Of course, it is never one's fault. It is always someone else. That is human nature. American mask of moral high ground was torn after 911 with Abu Gharaib and then the granting of power to Bush for detention of foreign national who he deemed to be terrorists. The news below now illustrates how it shifts blames on others. It is akin to trying to plant a tropical fruit in the tundras and blaming the tundra for not supporting the growth of that fruit.
As Iraq Deteriorates, Iraqis Get More BlameU.S. Officials, Lawmakers Change Tone
By Thomas E. Ricks and Robin
WrightWashington Post Staff WritersWednesday, November 29, 2006; A01
From troops on the ground to members of Congress, Americans increasingly blame the continuing violence and destruction in Iraq on the people most affected by it: the Iraqis.
Even Democrats who have criticized the Bush administration's conduct of the occupation say the people and government of Iraq are not doing enough to rebuild their society. The White House is putting pressure on the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, and members of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group have debated how much to blame Iraqis for not performing civic duties.
This marks a shift in tone from earlier debate about the responsibility of the United States to restore order after the 2003 invasion, and it seemed to gain currency in October, when sectarian violence surged. Some see the talk of blame as the beginning of the end of U.S. involvement.
"It is the first manifestation of a 'Who lost Iraq?' argument that will likely rage for years to come," said Bruce Hoffman, a Georgetown University expert on terrorism who has worked as a U.S. government consultant in Iraq.
Americans and Iraqis are increasingly seeing the situation in different terms, said retired Army Col. Jeffrey D. McCausland , who recently returned from a visit to Iraq. "We're just talking past each other," he said, adding that Americans are psychologically edging toward the door that leads to disengagement. "We're arguing about 'cut and run' versus 'cut and jog.' "
Iraqis' role in their own suffering has been an issue since shortly after the fall of Saddam Hussein in April 2003, when looters ransacked the national museum and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld dismissed it by saying, "Stuff happens." But more than three years later, with schools and hospitals struggling, electrical service faltering, and police and government agencies infiltrated by sectarian death squads, the question of blame is more urgent.
For example, a Nov. 15 meeting of the Senate Armed Services Committee turned into a festival of bipartisan Iraqi-bashing.
"We should put the responsibility for Iraq's future squarely where it belongs -- on the Iraqis," began Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), the committee's next chairman. "We cannot save the Iraqis from themselves." He has advocated announcing that U.S. troops are going to withdraw as a way of pressuring Iraqi politicians to find compromises.
Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) followed by noting: "People in South Carolina come up to me in increasing numbers and suggest that no matter what we do in Iraq, the Iraqis are incapable of solving their own problems through the political process and will resort to violence, and we need to get the hell out of there."
"We all want them to succeed," agreed Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.). "We all want them to be able to stabilize their country with the assistance that we've provided them." But, he added, "too often they seem unable or unwilling to do that."
Later the same day, members of the House Armed Services Committee took their turn. "If the Iraqis are determined and decide to destroy themselves and their country, I don't know how in the world we're going to stop them," said Rep. Robin Hayes (R-N.C.).
Iraqi Ambassador Samir Sumaidaie said he worries about the growing chorus of official voices blaming Iraq, and suggested that a little introspection on the U.S. side could help.
"I am indeed concerned about this trend," he said in an interview. "The U.S. through its actions and omissions has helped to create the current conditions in Iraq. Therefore the U.S. also bears responsibility in putting right the situation."
It isn't just politicians who have decided that the problem with Iraq is the Iraqis. In the military establishment, said Joseph J. Collins, a professor at the National Defense University, "there is lots of disappointment in the performance of Iraqi officials of all stripes."
Thomas Donnelly, a hawkish defense expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said he considers blame a legitimate issue. "Ultimately, just like success rests with the Iraqis, so does failure," he said. "We've made a lot of mistakes, but we've paid a huge price to give the Iraqis a chance at a decent future."
The blame game has also been playing out somewhat divisively within the secretive Iraq Study Group. The bipartisan commission, led by former secretary of state James A. Baker III and former congressman Lee H. Hamilton (D-Ind.), is deliberating policy recommendations to put forward next month.
"I'm tired of nit-picking over how we should bully the Iraqis into becoming better citizens of their own country," former CIA Middle East expert Ray Close wrote in an e-mail to the other advisers to the study group.
Several other experts of various political stripes said this tendency to dump on Baghdad feels like a preamble to withdrawal.
"It's their fault, and by implication not ours, is clearly a theme that's in the air," said retired Army Col. Andrew J. Bacevich, a Vietnam veteran and longtime skeptic of the war in Iraq. It reminds him, he said, of the sour last days of the Vietnam War, when "there was a tendency to blame everything on the 'gooks' -- meaning our South Vietnamese allies who had disappointed us."
"People never understood the culture and the challenges that we faced in trying to build a new Iraq," a senior U.S. intelligence official said. "There's incredible frustration . . . but it also shows a great deal of ignorance."
"Definitely," said Paul Rieckhoff, who served in Iraq as an Army officer in 2003-2004 and went on to found a veterans group critical of the conduct of the war. "It is growing into an angry, scolding tone." He said he finds it "sad" -- "especially after all the talk of our mission to 'save the Iraqis.' "
The long-term effect of blaming Iraqis also could be poisonous, said Juan Cole, a University of Michigan specialist in Middle Eastern issues. He predicted that it will "infuriate the Iraqis and worsen further the future relationship of the two countries."
The turning point in the blame game seems to have occurred in early October, when both Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.) went public with their frustrations, warning the Baghdad government that it must do much more much faster. Warner suggested that the United States should explore a "change of course" if security had not improved within 90 days.
During a surprise visit to Baghdad on Oct. 5, Rice said with uncharacteristic bluntness that the security situation was not helped by "political inaction."
The Bush administration hoped the long-delayed formation of a government, which took about five months after the Dec. 15 election last year, would produce more initiative by Baghdad. But the security and political situation continued to deteriorate, so the administration increased the pressure on Maliki's government. Over the past three months, U.S. officials and foreign diplomats said, senior U.S. military and administration officials visiting Baghdad have conveyed the same message: Get on with it.
"Our role is not to resolve those issues for them," Rice told reporters last month after pressing Maliki to be bolder about disbanding militias and reconciling sectarian differences. "They are going to have to resolve those issues among themselves."
Blaming Iraqis for the woeful situation disregards recent history, some experts argue. Phebe Marr, an Iraq expert and adviser to the Iraq Study Group, calculates that because of policy missteps and other errors, the United States bears about 60 percent of the blame. "You can't say, 'We did this and the Iraqis didn't rise to the occasion,' " she said. "There's enough blame to go around."
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Sunday, November 26, 2006
Human suffering caused by a "divine" mission
When seasoned politicians delve in the international affairs, there are unexpected consequences to be observed. When a neophyte gets the helm of the "decider" and claim divine guidance and mission, then the result if nothing less than disastrous. The two clips below from the same newspaper issue illustrates the point with the fracturing of families and societies in two different places because of a war.
Baghdad Braces For More Reprisals
Cellphones and Web Spread Threats, Fear
By Sudarsan Raghavan and Nancy Trejos
Washington Post Foreign ServiceSunday, November 26, 2006; Page A01
BAGHDAD, Nov. 25 -- In the aftermath of one of the deadliest spasms of violence, a new level of fear and foreboding has gripped Baghdad, fueled in part by sectarian text messages and Internet sites, deepening tensions in an already divided capital.
In interviews across Baghdad on Saturday, Sunnis and Shiites said they were preparing themselves for upheaval, both violent and psychological. They viewed the bombings that killed more than 200 people Thursday in the heart of Baghdad's Shiite Muslim community of Sadr City as a trigger for more reprisal killings.
"We feel our world has become narrow, and we are being squeezed," said Karar al-Zuheari, 31, a Shiite taxi driver. "We have no place to run."
Since those attacks, quasi-armies of residents in mixed and majority-Sunni Arab neighborhoods have formed to protect their streets. Sunni Web sites are offering advice on how to kill Shiite militiamen. College students and executives pace at their homes, clutching rifles and handguns around the clock. Iraqis are posting pleas on Internet message boards to buy extra ammunition and weapons.
Despite a government-imposed curfew, Iraqis described Shiite militiamen murdering Sunnis at checkpoints, controlling neighborhoods with impunity and conspiring with Iraq's majority-Shiite police force, which the Interior Ministry controls. Other Iraqis spoke of mortar shells raining on their mosques and gun battles outside their houses, deepening their mistrust of Iraq's security forces and elected politicians....
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/25/AR2006112500253.html
Long Stints in Iraq Fracture Families
3rd Infantry Division Will Be the First Deployed for a Third Year-Long Tour
By Ann Scott Tyson
Washington Post Staff WriterSunday, November 26, 2006; Page A01
FORT STEWART, Ga. -- As a gray dawn broke, hundreds of 3rd Infantry Division soldiers gathered on a Georgia marching ground this month and listened to a long list of names of fallen comrades. Taps rose mournfully above rows of young redbud trees planted for each of the division's 317 soldiers who have died in Iraq...
Strained Relationships
In the living room of his Savannah home, Capt. Thom Frohnhoefer tumbled with his daughter Maggie, 2, as she jangled and waved his metal dog tags.
"She's the one I had after the first deployment," Frohnhoefer said. "It will be harder this time because she knows Daddy is leaving."
From courtship to parenting to divorce, the time away at war is having a profound impact on the families of active-duty soldiers, according to interviews with dozens of soldiers from the 3rd Infantry Division and their relatives. The division spearheaded the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003 and returned for a second, year-long tour in January 2005.
For 1st Brigade soldiers such as Frohnhoefer, having children poses a wrenching choice: Leave your wife alone in pregnancy and birth, or miss your newborn's first year.
Frohnhoefer and several others in his brigade opted to start pregnancies soon after returning in January, creating a mini baby boom. Frohnhoefer's second daughter, Haley, was born three weeks ago. Another soldier in the unit had a baby last week.
Baghdad Braces For More Reprisals
Cellphones and Web Spread Threats, Fear
By Sudarsan Raghavan and Nancy Trejos
Washington Post Foreign ServiceSunday, November 26, 2006; Page A01
BAGHDAD, Nov. 25 -- In the aftermath of one of the deadliest spasms of violence, a new level of fear and foreboding has gripped Baghdad, fueled in part by sectarian text messages and Internet sites, deepening tensions in an already divided capital.
In interviews across Baghdad on Saturday, Sunnis and Shiites said they were preparing themselves for upheaval, both violent and psychological. They viewed the bombings that killed more than 200 people Thursday in the heart of Baghdad's Shiite Muslim community of Sadr City as a trigger for more reprisal killings.
"We feel our world has become narrow, and we are being squeezed," said Karar al-Zuheari, 31, a Shiite taxi driver. "We have no place to run."
Since those attacks, quasi-armies of residents in mixed and majority-Sunni Arab neighborhoods have formed to protect their streets. Sunni Web sites are offering advice on how to kill Shiite militiamen. College students and executives pace at their homes, clutching rifles and handguns around the clock. Iraqis are posting pleas on Internet message boards to buy extra ammunition and weapons.
Despite a government-imposed curfew, Iraqis described Shiite militiamen murdering Sunnis at checkpoints, controlling neighborhoods with impunity and conspiring with Iraq's majority-Shiite police force, which the Interior Ministry controls. Other Iraqis spoke of mortar shells raining on their mosques and gun battles outside their houses, deepening their mistrust of Iraq's security forces and elected politicians....
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/25/AR2006112500253.html
Long Stints in Iraq Fracture Families
3rd Infantry Division Will Be the First Deployed for a Third Year-Long Tour
By Ann Scott Tyson
Washington Post Staff WriterSunday, November 26, 2006; Page A01
FORT STEWART, Ga. -- As a gray dawn broke, hundreds of 3rd Infantry Division soldiers gathered on a Georgia marching ground this month and listened to a long list of names of fallen comrades. Taps rose mournfully above rows of young redbud trees planted for each of the division's 317 soldiers who have died in Iraq...
Strained Relationships
In the living room of his Savannah home, Capt. Thom Frohnhoefer tumbled with his daughter Maggie, 2, as she jangled and waved his metal dog tags.
"She's the one I had after the first deployment," Frohnhoefer said. "It will be harder this time because she knows Daddy is leaving."
From courtship to parenting to divorce, the time away at war is having a profound impact on the families of active-duty soldiers, according to interviews with dozens of soldiers from the 3rd Infantry Division and their relatives. The division spearheaded the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003 and returned for a second, year-long tour in January 2005.
For 1st Brigade soldiers such as Frohnhoefer, having children poses a wrenching choice: Leave your wife alone in pregnancy and birth, or miss your newborn's first year.
Frohnhoefer and several others in his brigade opted to start pregnancies soon after returning in January, creating a mini baby boom. Frohnhoefer's second daughter, Haley, was born three weeks ago. Another soldier in the unit had a baby last week.
Changing times for young kids
This was an interesting news to soak in. Certainly it is something that will cause social issues later on in the developed societies, but this trend probably is also present to a certain extent in other societies although not to the same degree.
'Tweens' are fast becoming the new teens
By MARTHA IRVINE, AP National Writer Sat Nov 25, 6:46 PM ET
Zach Plante is close with his parents — he plays baseball with them and, on weekends, helps with work in the small vineyard they keep at their northern California home.
Lately, though, his parents have begun to notice subtle changes in their son. Among other things, he's announced that he wants to grow his hair longer — and sometimes greets his father with "Yo, Dad!"
"Little comments will come out of his mouth that have a bit of that teen swagger," says Tom Plante, Zach's dad.
Thing is, Zach isn't a teen. He's 10 years old — one part, a fun-loving fifth-grader who likes to watch the Animal Planet network and play with his dog and pet gecko, the other a soon-to-be middle schooler who wants an iPod.
In some ways, it's simply part of a kid's natural journey toward independence. But child development experts say that physical and behavioral changes that would have been typical of teenagers decades ago are now common among "tweens" — kids ages 8 to 12.
Some of them are going on "dates" and talking on their own cell phones. They listen to sexually charged pop music, play mature-rated video games and spend time gossiping on MySpace. And more girls are wearing makeup and clothing that some consider beyond their years.
Zach is starting to notice it in his friends, too, especially the way they treat their parents.
"A lot of kids can sometimes be annoyed by their parents," he says. "If I'm playing with them at one of their houses, then they kind of ignore their parents. If their parents do them a favor, they might just say, 'OK,' but not notice that much."
The shift that's turning tweens into the new teens is complex — and worrisome to parents and some professionals who deal with children. They wonder if kids are equipped to handle the thorny issues that come with the adolescent world.
"I'm sure this isn't the first time in history people have been talking about it. But I definitely feel like these kids are growing up faster — and I'm not sure it's always a good thing," says Dr. Liz Alderman, an adolescent medicine specialist at Montefiore Medical Center in New York City. She's been in practice for 16 years and has noticed a gradual but undeniable change in attitude in that time.
She and others who study and treat children say the reasons it's happening are both physical and social.
Several published studies have found, for instance, that some tweens' bodies are developing faster, with more girls starting menstruation in elementary school — a result doctors often attribute to improved nutrition and, in some cases, obesity. While boys are still being studied, the findings about girls have caused some endocrinologists to lower the limits of early breast development to first or second grade.
Along with that, even young children are having to deal with peer pressure and other societal influences.
Beyond the drugs, sex and rock'n'roll their boomer and Gen X parents navigated, technology and consumerism have accelerated the pace of life, giving kids easy access to influences that may or may not be parent-approved. Sex, violence and foul language that used to be relegated to late-night viewing and R-rated movies are expected fixtures in everyday TV.
And many tweens model what they see, including common plot lines "where the kids are really running the house, not the dysfunctional parents," says Plante, who in addition to being Zach's dad is a psychology professor at Santa Clara University in California's Silicon Valley.
He sees the results of all these factors in his private practice frequently.
Kids look and dress older. They struggle to process the images of sex, violence and adult humor, even when their parents try to shield them. And sometimes, he says, parents end up encouraging the behavior by failing to set limits — in essence, handing over power to their kids.
"You get this kind of perfect storm of variables that would suggest that, yes, kids are becoming teens at an earlier age," Plante says.
Natalie Wickstrom, a 10-year-old in suburban Atlanta, says girls her age sometimes wear clothes that are "a little inappropriate." She describes how one friend tied her shirt to show her stomach and "liked to dance, like in rap videos."
Girls in her class also talk about not only liking but "having relationships" with boys.
"There's no rules, no limitations to what they can do," says Natalie, who's also in fifth grade.
Her mom, Billie Wickstrom, says the teen-like behavior of her daughter's peers, influences her daughter — as does parents' willingness to allow it.
"Some parents make it hard on those of us who are trying to hold their kids back a bit," she says.
So far, she and her husband have resisted letting Natalie get her ears pierced, something many of her friends have already done. Now Natalie is lobbying hard for a cell phone and also wants an iPod.
"Sometimes I just think that maybe, if I got one of these things, I could talk about what they talk about," Natalie says of the kids she deems the "popular ones."
It's an age-old issue. Kids want to fit in — and younger kids want to be like older kids.
But as the limits have been pushed, experts say the stakes also have gotten higher — with parents and tweens having to deal with very grown-up issues such as pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. Earlier this year, that point hit home when federal officials recommended a vaccine for HPV — a common STD that can lead to cervical cancer — for girls as young as age 9.
"Physically, they're adults, but cognitively, they're children," says Alderman, the physician in New York. She's found that cultural influences have affected her own children, too.
Earlier this year, her 12-year-old son heard the popular pop song "Promiscuous" and asked her what the word meant.
"I mean, it's OK to have that conversation, but when it's constantly playing, it normalizes it," Alderman says.
She observes that parents sometimes gravitate to one of two ill-advised extremes — they're either horrified by such questions from their kids, or they "revel" in the teen-like behavior. As an example of the latter reaction, she notes how some parents think it's cute when their daughters wear pants or shorts with words such as "hottie" on the back.
"Believe me, I'm a very open-minded person. But it promotes a certain way of thinking about girls and their back sides," Alderman says. "A 12-year-old isn't sexy."
With grown-up influences coming from so many different angles — from peers to the Internet and TV — some parents say the trend is difficult to combat.
Claire Unterseher, a mother in Chicago, says she only allows her children — including an 8-year-old son and 7-year-old daughter — to watch public television.
And yet, already, they're coming home from school asking to download songs she considers more appropriate for teens.
"I think I bought my first Abba single when I was 13 or 14 — and here my 7-year-old wants me to download Kelly Clarkson all the time," Unterseher says. "Why are they so interested in all this adult stuff?"
Part of it, experts say, is marketing — and tweens are much-sought-after consumers.
Advertisers have found that, increasingly, children and teens are influencing the buying decisions in their households — from cars to computers and family vacations. According to 360 Youth, an umbrella organization for various youth marketing groups, tweens represent $51 billion worth of annual spending power on their own from gifts and allowance, and also have a great deal of say about the additional $170 billion spent directly on them each year.
Toymakers also have picked up on tweens' interest in older themes and developed toy lines to meet the demand — from dolls known as Bratz to video games with more violence.
Diane Levin, a professor of human development and early childhood at Wheelock College in Boston, is among those who've taken aim at toys deemed too violent or sexual.
"We've crossed a line. We can no longer avoid it — it's just so in our face," says Levin, author of the upcoming book "So Sexy So Soon: The Sexualization of Childhood."
Earlier this year, she and others from a group known as the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood successfully pressured toy maker Hasbro to drop plans for a line of children's toys modeled after the singing group Pussycat Dolls.
Other parents, including Clyde Otis III, are trying their own methods.
An attorney with a background in music publishing, Otis has compiled a line of CDs called "Music Talking" that includes classic oldies he believes are interesting to tweens, but age appropriate. Artists include Aretha Franklin, Rose Royce and Blessid Union of Souls.
"I don't want to be like a prude. But some of the stuff out there, it's just out of control sometimes," says Otis, a father of three from Maplewood, N.J.
"Beyonce singing about bouncing her butt all over the place is a little much — at least for an 8-year-old."
In the end, many parents find it tricky to strike a balance between setting limits and allowing their kids to be more independent.
Plante, in California, discovered that a few weeks ago when he and Zach rode bikes to school, as the two of them have done since the first day of kindergarten.
"You know, dad, you don't have to bike to school with me anymore," Zach said.
Plante was taken aback.
"It was a poignant moment," he says. "There was this notion of being embarrassed of having parents be too close."
Since then, Zach has been riding by himself — a big step in his dad's mind.
"Of course, it is hard to let go, but we all need to do so in various ways over time," Plante says, "as long as we do it thoughtfully and lovingly, I suppose."
'Tweens' are fast becoming the new teens
By MARTHA IRVINE, AP National Writer Sat Nov 25, 6:46 PM ET
Zach Plante is close with his parents — he plays baseball with them and, on weekends, helps with work in the small vineyard they keep at their northern California home.
Lately, though, his parents have begun to notice subtle changes in their son. Among other things, he's announced that he wants to grow his hair longer — and sometimes greets his father with "Yo, Dad!"
"Little comments will come out of his mouth that have a bit of that teen swagger," says Tom Plante, Zach's dad.
Thing is, Zach isn't a teen. He's 10 years old — one part, a fun-loving fifth-grader who likes to watch the Animal Planet network and play with his dog and pet gecko, the other a soon-to-be middle schooler who wants an iPod.
In some ways, it's simply part of a kid's natural journey toward independence. But child development experts say that physical and behavioral changes that would have been typical of teenagers decades ago are now common among "tweens" — kids ages 8 to 12.
Some of them are going on "dates" and talking on their own cell phones. They listen to sexually charged pop music, play mature-rated video games and spend time gossiping on MySpace. And more girls are wearing makeup and clothing that some consider beyond their years.
Zach is starting to notice it in his friends, too, especially the way they treat their parents.
"A lot of kids can sometimes be annoyed by their parents," he says. "If I'm playing with them at one of their houses, then they kind of ignore their parents. If their parents do them a favor, they might just say, 'OK,' but not notice that much."
The shift that's turning tweens into the new teens is complex — and worrisome to parents and some professionals who deal with children. They wonder if kids are equipped to handle the thorny issues that come with the adolescent world.
"I'm sure this isn't the first time in history people have been talking about it. But I definitely feel like these kids are growing up faster — and I'm not sure it's always a good thing," says Dr. Liz Alderman, an adolescent medicine specialist at Montefiore Medical Center in New York City. She's been in practice for 16 years and has noticed a gradual but undeniable change in attitude in that time.
She and others who study and treat children say the reasons it's happening are both physical and social.
Several published studies have found, for instance, that some tweens' bodies are developing faster, with more girls starting menstruation in elementary school — a result doctors often attribute to improved nutrition and, in some cases, obesity. While boys are still being studied, the findings about girls have caused some endocrinologists to lower the limits of early breast development to first or second grade.
Along with that, even young children are having to deal with peer pressure and other societal influences.
Beyond the drugs, sex and rock'n'roll their boomer and Gen X parents navigated, technology and consumerism have accelerated the pace of life, giving kids easy access to influences that may or may not be parent-approved. Sex, violence and foul language that used to be relegated to late-night viewing and R-rated movies are expected fixtures in everyday TV.
And many tweens model what they see, including common plot lines "where the kids are really running the house, not the dysfunctional parents," says Plante, who in addition to being Zach's dad is a psychology professor at Santa Clara University in California's Silicon Valley.
He sees the results of all these factors in his private practice frequently.
Kids look and dress older. They struggle to process the images of sex, violence and adult humor, even when their parents try to shield them. And sometimes, he says, parents end up encouraging the behavior by failing to set limits — in essence, handing over power to their kids.
"You get this kind of perfect storm of variables that would suggest that, yes, kids are becoming teens at an earlier age," Plante says.
Natalie Wickstrom, a 10-year-old in suburban Atlanta, says girls her age sometimes wear clothes that are "a little inappropriate." She describes how one friend tied her shirt to show her stomach and "liked to dance, like in rap videos."
Girls in her class also talk about not only liking but "having relationships" with boys.
"There's no rules, no limitations to what they can do," says Natalie, who's also in fifth grade.
Her mom, Billie Wickstrom, says the teen-like behavior of her daughter's peers, influences her daughter — as does parents' willingness to allow it.
"Some parents make it hard on those of us who are trying to hold their kids back a bit," she says.
So far, she and her husband have resisted letting Natalie get her ears pierced, something many of her friends have already done. Now Natalie is lobbying hard for a cell phone and also wants an iPod.
"Sometimes I just think that maybe, if I got one of these things, I could talk about what they talk about," Natalie says of the kids she deems the "popular ones."
It's an age-old issue. Kids want to fit in — and younger kids want to be like older kids.
But as the limits have been pushed, experts say the stakes also have gotten higher — with parents and tweens having to deal with very grown-up issues such as pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. Earlier this year, that point hit home when federal officials recommended a vaccine for HPV — a common STD that can lead to cervical cancer — for girls as young as age 9.
"Physically, they're adults, but cognitively, they're children," says Alderman, the physician in New York. She's found that cultural influences have affected her own children, too.
Earlier this year, her 12-year-old son heard the popular pop song "Promiscuous" and asked her what the word meant.
"I mean, it's OK to have that conversation, but when it's constantly playing, it normalizes it," Alderman says.
She observes that parents sometimes gravitate to one of two ill-advised extremes — they're either horrified by such questions from their kids, or they "revel" in the teen-like behavior. As an example of the latter reaction, she notes how some parents think it's cute when their daughters wear pants or shorts with words such as "hottie" on the back.
"Believe me, I'm a very open-minded person. But it promotes a certain way of thinking about girls and their back sides," Alderman says. "A 12-year-old isn't sexy."
With grown-up influences coming from so many different angles — from peers to the Internet and TV — some parents say the trend is difficult to combat.
Claire Unterseher, a mother in Chicago, says she only allows her children — including an 8-year-old son and 7-year-old daughter — to watch public television.
And yet, already, they're coming home from school asking to download songs she considers more appropriate for teens.
"I think I bought my first Abba single when I was 13 or 14 — and here my 7-year-old wants me to download Kelly Clarkson all the time," Unterseher says. "Why are they so interested in all this adult stuff?"
Part of it, experts say, is marketing — and tweens are much-sought-after consumers.
Advertisers have found that, increasingly, children and teens are influencing the buying decisions in their households — from cars to computers and family vacations. According to 360 Youth, an umbrella organization for various youth marketing groups, tweens represent $51 billion worth of annual spending power on their own from gifts and allowance, and also have a great deal of say about the additional $170 billion spent directly on them each year.
Toymakers also have picked up on tweens' interest in older themes and developed toy lines to meet the demand — from dolls known as Bratz to video games with more violence.
Diane Levin, a professor of human development and early childhood at Wheelock College in Boston, is among those who've taken aim at toys deemed too violent or sexual.
"We've crossed a line. We can no longer avoid it — it's just so in our face," says Levin, author of the upcoming book "So Sexy So Soon: The Sexualization of Childhood."
Earlier this year, she and others from a group known as the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood successfully pressured toy maker Hasbro to drop plans for a line of children's toys modeled after the singing group Pussycat Dolls.
Other parents, including Clyde Otis III, are trying their own methods.
An attorney with a background in music publishing, Otis has compiled a line of CDs called "Music Talking" that includes classic oldies he believes are interesting to tweens, but age appropriate. Artists include Aretha Franklin, Rose Royce and Blessid Union of Souls.
"I don't want to be like a prude. But some of the stuff out there, it's just out of control sometimes," says Otis, a father of three from Maplewood, N.J.
"Beyonce singing about bouncing her butt all over the place is a little much — at least for an 8-year-old."
In the end, many parents find it tricky to strike a balance between setting limits and allowing their kids to be more independent.
Plante, in California, discovered that a few weeks ago when he and Zach rode bikes to school, as the two of them have done since the first day of kindergarten.
"You know, dad, you don't have to bike to school with me anymore," Zach said.
Plante was taken aback.
"It was a poignant moment," he says. "There was this notion of being embarrassed of having parents be too close."
Since then, Zach has been riding by himself — a big step in his dad's mind.
"Of course, it is hard to let go, but we all need to do so in various ways over time," Plante says, "as long as we do it thoughtfully and lovingly, I suppose."
Saturday, November 18, 2006
Possible shift in Girija's stance against Monarchy
As Girija has more to look back and less to look forward to, he seems to have come to a realization that he can actually do something good for Nepal before he departs the physical realm. It still remains to see what if he has the guts, but if the news below is any indication, it bodes well for Nepal and probably for his legacy.
PM hints at action against king
Kantipur Report
KATHMANDU, Nov 18 - Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala on Saturday hinted that actions against King Gyanendra himself were foreseeable, if the High Level Probe Commission (HLPC) report deemed so.
Talking to media persons at his hometown in Biratnagar, PM Koirala informed that the government would investigate the commission's report thoroughly and then would present it before the parliament.
As to the possibility of the king facing actions for his role as the then chairman the council of ministers to suppress the April uprising, the PM declined to make any comment.
Similarly, when asked whether the HLPC report would fare better than the report presented by the Mallik Commission to investigate the atrocities during the 1990 movement, the PM said, "That is the history and it's no use raising the issue again. We will rewrite the history this time."
Stating that the late King Birendra's property would go to a trust while that of King Gyanendra would be nationalised, Koirala added, "Based on this, other things can happen."
The prime minister said that any issue of national concern would be taken very seriously by the government, adding, "The government is prepared to go to any lengths for the welfare of the nation."
Koirala mentioned that the government will definitely take actions against the culprit and added, the government will first make sure whether the offences were committed and that the punishment fits the crime.
According to sources, the PM also said that the Maoists would not be joining the interim government until the process of the cantoning the Maoist militia and arms lockup are incorporated into a definite monitoring mechanism.
"The interim government including them (Maoists) will be set up only after all their arms are locked up otherwise, there will be no interim government," the PM said.
Koirala added the peace accord will be signed on November 21 and the interim constitution will be enforced as per the time schedule after one or two days and only then the government will be formed.
Posted on: 2006-11-18 01:41:34 (Server Time)
PM hints at action against king
Kantipur Report
KATHMANDU, Nov 18 - Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala on Saturday hinted that actions against King Gyanendra himself were foreseeable, if the High Level Probe Commission (HLPC) report deemed so.
Talking to media persons at his hometown in Biratnagar, PM Koirala informed that the government would investigate the commission's report thoroughly and then would present it before the parliament.
As to the possibility of the king facing actions for his role as the then chairman the council of ministers to suppress the April uprising, the PM declined to make any comment.
Similarly, when asked whether the HLPC report would fare better than the report presented by the Mallik Commission to investigate the atrocities during the 1990 movement, the PM said, "That is the history and it's no use raising the issue again. We will rewrite the history this time."
Stating that the late King Birendra's property would go to a trust while that of King Gyanendra would be nationalised, Koirala added, "Based on this, other things can happen."
The prime minister said that any issue of national concern would be taken very seriously by the government, adding, "The government is prepared to go to any lengths for the welfare of the nation."
Koirala mentioned that the government will definitely take actions against the culprit and added, the government will first make sure whether the offences were committed and that the punishment fits the crime.
According to sources, the PM also said that the Maoists would not be joining the interim government until the process of the cantoning the Maoist militia and arms lockup are incorporated into a definite monitoring mechanism.
"The interim government including them (Maoists) will be set up only after all their arms are locked up otherwise, there will be no interim government," the PM said.
Koirala added the peace accord will be signed on November 21 and the interim constitution will be enforced as per the time schedule after one or two days and only then the government will be formed.
Posted on: 2006-11-18 01:41:34 (Server Time)
Thursday, November 16, 2006
Religion taken to extreme
Religion has been spewing poison. That is not its original intention. Religion was a creation of humanity in its ignorant phase before the era or enlightenment. Religion is more often than not a tool of control these days, no matter what part of world we observe. Below, I post a news I read from Hindstan Times, an Indian daily. It is about the Muslim cleric getting offended because an actress was not covered like a Muslim woman. I say to them, it is not God who is offended by nudity, it is them. If God were offended, we would all be born wearing clothes.
Notice to Katrina Kaif, Rishi Kapoor
Indo-Asian News Service
Ajmer, November 16, 2006
Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti's dargah committee has decided to issue notice to actress Katrina Kaif for wearing a knee-length skirt inside the dargah premises.
Filming a sequence for Namaste London, which featured Kaif wearing a knee-length skirt inside Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti's dargah in Ajmer, over 140 km from here, had created uproar among 'khadims' (servers) and the shrine administration.
A similar notice has been issued to actor Rishi Kapoor, director Vipul Shah and Babu Bhair Goshi, the shooting arranger for rolling the cameras without taking prior permission of the dargah authority.
The notice reads that all the accused should feel sorry for their act or they would be sued in the court of law.
"We have located the addresses of all the people except that of Katrina, which is being searched by the committee," Dargah Nazim Abdul Alim informed.
As per Islamic traditions, women wearing skimpy outfits are not allowed into the shrine and dargah officials and the Muslim community had taken exception to Kaif's attire.
It may be mentioned here that on Oct 2, while filming a sequence of Namaste London, Kaif had walked into the dargah wearing a knee-length skirt, which had created a ruckus.
Dargah committee vice-president Sayed B. Chisti, while objecting to it, had said it was the duty of office-bearers accompanying the Bollywood team to ensure the sanctity of the shrine.
At the time of controversy, the film's director Vipul Shah had said: "There was no intention of hurting anyone's sentiments or religious feelings. Katrina's attire was in keeping with her role as a London-based NRI. We are even ready to drop the scene from the film."
Notice to Katrina Kaif, Rishi Kapoor
Indo-Asian News Service
Ajmer, November 16, 2006
Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti's dargah committee has decided to issue notice to actress Katrina Kaif for wearing a knee-length skirt inside the dargah premises.
Filming a sequence for Namaste London, which featured Kaif wearing a knee-length skirt inside Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti's dargah in Ajmer, over 140 km from here, had created uproar among 'khadims' (servers) and the shrine administration.
A similar notice has been issued to actor Rishi Kapoor, director Vipul Shah and Babu Bhair Goshi, the shooting arranger for rolling the cameras without taking prior permission of the dargah authority.
The notice reads that all the accused should feel sorry for their act or they would be sued in the court of law.
"We have located the addresses of all the people except that of Katrina, which is being searched by the committee," Dargah Nazim Abdul Alim informed.
As per Islamic traditions, women wearing skimpy outfits are not allowed into the shrine and dargah officials and the Muslim community had taken exception to Kaif's attire.
It may be mentioned here that on Oct 2, while filming a sequence of Namaste London, Kaif had walked into the dargah wearing a knee-length skirt, which had created a ruckus.
Dargah committee vice-president Sayed B. Chisti, while objecting to it, had said it was the duty of office-bearers accompanying the Bollywood team to ensure the sanctity of the shrine.
At the time of controversy, the film's director Vipul Shah had said: "There was no intention of hurting anyone's sentiments or religious feelings. Katrina's attire was in keeping with her role as a London-based NRI. We are even ready to drop the scene from the film."
Friday, August 26, 2005
Making of a documentary II
Once the format was settled, I got flying. I decided that it could not be a grim portrayal of the situation. It had to be upbeat. It had to highlight the potential without undermining the seriousness of the ground reality. When I asked Celia her take on the focus of the video, she confirmed my own angle. That was good news. I felt I could not just go and distort what she had shot in almost 10 hours of tape. If it served some higher purpose, praise be to God! Alhamdulilah! (That's something I have learned from my Arab and Muslim friends).
How do I even start? Where do I start? It was a difficult decision. In the beginning, I was only concerned to make a fund-raising video. So I started chopping up pieces that were good, and had some meaningful insights from all the individuals that were interviewed, interspersed with sights and sounds of Kathmandu and Hetauda. It was good that there were some artistic sections--no I am exaggerating! Well, I am referring to a little snippet of music that went along with this sign that said: Let there be peace! And there was a section with a Nepali folk song. I grabbed those real fast. I would definitely use them. I grabbed all the snippets with children doing their things. Then I separated out the more serious interviews with the adults.
I tried to put some humor--crosscut the serious interviews with children's upbeat natur--before the message got too depressing, or turn away viewers. I felt it was important to show the reality of the school--how it looked, how student studied. As they say a picture speaks louder than the words--ok okay, those are not the exact words, but why use a cliche when you can be creative?
I had Purna, Rob Buckley, Juliana and Elizabeth Wickwire. When I reached my first review phase, it was about 20 minutes long. I knew I had to put Kirk later, but at that point, the video was meant to be only for fund raising. So I got a little creative. I wanted to get a feedback before I went and made it unbearable to watch. I asked Bruno Pareyra, who runs Ram TV programs twice a week to view it and tell me honestly what he thought. I am glad I asked. He told me that it was hard for him to understanding English coming out of Nepali tongues. At that instance I had placed all the Ms. Wickwire's interview intact toward the latter half. That was too lengthy and had to be chopped up to prevent it from being dull--despite all the interesting facial expressions, her ability to express concisely, and create new words in the process if she had to.
I agreed with Bruno's take. That set me into a new phase....
How do I even start? Where do I start? It was a difficult decision. In the beginning, I was only concerned to make a fund-raising video. So I started chopping up pieces that were good, and had some meaningful insights from all the individuals that were interviewed, interspersed with sights and sounds of Kathmandu and Hetauda. It was good that there were some artistic sections--no I am exaggerating! Well, I am referring to a little snippet of music that went along with this sign that said: Let there be peace! And there was a section with a Nepali folk song. I grabbed those real fast. I would definitely use them. I grabbed all the snippets with children doing their things. Then I separated out the more serious interviews with the adults.
I tried to put some humor--crosscut the serious interviews with children's upbeat natur--before the message got too depressing, or turn away viewers. I felt it was important to show the reality of the school--how it looked, how student studied. As they say a picture speaks louder than the words--ok okay, those are not the exact words, but why use a cliche when you can be creative?
I had Purna, Rob Buckley, Juliana and Elizabeth Wickwire. When I reached my first review phase, it was about 20 minutes long. I knew I had to put Kirk later, but at that point, the video was meant to be only for fund raising. So I got a little creative. I wanted to get a feedback before I went and made it unbearable to watch. I asked Bruno Pareyra, who runs Ram TV programs twice a week to view it and tell me honestly what he thought. I am glad I asked. He told me that it was hard for him to understanding English coming out of Nepali tongues. At that instance I had placed all the Ms. Wickwire's interview intact toward the latter half. That was too lengthy and had to be chopped up to prevent it from being dull--despite all the interesting facial expressions, her ability to express concisely, and create new words in the process if she had to.
I agreed with Bruno's take. That set me into a new phase....
Wednesday, August 24, 2005
Making of a documentary
I had barely started to learn digital editing three months ago when I took on the challenge of producing a documentary. I am passionate about serving my home town in any way I can even though I am eight thousand miles away. But passion, as it turned out, was not enough. I also had to dig in and utilize the other two p’s—patience and perseverance.
First, I got a two-hour VHS tape from Celia (She’s a soul, I believe, who has come down to help humanity). She had reduced her 10 hours of DV tapes into 2 hours and expressed her desire to trim it to 20-30 minutes show. God bless her heart! That was a big help for me. Initially I was wavering on whether to make one cut or two—one for fund raising (maybe 20 minutes long for Celia) and the other—30 minute long—to enter into documentary festivals. Yea, I am ambitious!
I got off on a wrong foot. After a few tries, I managed to upload the 2-hour footage into a computer. The editing program we use here at the Communication, Drama and Journalism Department is Adobe Premiers 6.5. I used a swappable drive, 40 gigs. The misstep was regarding the format. Since Celia had shot it in Nepal, I assumed, she might have used PAL. Well, no! It was in NTSC—a system used in North America and Japan, she convinced me. So I uploaded the whole thing in NTSC program after a few weeks break, maybe it was a month. At this juncture I was working for the publicity of dramas we stage at our two theatres. I was not even working for the TV production yet. The first glimpse of the digital editing I had was during the production of a 30-second public service announcement for my first play publicity—Once Upon a Mattress, a mucical.
But anyhow, the first step had been taken. I was off from the starting line, to say the least. I was hoping to be Seabiscuit—a perennial underdog that pulls it off. I had started working for TV production officially, so I was getting more exposure into intricacies of editing and god forbid, the cabling of the equipments. I was so green that I cannot believe I thought I could do this. But well, it seems it is always the people who know “nada” or “muy poco” that believe they can do things the rest of the world knows better—just like George Bush believing he can graft a flourishing democracy in Iraq under the supervision of mighty US military. Sorry, I cannot help but take a shot at this folly.
But my folly was less troubling; It cost no lives, only umpteen hours of frustration. Or what other people would call frustration and I call it a learning experience—or a test of the will—or the struggle of man against the machine—or maybe the test of my will against the devious, temperamental and thwarting nature of computer software and glitches. Or it was me vs. Adobe Premiere. Most likely it was me vs. me.
To be continued…
First, I got a two-hour VHS tape from Celia (She’s a soul, I believe, who has come down to help humanity). She had reduced her 10 hours of DV tapes into 2 hours and expressed her desire to trim it to 20-30 minutes show. God bless her heart! That was a big help for me. Initially I was wavering on whether to make one cut or two—one for fund raising (maybe 20 minutes long for Celia) and the other—30 minute long—to enter into documentary festivals. Yea, I am ambitious!
I got off on a wrong foot. After a few tries, I managed to upload the 2-hour footage into a computer. The editing program we use here at the Communication, Drama and Journalism Department is Adobe Premiers 6.5. I used a swappable drive, 40 gigs. The misstep was regarding the format. Since Celia had shot it in Nepal, I assumed, she might have used PAL. Well, no! It was in NTSC—a system used in North America and Japan, she convinced me. So I uploaded the whole thing in NTSC program after a few weeks break, maybe it was a month. At this juncture I was working for the publicity of dramas we stage at our two theatres. I was not even working for the TV production yet. The first glimpse of the digital editing I had was during the production of a 30-second public service announcement for my first play publicity—Once Upon a Mattress, a mucical.
But anyhow, the first step had been taken. I was off from the starting line, to say the least. I was hoping to be Seabiscuit—a perennial underdog that pulls it off. I had started working for TV production officially, so I was getting more exposure into intricacies of editing and god forbid, the cabling of the equipments. I was so green that I cannot believe I thought I could do this. But well, it seems it is always the people who know “nada” or “muy poco” that believe they can do things the rest of the world knows better—just like George Bush believing he can graft a flourishing democracy in Iraq under the supervision of mighty US military. Sorry, I cannot help but take a shot at this folly.
But my folly was less troubling; It cost no lives, only umpteen hours of frustration. Or what other people would call frustration and I call it a learning experience—or a test of the will—or the struggle of man against the machine—or maybe the test of my will against the devious, temperamental and thwarting nature of computer software and glitches. Or it was me vs. Adobe Premiere. Most likely it was me vs. me.
To be continued…
Friday, August 19, 2005
Educational goals!
I had an interesting interview for a TA position this morning. It brought out a point that ails America. As mentioned earlier in fear and love blog, it seems the primary reason for failure of American public education system might be the "fear." There is fear that the ones with the most potential and promise might actually fulfill that potential, so the schools only meet the minimum neceassary, just in case the rest who are not the best and the brightest will not feel too bad about themselves. Similarly, there is fear to promote social good, just in case the "evil" also make use of the same facilities that can promote social harmony. No wonder, the students become apathetic and dwell in a morass of ignorance while the world continue to pay for the follies of the mighty ones. It is easier to rule a flock of sheep than pack of wolf. But the price paid for producing sheep will be beyond our imagination. The mighty shall fall when the they choose the convenience of ruling over the sheep rather than producing those who question their every move and are not afraid to let them know of their follies.
Monday, August 15, 2005
Bush's moral corruption
The deadline for the constitution for Iraq is MOnday midnight. The report is that Sunni demand will be sidelined to meet that goal--under the pressure from Bush administration. It is pretty amusing to see how the administration is downplaying its goals in Iraq of a full-fledged, prospering democracy so that they can claim "victory" and wimp out like a dog with its tail between its legs. There were many people who could have told this administration and neocons that democracy does not come from a graft but have to be rooted from cultural trnasformation. Apparently noone in the hawkish administration have learned anything about the cultural component of democracy. The price is misery to the world. But that is not all, Krugman in his opinion piece today aptly summarized Bush's agenda and approach to his governance:
"But the campaign for privatization provided an object lesson in how the administration sells its policies: by misrepresenting its goals, lying about the facts and abusing its control of government agencies. These were the same tactics used to sell both tax cuts and the Iraq war."
Was he successful in anything he attempted in his life? NO! Why would he be successful in being a president? But there is a deeper forces at work. American people are as much to blame for reelecting Bush. Being ignorant and arrogant, not using their good judgement about the lies being fed to them, taking for granted that the world had to tow to the American policy... Leadership is only a reflection of the people. Leadership is one of the most important components in a country's standings and course. Bad leadership--defined by ignorance, out of touch with reality, full of deception, unconcern for the people--world over had led those countries to their misery. Thanks to Bush and his hawkish cohorts, USA now joins that corrupt deceitful world of morally deprived leadership.
"But the campaign for privatization provided an object lesson in how the administration sells its policies: by misrepresenting its goals, lying about the facts and abusing its control of government agencies. These were the same tactics used to sell both tax cuts and the Iraq war."
Was he successful in anything he attempted in his life? NO! Why would he be successful in being a president? But there is a deeper forces at work. American people are as much to blame for reelecting Bush. Being ignorant and arrogant, not using their good judgement about the lies being fed to them, taking for granted that the world had to tow to the American policy... Leadership is only a reflection of the people. Leadership is one of the most important components in a country's standings and course. Bad leadership--defined by ignorance, out of touch with reality, full of deception, unconcern for the people--world over had led those countries to their misery. Thanks to Bush and his hawkish cohorts, USA now joins that corrupt deceitful world of morally deprived leadership.
Friday, August 12, 2005
Bush hiding behind bush (helicopter)
The news below shows the moral bankruptcy of a man who believes he has a mandate from God to impose his "foolhardy" will on the innocents and the world.
Bush ducks mother of dead soldier
President using helicopter to enter, leave Texas ranch to avoid confrontation
By ALAN FREEMAN
Friday, August 12, 2005 Updated at 3:45 AM EDT
From Friday's Globe and Mail
Washington — As the Iraq war continues to produce growing U.S. casualties and shrinking public support, President George W. Bush was forced yesterday to confront the protest of a grieving mother of a soldier killed in the war. But he still won't meet her.
As Cindy Sheehan camped out on a road leading to Mr. Bush's ranch near Crawford, Tex., for the sixth consecutive day, insisting she wants to speak to the President personally, Mr. Bush said he sympathizes with her plight, but rejected her call to pull the troops out of Iraq.
Ms. Sheehan's 24-year-old son, Casey, was killed in an ambush in Sadr City, Baghdad's sprawling Shia neighbourhood, last year, just five days after he arrived in Iraq.
"I begged him not to go," says Ms. Sheehan, 48, who travelled from her home in California to try to speak with Mr. Bush as he spends his summer vacation at his Prairie Chapel Ranch. "I said, 'I'll take you to Canada,' but he said, 'Mom, I have to go. It's my duty. My buddies are going.'
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"I don't believe his phony excuses for the war," Ms. Sheehan has said of the President. She said she believes the war is really about oil and making Mr. Bush's friends richer. "I want him to tell me why my son died."
Anti-war activists are converging on Crawford, eager to seize on Ms. Sheehan's newfound notoriety and telegenic appeal to get their message across.
On Saturday, Mr. Bush dispatched deputy national security adviser Stephen Hadley and deputy chief of staff Joe Hagin to meet with her to try to defuse the situation, but it just gave Ms. Sheehan more attention.
Mr. Hadley said that Mr. Bush is very sensitive to the losses being sustained by military families, pointing out that he has already met privately with the families of more than 200 of the fallen.
"He believes that they are engaged in a noble cause and it's terribly important for the safety and security of our country. And he respects her views, but respectfully disagrees."
Yesterday, Mr. Bush felt obliged to respond himself. "She feels strongly about her position and she has every right in the world to say what she believes," Mr. Bush told a news conference. "And I thought long and hard about her position. I've heard her position from others, which is: Get out of Iraq now. And it would be a mistake for the security of this country and the ability to lay the foundations for peace in the long run if we were to do so."
Mr. Bush said he grieves for every death in Iraq. "It breaks my heart to think about a family weeping over the loss of a loved one. I understand the anguish that some feel about the death that takes place."
Yet there was no sign Mr. Bush intends to meet Ms. Sheehan. In fact, there were reports he is travelling solely by helicopter when he leaves the ranch in an effort to avoid racing past the protester in a limousine.
"The President says he feels compassion for me," Ms. Sheehan said, "but the best way to show that compassion is by meeting with me and the other mothers and families who are here.
"All we're asking is that he sacrifice an hour out of his five-week vacation to talk to us before the next mother loses her son in Iraq."
Cal Jillson, a political scientist at Southern Methodist University in Dallas who has studied Mr. Bush's rise, said: "For him, meeting this woman face to face would be blinking. His whole game is to be confident and to appear never to doubt and never to waiver. It's this idea of determination."
And unlike government leaders in a parliamentary system who are challenged directly by their political opponents, Mr. Bush can easily shelter himself from such confrontations.
"He would not trust himself in a face-to-face meeting and neither would his staff. These guys like control," said Prof. Jillson, who added that Ms. Sheehan's protest in itself may not be that significant but it comes at a time when many Americans are reconsidering their views of the Iraq war.
Approval of Mr. Bush's handling of the conflict has dropped to as little as 34 per cent of people surveyed, according to a recent poll conducted for Newsweek magazine.
But only 33 per cent of Americans say the solution is withdrawing all troops, according to a recent Gallup Poll. Another 23 per cent say some of the troops should be withdrawn while 41 per cent say troop levels should remain the same or be increased.
Ms. Sheehan's protest comes at a particularly bloody time for U.S. troops in the war as roadside bombs aimed at patrolling soldiers have become increasingly sophisticated and lethal. According to Associated Press, at least 1,841 American troops have died in the war since March, 2003, including 37 since the beginning of August.
At his news conference, Mr. Bush said he strongly disagrees with those calling for troop withdrawal. "Pulling the troops out would send a terrible signal to the enemy ..... [that] the United States is weak and all we've got to do is intimidate and they'll leave."
Bush ducks mother of dead soldier
President using helicopter to enter, leave Texas ranch to avoid confrontation
By ALAN FREEMAN
Friday, August 12, 2005 Updated at 3:45 AM EDT
From Friday's Globe and Mail
Washington — As the Iraq war continues to produce growing U.S. casualties and shrinking public support, President George W. Bush was forced yesterday to confront the protest of a grieving mother of a soldier killed in the war. But he still won't meet her.
As Cindy Sheehan camped out on a road leading to Mr. Bush's ranch near Crawford, Tex., for the sixth consecutive day, insisting she wants to speak to the President personally, Mr. Bush said he sympathizes with her plight, but rejected her call to pull the troops out of Iraq.
Ms. Sheehan's 24-year-old son, Casey, was killed in an ambush in Sadr City, Baghdad's sprawling Shia neighbourhood, last year, just five days after he arrived in Iraq.
"I begged him not to go," says Ms. Sheehan, 48, who travelled from her home in California to try to speak with Mr. Bush as he spends his summer vacation at his Prairie Chapel Ranch. "I said, 'I'll take you to Canada,' but he said, 'Mom, I have to go. It's my duty. My buddies are going.'
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"I don't believe his phony excuses for the war," Ms. Sheehan has said of the President. She said she believes the war is really about oil and making Mr. Bush's friends richer. "I want him to tell me why my son died."
Anti-war activists are converging on Crawford, eager to seize on Ms. Sheehan's newfound notoriety and telegenic appeal to get their message across.
On Saturday, Mr. Bush dispatched deputy national security adviser Stephen Hadley and deputy chief of staff Joe Hagin to meet with her to try to defuse the situation, but it just gave Ms. Sheehan more attention.
Mr. Hadley said that Mr. Bush is very sensitive to the losses being sustained by military families, pointing out that he has already met privately with the families of more than 200 of the fallen.
"He believes that they are engaged in a noble cause and it's terribly important for the safety and security of our country. And he respects her views, but respectfully disagrees."
Yesterday, Mr. Bush felt obliged to respond himself. "She feels strongly about her position and she has every right in the world to say what she believes," Mr. Bush told a news conference. "And I thought long and hard about her position. I've heard her position from others, which is: Get out of Iraq now. And it would be a mistake for the security of this country and the ability to lay the foundations for peace in the long run if we were to do so."
Mr. Bush said he grieves for every death in Iraq. "It breaks my heart to think about a family weeping over the loss of a loved one. I understand the anguish that some feel about the death that takes place."
Yet there was no sign Mr. Bush intends to meet Ms. Sheehan. In fact, there were reports he is travelling solely by helicopter when he leaves the ranch in an effort to avoid racing past the protester in a limousine.
"The President says he feels compassion for me," Ms. Sheehan said, "but the best way to show that compassion is by meeting with me and the other mothers and families who are here.
"All we're asking is that he sacrifice an hour out of his five-week vacation to talk to us before the next mother loses her son in Iraq."
Cal Jillson, a political scientist at Southern Methodist University in Dallas who has studied Mr. Bush's rise, said: "For him, meeting this woman face to face would be blinking. His whole game is to be confident and to appear never to doubt and never to waiver. It's this idea of determination."
And unlike government leaders in a parliamentary system who are challenged directly by their political opponents, Mr. Bush can easily shelter himself from such confrontations.
"He would not trust himself in a face-to-face meeting and neither would his staff. These guys like control," said Prof. Jillson, who added that Ms. Sheehan's protest in itself may not be that significant but it comes at a time when many Americans are reconsidering their views of the Iraq war.
Approval of Mr. Bush's handling of the conflict has dropped to as little as 34 per cent of people surveyed, according to a recent poll conducted for Newsweek magazine.
But only 33 per cent of Americans say the solution is withdrawing all troops, according to a recent Gallup Poll. Another 23 per cent say some of the troops should be withdrawn while 41 per cent say troop levels should remain the same or be increased.
Ms. Sheehan's protest comes at a particularly bloody time for U.S. troops in the war as roadside bombs aimed at patrolling soldiers have become increasingly sophisticated and lethal. According to Associated Press, at least 1,841 American troops have died in the war since March, 2003, including 37 since the beginning of August.
At his news conference, Mr. Bush said he strongly disagrees with those calling for troop withdrawal. "Pulling the troops out would send a terrible signal to the enemy ..... [that] the United States is weak and all we've got to do is intimidate and they'll leave."
Saturday, August 06, 2005
Fools rush in...
where angels tread.
Remember the saying “Fools rush in where angels tread?” That is Iraq for you. This president who thinks that intelligent design is an alternate theory to evolution has proved beyond doubt that the higher one did not actually bestow him with much intelligence. But he is the president of the United States so the media is rightly interested in his views. As we all know, he believes he has a mandate from God so whatever he thinks and does is the right thing to do. That is why US is in a serious downhill slide in its so called misguided “war on terror.” Instead of winning the world on its side, which is absolutely necessary for this kind of effort, he has alienated the world against U.S.. He continues to pokes the world in the eyeball. If he had his way, he would take the world back to pre-renaissance enlightenment days.
When he meant Iraq would be democratic, did you actually believe it? It seems he demonstrates his “foolhardiness” even more successfully in Iraq. Of course, for him democratic Iraq means nothing more than a written constitution. That’s it. See, how they are already talking of precursor to another “mission accomplished” to withdraw substantial troops from Iraq. Glaringly, there is no choice—recruitment is dismal. Those willing to fight and die for Bush’s lies are dwindling by the minute.
But that is not the end of Bush and neocons’ agenda.
We are having a debate about teaching “intelligent design” as an alternate theory to Evolution? Dang! That intelligent design has obviously left some hole in Bush’s brain. But it would be interesting to see how this hacking of science will damage U.S. position further. There are ample opportunities for the up and coming civilization to consolidate their position. Everything about Bush and the conservative America smells regressive and ethnocentric world dominion views. That is not something that would help the world. Not by a long shot. Not always can the mighty one that falls can recuperate--especially when the critical point has been crossed. Let’s just hope that such a point has not been crossed yet.
Remember the saying “Fools rush in where angels tread?” That is Iraq for you. This president who thinks that intelligent design is an alternate theory to evolution has proved beyond doubt that the higher one did not actually bestow him with much intelligence. But he is the president of the United States so the media is rightly interested in his views. As we all know, he believes he has a mandate from God so whatever he thinks and does is the right thing to do. That is why US is in a serious downhill slide in its so called misguided “war on terror.” Instead of winning the world on its side, which is absolutely necessary for this kind of effort, he has alienated the world against U.S.. He continues to pokes the world in the eyeball. If he had his way, he would take the world back to pre-renaissance enlightenment days.
When he meant Iraq would be democratic, did you actually believe it? It seems he demonstrates his “foolhardiness” even more successfully in Iraq. Of course, for him democratic Iraq means nothing more than a written constitution. That’s it. See, how they are already talking of precursor to another “mission accomplished” to withdraw substantial troops from Iraq. Glaringly, there is no choice—recruitment is dismal. Those willing to fight and die for Bush’s lies are dwindling by the minute.
But that is not the end of Bush and neocons’ agenda.
We are having a debate about teaching “intelligent design” as an alternate theory to Evolution? Dang! That intelligent design has obviously left some hole in Bush’s brain. But it would be interesting to see how this hacking of science will damage U.S. position further. There are ample opportunities for the up and coming civilization to consolidate their position. Everything about Bush and the conservative America smells regressive and ethnocentric world dominion views. That is not something that would help the world. Not by a long shot. Not always can the mighty one that falls can recuperate--especially when the critical point has been crossed. Let’s just hope that such a point has not been crossed yet.
Comparing home and here
It is a good weekend for me. Tons of things to do for the last week of the second summer session. I am taking Diffusion of Innovation course with Dr. G. Armfield. It is a fascinating topic--much use in the real workd situation.
I talked ot my mother in Nepal. My $5 phone card gave me 14 minutes. That is a remarcable improvement over what used to be back in 1993 when I got here. But I paid $12.00 to a West Texas lady for a haircut--my first since January when I left Arizona. Come to think of it. I never paid more than Rs 10.00 for my haircut in Nepal. That was less than a US$ .25 at that time. It is also one of my favorite stories I tell folks in US. The other one is how much my rent was--about $20.00 for a two bedroom and a kitchen in a nice cement constructed home in Balkhu, Patan.
I talked ot my mother in Nepal. My $5 phone card gave me 14 minutes. That is a remarcable improvement over what used to be back in 1993 when I got here. But I paid $12.00 to a West Texas lady for a haircut--my first since January when I left Arizona. Come to think of it. I never paid more than Rs 10.00 for my haircut in Nepal. That was less than a US$ .25 at that time. It is also one of my favorite stories I tell folks in US. The other one is how much my rent was--about $20.00 for a two bedroom and a kitchen in a nice cement constructed home in Balkhu, Patan.
Tuesday, August 02, 2005
A Shining Example: Everest of Apple
Today, I wrote to the Everest of Apples charity in Japan, which is a unique effort to utilize community to help another community. Basically, it is designing a community-based charity model in Japan and helping community-based educatinal and development model in Hetauda, Nepal. Here is a little introduction on them:
"Everest of Apples was founded in 2002 as a nonsectarian charitable organization by the JETs of Aomori Prefecture, Japan. Everest of Apples (E of A) focuses its efforts primarily on the Prajwal School, a unique nonprofit primary school in Nepal.
E of A suppports the Prajwal School in close cooperation with NEST, a nonprofit organization in Nepal. We chose to work with NEST because of their proven commitment to addressing such important issues as gender inequality, high illiteracy rates, and poor educational standards in general. On a very basic level, E of A and NEST share both the belief that education is a right for all, and the vision of a more equitable future.
Our support of the Prajwal School is funded entirely by charitable donations, the majority of which come from members of the JET Program residing in Aomori Prefecture, Japan."
CHILDREN! EDUCATION! EQUALITY
What a wonderful vision to look forward to and work for!
"Everest of Apples was founded in 2002 as a nonsectarian charitable organization by the JETs of Aomori Prefecture, Japan. Everest of Apples (E of A) focuses its efforts primarily on the Prajwal School, a unique nonprofit primary school in Nepal.
E of A suppports the Prajwal School in close cooperation with NEST, a nonprofit organization in Nepal. We chose to work with NEST because of their proven commitment to addressing such important issues as gender inequality, high illiteracy rates, and poor educational standards in general. On a very basic level, E of A and NEST share both the belief that education is a right for all, and the vision of a more equitable future.
Our support of the Prajwal School is funded entirely by charitable donations, the majority of which come from members of the JET Program residing in Aomori Prefecture, Japan."
CHILDREN! EDUCATION! EQUALITY
What a wonderful vision to look forward to and work for!
Monday, August 01, 2005
Loneliness vs. Solitude
Loneliness
1.the state of being alone in solitary isolation [syn: solitariness]
2.sadness resulting from being forsaken or abandoned [syn: forlornness, desolation]
3.a disposition toward being alone [syn: aloneness, lonesomeness, solitude]
Solitude
1.The state or quality of being alone or remote from others.
2.A lonely or secluded place.
As we see, dictionary seems to place loneliness and solitude as synonyms, hence an equal footing. I argue that there is something deeper and more fundamental difference between these to states. They are not the same.
Here is my take. Loneliness and solitude are related to spiritual state. Loneliness is something one experiences because a person feels a spiritual disconnect with the higher one. In this disconnect, one can feel that there is no one else present, although spirit can never be alone.
Solitude is a state a soul wants because it already knows its connection to the higher spirit. Therefore, the spirit purposefully seeks solitude in order to escape from the cacophony of life to be one with the eternal source of life.
1.the state of being alone in solitary isolation [syn: solitariness]
2.sadness resulting from being forsaken or abandoned [syn: forlornness, desolation]
3.a disposition toward being alone [syn: aloneness, lonesomeness, solitude]
Solitude
1.The state or quality of being alone or remote from others.
2.A lonely or secluded place.
As we see, dictionary seems to place loneliness and solitude as synonyms, hence an equal footing. I argue that there is something deeper and more fundamental difference between these to states. They are not the same.
Here is my take. Loneliness and solitude are related to spiritual state. Loneliness is something one experiences because a person feels a spiritual disconnect with the higher one. In this disconnect, one can feel that there is no one else present, although spirit can never be alone.
Solitude is a state a soul wants because it already knows its connection to the higher spirit. Therefore, the spirit purposefully seeks solitude in order to escape from the cacophony of life to be one with the eternal source of life.
Sunday, July 31, 2005
Bush, Neocons support Osama's fondest wish
Osama’s contention was that superpowers can be defeated. At that time he was battling the Soviets in Afghanistan. We know how that ended for Soviets and led to political exacerbation within the U.S.S.R. The Soviets were defeated in many ways. Osama then turned his sights toward the remaining superpower. His blow to the U.S.A made the world gasp in horror. But that in itself could not have made USA vulnerable. He got help from the U.S.. How? You might ask.
This is how I view it. Beyond any human law, there is a divine law and there is a cycle or morality in human civilization that helps people rise and fall. Those who hold the high moral ground and value it with everything they got, prosper. First thing USA did was lost that moral high ground that had been burning bright. When Bush invaded Iraq and deposed Saddam Hussein, the sponsoring motive was not deposing an evil dictator or fighting terrorism, neither was it fighting freedom, or fighting terrorist over there in order not to fight them over here. There were all glossed over reasons to whitewash American people who are themselves willing to be lead down the path of ignorance. I have observed how ethnocentric majority of Americans are. So it was not hard to persuade them to go to war. From the gut reaction, they followed their hollow president—an immoral leader, like the ones in the rest of the countries of the world. Bush’s motives consistent with the neocons’ dreams were greed, ethno centrist aspiration and basic misplaced vengeful cowboy justice that were asynchronous with the fundamental laws of the universe.
Since the fundamental reasons of invading Iraq was morally unjustifiable, USA is now hopelessly bogged down in an attritional struggle. It is proving to be the bite that was too much to swallow. And it will turn out to be the downfall of this great nation. Wasn’t the mighty Roman Empire brought down by the Barbarians? Anyway, the prognosis goes like this.
1. The U.S. society is getting weaker from within because of the domestic policies that reward the rich and punishes the poor. It is like building a castle over the running water. The water is the tide of history. The gap between the rich and the poor is increasing. The weakest members of the society are getting shafted from all angles. From jobs and wages to healthcare and even family structure with both parents having to work and not properly bring up their kids etc. So internally its social structure is crumbling little by little. The rich are having a ball and they think the world is just fine—well, it is for them. The neocons’ hold on the political process from judicial activism is going to divide the society even severely. This in particular is going to be harder to address and will have debilitating effect on social discourse.
2. The globalization has also placed US in a weaker position. The competition is with China and India like economy and workers so the labor movement is getting weaker and losing their bargaining power. The recent split is one example. On the other hand, China is financing U.S. borrowing spree and its deficits. Once Euro becomes attractive, China might diversify its currency diversify its investment.
3. The Iraq war will be costing an arm and a leg for years to come. The money management is horrendous. Corruption and greed is fostering misuse—spell Halliburton. Bush cronies never have had it so good. The oil market is booming and they can’t get enough dough. Iraq’s spin off has been the Guantanamo prison. It is making crystal clear how the U.S. stands morally naked. At the same time, the recruiting for Osama is phenomenal. Compare that to US recruitment to sustain its troop—it is now recruiting from Guam and the likes. The shadowy world of terrorism is the perfect enemy that can bring down mighty empires. The terrorist cells are so dispersed and so autonomous, they can hit anywhere anytime that will damage U.S. interests.
I will probably elaborate more on these points in future, as I view the underlying historical march of human civilizations. But Osama believed that he could defeat both the superpowers. He just might, as he has the best associates in Bush, neocons, and American people—just like in his fight against the Soviet empire. And Iraq is a quagmire that U.S. pride will not let it go? And what does the Bible says to the Bible-loving president and the Neocons? Pride before Fall. Osama's fondest wish.
This is how I view it. Beyond any human law, there is a divine law and there is a cycle or morality in human civilization that helps people rise and fall. Those who hold the high moral ground and value it with everything they got, prosper. First thing USA did was lost that moral high ground that had been burning bright. When Bush invaded Iraq and deposed Saddam Hussein, the sponsoring motive was not deposing an evil dictator or fighting terrorism, neither was it fighting freedom, or fighting terrorist over there in order not to fight them over here. There were all glossed over reasons to whitewash American people who are themselves willing to be lead down the path of ignorance. I have observed how ethnocentric majority of Americans are. So it was not hard to persuade them to go to war. From the gut reaction, they followed their hollow president—an immoral leader, like the ones in the rest of the countries of the world. Bush’s motives consistent with the neocons’ dreams were greed, ethno centrist aspiration and basic misplaced vengeful cowboy justice that were asynchronous with the fundamental laws of the universe.
Since the fundamental reasons of invading Iraq was morally unjustifiable, USA is now hopelessly bogged down in an attritional struggle. It is proving to be the bite that was too much to swallow. And it will turn out to be the downfall of this great nation. Wasn’t the mighty Roman Empire brought down by the Barbarians? Anyway, the prognosis goes like this.
1. The U.S. society is getting weaker from within because of the domestic policies that reward the rich and punishes the poor. It is like building a castle over the running water. The water is the tide of history. The gap between the rich and the poor is increasing. The weakest members of the society are getting shafted from all angles. From jobs and wages to healthcare and even family structure with both parents having to work and not properly bring up their kids etc. So internally its social structure is crumbling little by little. The rich are having a ball and they think the world is just fine—well, it is for them. The neocons’ hold on the political process from judicial activism is going to divide the society even severely. This in particular is going to be harder to address and will have debilitating effect on social discourse.
2. The globalization has also placed US in a weaker position. The competition is with China and India like economy and workers so the labor movement is getting weaker and losing their bargaining power. The recent split is one example. On the other hand, China is financing U.S. borrowing spree and its deficits. Once Euro becomes attractive, China might diversify its currency diversify its investment.
3. The Iraq war will be costing an arm and a leg for years to come. The money management is horrendous. Corruption and greed is fostering misuse—spell Halliburton. Bush cronies never have had it so good. The oil market is booming and they can’t get enough dough. Iraq’s spin off has been the Guantanamo prison. It is making crystal clear how the U.S. stands morally naked. At the same time, the recruiting for Osama is phenomenal. Compare that to US recruitment to sustain its troop—it is now recruiting from Guam and the likes. The shadowy world of terrorism is the perfect enemy that can bring down mighty empires. The terrorist cells are so dispersed and so autonomous, they can hit anywhere anytime that will damage U.S. interests.
I will probably elaborate more on these points in future, as I view the underlying historical march of human civilizations. But Osama believed that he could defeat both the superpowers. He just might, as he has the best associates in Bush, neocons, and American people—just like in his fight against the Soviet empire. And Iraq is a quagmire that U.S. pride will not let it go? And what does the Bible says to the Bible-loving president and the Neocons? Pride before Fall. Osama's fondest wish.
Saturday, July 30, 2005
Communicating: Listening for guidance
I have talk with my landlady Billie about God quite often. It is not hard to understand the hold of religion and faith since we are indoctrinated in our formative years. Not many people believe God is communicating with them. That is not a true understanding. Here, I will share with you an important passage from the book, I have been telling you about:
The question is not to whom God talks, but who listens?
Feeling is the language of the soul. If you want to know what’s true for you about something, look to how you’re feeling about it.
Feelings are sometimes difficult to discover—and often even more difficult to acknowledge. Yet hidden in your deepest feelings is your highest truth.
I also communicate with thoughts. Thought and feelings are not the same, although they can occur at the same time. In communicating with thought, I often use images and pictures. For this reason, thoughts are more effective than mere words as tools of communication.
In addition to feelings and thoughts, I also use the vehicle of experience as a grand communicator.
And finally, when feelings and thoughts and experience all fail, I use words. Words are the least effective communicator. They are most open to misinterpretation, most often misunderstood.
Why is that? It is because of what words are. Words are merely utterances: noises that stand for feelings, thoughts, and experience. They are symbols. Signs. Insignias. They are not Truth. They are not the real thing.
Words may help you understand something. Experience allows you to know. Yet there re some things you cannot experience. So I have given you other tools of knowing.
Now the supreme irony here is that you have all placed so much importance on the Word of God, and so little on the experience.
In fact, you place so little value on experience that when what you experience of God differs from what you’ve heard of God, you automatically discard the experience and own the words, when it should be just the other way around.
Many words have been uttered by others, in My name. Many thoughts and many feelings have been sponsored by causes not of My direct creation. Many experiences result from these.
The challenge is one of discernment. The difficulty is knowing the difference between messages from God and data from other sources. Discrimination is a simple matter with the application of a basic rule:
Mine is always your Highest Thought, your Clearest Word, your Grandest Feeling. Anything less is from another source.
The question is not to whom God talks, but who listens?
Feeling is the language of the soul. If you want to know what’s true for you about something, look to how you’re feeling about it.
Feelings are sometimes difficult to discover—and often even more difficult to acknowledge. Yet hidden in your deepest feelings is your highest truth.
I also communicate with thoughts. Thought and feelings are not the same, although they can occur at the same time. In communicating with thought, I often use images and pictures. For this reason, thoughts are more effective than mere words as tools of communication.
In addition to feelings and thoughts, I also use the vehicle of experience as a grand communicator.
And finally, when feelings and thoughts and experience all fail, I use words. Words are the least effective communicator. They are most open to misinterpretation, most often misunderstood.
Why is that? It is because of what words are. Words are merely utterances: noises that stand for feelings, thoughts, and experience. They are symbols. Signs. Insignias. They are not Truth. They are not the real thing.
Words may help you understand something. Experience allows you to know. Yet there re some things you cannot experience. So I have given you other tools of knowing.
Now the supreme irony here is that you have all placed so much importance on the Word of God, and so little on the experience.
In fact, you place so little value on experience that when what you experience of God differs from what you’ve heard of God, you automatically discard the experience and own the words, when it should be just the other way around.
Many words have been uttered by others, in My name. Many thoughts and many feelings have been sponsored by causes not of My direct creation. Many experiences result from these.
The challenge is one of discernment. The difficulty is knowing the difference between messages from God and data from other sources. Discrimination is a simple matter with the application of a basic rule:
Mine is always your Highest Thought, your Clearest Word, your Grandest Feeling. Anything less is from another source.
Friday, July 29, 2005
Being One with your True Self
Begin by being still. Quiet the outer world, so that the inner world might bring you sight. This in-sight is what you seek, yet you cannot have it while you are so deeply concerned with your outer reality. Seek, therefore, to go within as much as possible. And when you are not going within, come from within you as you deal with the outside world. Remember the axiom:
If you do not go within, you go without.
Put it in the first person as you repeat it, to make it more personal:
If I do not
go within
I
Go without
You have been going without all your life. Yet you do not have to, and never did.
There is nothing you cannot be, there is nothing you cannot do. There is nothing you cannot have.
For thousands of years people have disbelieved the promise of God for the most extraordinary reason: they were too good to be true. So you have chosen a lesser promise—a lesser love. For the highest promise of God proceeds from the highest love. Yet you cannot conceive of a perfect love, and so a perfect promise is also inconceivable. As is a perfect person. Therefore you cannot believe even in your Self.
Failing to believe in any of this means failure to believe in God. For belief in God produces belief in God’s greatest gift—unconditional love—and God’s greatest promise—unlimited potential (44).
If you do not go within, you go without.
Put it in the first person as you repeat it, to make it more personal:
If I do not
go within
I
Go without
You have been going without all your life. Yet you do not have to, and never did.
There is nothing you cannot be, there is nothing you cannot do. There is nothing you cannot have.
For thousands of years people have disbelieved the promise of God for the most extraordinary reason: they were too good to be true. So you have chosen a lesser promise—a lesser love. For the highest promise of God proceeds from the highest love. Yet you cannot conceive of a perfect love, and so a perfect promise is also inconceivable. As is a perfect person. Therefore you cannot believe even in your Self.
Failing to believe in any of this means failure to believe in God. For belief in God produces belief in God’s greatest gift—unconditional love—and God’s greatest promise—unlimited potential (44).
What is hell?
I had hard time sleeping last night. I work up around 12:40. I knew I would not be able to go to sleep so I read the "Conversations... and started typing the passages I really liked. This one is about hell...according to God:
What is hell?
It is the experience of the worst possible outcome of your choices, decisions, and creations. It is the natural consequences of any thought which denies Me, or says no to Who You Are in relationship to Me.
It is the pain you suffer through wrong thinking, Yet even the term “wrong thinking” is a misnomer, because there is no such thing as that which is wrong.
Hell is the opposite of joy. It is unfulfillment. It is knowing Who and What You Are, and failing to experience that. It is being less. That is hell, and there is none greater for your soul.
But hell does not exist as this place you have fantasized, where you burn in some everlasting fire, or exist in some state of everlasting torment. What purpose could I have in that?
Even if I did hold extraordinarily unGodly thought that you did not “deserve” heaven, why would I have a need to seek some kind of revenge, or punishment, for your failing? Wouldn’t it be a simple matter for Me to just dispose of you? What vengeful part of Me would require that I subject you to eternal suffering of a type and at a level beyond description?
If you answer, the need for justice, would not a simple denial of communication with Me in heaven serve the ends of justice? Is the unending infliction of pain also required?
I tell you there is no such experience after death as you have constructed in your fear-based theologies. Yet there is an experience of the soul so unhappy, so incomplete, so less than whole, so separated from God’s greatest joy, that to your soul this would be hell. But I tell you I do not send you there, nor do I cause this experience to be visited upon you. You, yourself, create the experience, whenever and however you separate your Self from your own highest thought about you. You, yourself, create the experience, whenever you deny your Self; whenever you rest Who and What You Really Are.
Yet even this experience is never eternal. It cannot be, for it is not My plan that you shall be separated from Me forever and ever. Indeed, such a thing is an impossibility—for to achieve such an event, not only would you have to deny Who You Are—I would have to as well. This I will never do. And so long as one of us holds the truth about you, the truth about you shall ultimately prevail (40-41).
What is hell?
It is the experience of the worst possible outcome of your choices, decisions, and creations. It is the natural consequences of any thought which denies Me, or says no to Who You Are in relationship to Me.
It is the pain you suffer through wrong thinking, Yet even the term “wrong thinking” is a misnomer, because there is no such thing as that which is wrong.
Hell is the opposite of joy. It is unfulfillment. It is knowing Who and What You Are, and failing to experience that. It is being less. That is hell, and there is none greater for your soul.
But hell does not exist as this place you have fantasized, where you burn in some everlasting fire, or exist in some state of everlasting torment. What purpose could I have in that?
Even if I did hold extraordinarily unGodly thought that you did not “deserve” heaven, why would I have a need to seek some kind of revenge, or punishment, for your failing? Wouldn’t it be a simple matter for Me to just dispose of you? What vengeful part of Me would require that I subject you to eternal suffering of a type and at a level beyond description?
If you answer, the need for justice, would not a simple denial of communication with Me in heaven serve the ends of justice? Is the unending infliction of pain also required?
I tell you there is no such experience after death as you have constructed in your fear-based theologies. Yet there is an experience of the soul so unhappy, so incomplete, so less than whole, so separated from God’s greatest joy, that to your soul this would be hell. But I tell you I do not send you there, nor do I cause this experience to be visited upon you. You, yourself, create the experience, whenever and however you separate your Self from your own highest thought about you. You, yourself, create the experience, whenever you deny your Self; whenever you rest Who and What You Really Are.
Yet even this experience is never eternal. It cannot be, for it is not My plan that you shall be separated from Me forever and ever. Indeed, such a thing is an impossibility—for to achieve such an event, not only would you have to deny Who You Are—I would have to as well. This I will never do. And so long as one of us holds the truth about you, the truth about you shall ultimately prevail (40-41).
Thursday, July 28, 2005
Understanding Creation and the Self
This section is pretty powerful in our development. How to think, speak and act. Here is another exerpt from Conversations with God:
The challenge is one of discernment. The difficulty is knowing the difference between messages from God and data from other sources. Discrimination is a simple matter with the application of a basic rule:
Mine is always your Highest Thought, your Clearest Word, your Grandest Feeling. Anything less is from another source (4).
Now the task of differentiation becomes easy, for it should not be difficult even for the beginning student to identify the Highest, the Clearest, and the Grandest.
Yet will I give you these guidelines:
The Highest Thought is always that thought which contains joy. The Clearest Words are those words which contain truth. The Grandest Feeling is that feeling which you call love.
Joy, truth, love.
These three are interchangeable, and one always leads to the other. It matters not in which order they are placed.
Having with these guidelines determined which messages are Mine and which have come from another source, the only question remaining is whether My messages will be heeded.
Most of My messages are not. Some because they seem too good to be true. Others, because they seem too difficult to follow. Many, because they are simply misunderstood. Most, because they are not received.
My most powerful messenger is experience, and even this you ignore. Especially this you ignore. Your world would not be in its present condition were you to have simply listened to your experience. The result of your not listening to your experience is that you keep re-living it, over and over again. For My purpose will not be thwarted, nor My will be ignored. You will get the message. Sooner or later.
I will not force you to, however. I will never coerce you. For I have given you a free will—the power to do as you choose—and I will never take that away from you, ever.
And so I will continue sending you the same message over and over again, throughout the millennia and to whatever corner of the universe you occupy. Endlessly will I send you My messages, until you have received them and held them close, calling them your own (5).
My messages will come in a hundred forms, at a thousand moments, across a million years. You cannot miss them if you truly listen. You cannot ignore them once truly heard. Thus will our communication begin in earnest. For in the past you have only talked to Me, praying to Me, interceding with Me, beseeching Me. Yet now can I talk back to you, even as I am doing here (6).
If you believe that God is some omnipotent being who hears all prayers, says “yes” to some, “no” to others, and “maybe, but not now” to the rest, you are mistaken. By what rule of thumb would God decide?
If you believe that God is the creator and decider or all things in your life, you are mistaken.
God is observer, not the creator. And God stands ready to assist you in living your life, but not in the way you might expect.
It is not God’s function to create, or uncreate, the circumstances or conditions of your life. God created you, in the image and likeness of God. You have created the rest, through the power God has given you. God created the process of life and life itself as you know it. Yet God gave you free choice, to do with life as you know it.
In this sense, your will for you is God’s will for you.
You are living your life the way you are living your life, and I have no preference in the matter.
This is the grand illusion in which you have engaged: that God cares one way or the other what you do.
I do not care what you do, and that is hard for you to hear. Yet do you care what your children do when you send them out to play? Is it a matter of consequence to you whether they play tag, or hide and seek, or pretend? No, it is not, because you know they are perfectly safe. You have placed them in an environment which you consider friendly and very okay (13).
Of course, you will always hope that they do not hurt themselves. And it they do, you will be right there to help them, heal them, allow them to feel safe again, to be happy again, to go and play again, another day. But whether they choose hide and seek or pretend will not matter to you the next day, either.
You will tell them, of course, which games are dangerous to play. But you cannot stop your children from doing dangerous things. Not always. Not forever. Not in every moment from now until death. It is the wise parent who knows this. Yet the parents never stops caring about the outcome. It is this dichotomy—not caring deeply about the process, but caring deeply about the result—that comes close to describing the dichotomy of God.
Yet God, in a sense, does not even care about the outcome. Not the ultimate outcome. This is because the ultimate outcome is assured.
And this is the second grand illusion of man: that the outcome of life is in doubt.
It is this doubt about ultimate outcome that has created your greatest enemy, which is fear. For it you doubt outcome, you must doubt Creator—you must doubt God. And if you doubt God, you must live in fear and guilt all your life.
If you doubt God’s intentions—and God’s ability to produce this ultimate result-then how can you ever relax? How can you ever truly find peace?
Yet God has full power to match intentions with results. You cannot and will not believe in this (even though you claim that God is all-powerful), and so you have to create in your imagination a power equal to God, in order that you might find a way for God’s will to be thwarted. And so you have created in your mythology the being you call “devil.” You have even imagined a God at war with this being (thinking that God solves problems the way you do). Finally, you have actually imagined that God could lose this war.
All of this violates everything you say you know about God, but this doesn’t matter. You live your illusion, and thus fuel your fear, all out of your decision to doubt God (14-15).
But what if you made a new decision? What then would be the result?
I tell you this: you would live as the Buddha did. As Jesus did. As did every saint you have ever idolized (15).
The challenge is one of discernment. The difficulty is knowing the difference between messages from God and data from other sources. Discrimination is a simple matter with the application of a basic rule:
Mine is always your Highest Thought, your Clearest Word, your Grandest Feeling. Anything less is from another source (4).
Now the task of differentiation becomes easy, for it should not be difficult even for the beginning student to identify the Highest, the Clearest, and the Grandest.
Yet will I give you these guidelines:
The Highest Thought is always that thought which contains joy. The Clearest Words are those words which contain truth. The Grandest Feeling is that feeling which you call love.
Joy, truth, love.
These three are interchangeable, and one always leads to the other. It matters not in which order they are placed.
Having with these guidelines determined which messages are Mine and which have come from another source, the only question remaining is whether My messages will be heeded.
Most of My messages are not. Some because they seem too good to be true. Others, because they seem too difficult to follow. Many, because they are simply misunderstood. Most, because they are not received.
My most powerful messenger is experience, and even this you ignore. Especially this you ignore. Your world would not be in its present condition were you to have simply listened to your experience. The result of your not listening to your experience is that you keep re-living it, over and over again. For My purpose will not be thwarted, nor My will be ignored. You will get the message. Sooner or later.
I will not force you to, however. I will never coerce you. For I have given you a free will—the power to do as you choose—and I will never take that away from you, ever.
And so I will continue sending you the same message over and over again, throughout the millennia and to whatever corner of the universe you occupy. Endlessly will I send you My messages, until you have received them and held them close, calling them your own (5).
My messages will come in a hundred forms, at a thousand moments, across a million years. You cannot miss them if you truly listen. You cannot ignore them once truly heard. Thus will our communication begin in earnest. For in the past you have only talked to Me, praying to Me, interceding with Me, beseeching Me. Yet now can I talk back to you, even as I am doing here (6).
If you believe that God is some omnipotent being who hears all prayers, says “yes” to some, “no” to others, and “maybe, but not now” to the rest, you are mistaken. By what rule of thumb would God decide?
If you believe that God is the creator and decider or all things in your life, you are mistaken.
God is observer, not the creator. And God stands ready to assist you in living your life, but not in the way you might expect.
It is not God’s function to create, or uncreate, the circumstances or conditions of your life. God created you, in the image and likeness of God. You have created the rest, through the power God has given you. God created the process of life and life itself as you know it. Yet God gave you free choice, to do with life as you know it.
In this sense, your will for you is God’s will for you.
You are living your life the way you are living your life, and I have no preference in the matter.
This is the grand illusion in which you have engaged: that God cares one way or the other what you do.
I do not care what you do, and that is hard for you to hear. Yet do you care what your children do when you send them out to play? Is it a matter of consequence to you whether they play tag, or hide and seek, or pretend? No, it is not, because you know they are perfectly safe. You have placed them in an environment which you consider friendly and very okay (13).
Of course, you will always hope that they do not hurt themselves. And it they do, you will be right there to help them, heal them, allow them to feel safe again, to be happy again, to go and play again, another day. But whether they choose hide and seek or pretend will not matter to you the next day, either.
You will tell them, of course, which games are dangerous to play. But you cannot stop your children from doing dangerous things. Not always. Not forever. Not in every moment from now until death. It is the wise parent who knows this. Yet the parents never stops caring about the outcome. It is this dichotomy—not caring deeply about the process, but caring deeply about the result—that comes close to describing the dichotomy of God.
Yet God, in a sense, does not even care about the outcome. Not the ultimate outcome. This is because the ultimate outcome is assured.
And this is the second grand illusion of man: that the outcome of life is in doubt.
It is this doubt about ultimate outcome that has created your greatest enemy, which is fear. For it you doubt outcome, you must doubt Creator—you must doubt God. And if you doubt God, you must live in fear and guilt all your life.
If you doubt God’s intentions—and God’s ability to produce this ultimate result-then how can you ever relax? How can you ever truly find peace?
Yet God has full power to match intentions with results. You cannot and will not believe in this (even though you claim that God is all-powerful), and so you have to create in your imagination a power equal to God, in order that you might find a way for God’s will to be thwarted. And so you have created in your mythology the being you call “devil.” You have even imagined a God at war with this being (thinking that God solves problems the way you do). Finally, you have actually imagined that God could lose this war.
All of this violates everything you say you know about God, but this doesn’t matter. You live your illusion, and thus fuel your fear, all out of your decision to doubt God (14-15).
But what if you made a new decision? What then would be the result?
I tell you this: you would live as the Buddha did. As Jesus did. As did every saint you have ever idolized (15).
Turning points in life
Reflection of one’s life is an important tool to gauge one’s own place and destination. I can identify certain points in my life that changed the course to get to the point I am today.
1. Before I was even 6 months old, I had a bout of double-pneumonia. In the just settled area of the inner-Terai there were no medical facilities. A “compounder”(a junior healthcare provider) who checked me gave his verdict: it was all up to the higher one, he had no remedy to offer. Followers of Ruth Montgomery would accept that at this juncture a “walk-in soul” inhabited my body. I believe there was no reason for me to survive, otherwise.
2. In 1973 I won a national scholarship to attend an elite school in Kathmandu after coming first in the district level entrance exam. I remember being posed questions in math that I had never heard of before. They were later found to be binomial math. Apparently I did well.
3. In 1980, I was on the top 10 in the national School Leaving Certificate (SLC) exam, first ever for someone from my Makwanpur district. It gave me a mini celebraity status in my community in that people liked being seen in my company and took pride in telling they knew me personally. But that created an expectation that would propel my future path. “You have to get out of here, you’ve no future in Nepal,” people would tell me.
4. In 1988, I was still in Nepal. I had not done well in the science campus after I had excelled in school. It was a different culture. Most of my peers had gone abroad to study. I had completed my two-year stint at Civil Engineering College. I got hired at Sindhupalchok-Dolkha Landslide Project (SDLP) a Swiss emergency relief project designed to help the victims of flood and landslide from the previous monsoon. Stationed in a remote area called Budepa (3:30 hours walk from the nearest road head). I was a site supervisor for constructing a suspended bridge. Many children would come to ask for work since their parents had been neglecting them. Nearest school was about an hour walk for them. At that time I felt that to change things in Nepal, it has to be done at the policy level from the top. In order to achieve that one had to get a higher degree. My resolve to do that took me to Lincoln School as a first step in understanding if I could handle the US education. I felt I was more than able to.
5. My most significant turning point came in 2004. I call it my moment of epiphany or providence. I had made it all way into the doctoral program in Arizona State University when I got married in 2001. Things had gone horribly wrong—mental illness played a big part in it. But I agreed for a divorce in 2004. Needless to say, I was stranded in a strange city with all the odds stacked against me, barely a friend, and practically homeless. During on one of my morning prayer sessions walking around the lake in front of the city hall of Rapid City, I stood facing the rising sun and watched the glorious reflection in the lake. There the moment occurred.
6. I had been volunteering for Stephanie Herseth’s Congressional campaign and had met some good people. After my divorce was finalized I decided to return to Arizona as an out-of-state volunteer for Kerry-Edwards campaign. That move brought me in contact with fine people like families of Harriet MacCracken and Ed Stump whose compassion and help brought me back to Angelo State University to complete my second Master’s degree (Communication).
7. I found Nepal Education Support Trust (NEST). I used to search the Internet for developments in my home town trying to find people or organization who I could help make difference. Through NEST I have now become affiliated with people around the world who believe in making a difference through interpersonal efforts.
8. I came across the Neale Donald Walsch book. More turning points remain, for sure. And I will be there to reflect on my life in constant search of grandest vision, purest thoughts, and truest joy.
1. Before I was even 6 months old, I had a bout of double-pneumonia. In the just settled area of the inner-Terai there were no medical facilities. A “compounder”(a junior healthcare provider) who checked me gave his verdict: it was all up to the higher one, he had no remedy to offer. Followers of Ruth Montgomery would accept that at this juncture a “walk-in soul” inhabited my body. I believe there was no reason for me to survive, otherwise.
2. In 1973 I won a national scholarship to attend an elite school in Kathmandu after coming first in the district level entrance exam. I remember being posed questions in math that I had never heard of before. They were later found to be binomial math. Apparently I did well.
3. In 1980, I was on the top 10 in the national School Leaving Certificate (SLC) exam, first ever for someone from my Makwanpur district. It gave me a mini celebraity status in my community in that people liked being seen in my company and took pride in telling they knew me personally. But that created an expectation that would propel my future path. “You have to get out of here, you’ve no future in Nepal,” people would tell me.
4. In 1988, I was still in Nepal. I had not done well in the science campus after I had excelled in school. It was a different culture. Most of my peers had gone abroad to study. I had completed my two-year stint at Civil Engineering College. I got hired at Sindhupalchok-Dolkha Landslide Project (SDLP) a Swiss emergency relief project designed to help the victims of flood and landslide from the previous monsoon. Stationed in a remote area called Budepa (3:30 hours walk from the nearest road head). I was a site supervisor for constructing a suspended bridge. Many children would come to ask for work since their parents had been neglecting them. Nearest school was about an hour walk for them. At that time I felt that to change things in Nepal, it has to be done at the policy level from the top. In order to achieve that one had to get a higher degree. My resolve to do that took me to Lincoln School as a first step in understanding if I could handle the US education. I felt I was more than able to.
5. My most significant turning point came in 2004. I call it my moment of epiphany or providence. I had made it all way into the doctoral program in Arizona State University when I got married in 2001. Things had gone horribly wrong—mental illness played a big part in it. But I agreed for a divorce in 2004. Needless to say, I was stranded in a strange city with all the odds stacked against me, barely a friend, and practically homeless. During on one of my morning prayer sessions walking around the lake in front of the city hall of Rapid City, I stood facing the rising sun and watched the glorious reflection in the lake. There the moment occurred.
6. I had been volunteering for Stephanie Herseth’s Congressional campaign and had met some good people. After my divorce was finalized I decided to return to Arizona as an out-of-state volunteer for Kerry-Edwards campaign. That move brought me in contact with fine people like families of Harriet MacCracken and Ed Stump whose compassion and help brought me back to Angelo State University to complete my second Master’s degree (Communication).
7. I found Nepal Education Support Trust (NEST). I used to search the Internet for developments in my home town trying to find people or organization who I could help make difference. Through NEST I have now become affiliated with people around the world who believe in making a difference through interpersonal efforts.
8. I came across the Neale Donald Walsch book. More turning points remain, for sure. And I will be there to reflect on my life in constant search of grandest vision, purest thoughts, and truest joy.
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