit of God in this sense-that s/he refuses to accept that which is as the framework of that which can be.
Instead of being realistic (an idol-worshipper), we need a president who is unashamed to talk and act from a commitment to that which is best for the planet and that which most advances the capacities of the American people and the peoples of the world to be their most loving and generous and kind selves. And we need a president who can communicate and enthuse the American people and the people of the world with that sensibility. The central unifying idea of the next president's campaign and the major focus of his presidency should be a call for a New Bottom Line in American society. Today, institutions and social practices are judged efficient, rational and productive to the extent that they maximize money and power. That's the Old Bottom Line. Now Here is the NEW BOTTOM LINE for which he should advocate: Institutions (including corporations and governments), social practices, and even person actions should be judged rational, efficient and productive not only to the extent that they maximize money and power, but also to the extent that they maximize love and caring, ethical and ecological sensitivity and behavior, kindness and generosity, non-violence and peace, and to the extent that they enhance our capacities to respond to other human beings in a way that honors them as embodiments of the sacred, and enhances our capacities to respond to the earth and the universe with awe, wonder and radical amazement at the grandeur of creation. . To make this kind of a focus for his/her presidency, s/he must talk at a far deeper level than merely repeating or reframing the traditional leftist demands for economic and political rights. While s/he should strongly advocate for a Global Marshall Plan, s/he should also acknowledge that these political and economic changes will only be won on a global level when the social change movements are able to address the spiritual consequences of the triumph of corporate globalization: a society-wide depression and repression of what we can variously call the life-force, eros, God-energy or Spirit.

Please note that this is very different from those who talk about spiritual politics but actually mean only this: that it would be politically advantageous and opportune to take the traditional liberal agenda and dress it up with some spiritual or "values" language. So they take the existing liberal/left agenda, with its primary focus on social justice, inclusion of those who have been left out, economic redistribution, and peace-and then they find some Biblical quotes to bolster the case for the pre-existing liberal/progressive agenda. We support all that, but our movement goes much deeper.

I don't believe that our next president can convince the Congress or the country of the liberal agenda simply by reframing it in spiritual language. For a large section of the American public, the primary source of pain in their lives is not about economic deprivation or non-inclusion, but about the way that the ethos of selfishness and materialism plays out in their personal lives and in the lives of people around them in ways that are destructive and feel terrible. They are wounded and personally despairing about the manipulative, narrowly utilitarian way people treat each other and themselves and the earth. They want a framework of meaning to their lives and to the lives of those around them that speaks of higher meaning to life, shows a path to a life that is not only about maximizing money but about maximizing a meaningful life-in short, they want and need a politics of meaning, and need a meaning-oriented movement that can counter the spiritual depression that surrounds them.

Don't confuse this with those who simply are trying to put some Biblical quotes in front of the same old Democratic Party or liberal agenda.

The spiritual depression and emotional repression that suffuse contemporary life are the near-universal responses to the globalization of a self-congratulatory individualism, obsessive materialism, and consumption-all provided as compensation for the meaninglessness of our present-day culture. The one-dimensional technocratic consciousness, speed-up of work, perception that we have "no time" to do what we really believe in, and our inability to recognize others in terms that go beyond what they can do for us to advance our own agendas as rational maximizers of self-interest-all these combine to create human beings who, if they don't explode in violence (like that which we recently saw at Virginia Tech) or self-destructive alcohol and drug abuse, find themselves in varying degrees of disconnection to their inner selves, their feelings, and their capacities to be loving towards others and responding to the universe with joy.

In contrast to this, our next president should encourage the recognition that "there is enough," that we can afford to share, that the material consumption that drives our destruction of the global environment does not actually yield satisfaction. Such a president should seek a replacement of postmodernist self-alienation with a renewal of Being based on awe, wonder and radical amazement at the mystery of the universe and the mystery of every human being on the planet as a manifestation of the sacred. Our economic, social and political institutions need to be replaced and rethought not only because they are unjust, but because they foster a consciousness that keeps us from connecting to the deepest truths of the universe and make it harder for us to recognize each other as fully free, fully conscious, self-creating, loving beings. In this sense, the globalization of Spirit is the antidote to the globalization of Capital. Why is it that people who live in the advanced industrial societies of North America, Europe and Japan, the richest societies that history has ever known, believe we "can't afford" to share what we have with the rest of the world so as to eliminate poverty, hunger and homelessness? It is partly because of our collective paranoia that no one will be there for us if we should ever really need their help that leads us to think our only security lies in endless accumulation, to protect our isolated self-interest in face of a deep inner certainty that others can't be counted on. And partly because we have a deep emptiness inside and we have come to believe that only material goods can fill it. We buy things to buy happiness, to compensate ourselves for the alienated work, the disconnection from each other, and the estrangement from our own inner selves that constitute the texture of our daily lives. In our spiritually impoverished world, acquiring ever more things provides an illusion of fulfillment-and a replacement for the deep connection with each other and to the spiritual realities of the universe for which we both hunger and simultaneously deny to ourselves (lest we re-experience the pain and disappointment we had at earlier points in our lives when we allowed ourselves to be vulnerable and then failed to receive the loving and recognition we needed but didn't fully get).

In addition, almost every child in our culture gets strong messages to focus attention on that which can be useful, and away from the spiritual dimension which has no "practical application." Indeed, this message has been so deeply ingrained in many of us that we instinctively shy away from the spiritual realm as though it were as dirty as not being toilet trained. We fear that were we to acknowledge to ourselves or others that we actually wish for connection with that which cannot be used or made practical, cannot be subject to empirical observation or turned into a commodity or something that will make us more attractive or salable on the job or relationship marketplace, we would subject us to ridicule and humiliation. Fearful that we will experience that pain once again, we often build strong external walls to keep us out of touch with this deep yearning for connection to each other and to the universe. Instead of drawing on our own inner resources, we too often find ourselves looking to the media-dominated mass culture for fulfillment and reassurance that our scaled-down sense of possibility is "what everybody else is doing" and hence "the only possible path for us too." The media is one of the many institutions that speeds up time-protecting us from the quiet moments in which we might doubt the whole way our lives our being lived. Instead of finding our own pace, we find ourselves rushing about, seeking machines and gadgets that make things go faster, becoming accustomed to media and technology which speed the pace while "shallow-ing" the intellectual and emotional level of our daily consciousness. We learn to forget the past and focus only on the new while devaluing the old, which leads to decreasing literacy and an increasing difficulty in following a complex discussion, sustaining a long-term relationship, or committing to social goals that can't be accomplished immediately. Sadly, our social institutions only reinforce this materialist view. Our institutions provide us with the illusion of permanency (pretending we won't die) and the illusion that the "real world" is the world of power and wealth. Compound this with the patriarchal assumption that we should be tough and ignore our feelings, and we are left with a "common sense" that dismisses the relevance of our inner lives. We are told that spirituality should be left in the home, relegated to the weekend, kept separate from the pragmatic decisions that should shape politics and the business world. On the contrary, the next President should be someone who can help people affirm progressive spiritual values in the public sphere without weakening the separation clause that protects us from allowing any particular religion from becoming "established" as the only legitimate form of spiritual life. I've detailed how to do this in my book The Left Hand of God: Healing America's Political and Spiritual Crisis (paperback, 2007, Harper San Francisco).

This is one reason why our next President should take the Spiritual Covenant with America that we've developed in the Network of Spiritual Progressives and make this the center of her/his political agenda. While space here precludes a full presentation, of the idea (you can find it at http://www.spiritualprogressives.org/

• Changing all global and regional trade agreements in which the U.S. is currently involved so that they no longer privilege the most powerful and economically successful Western countries and the elites of other countries at the expense of the poor of the world. Global trade must be both multilateral and equitable. New agreements must provide support and encouragement for working people organizing, being paid a living wage, and providing adequate safety and health conditions and environmental safeguards so that economic growth is encouraged in ways that respect the rights of working people, promotes their well-being, and ensures their dignity and human rights. Trade agreements must also protect farmers, both at home and abroad, encouraging food prices that make it possible for farmers to make a living and poorer people to buy adequate food.

• Ensuring hands-on involvement from peoples of the Western world, starting with the United States. We wish to create an international Peace and Justice Corps which would provide ways for people with useful skills to volunteer two years of their life (at any age of their life) in donating their talents toward the goals of the Global Marshall Plan. To make this viable for professionals and others who have gained valuable skills and who fear losing their jobs, we envision a guaranteed job for anyone volunteering two years in the Peace and Justice Corps at the level of income at which they were working before they entered the program. While participating in the Peace and Justice Corps, people would receive the average salary that they were receiving in the five years before volunteering so that they could continue to help their families (though they would be encouraged to bring with them and spend in the countries in which they were working the same salaries that the people in those countries receive for doing comparable work). For high school graduates, three years of volunteer service in the Global Marshall Plan would be rewarded with a fully paid college or professional school tuition plus student housing and food for four years as long as they were making satisfactory progress in an accredited college or graduate or professional school.

• Using the International Peace and Justice Corps not only to build the capacities of people around the world to ensure their own future economic well-being , but also to deliver certain necessities including emergency food supplies, the building of environmentally-sound housing not only for the millions who are currently homeless but for the hundreds of millions of people soon to be born into poverty before the program can fully succeed, the rebuilding of crumbling city infrastructure, the building and/or rebuilding of dams, levees, roads, bridges, ports, railroads in environmentally sound ways, and the training of hundreds of millions of people with the skills necessary to do well in the economic marketplace and to survive those aspects of environmental collapse that at this point may be impossible to avoid.

• Retraining of the armies of nations around the world to become experts in ecologically sensitive construction of those aspects of their own societies that need relief and reconstruction, including agriculture, health care, housing, infrastructure, education and computers, and other appropriate technology.

• Training for everyone on the planet in techniques of nonviolent communication, respect for ethnic and religious diversity and differences, family and parental support,` stress reduction, child and elderly care, emergency health techniques, diet and exercise, and caring for others who are in need of help. - Training for everyone on the planet in the essentials of living in accord with the survivaland sustainability needs of the planet. We estimate that this program, if fully implemented, could cost as much as 3-5% of the GDP of the world. Our commitment is to start with the 1% of US GDP and move from there. We offer this plan with a commitment to humility and a conviction that it cannot work unless it is understood as deriving from our own commitment to the well-being of everyone on the planet and not primarily as a self-interested plan to advance American power or influence. One of the values of having an international agency to administer the plan is that from the start it will be clear that this plan is not simply another puppet for U.S. power.

We must also insist that the plan be implemented with a clear message that although the West has superior technology and material success, we do not equate that with superior moral or cultural wisdom. On the contrary, our approach must reflect a deep humility and a spirit of repentance for the ways in which Western dominance of the planet has been accompanied by wars, environmental degradation, and a growing materialism and selfishness reflected in a Western- dominated global culture. Given these distortions, it is central to our mission to convey in the Global Marshall Plan a recognition that we have much to learn from the peoples of the world, their cultures, their spiritual and intellectual heritage, their ways of dealing with human relationships. So part of the program must also include cultural exchanges in which we invite into the cultural and educational systems of Western countries some of the teachers, musicians, artists, religious leaders, authors, poets, and philosophers of the non-Western world. We view this not as a sop thrown to ameliorate possible hurt egos, but as a genuine attempt to recognize that our superior technology and material success has not brought with it a superior ethical or spiritual wisdom, and that there is much to learn from societies that from a material standpoint are "under-developed" but from a spiritual standpoint may have within them teachers and cultures that are far more humanly sensitive than our own. That is not to say that such a president should be unaware of the Yetzer HaRa, the inclination toward hurtfulness that has been shaped in each of us by our childhoods (as it says in Genesis, God saw that the inclination of people was evil from their childhood). Our president will need a dose of Niebuhr-ian sensibilities. S/he must be aware that all the calls for love, generosity, peace and social justice will face an immediate resistance from the people of the U.S. and the people of the world. And so s/he must take that into account and plan for how to overcome it.

But what such a president should do with that recognition is to develop a public campaign against cynicism that speaks about its roots, and simultaneously a new program for education that seeks to develop in children some of the necessary defenses against the ways that their inclinations toward hurtfulness are fostered in school and in family life.

This is, of course, a hefty agenda. To some it will seem naïve and utopian. But in my view, what is utopian is to imagine that our world can survive the 21st century without this kind of political leadership. It is certain that the locus of global power will shift in the next twenty-thirty years to China and India. But this is the moment in which the West still has the power and influence to shape the development of a sustainable and morally coherent global culture. What America needs is for our next president to have the vision and the courage to engage with the spiritual vision I've hinted at in this article. Rabbi Michael Lerner is editor of Tikkun Magazine (http://www.tikkun.org/ ), rabbi of Beyt Tikkun synagogue in San Francisco and Berkeley, and national chair of The Network of Spiritual Progressives, an interfaith organization for people who agree with the vision articulated above (and co-chaired by Cornel West and Benedictine Sister Joan Chittister). He is author of 11 books, including Healing Israel/Palestine, The Politics of Meaning, and most recently The Left Hand of God. He welcomes your responses: RabbiLerner@tikkun.org as well as submissions to Tikkun (send your finished article to him, but only after you've been reading Tikkun magazine regularly enough so that you have a sense of what we publish, the style, and acceptable lengths). He also invites you to become his ally by joining and working with him in

The Network of Spiritual Progressives http://www.spiritualprogressives.org/
If you think that this kind of analysis would be helpful in American politics, please help make it possible by joining and/or making a tax-deductible contribution to The Network of Spiritual Progressives Click hereWhen you join, you will receive Tikkun Magazine for one year, and each time you renew you will get the next year of Tikkun with Rabbi Lerner's editorials!

Emphaty

In one of our topics in sociology, we came across the concept of emphaty. A student asked, "What is the difference of emphaty and identification?" I was not satisfied with the textbook definition so I did a research at Wikipedia and the free online dictionary.

Below is something about emphaty and Mr. John "Doc" Welton.

Click on link.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/05/nyregion/05assistant.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Bees can hurt one's pocket

The common bee pollinator in America can hurt the pocket of the average American.

Read why?

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/US/06/27/bees.food.prices.ap/index.html?eref=rss_latest

Punish and Compensate

This article is about a supertanker named Exxon Valdez.

Long time ago, there was this boat carrying millions of liters of liquid fuel. It hit some corals grounding the boat and spilling this nasty fuel all around affecting thousands of their livelihood.

The company have been hailed to court and the US Supreme Court is now deliberating or has deliberated on the punitive and compensatory damages.

This article can support what has happened to MV Princess of the Stars.

Some of you who might be interested in law may find this article helpful.


http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/06/25/america/25cndpunitive.php

Dubai tower that moves

This is an article about the new Dubai Tower that practically moves (not walk). This is a celebration of the human capacity to go beyond what is traditional in engineering.

What do you think are the implications on the way we think?

Click at link:
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/06/25/duibai.tower/index.html?eref=rss_latest

Lipstick anyone?

Malaysia seem to ban the use of bright colored lipstick. Why is this so?

Click on the link:

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/06/24/malaysia.lipstick.ban/index.html?iref=mpstoryview

Lipstick anyone?

Malaysia seem to ban the use of bright colored lipstick.

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/06/24/malaysia.lipstick.ban/index.html?iref=mpstoryview

Malthusian theory today

We have reached 5.3 billion humans in this planet. Two hundred years ago we have a population of 650 million people.

But yet, we are feeding lots of people, life expectancy is expected to prolong. Japan, Russia and other countries that have reached zero-population growth are in trouble replacing their population.

Russian will be needing 700 million to replace their "lost" population.

When I visited a pediatric hospital in Bangor Eastern Hospital, Maine, USA, in 2006, I only saw two babies and there were lots of nurses.

Over here, visit a government hospital and you will see a "tsunami of babies".

In my 5 June blog entry I mentioned about Herb Meyer's article. I invite you to visit his link.

Click the link below:

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/06/23/opinion/edjacoby.php?page=2

A place better to be a virgin and a man.

Albania is a place where Mother Theresa was born. But this article is not about her. It is about Albanian women who swore to become a virgin and take actively the role of a man.

Read and understand the social context in which decisions are being made by women in a particular socially constructed reality.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/06/23/europe/virgins.php

Some of the worst maritime disasters in the Philippines?

President Gloria Arroyo hit the question right, "How come the boat was able to travel when there was a typhoon coming?" The Coast Guard has something to say about this. At the same time, this tragedy reflects back to President Gloria Arroyo. Why? It happened on her watch.

But a society that seem to be organized and ran by institutions, this situation should have not happened and it is a far situation that some will call it "accident".

It is not an accident, it is neither an "act of God". We see the typhoon coming, it's in the early evening news, we see it at CNN's weather maps.

This is a tragedy that should be a thing of the past, it should have been history.

It looks like that nothing has changed given our record of disasters.

Click on the link for the record:
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/06/22/asia/AS-GEN-Philippines-Ship-Disasters-Glance.php

Car running on compressed air!

How about cars running on compressed air? Ask your father what does he think?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmqpGZv0YT4

Electric Cars

Ask your father what will he be doing if a liter of gasoline here in the Philippines cost P100.00.

Below is an article about electric cars.

http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/jun2008/id20080616_955452.htm?campaign_id=rss_daily

Case of name calling

Subject: [upsemen] Fwd: FW: MAYAMAN VS MAHIRAP

Kung mayaman ka, meron kang "allergy" Kung mahirap ka, ang tawag dyan ay "galis" o "bakokang"
Sa mayaman, "nervous breakdown" dahil sa "tension and stress" Sa mahirap, "sira ang ulo"
Kung mayaman ka, "pneumonia" daw ang sakit mo Kung mahirap, "TB" yon Sa mayaman, "hyperacidity" Kapag mahirap, "ulcer" dahil walang laman ang tiyan

Sa mayamang "malikot ang kamay", ang tawag ay "kleptomaniac" Sa mahirap, ang tawag ay "magnanakaw" o "kawatan"

Pag mayaman ka, you're "eccentric" Kung mahirap ka, "may toyo ka sa ulo" o "may topak" o "may sayad" Kung mayaman ka at sumakit ang ulo mo, ikaw ay may "migraine" Kung mahirap ka naman at sumakit ang ulo mo, ikaw ay "nalipasan ng gutom"

Kung mayaman ka, you are referred to as someone who is "scoliotic" Pero kung mahirap ka, ikaw ay "kuba"

Kung ang señorita mo ay maitim, ang tawag ay "morena" o "sun tanned"Pero kung isa kang domestic na maitim, ikaw ay "ita" o "negrita" o "baluga"

Kung nasa high society ka at ikaw ay maliit, ang tawag sa iyo ay "petite" Kung mahirap ka lang, ikaw ay "pandak" o "bansot"

Kung socialite ka, ikaw ay "pleasingly plump"Kapag mahirap ka, ika'y "tabatsoy" o "lumba-lumba"...pagminamalas ka, "baboy"

Kapag mayaman, "fasting" ang hindi kumain Kung mahirap, "nagtitiis"

Kung well-off ka at date ka rito, date ka roon, ang tawag sa iyo ay "socialite" Kung mahirap ka, ikaw ay "pakawala" o "pok-pok" Kung mayamang alembong ka, ang tawag sa iyo ay "liberated"Pero kung isa kang dukha, ang tawag sa iyo "malandi"

Kapag mayaman, "misguided" o "spoiled" ka Kung mahirap ka, "addict" o "durugista" Kung may pera ka, ang tawag sa iyo "single parent" Pero kung wala kang trabaho, ang tawag sa iyo "disgrasyada"

Kapag mayaman at sexy, "fashionable" daw Kung mahirap, sigurado "GRO" o "japayuki" ka Ang tawag sa mayayamang puro gulay ang kinakain, "vegetarian" Habang kakaawa ang mahirap na " kumakain ng damo."

Sa exclusive school, "assertive" ang mga batang sumasagot sa mga guro Pero pag ang mga mahihirap na bata ang sumasagot sa mga guro, ang tawag sa kanila ay "bastos!"

Ang mayamang tumatanda, "are graduating gracefully into senior citizenhood" Ang mga mahihirap ay "gumugurang" Ang anak ng mayaman ay "slow learner" Ang anak ng mahirap ay "bobo" o "gung-gong" Kung mayaman ka at marami kang kumain, you flatter your host who says, "masarap kang kumain and I like you, you do justice to my cooking" Kung ghastly peasant ka eating the same amount in the same house, your host will say to himself na ikaw ay "patay-gutom"

Kung graduate ka ng exclusive school at sa ibang bansa ka nagtatrabaho, ang tawag sa iyo "expat" Kung mahirap ka lang, ikaw ay "contract worker" Kung boss ka at binabasa mo ito sa office mo, "okay lang" Pero kung ikaw ay hamak na empleyado lamang, ikaw ay" nagbubulakbol"...kaya forward mo na agad ito dahil nasa likod mo ang boss mo. :)

Reflect on the class structure. Where do they belong and recognize the language that is being used. Anyother names that you can come out with?

When women go to cities

In Australia, the trend in demographics is that 90% of their population is living near the sea. What happens then to the outback? Males are left with the prospect of being single.

Some gimmicks like selling a house for $1 just to get women to go to the outback is one. Some would say that women should be bringing in "skills and their ovary".

Read and change.

Read the link below:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4184939.stm

Opening of classes, have a vacation!

What do you think are the benefits of vacation? Who should take vacations? When was your last vacation?

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/06/08/business/07shortcuts.php

Beliefs better in thrash cans

Albino hates sunlight because their eyes can't stand it. In Tanzania, they have another enemy.


Click on the link to know this situation. What happens when mis-guided beliefs has been operationalized against people having albinism?



http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/06/08/africa/tanzania.php

On albinism:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albino

Stabbing in Tokyo

Japan has experienced relatively a low crime rate. But one day a Japanese who lives alone and claims that he is "tired" of life began knifing innocent people.

How do we explain this behavior? Click on the link and search for other threads on the subject.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/06/08/asia/japan.php

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aOEv7jUMxqDA&refer=home

New Cities New Consciousness

Below is a news article on how new cities are transforming lives of people.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/06/07/business/wbshenzen.php

China wants the 21st century to be of the Chinese people starting with the Olympics.

A model of Steven Holl work at Beijing China
http://www.stevenholl.com/project-detail.php?type=construction&id=58&page=0

Global Issues by Herb Meyer

Herbert E. Meyer served during the Reagan Administration as Special Assistant to the Director of Central Intelligence and Vice Chairman of the CIA's National Intelligence Council. His DVD on The Siege of Western Civilization (www.siegeofwesternciv.com) has become an international best—seller.


What are the four areas that Herb Meyer pointed out as forces that moves to change biographical and collective histories?

Click on the link below:


http://thetemple.wordpress.com/2007/05/30/herb-meyer-on-global-issues/

Sharon Stone

If you say something, you will be heard and you might land in the ethereal-blogspere just like Sharon Stone.

The Chinese are angry for her comment post-Sichuan-earthquake coming from Sharon Stone of the film "Basic Instinct".

http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/may2008/gb20080530_213248.htm?campaign_id=rss_daily

Head scarfs as social and religious volcano

As Turkey wants to move into their secularization of social life, its supreme court will decide on wearing head scarfs.

Click on the link below:

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/06/05/turkey.scarfs.ap/index.html?eref=rss_latest

For a history of Turkey click on link below:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TURKEY

A court in Turkey bans head scarf. Read link below.

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/06/05/news/Turkey-Head-Scarves.php

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7441227.stm

Our mobilephone

When you use your mobilephone, that is a personal dimension. But when hundreds of thousands are using mobilephones, that is sociological in dimension.

Is it possible to track viruses on the movement of mobilephone users?

Read the article below.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7433128.stm

After reading this article create a group of 4 members and discuss: "What are other possible uses of mobilephones besides communication?" This is a regular group paper which is to be submitted a week after this site has been assigned.

Animated statistical data

Han Rosling performs a magical act on how to use and animate statistical data.

Their group have also made a portal in which you can visit and link your data.

This link will provide insight on the connection between history and political movements in particular countries.

Please click on the link:



http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/92

Helping the bottom billion.

Paul Collier, a British economist talk about helping the bottom billion.

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/270

Is his idea credible? Will it work? What are the components of such helping mechanisms?

Feedback welcome!

Is there heaven?

Life on Mars
By Antonio C. Abaya
Written on May 28, 2008
For the Standard Today,
May 29 issue


After a journey that took almost ten months, NASA’s Phoenix Lander landed in the north pole region of the Planet Mars last Sunday, May 25, to begin a three-month search for signs of life beneath the permafrost surface.

No other planet in our solar system has excited the human imagination as Mars, for the most part because of apparent “canals” that crisscrossed the Martian surface, which suggested the existence of a superior civilization that constructed them, but which were later found to be mere optical illusions.

The first landing on Mars’ surface was made by the Viking 2 space craft in 1976 – almost ancient history in the annals of space – which sampled the Martian soil. It found no signs of life, no microbial organism, certainly no superior civilization.

Phoenix Lander’s main mission is to analyze the sub-surface, up to a depth of less than a meter, for signs of organic life, to see if life as we know it on Earth could have existed on Mars in the past, or is existing in the present, or could exist in the future.


All life forms on earth – animal or vegetable – is made up of four key elements: carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen, joined together in myriad combinations or compounds, the most basic of which – for animal life – is amino acid. Amino acids are the building blocks of proteins, which in turn are the building blocks of all living organisms.

Past missions to Mars, since the first flyby by Mariner 4 in 1965, have determined that the Martian atmosphere is 95 percent carbon dioxide, 3 percent nitrogen, 1.6 percent argon (an inert gas) plus traces of oxygen and water. The red color of the Martian soil is said to be due to the heavy presence of iron oxide or rust.

So the key elements for life as we know it on Earth are present in Mars. By digging below the Martian surface and analyzing the soil below the permafrost, the Phoenix Lander hopes to provide definitive answers: was there life on Mars in the past, is there life there at present?

Any organisms from the past would be embedded in the ice, the way insects from tens of millions of years ago are embedded in amber resin here on Earth. Discovery of such organisms would constitute the most Earth-shaking news in the 21st century, even if that organism were only a one-celled paramecium.

It would provide empirical evidence for the logical assumption that, given that there are billions of galaxies in the cosmos, and there are in turn billions of planets in these billions of galaxies, it would be reasonable to assume that on some of these planets, where conditions were hospitable for the evolution of organisms, there would be life as we know it on Earth, including even sentient beings who have self-consciousness, memory and the ability to communicate, some of whom would be more highly developed than us earthlings..

Even if Phoenix Lander were to come up empty-handed in Mars, the statistical chances of life on other planets – even life forms more evolved than us - in other galaxies would still be high.

The terra-centric universe that was the conventional wisdom of Christianity for 1,500 years would not be able to adequately explain evolved life on other planets in other galaxies.

This terra-centric universe was based on the flawed cosmology of Aristotle (384-322 BC) and Ptolemy (second century AD) who taught that Earth was the center of the universe around which revolved the moon and the Sun (which moved the fastest), the planets (which moved more slowly), and the stars (which moved the least.).

Beyond the stars was a region where nothing moved, nothing changed, where resided the Unmoved Mover, the Uncaused Cause, which Christian theology borrowed from Aristotle and concluded was God in Heaven.


The notion that Heaven was up there, somewhere, and conversely that Hell was down here, somewhere, is fixed in the Christian imagination,for most Christians, up to this day, even though astronomers Nicolaj Kopernik or Copernicus (1473-1543) of Poland and Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) of Italy had disproved this cosmology, and taught, instead, that the Earth revolved around the Sun, not the other way around.

But the Medieval Church resisted this “heresy” vigorously. After all, the Resurrected Jesus is said in the New Testament to have “ascended” (up) to Heaven, and so did the Virgin Mary. In Dante Alighieri’s (1263-1321) Divine Comedy – an allegorical vision of the Christian afterlife - the author visited Paradiso or Heaven by first climbing (up) the highest mountain. Conversely, Dante visited Inferno or Hell by descending (down) into the bowels of the Earth. There are thousands, tens of thousands, of Christian art over the past 2,000 years that depicted Heaven as somewhere up there.

.The idea that Earth was not the center of the universe was so subversive of Christian orthodoxy that Galileo was summoned by the Inquisition, forced to recant his “heresy”, was ordered imprisoned (later commuted to house arrest), and his books banned. It was not until the year 2000, that the Church – through Pope John Paul II - apologized for its “errors in the last 2000 years, including the trial of Galileo..”


So, if Heaven is not “somewhere up there” beyond the stars, as the Early Fathers had inferred from Aristotle and Ptolemy and had taught for 16 centuries, where is it?

We were taught in Theology class at the Ateneo that Heaven was not a physical place that saints and deities ascended to but was a state of consciousness called a Beatific Vision that one attained through faith and good works, much like the nirvana that Buddhists – who do not subscribe to a personal God - believe in.

So, OK, since God and Heaven are not “up there,” what is? Nothing but more stars and more galaxies than were known in Aristotle’s time, in some of which other life forms most probably exist, including some that may be more highly developed than we earthlings are.

A Jesuit priest, Fr. Jose Gabriel Funes, who is head of the Vatican Observatory and a scientific adviser to Pope Benedict XVI, has recently expressed his opinion that life in other planets is a distinct possibility, but that this is not in conflict with faith in God. Such extra-terrestrial (ET) creatures would still be part of God’s Creation. (Reuters, May 16).

But Islam, which has a view of Creation similar to the Judeo-Christian tradition, would also claim that those ETs are part of Allah’s Creation. So if we should establish contact with ETs in the near future and it turns out, as is likely, that they have never heard of Jesus or Allah, who would have the franchise to “convert” them? Will it throw us earthlings back to the genocidal Crusades of the 11
th to the 13th centuries? Just asking. *****

Reactions to tonyabaya@gmail.com. Other articles in www.tapatt.org and in acabaya.blogspot.com.