Heaven can wait

I was reading some meditations from the Dalai Lama today and he stated that after death experiences(dissolution of the elements of the body) is accompanied by experiences of light. First there is white light(conforms to research on near death experiences) the red, black and finally clear light. He further states that all these lights can be experienced thru meditation and that thru this practice one can experience the dissolution process. Boy some people are going to be disappointed! Heaven or afterlife concepts exist in many religions. They tend to reflect cultural experiences of that society. Christianty has created a heaven of gold, Islam a heaven of paradise as viewed by a desert dweller, some Buddhist sects create a Pure Land for the soul to experience. Hindus go for reincarnation, a process that can be manipulated in this life by certain acts. It seems everyone wants to bring along the ego. And that, primarily is what dies when the body machine quits working. The soul( or rather that energy that sustains us) continues, but without the baggage of the illusion of ego. People believe strongly in their different heavens. The belief motivates suicide bombers with promise of paradise. Christian heaven seems a well ordered medieval state with god enthroned and various cherubim and seraphim singing his praises endlessly. Yet, if one reads the Tibetan Book of the Dead, death appears to be a journey taken by the soul as the body dies and ego begins to fade(like batteries running low on a flashlight) Tibetan Buddhists stress the need of this road map( the Book of the Dead) for a successful journey. But where do "we" go. "We" don't go anywhere, but energy cannot be destroyed, so some kind of transformation takes place, but it ceratinly ain't heaven.
Being 64, one begins to be concerned with these things. I watched a holy man die once,(long story)his final thoughts were on what he could do(with exceeding limited options, as he was almost comatose) for some one else. His death cleansed me of some guilt i carried and he dedicated part of his death to teach me this. He died well. I reckon thats pretty important.

Swine flu... A view from the backwoods

All is shit about the swine flu! Everywhere in the news, hand sanitizer sold out,vacation plans scraped, USA and Mexico on Foreign Ministry "danger" lists, pending impact on the bad economy, imminent doom, etc. Obama says no big deal, and ya know I believe him.Not for the same reasons, Obama doesn't want to spook the nation(Remember Tom Ridge's threat colors?), I believe it's mostly hype. The news media has been going thru withdrawal since the election is over and war is played out. They have been reduced to giving valuable time to the likes of Palin/Johnson,Cheney,Limbaugh and American Idol. You know its a slow news day. Now we have DISASTER looming and the media is right there. Interviews with talking heads spell pandemic. It sells news, period. I have begun to believe that modern man (Homo Sapiens Phukdupus) is mostly concerned with making money( at least in the "west", in the "east" religion holds a greater attraction) Lives have been taken, nations destroyed, a planet raped, the future endangered and little people squeezed in the name of the Almighty dollar. Mammon has become the new god.
Of course, my lady, who lost relatives in the 1918 flu and possesses the verbal lore from then, sees it pretty different. She works with the public, I live in the woods. Different take. Don't have no hand sanitizer, no blue masks, no stockpile of tamiflu and I,m not losing sleep. Nuff said.

There's reason,

Who'd a thought? Just thought they were crazy, Black,Muslim etc. Piracy as "holy war" maybe? Now it seems the Somali's are pissed and for very good reason. Illegal fishing has cleaned their waters and put them out of the fishing business and certain nations and corporations have been using the Somali coast as a toxic and radioactive dump site. In fact Somalia has begged the UN to do something about these things " or we have no way to support ourselves" The world ignored them and the UN ignored them, Black,Muslim, ailed state, no one was going to waste time or money on that. So now we have piracy. Gee, I guess they found a way to support themselves,huh. I don,t condone the actions of the pirates, but I also don't condone of Western attitude which fails to see what the cause of such behavior is, and realizing that eliminating the cause might just end the piracy. No they don't think that way. It's modern Middle Eastern history in a nutshell, a failure of the West to look at Islam as they look at themselves,using labels, generalities hate, and all the tactics of war instead. Palestinians, Iraqis, Afghanis, Somalis etc. all have reasons for their behaviors. America will never succeed in the Middle East as Israel's defender. We need to look at the history and recent events in these nations we now call enemy, find the cause of the agony and address it. Peace may come that way.
Here's Google news on Somalia and the UN

UN envoy decries illegal fishing, waste dumping off Somalia

Jul 25, 2008

UNITED NATIONS (AFP) — The UN special envoy for Somalia on Friday sounded the alarm about rampant illegal fishing and the dumping of toxic waste off the coast of the lawless African nation.

"Because there is no (effective) government, there is so much irregular fishing from European and Asian countries," Ahmedou Ould Abdallah told reporters.

He said he had asked several international non-governmental organizations, including Global Witness, which works to break the links between natural resource exploitation, conflict, corruption, and human rights abuses worldwide, "to trace this illegal fishing, illegal dumping of waste."

"It is a disaster off the Somali coast, a disaster (for) the Somali environment, the Somali population," he added.

Ould Abdallah said the phenomenon helps fuel the endless civil war in Somalia as the illegal fishermen are paying corrupt Somali ministers or warlords for protection or to secure fake licenses.

East African waters, particularly off Somalia, have huge numbers of commercial fish species, including the prized yellowfin tuna.

Foreign trawlers reportedly use prohibited fishing equipment, including nets with very small mesh sizes and sophisticated underwater lighting systems, to lure fish to their traps.

"I am convinced there is dumping of solid waste, chemicals and probably nuclear (waste).... There is no government (control) and there are few people with high moral ground," Ould Abdallah added.

Allegations of waste dumping off Somalia by European companies have been heard for years, according to Somalia watchers. The problem was highlighted in the wake of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami when broken hazardous waste containers washed up on Somali shores.

But world attention has recently focused on piracy off Somalia, which has taken epidemic proportions since the country sank into chaos after warlords ousted the late president Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991.

Somalia's coastal waters are now considered to be among the most dangerous in the world, with more than 25 ships seized by pirates there last year despite US navy patrols, according to the International Maritime Bureau.

Some Somali pirates have reportedly claimed to be acting as "coastguards" protecting their waters from illegal fishing and dumping of toxic waste.

Ould Abdallah cited the case of a Spanish trawler captured by pirates while illegally fishing for tuna off Somalia in April.

He said payment of a ransom for the release of the crew "was done in a very sophisticated manner" with the pirates arranging by phone "to be paid in Macau."

The Spanish government said in late April that it paid no ransom to secure the release of the crew of the Playa de Bakio after six days of captivity. But Andrew Mwangura of the Kenya chapter of the Seafarers Assistance Program then said a ransom of 1.2 million dollars (768,000 euros) was paid.

On Friday, Estonia urged the European Union to take stronger action against Somali pirates attacking cargo ships bound for Europe, after an Estonian sailor was held hostage for 41 days.

On Sunday pirates seized a 52,000-tonne Japanese vessel and its 21 crew members off the Somali coast.

The heroine of the Republican party

No, it's not Caribou Barbie. It's Meghan McCain. The more I hear about this girl, the more I like her. OK she likes wearing black, digs punk music, has gays among her social contacts and it battling a weight problem. But she is a visionary. She can see that the future of her political party is in danger if it continues to be hijacked by the far right fringe and fundamentalist bigots. She is willing to fight or it. She is not going to let the Republican party fragment without giving the moderates of that party a chance to express their views. She is young and may well represent a sizable contingent of new republicans. Hopefully her brand of republicanism will spell the death knell for the like of Limbaugh and Coulter. Meghan is Republican I can like.

Republicans split!

Today the republican party broke.Far right wingers like Limbaugh,Coulter,Palin, Cheney and the secessionist governor of Texas have barricaded themselves behind some positions that are silly and down right unAmerican. Megan McCain(THE rising republican star) is trying to open a dialogue with Republican gays and stand up for thier rights. Other members of McCain's campaign support her. Bobby Jindal told Cheney to shut up, basically. Hooray for the moderates of the Republican party, they have some sense. Now the crazies, well they just got crazier, a black cheif executive and now Gay republicans. Oh boy there world is shrinking. Watch out for these folks, they will become dangerous in coming future. Thats a prediction.

American hubris

America has been arrogant as a super power. We inherit, from our Anglo-Germanic core, that sense of superiority that spawned British imperialism and the Nazis. We expect other nations to see the perfection of our system and way of life and we are glad to force it upon them. We believe, as the Brits and Nazis did, that we are obliged to create a new world order based on our inate superiority over everyone else. It is also the patriotic pablum fed by hate mongers like Limbaugh and Fox news to America's great white unwashed. Uneducated and very pleased to be a member of a superior race, they still in their trailers, draw disability and curse change. As the system continues or tries to fleece the middle classes of everything in order to enrich the few, it's going to trickle down to "Joe Sixpack" and when it hits wallet he"s gonna turn on his Republican masters and realize he's getting hurt the most. He won't become a democrat, he's new force in American politics, a throwback to the isolationist polices America hid behind for most of her years. Already there are rumors of secession, downright sedition, and organized resistance. Where its masters are fascists or downright racists I woudn't know. But they scare the shit out of me.

Civil War????

Recently, there have been some interesting trends. Recruitment in far right wing militant organizations( read white supremist) has increased,national media figures like Rush Limbaugh have made statements that border on sedition, conservative politicians have echoed those seditious ideas,Tea parties have sprung up to protest bailouts and today the governor of Texas let slip that secession is certainly an option. Chuck Norris has apparently thrown his hat into the ring for President of Texas! But its not really about taxes, national debt,or bailouts,all a result of the failure of Bush 43. Its about race, pure and simple. We have an African American President and alot of whites don't really like that. He's been portrayed as the Antichrist and a Muslim. People who live on a steady diet of Fox news and Limbaugh have been stoked into a fury. Many of them come from sectors of the population that can best described as poor, uneducated, and white. Rednecks, If you will. Rednecks are no longer an exclusive Southern phenomenon, they cross the Mason Dixon line and embrace rural, poor and working class(whats left of it) white America. They can be swayed by propaganda that heralds a Muslim desire to conquer the world, they still salivate when communist and socialist labels are thrown about. ( Well indoctrinated during the cold war) For those with half a mind, there are plenty of books and movie "documentaries" to inspire more hate. What's next, civil war? Didn't we fight that one already?