Financial Crisis, Explanation

An explanation of the global financial crisis by BBC Business Editor Robert Peston.

Who are the Pastafarians

Quote "Free Hugs, from your friendly atheist neighbors". Now they are coming out.

And what is the "Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monsters?"

Radicals and Housing

Radicals have gone a long way in social experimentation. But on the subject of house this have been successful. Still housing as a social need will never go away. It is a subject of intense debate and mechanism building to provide it to people.

Read.

Where are the Moldovan youth?

Where is Moldova? I don't know? Where are the Moldovan youth?

I think that is a question that you should now be answering.

Recently, violence erupted at the capital city wherein it was led by thousands of young people against the communist government. It started with a blog "I am not a communist". Young people used Facebook and Twitter.

The article tells a lot of perception and mis-perception. And the youth should be listened to not just in Moldova but around the world.

Good in math but poor in history

Explaining the Wall street crash. The ascending power of the banks and its downfall.

Cartoons and freedom to express.

It has been 3 years since the publication of the cartoons by a Danish artist that offended the Islamic world.

The 73-year got tired of hiding. Read his reflection.

Greed and Stupidity

Continuation of the conversation on the financial mess we are in by David Brooks.

Facebook user saves life.

Facebook user saves life of an overdose 16-year old teen.

Lessons from a Dog.

Lessons from a dog and coping with prostrate cancer.

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Slydini - Magician

Slydini on Dick Cavell show in 1977.

Click on colored link of the one below.

http://cavett.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/27/conjuring-slydini/?scp=1&sq=slydini&st=cse

Spinal cord injury

Voices of those who suffered from spinal cord injury.

Click on colored link for the article.

Praying and saving a plane

A pilot decided to pray out loud instead of saving the lives of his passengers. He was sentenced to jail for ten years.

Click on link for whole article.

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Using words and license

In an interview with Barack Obama in Jay Leno's show, Obama made a not so nice remark about people with special needs.

He immediately apologized for this remark but it fuelled more discussion about using the word.

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Marriage ending in death.

Surprising marriage end in death.

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Obama

Barack Obama, the newly elect America president, fidgets in the presence of women.

Epidural Hematoma

Head injury suffered by Natasha Richardson, wife of Liam Neeson (Schinler's List) created an epidural hematoma, a vessel broke that caused the bleeding. It seemed that she was fine on the early hours but the hematoma continued to build up making her to feel head aches.

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Head injury

Actress Richardson, wife of Liam Neeson died with a head injury. It looks like that she was doing fine after her accidental fall.

Article on colored link tells us about head injuries that seem to be "ok" but not "ok" at all.

Trials, Mistrials and the Web.

As Jurors Turn to Web, Mistrials Are Popping Up

By JOHN SCHWARTZ

NEW YORK TIMES Published: March 17, 2009

Last week, a juror in a big federal drug trial in Florida admitted to the judge that he had been doing research on the case on the Internet, directly violating the judge’s instructions and centuries of legal rules. But when the judge questioned the rest of the jury, he got an even bigger shock.

Eight other jurors had been doing the same thing. The federal judge, William J. Zloch, had no choice but to declare a mistrial, a waste of eight weeks of work by federal prosecutors and defense lawyers.

“We were stunned,” said a defense lawyer, Peter Raben, who was told by the jury that he had been on the verge of winning the case. “It’s the first time modern technology struck us in that fashion, and it hit us right over the head.”

It might be called a Google mistrial. The use of BlackBerrys and iPhones by jurors gathering and sending out information about cases is wreaking havoc on trials around the country, upending deliberations and infuriating judges.

Last week, a building products company asked an Arkansas court to overturn a $12.6 million judgment, claiming that a juror used Twitter to send updates during the civil trial.

And on Monday, defense lawyers in the federal corruption trial of a former Pennsylvania state senator, Vincent J. Fumo, demanded before the verdict that the judge declare a mistrial because a juror posted updates on the case on Twitter and Facebook. The juror had even told his readers that a “big announcement” was coming on Monday. But the judge decided to let the deliberations continue, and the jury found Mr. Fumo guilty. His lawyers plan to use the Internet postings as grounds for appeal.

Jurors are not supposed to seek information outside of the courtroom. They are required to reach a verdict based on only the facts the judge has decided are admissible, and they are not supposed to see evidence that has been excluded as prejudicial. But now, using their cellphones, they can look up the name of a defendant on the Web or examine an intersection using Google Maps, violating the legal system’s complex rules of evidence. They can also tell their friends what is happening in the jury room, though they are supposed to keep their opinions and deliberations secret.

A juror on a lunch or bathroom break can find out many details about a case. Wikipedia can help explain the technology underlying a patent claim or medical condition, Google Maps can show how long it might take to drive from Point A to Point B, and news sites can write about a criminal defendant, his lawyers or expert witnesses.

“It’s really impossible to control it,” said Douglas L. Keene, president of the American Society of Trial Consultants.

Judges have long amended their habitual warning about seeking outside information during trials to include Internet searches. But with the Internet now as close as a juror’s pocket, the risk has grown more immediate — and instinctual. Attorneys have begun to check the blogs and Web sites of prospective jurors.

Mr. Keene said jurors might think they were helping, not hurting, by digging deeper. “There are people who feel they can’t serve justice if they don’t find the answers to certain questions,” he said.

But the rules of evidence, developed over hundreds of years of jurisprudence, are there to ensure that the facts that go before a jury have been subjected to scrutiny and challenge from both sides, said Olin Guy Wellborn III, a law professor at the University of Texas.

“That’s the beauty of the adversary system,” said Professor Wellborn, co-author of a handbook on evidence law. “You lose all that when the jurors go out on their own.”

There appears to be no official tally of cases disrupted by Internet research, but with the increasing adoption of Web technology in cellphones, the numbers are sure to grow. Some courts are beginning to restrict the use of cellphones by jurors within the courthouse, even confiscating them during the day, but a majority do not, Mr. Keene said. And computer use at home, of course, is not restricted unless a jury is sequestered.

In the Florida case that resulted in a mistrial, Mr. Raben spent nearly eight weeks fighting charges that his client had illegally sold prescription drugs through Internet pharmacies. The arguments were completed and the jury was deliberating when one juror contacted the judge to say another had admitted to her that he had done outside research on the case over the Internet.

The judge questioned the juror about his research, which included evidence that the judge had specifically excluded. Mr. Raben recalls thinking that if the juror had not broadly communicated his information with the rest of the jury, the trial could continue and the eight weeks would not be wasted. “We can just kick this juror off and go,” he said.

But then the judge found that eight other jurors had done the same thing — conducting Google searches on the lawyers and the defendant, looking up news articles about the case, checking definitions on Wikipedia and searching for evidence that had been specifically excluded by the judge. One juror, asked by the judge about the research, said, “Well, I was curious,” according to Mr. Raben. “It was a heartbreak,” Mr. Raben added.

Information flowing out of the jury box can be nearly as much trouble as the information flowing in; jurors accustomed to posting regular updates on their day-to-day experiences and thoughts can find themselves on a collision course with the law.

In the Arkansas case, Stoam Holdings, the company trying to overturn the $12.6 million judgment, said a juror, Johnathan Powell, had sent Twitter messages during the trial. Mr. Powell’s messages included “oh and nobody buy Stoam. Its bad mojo and they’ll probably cease to Exist, now that their wallet is 12m lighter” and “So Johnathan, what did you do today? Oh nothing really, I just gave away TWELVE MILLION DOLLARS of somebody else’s money.”

Mr. Powell, 29, the manager of a one-hour photo booth at a Wal-Mart in Fayetteville, Ark., insisted in an interview that he had not sent any substantive messages about the case until the verdict had been delivered and he was released from his obligation not to discuss the case. “I was done when I mentioned the trial at all,” he said. “They’re welcome to pull my phone records.”

But juror research is a more troublesome issue than sending Twitter messages or blogging, Mr. Keene said, and it raises new issues for judges in giving instructions.

“It’s important that they don’t know what’s excluded, and it’s important that they don’t know why it’s excluded,” Mr. Keene said. The court cannot even give a full explanation to jurors about research — say, to tell them what not to look for — so instructions are usually delivered as blanket admonitions, he said.

The technological landscape has changed so much that today’s judge, Mr. Keene said, “has to explain why this is crucial, and not just go through boilerplate instructions.” And, he said, enforcement goes beyond what the judge can do, pointing out that “it’s up to Juror 11 to make sure Juror 12 stays in line.”

It does not always work out that way. Seth A. McDowell, a data support specialist who lives in Albuquerque and works for a financial advising firm, said he was serving on a jury last year when another juror admitted running a Google search on the defendant, even though she acknowledged that she was not supposed to do so. She said she did not find anything, Mr. McDowell said.

Mr. McDowell, 35, said he thought about telling the judge, but decided against it. None of the other jurors did, either. Now, he said, after a bit of soul-searching, he feels he may have made the wrong choice. But he remains somewhat torn.

“I don’t know,” he said. “If everybody did the right thing, the trial, which took two days, would have gone on for another bazillion years.”

Mr. McDowell said he planned to attend law school in the fall.

________________________________________________________

Atty. Sonny Pulgar

Katataspulong - http://www.sonnypulgar.com

Unconventional school

Efren Penaflorinda teaches reading and writing. He also uses a pushcart. He is one shown by CNN to be one of the new heroes.

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Exercise

Just how much exercise do you need to keep fit?

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The Party and a culture that stays.

The secretive Chinese Communist Party has just concluded their congress. Some officials are going to glitzy stores like Gucci, Calvin Klein buying gifts for whom?

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Cops in pay of killers gets life.

New York cops were found guilty of assassinating persons whom the Mafia considers their enemy.

The two cops were partners in receiving pays from the gang.

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Welcome Darwin, Welcome Vatican

The Vatican is sponsoring a conference on the ideas of evolutionist Charles Darwin.

Trying to find a common ground on evolution and creation?

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Lots of unsold cars

Lots and lots of unsold cars are waiting to be shipped to dealers.

Toyota has decided to cut down production. Good for Toyoto for now, but how about if they decide to lay off workers? Not good.

Click on colored link to see those cars.

What is Xenophobia?

A pregnant Brazilian was attacked by an alledged members of Neo-Nazi group in Switzerland. We know that Swiss people are conscious about laws that respects human.

Is this a case of xenophobia?

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Friendliest countries.

What are the friendliest countries in the world. Why are they friendly...

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Elderly, New working class, out of jobs

Our elderly has lost their jobs, looking for work they encounter many many problems.

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Elk Feeding creates a debate

This article on feeding Elks feeds the mind on how a habit becomes a tradition and how tradition becomes a culture and when to turn around.

Follow the colored link to land on the article.

Aging and financial crisis in NY

Aging citizens in NY are angry as to the situation they are in now given the collapse of the Wall street.

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Optical Illusions

Interesting optical illusions.

Click on the colored link for the visuals.

Speed in looking for "God Particle"

Tevatron in the US and the Large Hadron Collider of Cern is racing to discover, if they are successful, in finding out the Higgs particle as a debris.

100 Billion earths!

For all we know we are not alone. Scientists are saying that there are more earth like planets in the known space.

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Losing the Pope

The article is about a German writer who walks out of the Catholic Church and lost Pope Benedict 16th.

It was a time when Pope Benedict welcome back Bishop Williamson who denied that the holocaust (Shoah) never happened.

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Pope and the Jews

Pope Benedict 16th is going to meet angry Jews due to the inveterate Bishop who denied that there were no Jews that were sent to the gas chambers of Hitler.

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Charles Darwin leading

Charles Darwin's knowledge on evolution is helping scientist solve crime and reduce the size of your computer.

Colored link will lead you to the article. Click on it.

Obama calls Wallstreet bonuses shameful

When CEO are raking in huge amount of bonuses which is equivalent to greed, which in effect is causing untold suffering to so many people who are laid off from their jobs, Obama calls it shameful.

In the Philippines, Intel has laid off 1,600 employees. Where are they going to get the next meal?

Thousands more will be going on the same line.

Read the discussion. Click on colored link.

Cancer and Zebrafish

Latest discovery on cancer research and and ocean going Zebrafish.

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Octuplets and Ethics

There are ethical dilemma in having an octuplet birth.

Read the article. Click on colored link.

Who will you write for?

When you are writing who will be your readers?

Evidence is coming out that there are more writers than readers.

Click on colored to lead you to article.

Science rightful place

It was equated by the writer that Science and Democracy go together.

The word science again was sparked in the speech of Barack Obama last 20 January.

Obama wants "to restore science in its rightful place."

Where would that be in our society?

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What life asks of us

David Brooks wrote to the International Herald Tribune, What life asks of us.

As I read it through, it was like a very good piece on institutional behavior in which my students will be reading. Well, I think It is more than that. It gives a penetrating energy that infiltrates the sinews of our muscles. It confronts us with who we are in the first place.

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University without walls.

Joel Yuvienco the online internet expert and visionary has been telling me a university that may exist without any physical plant.

He continued that Universities and teachers have to evolve given the present state of technology.

Click on the link to lead you to the article.

Diary of a girl.

A girl's diary on her life under the Taleban in a place called Swat in Afghanistan.

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Radical Obama

Somebody wants Obama to be as radical as possible because this time is a moment for radical action.

Thomas Friedman has something to say about it.

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Ooops...Obama inaugural address

What happened way back 20 January at inaugural address?

It's a kind of ooops (a famous utterance of Will Smith on Independence Day) as Obama was taking the oafh of office.

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Bergen Belsen

If your are at Bergen Belsen, what will you remember?

What is the master narrative?

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Lost generation

Barack Obama's speech

Full text of Barack Obama's speech at the President's inauguration.

Click on colored link and it will bring you to the full text.

Mexico and the Philippines

Mexico and the Philippines shares the same story with the financial crisis due to the American subprime.

Click on the above link for the article.

Migrant workers

Money coming from migrant workers helps developing economies afloat. But due to the financial crunch of 2008, this will slow down.

World Bank estimates around $600bln are sent by migrant workers around the globe.

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Understanding the global financial crisis - BBC

The BBC has made a timeline of the global financial crisis.

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New forms of life and acidification

New forms of life were discovered at the Tasmanian deep. Scientist are studying the ocean temperature, and possible acidification of the sea.

Floating Table

Burakumin

How the ruling Japanese political party treat outcasts or buraku.

Free Taxes for Teachers

Is the time of teacher not to pay taxes in the offing? Is this one solution regarding the global economic crisis.

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Cancer Free Baby

Is a cancer-free baby possible?

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/01/09/uk.cancerfree.baby/index.html?eref=rss_latest

Click on the above link and read article from CNN about cancer free baby.

Romance, China and America

How the two countries, China and America are interconnected.

Click on the colored lind and it will lead you to the article.

Atheists message

Atheists send their message in 800 buses.

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Free labor at the web.

Free labor at the Web.

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Physical exercise

Recording your calorie burning exercise or physical movements.

Rabbi Lerner's view

Rabbi Lerner's view on the current war of Israel against the Hamas.

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Mikhail Gorbachev

A Russian leader talks of what should be the global agenda this 2009, he is Mikhail Gorbachev.

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If its a monarch, it can be a butterfly!

Priests for export?

Indian seminarians around 400 of them, good prospects where some of then can be sent to America.

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America as mission area.

A Catholic priest from Kentucky is sorting out emails to find out if there are priest outside America who wants to serve Kentucky.

Even priests can be exported? Or is America another mission area?

China, rising giant.

How China was able to hurdle its development problems. A short clip update.

Overseas parents, a generation affected.

There are millions of Filipinos who are abroad because the State has failed to generate employment. According to some economist, the failure of the State to industrialize, to harness their material forces towards machine based production of goods.

Due to this underdevelopment overseas worker becomes a function of that very underdevelopment.

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One for entertainment

Obama is carrying Hussein

Obama will try to win over Muslim to the side of American democracy.

A critical analysis on who are going to attend in this global conference.

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Labor in America

In the US it is the labor sector that bears the brunt of the economic crisis.

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Is China going to rescue America?

No, according to Thomas Friedman. But China is closely related to America consumers.

America has a solution according to Friedman.

Best of luck.

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World most influential company.

World most influential company.

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Christmas and the Jewish Chanukah

Chanukah & Christmas: When Hope Triumphs Over Cynical Realism
By Rabbi Michael Lerner

Christmas and Chanukah share a spiritual message: that it is possible to bring light and hope in a world of darkness, oppression and despair. But whereas Christmas focuses on the birth of a single individual whose life and mission was itself supposed to bring liberation, Chanukah is about a national liberation struggle involving an entire people who seek to remake the world through struggle with an oppressive political and social order: the Greek conquerors (who ruled Judea from the time of Alexander in 325 B.C.E.) and the Hellenistic culture that they sought to impose.

Though the holiday celebrated by lighting candles for 8 nights recalls the victory of the guerrilla struggle led by the Maccabees against the Syrian branch of the Greek empire, and the subsequent rededication (Chanukah in Hebrew) of the Temple in Jerusalem in 165 B.C.E., there was a more difficult struggle which took place (and in some dimensions still rages) within the Jewish people between those who hoped for a triumph of a spiritual vision of the world embedded (as it turned out, quite imperfectly) in the Maccabees and a cynical realism that had become the common sense of the merchants and priests who dominated the more cosmopolitan arena of Jerusalem.

The cynical realists in Judea, among them many of the priests charged with preserving the Temple, argued that Greek power was overwhelming and that it made far greater sense to accommodate to it than to resist. The Greek globalizers promised advances in science and technology that could benefit international trade and enrich the local merchants who sided with them, even though the taxes that accompanied their rule impoverished the Jewish peasants who worked the land and eked out a subsistence living. Along with Greek science and military prowess came a whole culture that celebrated beauty both in art and in the human body, presented the world with the triumph of rational thought in the works of Plato and Aristotle, and rejoiced in the complexities of life presented in the theatre of Aeschylus, Euripides, and Aristophanes.

To the Maccabees, the guerrilla band that they assembled to fight the Greek Empire and its Seleucid dynasty in Syria, and to many of the Jewish supporters of that struggle, the issue of Greek militarism, social injustice and oppression were far more salient than the accomplishments of Greek high culture. Whatever might be the value of Athenian democracy, the reality that it exported to the world through Alexander and his successors was oppressive and exploitative.


The "old-time religion" that the Maccabbees fought to preserve had revolutionary elements in it that went far beyond the Greeks in articulating a liberatory vision: not only in the somewhat abstract demand to "love your neighbor as yourself," "love the stranger," and pursue justice and peace, but also concretely in Torah prescriptions to abolish all debts every seven years, allow the land to lie fallow every seven years, refrain from all work and activities connected to control over the earth once a week on Sabbath, redistribute the land every fifty years (the Jubilee) back to its original equal distribution.

The identification with the oppressed, enshrined in Judaism in its insistence that Jews were derived from slaves who had been liberated, and in its focus on retelling the story of being oppressed that was central to the Torah, seemed atavistic and naïve to the more educated and enlightened Jewish urban dwellers, who pointed to the reactionary tribal elements of Torah and sided with the Greeks when they declared circumcision and study of Torah illegal and banned the observance of the Sabbath.

The miracle of Chanukah is that so many people were able to resist the overwhelming "reality" imposed by the imperialists and to stay loyal to a vision of a world based on generosity, love of stranger, and loyalty to an invisible God who promised that life could be based on justice and peace. It was these "little guys," the powerless, who sustained a vision of hope that inspired them to fight against overwhelming odds, against the power of technology and science organized in the service of domination, and despite the fact that they were dismissed as terrorists and fundamentalist crazies. When this kind of energy, what religious people call "the Spirit of God," becomes ingredient in the consciousness of ordinary people, miracles ensue.

It is this same radical hope, whether rooted in religion or secularist belief systems, that remains the foundation for all who continue to struggle for a world of peace and social justice at a time when the champions of war and injustice dominate the political and economic institutions of our own society, often with the assistance of their contemporary cheerleading religious leaders. It is that radical hope that is celebrated this Chanukah by those Jews who have not yet joined the contemporary Hellenists.

Radical hope is also the message of Christmas. Like Chanukah, it is rooted in the ancient tradition of a winter solstice celebration to affirm humanity's belief that the days, now grown shortest around December 23rd, will grow long again as the sun returns to heat the earth and nourish the plants. Just as Jews light holiday lights at this time of year, so Christians transform the dark into a holiday of lights, with beautiful Christmas trees adorned with candles or electric lights, and lights on the outside and inside of their homes.

Christianity took the hope of the ancients and transformed it into a hope for the transformation of a world of oppression. The birth of a newborn, always a signal of hope for the family in which it was born, was transformed into the birth of the messiah who would come to challenge existing systems of economic and political oppression, and bring a new era of peace on earth, social justice and love. Symbolizing that in the baby Jesus was a beautiful way to celebrate and reaffirm hope in the social darkness that has been imposed on the world by the Roman empire, and all its successors right up through the contemporary dominance of a globalized rule of corporate and media forces that have permeated every corner of the planet with their ethos of selfishness and materialism.

Seeing Jesus as the Son of God, and as an intrinsic part of God, was also a way of giving radical substance to the notion that every human being is created in the image of God. For God to come on earth, bring a holy message of love and salvation, and then to die at the hands of the imperialists and be resurrected to come back at some future date was and is a beautiful message of hope for a world not yet redeemed, and became an inspiration to hundreds of millions who saw in it the comforting message that the rule of the powerful was not the ultimate reality of existence. And yet, using the specificity of one human being and identifying him as God, a move made by St. Paul but not by Jesus himself, did not fit into the framework of Judaism, which could not accept Jesus as messiah either because of its view that the messiah would bring an end to wars and all forms of oppression, an end that had not yet taken place during or after Jesus' death.

Jews and Christians have much in common in celebrating at this time of year. We certainly want to use this holiday season to once again affirm our commitment to end the war in Iraq, to end global poverty and hunger by embracing the Network of Spiritual Progressives' version of the Global Marshall Plan, to reduce carbon emissions and population growth and to save the world from ecological destruction. We live in dark times--but these holidays help us reaffirm our hope for a fundamentally different reality that we can help bring about in the coming years. And that despite the fact that we must acknowledge that the Chanukah revolution led to the rule of the Jewish Hashmona-im whose rule devolved into tyranny and self-destructiveness, and that the beauty vision of early Christianity devolved into the tyranny and anti-Semitism of Constantinian forms of the merger of religion with state power.

There are reasons to not mush together these separate holidays. The tremendous pressure of the capitalist marketplace has been to take these holidays, eliminate their actual revolutionary messages, and instead turn them into a secular focus whose only command is "Be Happy and Buy." One might have imagined that the current economic meltdown would significantly modify these messages, but that has not yet happened in December, 2008. The huge pressure to be happy and the media's ability to portray others as beaming with joy makes a huge number of people despondent because they actually don't feel that kind of joy, and imagine that they are the only ones who don't, and hence feel terrible about themselves, something they seek to repair by buying, drugging or drinking themselves into happiness. And when that too doesn't work for very long, they become all the more unhappy with themselves or with others. The pressure to buy as a way of showing that you really care about others puts many people into the position of spending more than they have, putting themselves into further debt, and then feeling depressed about that. Still others have no way to buy "enough" on credit, and then their children, saturated by a media specially attuned to the best ways to market to toddlers and everyone older through their teen years, make their parents or others feel inadequate because they have not bought what the media portrays as the standard for what a "normal family" buys for the holidays. Jews, seeking to fit into American society, grabbed onto this path of the holidays "not really being religious but only a time to celebrate," and thus many embraced Christmas in the one way they could-buying presents for their non-Jewish friends and neighbors and celebrating Christmas as a "non-sectarian, American holiday." But this well-intentioned move to fit into American society only helped the capitalist secularists, and unintentionally further undermined the ability of Christians to hold on to the religious and spiritual intent of their holiday. This is why spiritual progressives of the Christian faith have urged Tikkun and the Network of Spiritual Progressives to NOT celebrate the holiday as one undifferentiated "holiday season" but to celebrate them as religious and spiritual holidays and to affirm the specific religious message of each one depending on which fits your particular faith.

Yet we also want to affirm the goodness in what secularists have tried to do with these holidays in removing them from their religious specificity. There has been far too much anger and killing in the name of religions in the history of humanity. We at the Network of Spiritual Progressives do not believe that most of that killing was actually motivated by religious differences so much as by power struggles that were given religious justifications and appearances. And we are all too well aware that in the 20th century over a 150 million people were slaughtered in the name of secular belief systems and secular powers (1st WW, 2nd WW, Korean War, Vietnam War, Stalinist gulag, Maoist gulag, colonial and anti-colonial wars, etc.), so we are not going to buy any notion that says that eliminating religion will increase world peace (though we wouldn't shed any tears if the fundamentalist and ultra-nationalist forms of religion disappeared into the dustbins of history). Many of those who have sought to secularize the holiday season do so from the fear that without that kind of secularization, it will be harder for people to express caring and mutual support if they have to do so through the frameworks of religions of which they are not apart. Certainly, when it comes to interfaith marriages and families, the need for this kind of smooth path to affirming both traditions is really much needed. And yet, as a Jew, I want to recognize the particular importance to Christians of having Christmas be about Christ, not about gifts and drinking and merry making but about the meaning of the Christ for Christian belief. In this respect, there is a fundamental asymmetry here. Christmas and Easter are the main Christian holidays, while Chanukah is only a minor holiday that has become major only because some (mostly assimilating) Jews in the West felt the need to provide their children with something that could compensate them for not having Christmas with its attractive glitz and lights and toys. But our major holidays are Rosh Hashanah/Yom Kippur and Passover (and of course, weekly Shabbat), and so when Chanukah gets secularized we don't lose as much as Christians do when Christmas is secularized.

As we enter this holiday season, let us stay conscious on all these levels, resist the allure and the seductive charm of the capitalist marketplace and its capacity to reduce all reality and all loving to the consumption of "things," and instead return to the deep spiritual messages of our own traditions, while lovingly supporting each other to stay true to our own deepest truths.

And as we affirm hope, so we must also remind ourselves to not allow our hopes for the Obama presidency to silence our prophetic critique of the powerful should it turn out that those hopes are not realized in the actual policies followed by Obama and his array of establishment-oriented politicians appointed to high offices in his Administration. We can at once celebrate the incredible advance of having white America vote into the presidency a Black man, and yet still insist that this new Administration embrace policies that favor peace and abandon the fantasy that security will come through domination or military victories, that economic and environmental well-being can be consistent with endless "growth" and expansion, or that the quality of human relationships can be improved while living in an economic system that values selfishness, materialism and "looking out for number one." So just as Christmas and Chanukah represent ideals that were quickly distorted by those who tried to make them consistent with the power-structures of a world based on inequality and domination, so too our contemporary victory of the Obama forces can be distorted. Our job is to stay true to the ideals and challenge the distortions, even while celebrating the moments of hope.

Chag urim sameyach-happy holiday of lights.
Chag Chanukah sameyach-happy Chanukah.
Merry Christmas.
Happy Kwanza.
Mubarack Eid.

Rabbi Michael Lerner
Editor, Tikkun www.tikkun.org
Chair, (with Sister Joan Chittister and Princeton U. Professor Cornel West) The Network of Spiritual Progressives www.spiritualprogressives.org

Rabbi of Beyt Tikkun Synagogue in Berkeley and San Francisco

Bagosara and two others gets life sentence in Rwanda.

Bagosara of Rwanda gets life sentence.

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