"It would be nice if US citizens had more information about US foreign policy. If they did, they might understand why so many people hate us.
This week US trade officials are meeting with Thai negotiators in Chiang Mai, Thailand, to hammer out details of a still secret deal between the US and Thailand on what is inaccurately called a 'Free Trade Agreement,' or FTA."
"The challenge is: Explain America to someone from somewhere else by giving them 10 movies to watch.
...Special Bonus Pick:The Forty Year Old Virgin (2005): Wow. Okay, I know: what the fuck is this doing here in Nashville's spot? Well, first off, I wanted another comedy -- what a culture laughs at is as revealing about it, more revealing about it than almost anything else. Second, unlike Annie Hall, this movie doesn't require a specific combination of cultural types, intellectual attitudes and geography to work. Annie Hall not in New York isn't Annie Hall; the mall in Virgin exists in every mid-size and up city in America. Virgin hits on male friendship in a way that's almost never been done; our peculiarly American obsession with/fear of sex; the bizarre political/cultural combo of the last generation that's allowed for an extended adolescence; but at the same time doesn't laud the moral superiority of 'growing up'. The ways Virgin deals with families is also fascinating -- every type of fractured American family is on screen, not to mention that Andy's friends essentially become the brothers he never had. Friends as replacement/support for the oddly reconfiguring, geographically splintered American nuclear family is something worth understanding."
"What lies at the center of so many of our current political controversies is fear. Fear-mongering is the one and only weapon which Bush followers use time and again to solidify their support. When Karl Rove says, as he did yesterday, that 'national security' is going to be the centerpiece of the GOP pitch leading into the 2006 elections, what he means is that they are going to spend the next 10 months doing everything possible to scare Americans as much as possible so that they once again dispense with all other issues and throw themselves into the arms of the party which promises to be their Protector."
"There are two things to be certain of this century:
1. Everything that can be expressed as bits will be expressed as bits
2. Bits will only get easier to copy
The entertainment companies are convinced that their businesses depend on copy-proof bits. This is ridiculous: there's no such thing, there never will be.
Governments that try to protect businesses that demand copy-proof bits are like governments that try to protect businesses on the sides of volcanoes, who demand an immediate end to business-disrupting lava.
If the current entertainment companies can't or won't adapt to a world of bits, that's too bad. Let them die, and let new businesses that thrive in the new technological reality take their place. If you can't stand the heat, get off the volcano."
Then man's energies would turn inward. He would discover that he has many 'selves', and that his higher 'selves' are what his ancestors would have called gods.
"...my viewpoint in this book is one of agnosticism. The word 'agnostic' appears explicitly in the prologue and the agnostic attitude is revealed again and again in the text, but many people still think I 'believe' some of the metaphors and models employed here. I therefore want to make it even clearer than ever before that
I DO NOT BELIEVE ANYTHING
...It seems to be a hangover of the medieval Catholic era that causes most people, even the educated, to think that everybody must 'believe' something or other, that if one is not a theist, one must be a dogmatic atheist, and if one does not think Capitalism is perfect, one must believe fervently in Socialism, and if one does not have blind faith in X, one must alternatively have blind faith in not-X or the reverse of X.
My own opinion is that belief is the death of intelligence. As soon as one believes a doctrine of any sort, or assumes certitude, one stops thinking about that aspect of existence. The more certitude one assumes, the less there is left to think about, and a person sure of everything would never have any need to think about anything and might be considered clinically dead under current medical standards, where absence of brain activity is taken to mean that life has ended.
Belief in the traditional sense, or certitude, or dogma, amounts to the grandiose delusion, "My current model" -- or grid, or map, or reality-tunnel -- "contains the whole universe and will never need to be revised." In terms of the history of science and knowledge in general, this appears absurd and arrogant to me, and I am perpetually astonished that so many people still manage to live with such a medieval attitude."
"People often say that this or that person has not yet found himself. But the self is not something one finds, it is something one creates."- Thomas Szasz, "Personal Conduct," The Second Sin, 1973
"It goes like this: When human consciousness expands, for whatever reason and with whatever stimulation and even if you can only measure it in hairsbreadth, when our nasty habit of harsh judgment falls away and people begin to get a little bit, you know, lighter, there is always, as sure as there's someone who hates the sunrise, a clampdown, a recoil, a desperate need by the terrified and ever-paranoid conservative sect to, you know, put a quick stop to this so-called awakening crapola ASA-damn-P.
As soon as people begin realizing there's more to this brief little slice of existence than hate and war and the constant drumbeat of fear, there's always resistance, a reactive sneer at the idea that people might be waking up, even a little, and it's all in the name of protecting the status quo and defending the power base and not upsetting any of those carefully wrought prejudices, about making sure everyone stays quiet and doesn't ask any difficult questions of the Authority.
...Just like, you know, right now.
Witness, won't you, the confluent forces, the twin streams of conflicting culture represented by the amazing "Brokeback Mountain" movie phenomenon, a spare and sad and highly controversial little indie-style flick that is shaking up the homophobic community and raking in the Golden Globes and which now seems a shoe-in to win an Oscar or four, as compared and contrasted with, say, the humorless, depressing, dry-as-death Samuel Alito Supreme Court nomination. Oh yes, we have a match. Do you see it?
Look closer."
"Yesterday, the Supreme Court made a key decision which even federal officals admit will have major implications for free speech across the country.
With all eyes on the Alito confirmation non-aftermath, the Court hastily refused to hear the appeal of South Carolina activist Brett Bursey, the first and only person to be prosecuted under the statute governing 'Threats to the President.'
Bursey's crime? Four years ago, when President Bush came to Columbia, SC to whip up support for the Iraq war, Bursey -- a leader of the South Carolina Progressive Network -- inserted himself into the pro-Bush crowd with a sign saying 'No more war for oil, don't invade Iraq.'
For these unthinkable sentiments, Bursey was commanded to retreat to an Orwellian-named 'free speech zone' or be charged with trespassing. As Bursey relates, 'I told the police that I was in a free speech zone called the United States of America.'"
"11AM Strategy Meeting
Project Manager: He needs to step into my office. The office of my fist. If he messes with my developer one more time, I'm gonna drop him like a bad habit. And by 'drop' I mean 'drop kick'. And by 'bad habit' I mean 'communist hobo'."
"9AM Back to Work
Worker: Can you please help with the thingy, you know, um, over there?
Manager: Well done, very descriptive."
"In Afghanistan, the Taliban are slowly returning. Outside Kabul every woman wears a burqa. Weren't they supposed to have taken them off? Weren't women now 'free' in Afghanistan? US troops are being killed at an increasing rate there. Weren't they supposed to have won? Now Canada has split its troops and sent a battalion to Kandahar to fight the Taliban and al-Qa'ida. What are the Canadians now doing in combat operations? What risks does this now pose for the Canadian nation which kept out of Iraq?"
"So bin Laden has threatened new attacks against the U.S.? If that's true, then why hasn't the 'terror threat' level been raised to 'orange'? Could it be because the whole thing was a political scam from Day One? If they don't raise the level now, then they should have the cojones to admit it was a farce and drop the system."
"They just can’t get over the fact that the more education you have, the more likely it is that you’re liberal. They’d rather think it’s a plot, and students are mere empty vessels into which unscrupulous radical professors pour their America-hating doctrines:"
"Rev. Mark Virkler, Ph.D., president of Communion With God Ministries (http://www.cwgministries.org) and author of over 50 books, is guaranteeing that his latest release, How to Hear God’s Voice (Destiny Image, $24.95), will ensure every reader who follows the steps described will hear the voice of God for themselves. Dr. Virkler says that two decades of conducting seminars on this topic on six continents with a virtual 100% success rate, and Jesus’ own promise that “My sheep hear My voice” (John 10:27), have given him the confidence to make this guarantee."
"The population is getting older. While the 'let them eat cat food' crowd at the Washington Post and the general center right 'pain caucus' of 'serious Democrats' and their fellow travellers see this as a looming fiscal crisis which necessitates drastic cuts to government services for those elderly people, in truth eventually the opposite will happen. Old people vote. They vote for politicians who support public services they like. They're perfect for appearing as sympathetic victims on local news making politicians look bad when things don't go as they should. And there are going to be more of them. Many many more of them. In twenty years time we won't be talking about how we need to cut Social Security. Instead politicians will be falling all over themselves to double the payments and to promise new luxury retirement homes for all."
"I don’t trust modern medicine. And I don’t trust its principle sponsor and beneficiary – the pharmaceutical industry. The underlying approach of modern medicine is treating symptoms and I think that approach is knuckleheaded in the extreme. In most cases, the prescribed pills don’t cure anything. They merely trade one undesirable symptom for a raft of undesirable side effects. The concepts of prevention, strengthening the immune system, and nutrition are virtually ignored by the medical establishment. The closest they come to the concept of prevention is “early detection.”
If you analyze the situation, most diseases are self-inflicted, brought on through bad habits, substance abuse, poor diet, inappropriate behavior, stupid choices, and the like.
Then, of course, there is stress-related disease (which is also self-inflicted) and it has reached epidemic proportions. Folks subject themselves to ungodly levels of health-debilitating stress by slaving away at pointless jobs, in order to earn money to pay for medical care which tries to mask those job-induced symptoms with expensive drugs that cure nothing. To fuel the vicious cycle, these wage slaves work for the same corporations that unconscionably poison our air, water, soil, food, and psyche, making all of us weaker and sicker.
The real kicker is that modern medicine is the third leading cause of death in the United States, after heart disease and cancer, and that evaluation comes from the Center of Disease Control. The number of people that die from getting improper treatment from modern medicine is equivalent to two 747s filled with people crashing every three days and killing everyone on board. "
"Fingers are pointed at various aspects of the schooling system—overcrowded classrooms, lack of funding, teachers who can't pass competency exams in their fields, etc. But these are just secondary problems. Even if they were cleared up, schools would still suck. Why? Because they were designed to.
How can I make such a bold statement? How do I know why America's public school system was designed the way it was (age-segregated, six to eight 50-minute classes in a row announced by Pavlovian bells, emphasis on rote memorization, lorded over by unquestionable authority figures, etc.)? Because the men who designed, funded, and implemented America's formal educational system in the late 1800s and early 1900s wrote about what they were doing.
...In 1888, the Senate Committee on Education was getting jittery about the localized, non-standardized, non-mandatory form of education that was actually teaching children to read at advanced levels, to comprehend history, and, egads, to think for themselves. The committee's report stated, 'We believe that education is one of the principal causes of discontent of late years manifesting itself among the laboring classes.'
By the turn of the century, America's new educrats were pushing a new form of schooling with a new mission (and it wasn't to teach). The famous philosopher and educator John Dewey wrote in 1897:
Every teacher should realize he is a social servant set apart for the maintenance of the proper social order and the securing of the right social growth.
In his 1905 dissertation for Columbia Teachers College, Elwood Cubberly—the future Dean of Education at Stanford—wrote that schools should be factories "in which raw products, children, are to be shaped and formed into finished products...manufactured like nails, and the specifications for manufacturing will come from government and industry."
The next year, the Rockefeller Education Board—which funded the creation of numerous public schools—issued a statement which read in part:
In our dreams...people yield themselves with perfect docility to our molding hands.
"People are always looking for authority figures. An authority figure is really just a person to whom we can defer responsibility for our own actions. Sure I sent all those people to the gas chambers but I was just following orders. The members of al Qaeda can do what they do because they believe their religious leaders have the authority of God to take on the responsibility for their reprehensible actions. The Manson Family thought that spiritually enlightened Charlie would take the blame for the terrible things they did. But it was all bullshit. No one but you will bear the reaction to all the things you have set in motion. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying."
"I wrote a series of essays on the Christian “heresy” of Universalism, a doctrine which dares to suggest that Jesus died to redeem everybody - regardless of whether or not you believe in him. In my own warped universe, this seems like the most poetic and beautiful culmination of the Christian message - but what do I know? Probably not much, based on the letters from irate Christians that I’m still getting weeks later who are trying to prove to me that Universalism is “un-Biblical.”
I tried asking one of them why Christians feel so threatened by this idea of universal salvation, and was informed simply that it’s “wrong.” If only it were that simple. The fact of the matter is that the identity of Jesus seems to be caught up in our own identities somehow. Mainstream (meanstream) Christians think Jesus was talking to them only. Gnostic Christians say Jesus was a gnostic. Gay Christians say Jesus was a queer. Even stoners try to argue that Jesus healed using cannabis oil. Nevermind the battles around the Da Vinci Code’s portrayal of Christ."
"Watergate burglar Frank Sturgis said yesterday the CIA planned the break-in because high officials felt the then-President Nixon was becoming too powerful and was overly interested in the assassination of President Kennedy."
"'When right-wing terrorists and a vampire take over a gay bar in New York City, it's the start of a blood-soaked night involving a famed televangelist. Standing in the way are four unlikely heroes. Outnumbered, outgunned, and completely outfanged, they must survive the night and stop the bloodshed before it engulfs the entire city.'"
"They cut to a quick shot of George Clooney trying to hold a shot glass in his eye socket. That man is my hero."
"FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — A nationally known motivational speaker is facing child pornography charges.
Police in Arkansas arrested Michael Fortino — a man who lives in Pittsburgh, but travels the world.
...Former President Bill Clinton once praised Fortino, and President George W. Bush has called him a role model for future generations."
"Think
Your attitude determines how far you go...
Train
Nothing creates energy like movement...
Eat
Short-term energy sources like caffeine and sugar may get you through the moment, but they leave you exhausted in the long run."
"A 20-year-old California Institute of Technology student set a new world's record for solving the popular Rubik's Cube puzzle, turning the tiled brain-twister from scrambled to solved in 11.13 seconds."
"Principles of Natural Hygiene
1. GOOD AIR
2. PURE WATER
3. COMFORTABLE BODY TEMPERATURE (97-99 deg. F)
4. INTERNAL CLEANLINESS
Free of poisons & pollutants. Eat a nonpolluting diet (indigestion indicates this principle is lacking).
5. SLEEP - regenerates nerve energy.
6. PROPER FOOD
Eat foods of our biological adaptation.
There are contradictory views about what this means. Examples:
VEGETARIAN
Fruit is our primary food.
Vegetables, nuts, seeds are secondary.
Grains, cooked potatoes ... are tertiary.
Avoid meat.
STONE AGE (hunter-gatherer)
Vegetables and meat is the basis.
Nuts, seeds, berries are secondary.
Eat minimal amounts of fruits.
Avoid grains, cooked potatoes.
Eat your food as raw as possible.
Combining foods is important.
7. EXERCISE - at least 3-4 times per week - preferably 7 times.
Aerobic (cardiovascular) activity - at least double the breath and pulse.
Resistance activity - weight training or isometrics.
You cannot be healthy unless physically fit.
8. SUNSHINE - an essential of life.
Minimum of 20-30 minutes daily, or 2-3 hours per week. Before 10 Am or after 4 Pm in summer, anytime in winter. Sunshine is necessary for bone formation.
9. PLAY & RECREATION
10. REST & RELAXATION - Meditation & Cogitation
11. MENTAL POISE - maintain equilibrium & do not become emotionally upset.
12. SECURITY OF LIFE AND ITS MEANS
13. CREATIVE WORK
14. SELF MASTERY - you will lose self esteem if you lose self mastery.
15. PEER INTERACTION - group interaction
16. EXPRESSION OF REPRODUCTIVE INSTINCT
17. LOVE, APPRECIATION, ESTEEM - both give & receive these.
18. APPRECIATION OF BEAUTY
19. NEED TO BE INSPIRED & MOTIVATED - must have purpose in life."
"Theories of Natural Hygiene
It is characterized by several Theories as follows:
* The human body contains the power to heal itself (without medicine).
* Disease exists when the body is prevented from healing itself.
* The primary causes of disease are stress, toxemia, over working, over eating, taking unhealthy substances, etc.
* Germs, bacteria, and viruses are not the primary cause of disease.
* Medicines are poisons to the human body and are harmful.
* Vaccinations are not effective, not safe and damage the immune system."
"Remember, if you are miserable,
you have created all this.
Let it penetrate deep in your heart
that you have created your sufferings
because this is going to be the formula, the key.
If you have created your sufferings,
only then can you destroy it.
If someone else has created them,
you are helpless.
You have created your miseries,
you can destroy them.
You have created them through wrong habits,
wrong attitudes, addictions, desires."
"Glover Garden is an open air museum, exhibiting mansions of former Western residents of Nagasaki. It is located on the hill where Western merchants settled down after the end of Japan's era of seclusion in the second half of the 19th century.
The exhibited buildings include the mansions of British merchants Frederick Ringer and William Alt and the former residence of Thomas Glover, a Scottish merchant. A nice panorama of the city can be enjoyed from the garden."
