California Free Press

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Off the Top of My Head

Gamers Killing Innocent People

by John Lawrence, August 31, 2018

Two recent incidents involving gamers: 1) Wrong way driver in San Diego takes out mother and daughter on freeway. 2) Shooter in Florida at gaming event. The question might be asked: is gaming really an unhealthy obsession? The San Diego Union reported:

"The 18-year-old who sped the wrong way down state Route 805 Thursday, crashing into a SUV and killing himself, a 12-year-old girl and her mother, was a YouTube star who had made a small fortune in video gaming gambling, according to authorities and hundreds of gaming fans on Twitter.

"The California Highway Patrol identified him Friday as Trevor Heitmann of San Diego."

So this young dude had plenty of money he made off of gambling on YouTube and a $250,000 hand made car. Evidently, he knew what he was doing as there were other bizarre incidents involving him that day. Was he on drugs? Whatever his personal circumstances, he had no consideration for the two beautiful, innocent people that he erased from the earth. If he was rich from his ill gotten YouTube gains, his entire estate should go to the family that he destroyed as compensation for this insidious act.

Two people were also killed at a Jacksonville, FL gaming tournament when a fellow gamer gunman opened fire. The occasion was a tournament for competitive players of the football video game, Madden. The winners would go on to a higher level tournament in Las Vegas in October, where large cash prizes could be won. So why is so much money connected with gaming. Most of these guys are young kids, and yet they can make millions of dollars gambling? Is this a healthy lifestyle?

The shooter was David Katz, a 24 year old. According to CNN, Katz went by the gaming name, "Bread", and previously won Madden tournaments in 2017. In February 2017, the Buffalo Bills tweeted out a picture of him after he won the Madden 17 Bills Championship. "Congrats to David Katz, the Madden 17 Bills Championship winner! Thanks for following along, Bills fans," the tweet read. In an interview after the win with former Buffalos Bills player Steve Tasker, Katz talked about his prowess. "I think personally I'm one of the better players," he said.

Heitmann, described on Twitter as “McSkillet”, regularly posted YouTube videos about his websites, CSGOMagic and skin.game, devoted to the Counter-Strike video game and gambling. He posted a video in December of the black McLaren 650S he had bought some months earlier. Without appearing on camera himself, he shows close-ups of the car interior, back end and full view with open wing-like doors. He describes the car as “pretty damn insane” and said he could afford it because he had “made a ton” of money online, with nearly 900,000 subscribers. Reportedly, the McLaren can reach a speed of 200 mph.

Some friends of Heitmann tweeted that McSkillet had lost his income when the Counter-Strike game developer, Valve, “banned his life’s work” in selling slick decals, or “skins” for virtual gaming guns and other toys. Kevin Hitt, editor in chief of VPesport.com online gaming news outlet, said Valve, under constraints from the state of Washington gambling commission, confiscated about $200,000 worth of McSkillet’s skins and shut down his ability to acquire more. Hitt said McSkillet, and others in the gaming gambling world, would take bets on the potential value of skins, and third-party sites would use software to assign a dollar value to different styles of skins, based on their relative rarity. Other sites would make the payouts to betters, taking a commission.

This is all pretty hard to believe. This guy bought and sold skins for some virtual game and then took bets on how much the skins were worth based on their rarity or how much somebody was willing to pay for them? It boggles the mind that there could be so much money involved in something that has no, I repeat no, redeeming social value. These games are allowing young people to get involved in gambling. They are encouraging gambling with all the seamy Las Vegas culture that goes along with it.

No wonder that innocent people are getting killed. The whole gaming world is looney tunes. And the Pizarro family should get young Heitmann's estate.

Posted at 08:11 AM in John Lawrence, American Culture, Entertainment, Looney Tunes, Off the Top of my Head | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 30, 2018

Climate change: local efforts won't be enough to undo Trump's inaction, study says

By Oliver Milman. From The Guardian

August 30, 2018

The onus still falls on national governments to cut emissions to stave off the worst impacts of climate change, Yale researchers say

Oliver Milman

@olliemilman

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The emissions cuts promised by cities and businesses fall short of enabling countries to avoid breaching agreed thresholds for dangerous warming Photograph: Jim Cole/AP

Individual cities, regions and businesses across the globe are banding together determinedly to confront climate change - but their emissions reductions are relatively small and don’t fully compensate for a recalcitrant US under the Trump administration, a new study has found.

A cavalcade of city mayors, regional government representatives and business executives from around the world will convene in San Francisco next month for a major summit touting the role of action beyond national governments to stave off the worst impacts of climate change.

But the greenhouse gas cuts offered up by these entities are relatively modest, according to new research, placing the onus on nations to raise their ambitions even as the US, the world’s second largest emitter, looks to exit the landmark Paris climate agreement.

An evaluation of climate change pledges by nearly 6,000 cities, states and regions, representing 7% of the global population, and more than 2,000 companies that have a combined revenue comparable to the size of the US economy, found a total projected reduction of between 1.5bn to 2.2bn tons of greenhouse gases by 2030.

But globally these emissions cuts fall short of enabling countries to avoid breaching agreed thresholds for dangerous warming that will trigger increased heatwaves, mightier storms, rising seas and displacement of people.

“When we look at the individual pledges [by cities, regions and businesses] the impact isn’t that large so we absolutely need national governments to pull through and do a lot of the heavy lifting,” said Dr Angel Hsu, the director of Data-Driven Yale, which led the study.

“The actions of cities, companies and states aren’t insignificant but they can’t do it by themselves. This shows everyone can be doing more. The current reductions are woefully inadequate and hopefully the actions of other entities will give national governments the confidence to be more ambitious.”

The analyzed reductions, taken from nine high-emitting countries such as the US, China, India and Brazil, as well as the European Union, overlap with some national efforts that increase the total contribution of emissions cuts.

But this action isn’t sufficient to bridge a gap between the Paris agreement’s goal to avoid 2C (3.6F) of global warming, with an aspiration of avoiding a 1.5C increase, and the insufficient emissions reductions put forward by the deal’s nearly 200 national signatories.

The agenda of the Trump administration risks making this goal even more challenging. Trump has promised to withdraw the US from the Paris agreement and has unveiled a plan to weaken vehicle emissions standards that could result in more than 1bn tons of extra carbon dioxide over the next 15 years. Last week, Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency announced a watered-down climate policy for the energy sector that might even result in emissions rising from coal plants.

Even if every Paris commitment is fully implemented, the world is on track to warm by around 3.3C by the end of the century. Pledges by the likes of Berlin, the Coca-Cola company or even an economic powerhouse like California “while welcome, are not sufficient”, said John Sterman, the director of the MIT system dynamics group.

“The world is in a desperate race between accelerating climate change and the innovation needed to cut emissions before it’s too late,” said Sterman. “Cities, states, and business are in the lead, but they face stiff headwinds from weak national policies and the continued efforts of fossil fuel interests to undermine the innovation we need.”

“We are already in an overshoot situation and it’s likely we are already going to have to need to remove carbon from the air,” said Klaus Lackner, the director of center for negative carbon emissions at Arizona State University. “The idea we just tighten our belt a bit isn’t going to solve the problem. We need to stop using the atmosphere as a dumping ground, abandon fossil fuels, find other sources of energy and deal with the carbon debt we already have.

“Cities getting involved is good and important but we haven’t really acknowledged how big and serious the challenge is. We are whistling in the dark.”

Posted at 08:48 AM in Climate Change, Global Warming | Permalink | Comments (0)

We Are Free to Use Consciousness for Good or Evil

Dear friends,

David Bohm, physicist, said that humans are a clue to the universe. That is a startling statement but one which, on reflection, makes great sense. We are conscious beings. Surely that means the origin of Life is consciousness. We did not arise out of a vacuum, but are now the evidence of preexisting conscious intelligence. Granted, we do not always act intelligently, yet nonetheless, we are using intelligence to do it!

Since humans are capable of Love at all points in its spectrum, everything from indifference to Oneness with, Love must be the driving force that draws things together that belong together (as said by Dr. Ernest Holmes). Wherever we are on the spectrum, draws to us a co-responding experience. The universe seems to be the activity of Love and Intelligence in the purest of formless potential (Spirit) turning into matter. Actually, projecting into matter would be more accurate.

What about the terrible things humans do to each other and their planet? Does that mean that consciousness is something governing us and that what we are conscious of (believe) causes us to act in certain ways? Yes. Volition is the key. We are free to do what we will with what we’ve got to work with; what we’ve got to work with is at one and the same time, our innate nature of Love and Intelligence, and/or our local limited beliefs. The more we release old ideas and embrace our true nature of Love and Intelligence, the more likely we are to act in a way that proves our identity as the projection of Spirit.

In many ways, the universe is a mystery. But at the same time, it is so simple. Consciousness creates. Consciousness precedes form. Consciousness is both attractor and repellant. Consciousness is Spirit residing in us as boundless potential. What shall we do with it?

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes

Thursday, August 23, 2018

Posted at 08:08 AM in Dr. Carol Carnes, Living Consciously | Permalink | Comments (0)

Off the Top of My Head

The British Are Coming! The British Are Coming!

by John Lawrence, August 30, 2018

A recent Frontline report painted in dire terms the perfidious activities of Russian hackers who dared to intervene in our sacrosanct American elections. Just think. They posted ads on Facebook and used bots to spread rumors about Hillary. This could be easily fixed if Facebook wasn't so greedy that they wanted more and more eyeballs, any eyeballs, to view their crappy site. The more eyeballs looking supposedly at their ads, the more money they make. I've got news for you, Facebook. Check out your advertisers before you let them place an ad. I know. I know. This will result in a loss of money. As for bots, check out the identities of anyone spreading stuff on your site. It wouldn't be hard to do. It's just that Facebook wants more and more money. And by the way stop sending me emails saying that some friend of mine has changed her status. You just want me to open Facebook. Also stop sending me friend requests from people I never heard of.

So much for Facebook. It's a shitty site designed to make the maximum amount of money that preys on people's curiosity. As far as hacking into the Democratic National Committee and releasing Podesta's emails, this could be prevented if the DNC took security seriously or took the security of email seriously. Why in God's name are they storing all those emails on one site? Do they even need to be stored at all? I don't think so. You see you have a bunch of nincompoops running the DNC that don't know the first thing about security. If the whole damn internet has to be redesigned to put security first, say an internet 2.0, then that is what has to be done.

As far as hacking into our voter registration lists, why do these even have to be hooked into the internet? Did we not conduct elections before the internet was invented? Then go back to that system. Have a latter day Paul Revere ride his horse between polling places with the results. That was secure. Instead of yelling "The British are coming", he could yell the results "So many votes for Hillary and so many for Trump." Seriously, just disconnect the voting system from the internet if hacking is such a problem. And then redesign the internet.

Posted at 07:37 AM in John Lawrence, Democracy, Off the Top of my Head, Voting Methods | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 29, 2018

UNCHECKED AND UNBALANCED: WHY CONGRESSIONAL REPUBLICANS HAVE ABDICATED THEIR RESPONSIBILITY

by Robert Reich

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As long as Republicans control Congress, Donald Trump’s reckless behavior will go completely unchecked.

Republicans in Congress have become the Party of Trump, abandoning their self-avowed conservative principles to enable his agenda:

When Trump attacks the Mueller investigation they claim it’s not necessary for Congress to protect the investigators. A group of House Republicans even took the unheard-of step of filing articles of impeachment against Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein — less than 2 weeks after Mueller’s investigation, the investigation Rosenstein is supervising, issued 12 additional indictments against Russian operatives.

When the Trump administration separates immigrant children from their families at the border, congressional Republicans do nothing.

When Trump insults our allies and cozies up to Vladimir Putin, they take no action to constrain him.

When Trump personally profits from business deals with foreign governments, they don’t investigate his conflicts of interest, ignoring the Constitution’s emoluments clause.

The Framers of the Constitution never intended for Congress to become a political arm of the president. Before Trump, Congress had exercised its oversight authority to hold the executive branch accountable, conducting investigations, holding public hearings. Twice in history, the House has impeached a president for “high crimes and misdemeanors.”

So why have Republicans, who now control Congress, surrendered their constitutional duty to rein in this out-of-control president?

It’s not just that Trump has commandeered the party, making threats against lawmakers who cross him.

Here’s the real reason for the Republicans’ abdication of their Constitutional responsibility: Establishment Republicans and their wealthy donors tolerate Trump’s attacks on our democracy as long as he gives them massive tax cuts and slashes regulations so they can make even more money.

It is time to hold Trump’s enablers accountable, and vote them out of office. This November 6th, we can send them packing.

But voter turnout is everything. Democrats need to pick up 23 seats to win a majority of the House, and 2 seats to win a majority of the Senate.

Every race counts. Every vote matters in order to restore Congress to its constitutional role of checking the presidency.

Posted at 08:01 AM in Robert Reich, Republicans, Trump | Permalink | Comments (0)

We Are the Revealed Spirit

Dear friends,

I woke up this morning sneezing. I sneezed six times in a row. When we were kids we heard that if you sneeze more than four times, your brains would come out through your nose! So we would take great care to stifle a fourth sneeze! Funny what a belief can do. Actually, it is truly miraculous what beliefs can do. Humanity is in the midst of releasing a cluster of not-true-after-all ideas. It is painful for many people to discover they have been ordering their lives around something innately false. Of course the gift is in seeing through the lie and finding something true which was hidden in the metaphor.

God may not be a man in the sky after all, but God is Real! It is both closer than we thought and much greater at the same time. We are its expression more than its creation; its partner more than its child; it’s vehicle more than its student; its lover more than its experiment. God is a verb; an activity of everlasting movement; a presence that we feel in our own body. It is the Source of everything and it resides in us. It is both masculine and feminine. It is Love and Intelligence. It is seed, soil and blossom.

This is the most potent time to be alive, ever! The wondrous Dr. Jean Houston, wrote a book about it, titled “Jump Time.” She wrote, in part “the scope of change is calling forth patterns and potentials in the human brain/mind system that as far as we know, were never needed before.” You may find yourself unsettled right now, not sure what to think, how to proceed. This is a time when silence can be our greatest tool for retaining our equilibrium while deep shifts are happening within us.

Trust, believe, be still, stay in gratitude.

Affirm; “I am open to what wants to happen by means of me. I am in love with humanity. It is my belief that we are the revealed Spirit.”

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes

by Jessica Corbett, staff writer

Posted at 07:57 AM in Dr. Carol Carnes, Living Consciously | Permalink | Comments (0)

Off the Top of My Head

The Catholic Church and Religious Disenchantment

by John Lawrence, August 29, 2018

Is it time for another Reformation? The Catholic Church has reached its lowest, most demoralizing point in about 1200 years since the days of Martin Luther. It seems that the sexual predation of children is a much bigger problem than previously thought. Many Catholics are totally turned off and are leaving the Church. The Pennsylvania report was particularly damning. Jesus said that whoever harms one of these little ones, it would be better that a millstone were hung around his neck and he be cast into the deepest part of the sea.

It seems that sex is a mightier force than we figured and not easily contained. It will out if not in healthy forms then in perverted ones. Better to have a healthier, more normal sex life than to try to contain it and be celibate like all the priests are supposed to do. Paul said that it was better to marry than to burn. It wasn't always so. In the early Catholic Church priests and even Popes could marry.

According to History News Network:

Peter, a Galilee fisherman, whom the Catholic Church considers the first Pope, was married. Some Popes were the sons of Popes.

The first written mandate requiring priests to be chaste came in AD 304. Canon 33 of the Council of Elvira stated that all"bishops, presbyters, and deacons and all other clerics" were to"abstain completely from their wives and not to have children." A short time later, in 325, the Council of Nicea, convened by Constantine, rejected a ban on priests marrying requested by Spanish clerics.

The practice of priestly celibacy began to spread in the Western Church in the early Middle Ages. In the early 11th century Pope Benedict VIII responded to the decline in priestly morality by issuing a rule prohibiting the children of priests from inheriting property. A few decades later Pope Gregory VII issued a decree against clerical marriages.

The Church was a thousand years old before it definitively took a stand in favor of celibacy in the twelfth century at the Second Lateran Council held in 1139, when a rule was approved forbidding priests to marry. In 1563, the Council of Trent reaffirmed the tradition of celibacy.

It seems that one of the reasons the Church did not priests to marry is that they didn't want their children to inherit church property. However, in the fifteenth century 50% of the priests were married.

The Protestant Reformation was all about indulgences which were granted by the Pope in order to get relatives out of Purgatory in return for money. Those Popes lives lavish lifestyles and sponsored artists like Michaelangelo and Rafael. Today many of their works and other art treasures can be seen in the Vatican museum.

Protestants were also interested in reforming the Church with regard to sex. Protestants early on took exception to celibacy, arguing that it promoted masturbation, homosexuality and illicit fornication. Martin Luther singled out masturbation as one of the gravest offenses likely to be committed by those who were celibate."Nature never lets up," Luther warned,"we are all driven to the secret sin. To say it crudely but honestly, if it doesn't go into a woman, it goes into your shirt." American Protestants in the 17th century, fearful of radical religious sects like the Shakers that celebrated celibacy, came out foursquare against the practice. However, Luther didn't say anything or wasn't aware of priestly pedophilia.

The Catholic Church should get rid of this outdated practice of celibacy which doesn't work very well in the first place and go back to letting priests marry. They are attracting the wrong kind of people - namely, sexual predators - to be priests. Let those who want to be celibate of their own free will be celibate. Let others, who want to be priests but don't want to be celibate, marry. It makes a lot of sense to me. Otherwise, the Church like all present day organized religions will be losing their flocks. They will be heading for the doors.

Posted at 07:49 AM in John Lawrence, Off the Top of my Head, Religion | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 28, 2018

Warning of More 'Extreme Wildfires' and Coastal Floods, New Report Details 'Apocalyptic Threat' Climate Crisis Poses to California

Published on Tuesday, August 28, 2018 by Common Dreams

"Changes are happening fast, and they're not good changes... We need to rise to the challenge."

7 Comments

A California resident watched a wildfire from a roof. (Photo: David McNew/Getty Images)

Ahead of the Global Climate Action Summit that California Gov. Jerry Brown will host in San Francisco in September, the state has released a comprehensive climate report that warns of—as the Democratic governor put it on Twitter—"the apocalyptic threat of irreversible climate change."

In California, facts and science still matter. These findings are profoundly serious and will continue to guide us as we confront the apocalyptic threat of irreversible climate change. https://t.co/a8XjR4V6sC
— Jerry Brown (@JerryBrownGov) August 27, 2018

California's Fourth Climate Change Assessment (pdf) was developed by state agencies and researchers to guide "effective and integrated action to safeguard California" from the mounting threats posed by the global crisis. It draws from more that 40 peer-reviewed studies to outline expected economic and public health impacts—billions of dollars in damage as well as "earlier death and worsening illnesses" among residents—based on climate projections, which include:

temperature increases coupled with more dangerous heat waves and droughts, which most dramatically affect "low-income households, people of color, and communities already burdened with environmental pollution";
more intense rain events and sea-level rise, causing costly inland and coastal flooding that could wipe out many of the state's beaches and waterfront properties;
less snow that melts more quickly, which will impact water supply; and
more "extreme wildfires" that destroy greater swaths of land.

The state is currently battling increasingly devastating wildfires that scientists have said are exacerbated by the global climate crisis. One model highlighted in the report warns that if high greenhouse gas emissions continue, California could see a 77 percent increase in the area destroyed by wildfires by the end of this century. Although President Donald Trump announced last year that he was bailing on the Paris agreement, Brown has committed to working toward reaching the global accord's emissions reduction goals.

"The basic message is that changes are happening fast, and they're not good changes. We need to rise to the challenge."
—Robert Weisenmiller, California Energy Commission

While the report forecasts a frightening future for California—the world's fifth-largest economy—it also includes proposed actions that elected officials can take to manage the growing dangers of the changing climate.

As California Energy Commission Chairman Robert Weisenmiller told the Guardian: "The good news is that it's not 'here's the dire impact,' but 'here's some ways to mitigate the dire impacts.' It should give people some hope."

"The basic message is that changes are happening fast, and they're not good changes," he concluded in remarks to the San Francisco Chornicle. "We need to rise to the challenge."

State lawmakers are currently considering the "100 Percent Clean Energy Act," or Senate Bill 100, which would force utilities to fully shift to all renewable energy by 2045. Danny Cullenward, policy director at climate advocacy group Near Zero and a researcher with the Carnegie Institution for Science, told InsideClimate News, "If that passes, it would be the single most transformative climate policy in the history of North America."

Despite positioning himself as a climate leader—especially compared with the fossil fuel-friendly agenda of Trump—Brown has been criticized by many for a set of energy policies that ultimately do not match his lofty rhetoric.

Last week, signaling to the upcoming summit and Brown's stated commitment to tackling the climate crisis, Reps. Ro Khanna and Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) sent the governor a letter urging him to end permitting for all new fossil fuel projects and establish a "just transition" to renewable energy—requests that were made by hundreds of groups that sent the governor a similar letter in April as part of the Brown's Last Chance campaign.

Following the federal lawmakers' letter, a pair of Bay Area leaders—Benicia Mayor Elizabeth Patterson and Richmond Vice Mayor Melvin Willis—echoed that call in a open letter published by the Chronicle, emphasizing that both of their communities "face the toxic consequences of California's complicity in one of the most toxic, polluting, dangerous industries on Earth and the primary driver of climate change: the oil and gas industry."

As Andy Rowell, writing for Oil Change International, argued on Tuesday, Brown "cannot warn of an apocalyptic threat of climate change and be a force for carbonization at the same time by carrying on drilling. He is running out of time to be a true climate leader. This really is Brown's last chance."

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License

Posted at 08:38 AM in Common Dreams, California, Climate Change, Global Warming | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Truth That Sets Us Free

Dear friends,

We will never find our oneness by looking at the differences and trying to weave them into something cohesive. We will discover our interdependence by going into the deep earth, as it were, into the roots. We are One at the Source. We all sprang from the same river of consciousness. Imagine a beautiful flower, perhaps a daffodil; then look at the graceful rose, the perky pansy. What do they have in common? The ground from which they arose! They are not the same in appearance; but they are identical in conception. Something individualizes itself and becomes. It would not be a true individualization if it made the same thing over and over.

You and I are individualizations, not individuals. That is only a perception we have in order to bring a unique expression into visibility. It is a truly ingenious system, but one which has been so unexplored that we have come to prefer one kind of flower over another, thinking the differences are significant. They are only significant to the One Source who has made everything out of itself.

Hate and fear are almost always based on the perception of “us and them.” We are right now experiencing the effects of such ignorance. It has shown up in our relationship to Nature, the Earth, and of course each other. The “us” will fight to the death to keep the “them” out of our midst. It is a problem that has its roots in religion and superstition, but it is more simply a refusal to look beyond the outer, into the shared ground of being of the inner.

The Awakening that is being called for by those who have left behind institutionalized thinking is just this: see the Source alive in everything. Know that what we do to anyone, we do to everyone. Know that we do not need to protect ourselves from each other. If there is an “enemy” it is collective laziness, a lack of critical thinking, a pathetic need to control what seems like “the others.”

We are ONE and that is the truth that could set us free!

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes

Thursday, August 23, 2018

Posted at 08:02 AM in Dr. Carol Carnes, Living Consciously | Permalink | Comments (0)

What Global Warming Portends for California

Heat waves will grow more severe and persistent, shortening the lives of thousands of Californians. Wildfires will burn more of the state’s forests. The ocean will rise higher and faster, exposing California to billions in damage along the coast. These are some of the threats California will face from climate change in coming decades, according to a new statewide assessment. The projections come as Californians contend with destructive wildfires, brutal heat spells and record ocean temperatures that scientists say have the fingerprints of global warming. Los Angeles Times

— California’s coastal water temperatures are breaking records as well. And that might be the cause of a massive fish die-off in Malibu. Warming water temperatures can alter the marine food chain in various ways — bringing about toxic algae that make crabs, for example, dangerous to eat. Researchers are also seeing more warm-water animals, like jellyfish and stingrays, off the coast. Los Angeles Times

Posted at 07:57 AM in California | Permalink | Comments (0)

Off the Top of My Head

Tattoos and Enculturization

by John Lawrence, August 28, 2018

Widespread tattoos are a relatively recent cultural phenomenon. When I was growing up, the only people that got tattoos were merchant marines and Popeye. Is this what Gen X and the millennials have contributed to the world? It is just not something that I ever considered necessary in my life. It seems to me like a waste of money and monkey see, monkey do. I don't particularly want to be enculturated. I sort of pride myself in being unenculturated. In my teens I read a book by David Riesman - The Lonely Crowd. What I got out of the book was that I was better off following my own inner gyroscope than conforming to social norms. I wanted to be autonomous. I pretty much have been living my life along those lines.

Enculturated people are conformists. They do what their peers are doing. If their peers are getting tattoos, they get tattoos. Dermatologists are going to have a field day in about 20 years. It can't be a good idea to permanently put poison under your skin. The skin is the body's largest organ. It breathes and there are a lot of diseases associated with the skin like skin cancer.

The word that comes to my mind is superficiality. People that are so concerned about outward appearances are usually superficial. Their concerns have nothing to do with making the world a better place. They don't extend much beyond being selfish and getting money and sex. Extroversion is de rigeur in that world. It's all about being cool and conforming to a norm. Any sort of traditional values are out the window. Traditional values were also out the window for the 1960s era rebels, but at least we wanted to build a better world. It didn't happen. Instead we got a worse world albeit with a lot more cheap consumer goods. Capitalism won.

But I digress. I think we all need to just accept being who we are, and try to be the best version or ourselves rather than going along with the crowd. We should self examine our values, decide which values to hold dear and then stand up for those values. External appearances don't really matter that much. It's better to be who you are and let it go at that.

Posted at 07:51 AM in John Lawrence, American Culture, Lifestyle, Off the Top of my Head | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 27, 2018

UNCHECKED AND UNBALANCED: WHY CONGRESSIONAL REPUBLICANS HAVE ABDICATED THEIR RESPONSIBILITY

by Robert Reich

As long as Republicans control Congress, Donald Trump’s reckless behavior will go completely unchecked.

Republicans in Congress have become the Party of Trump, abandoning their self-avowed conservative principles to enable his agenda:

When the Trump administration separates immigrant children from their families at the border, congressional Republicans do nothing.

When Trump insults our allies and cozies up to Vladimir Putin, they take no action to constrain him.

When Trump personally profits from business deals with foreign governments, they don’t investigate his conflicts of interest, ignoring the Constitution’s emoluments clause.

So why have Republicans, who now control Congress, surrendered their constitutional duty to rein in this out-of-control president?

It’s not just that Trump has commandeered the party, making threats against lawmakers who cross him.

It is time to hold Trump’s enablers accountable, and vote them out of office. This November 6th, we can send them packing.

But voter turnout is everything. Democrats need to pick up 23 seats to win a majority of the House, and 2 seats to win a majority of the Senate.

Every race counts. Every vote matters in order to restore Congress to its constitutional role of checking the presidency.

Posted at 08:35 AM in Robert Reich, Republicans | Permalink | Comments (0)

Relax in the Silence

Dear friends,

The joy of being is never more exquisitely felt than when we are doing nothing more than basking in the moment. It might be on a beach or in the quiet morning with a cup of coffee. With so much doing in our lives, we seldom feel the presence of our own presence! Oh yes, we hear the chatter of the mind, but that is not who we are. Thoughts without conscious creation are just impulses of the nervous system. We are no more our thoughts than we are our arms or big toes. Yes, they are part of us, yet without them we remain ourselves.

Thoughts can be consciously introduced into our field of awareness and that is a good thing to practice. Better still, is if they arise naturally from the silence. All sound does come from silence. Music arises from nothingness. When we allow our mind to rest in the field of stillness, what is natural to joy and delight in being, floats up into our awareness. We might shape the feeling into a thought, an idea, even a desire to concretize them in our outer experience.

Thoughts that come from the chattering mind almost always have fear attached to them. They will cause us to form other thoughts that support the fear or we will spend precious energy trying to stop them. And yet, the more attention we give to them, the stronger their hold. The best practice is to sit still and watch how those thoughts just flit across the screen of our awareness. They are nothing. As someone once said “nothing trying to become something.” It is the nature of thought to attempt to make itself into something, which is a great device if we are in charge of our thoughts! First, do nothing. Be in the silence. Let the mind relax. What will follow will be the raw material we need to shape into wonderful new experiences.

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes

www.carolcarnes.com www.californiafreepress.net

Posted at 08:32 AM in Dr. Carol Carnes, Living Consciously | Permalink | Comments (0)

Off the Top of My Head

There Are Some Good People in America. Just Not Those in Power.

by John Lawrence, August 27, 2018

I suppose there were some good people in Nazi Germany. Just not those in power. The same applies to America. There are even some "good" Republicans - those who just want taxes reduced to zero and no regulations. They just want the economy to hum, and hum it has evidently for the longest growth period in history. Should Trump get credit? Some people think so. They think corporations will bring the manufacturing base back home now that conditions are propitious. Another thing the "good" Republicans want to do is to reduce the national debt. All well and good except for the fact that they want to do that on the backs of the poor. They want to throw out Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security in order to balance the budget and still pay for a bloated military-industrial complex.

These "good" Republicans are drunk with their lust for money and power. What does it matter if you have the greatest economy in the world, but you have at the same time a whole class of people who are reduced to living on the streets. There is no balance here. A balanced society would sacrifice some economic growth in return for an economy in which everyone had at least a roof over their head and was taken care of by the medical system. A balanced society would not spend a trillion dollars a year on an enormous military-industrial complex and try to bully every other country in the world with sanctions.

Economic growth and expansion is not the be all and end all of human life. More important, especially at this point in human history, is taking care of Mother Earth. More important is seeing that children are well fed and can get a good education, and that their parents aren't so stressed out that they can't give them the love and support that they need. A balanced society would not be fixated on creating more and more gadgets and worthless consumer items just to keep the economy humming. A balanced society would not create an economic divide between the very rich and everyone else. A good society would not let money influence elections. The elites are getting all upset because the Russians bought a few ads on Facebook while not being upset at all about the fact that money, American money, buys elections.

There are some good people in America. Just not the ones in power who are obsessed with money and economic growth at all costs, including the cost of leaving the majority of Americans in a situation of hopelessness and ennui.

Posted at 08:24 AM in John Lawrence, American Culture, Off the Top of my Head, Republicans, The Economy | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 25, 2018

Off the Top of My Head

The Results of War: Children Dying

by John Lawrence, August 25, 2018

Modern warfare has one result. Innocents die. Civilians die. Women and children die. If the belligerents don't kill them outright, they starve them to death. Or they bomb hospitals so they can't get treated. The US and Saudi Arabia are committing war crimes in Yemen. When are they ever going to stop killing children?

The wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan have taken a tremendous human toll on those countries. As of March 2015, approximately 210,000 civilians have died violent deaths as a result of the wars. Civilian deaths have also resulted from the US military operations in Yemen that began in 2002.

People living in the war zones have been killed in their homes, in markets, and on roadways. They have been killed by bombs, bullets, fire, improvised explosive devices (IEDs), and drones. Civilians die at checkpoints, as they are run off the road by military vehicles, when they step on a mine or cluster bomb, as they collect wood or tend to their fields, and when they are kidnapped and executed for purposes of revenge or intimidation. They are killed by the United States, by its allies, and by insurgents and sectarians in the civil wars spawned by the invasions.

Death can also happen weeks or months after a battle. Many times more Iraqis, Afghans, and Pakistanis have died as a result of battered infrastructure and poor health conditions arising from the wars than directly from its violence. For example, war refugees often lose access to a stable food supply or to their jobs, resulting in increased malnutrition and vulnerability to disease.

The US war machine cares not about the deaths of innocents. Shame on it and shame on those in power that have nothing to say about these horrific tragedies that occur on a daily basis. When will the news media ever cover this?

Posted at 08:16 AM in John Lawrence, War | Permalink | Comments (0)

Less Than 24 Hours After Senate Rejected Effort to Curb Slaughter, 26 More Children Killed by US-Backed Bombing in Yemen

Published on Saturday, August 25, 2018 by Common Dreams

"These deaths are on our hands, and many more children will die in Yemen as long as the U.S. supports the Saudi-led war."

by Jon Queally, staff writer

3 Comments

A photograph distributed by Houthi fighters shows Yemenis carrying the bodies of children killed in a Saudi-led airstrike near Al Hudaydah on Thursday. (Credit: EPA, via Shutterstock)

Less than a day after Republicans in the United States Senate rejected a chance this week "to slam on the brakes and stop [America's] role in enabling the suffering in Yemen," at least 26 more children were slaughtered by a U.S.-backed Saudi-led bombing in the western part of the country.

"Shame on those Senators who let our involvement in this war continue. History will not be kind to you." —Win Without War

Condemning the bombing near the Red Sea port of Al Hudaydah that occurred Thursday, but was not widely reported until Friday, the United Nation's humanitarian chief, Mark Lowcock, and head of the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), Henrietta Fore, said the attack—in which four women, in addition to the children, were killed—took place as the victims tried to flee the area.

"This is the second time in two weeks that an airstrike by the Saudi-led Coalition has resulted in dozens of civilian casualties," said Lowcock, who noted that "an additional air strike in Al Durayhimi on Thursday resulted in the death of four children."

Yesterday, 26 children were reportedly killed in attacks in ad-Durayhimi, Yemen. Children and families continue to be victims of intense and senseless violence. UNICEF calls on all parties to the conflict to stop the war on children in Yemen once and for all. #ChildrenUnderAttack pic.twitter.com/1JkxkjGVAO
— UNICEF (@UNICEF) August 24, 2018

As the New York Times reports:

Criticism of Saudi Arabia and its partners has been growing over thousands of civilian casualties, many of them caused by munitions fired from the coalition’s warplanes.

Humanitarian groups and antiwar activists have also aimed criticism at the United States, a main provider of the Saudi coalition’s weapons, intelligence, warplane refueling and guidance technology for missiles and bombs.

Just two weeks ago, as Common Dreams reported, another Saudi airstrike in the city of Saada—which investigators later showed was carried out using U.S.-manufactured bombs—killed at least 40 children riding in a school bus as they enjoyed a rare field trip. In reaction to that massacre, an outraged Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) declared, in all capital letters, "We just bombed a SCHOOL BUS."

"I had hoped that the outrage that followed the Saada attack in Yemen two weeks ago would be a turning point in the conflict. Yesterday's reported attacks in Al-Durayhimi, killing 26 children, indicate that it was not," said Fore of UNICEF on Friday.

"These deaths are on our hands, and many more children will die in Yemen as long as the U.S. supports the Saudi-led war," declared the Friends Committee on National Legislation, the anti-war Quaker advocacy group, in a tweet.

The U.S. must end its complicity in the Saudi-led onslaught in #Yemen. We're helping intensify the world's worst humanitarian crisis. The worst #Cholera outbreak in human history. It has to stop. #YemenCantWait. https://t.co/CRdOiALgkp
— FCNL (Quakers) (@FCNL) August 25, 2018

It was the August 9th slaughter of the school children on the bus in Saada that drove Sen. Murphy on Wednesday of this week to push for a vote on his amendment that would have "cut off United States' support for the Saudi Arabia-led coalition's war in Yemen until the Secretary of Defense certified that the coalition's air campaign is not violating international law and U.S. policy related to the protection of civilians." But Republicans, led by Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, objected to the measure and would not allow a vote.

The Republicans objected.

It’s just unthinkable to me that we continue to willingly participate in the slaughter of Yemeni kids when there is zero benefit to U.S. security. Mind blowing really. https://t.co/p6qbrfRGoe
— Chris Murphy (@ChrisMurphyCT) August 22, 2018

Less than twenty-four hours later, more than two dozen innocent children were dead.

As the peace advocacy group Win Without War put it: "Shame on those Senators who let our involvement in this war continue. History will not be kind to you."

Shame on those Senators who let our involvement in this war continue. History will not be kind to you. 'Despite Effort by Sen. Chris Murphy, GOP Rejects Call to Curb US Funding for 'Slaughter of Yemeni Kids' #YemenCantWait https://t.co/oahjtWnTVp pic.twitter.com/YKtED1tkfy
— Win Without War (@WinWithoutWar) August 24, 2018

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License

Posted at 08:09 AM in Common Dreams, Saudi Arabia, The US, War, Yemen | Permalink | Comments (0)

Your Body is a Perfect Vehicle

Dear friends,

During the night, while we slept, fingernails grew, as did our hair. Cells renewed, blood flowed, hearts beat, skin replaced, digestion worked, bacteria did its thing to keep us healthy, the brain collated information, and a thousand tiny functions we cannot name. Our very first thought every morning ought to be Gratitude. And awe and wonder. And amazement. But no, we often forget the miracle that we are and the Love and Intelligence that is recreating us in its image and likeness.

Here we are, ready to express the Best of Us once again today. We are equipped to do what our mind can believe, our heart can support and our body can carry out. For me, today, I am able to continue the process of packing up my home. My body is strong and healthy. My mind is clear and peaceful. My heart is joyful and glad. My soul is relieved! Now she is on the right track, I imagine it is shouting. I am grateful for its promptings to get back to work!

I know people who say they cannot think of anything to be grateful about. Really? How about being alive? How about the air you breathe and the love you have known and the smell of coffee and the baby who smiled at you in the grocery store? There is always much to lift our spirits if we allow it, but the fact of our human body is one that ought to be praised every morning, first thing.

Affirm this: “I love my body. It is my temporary home. It is a perfectly functioning expression of Love and Intelligence. I am grateful for how effortlessly it responds to my commands. Thank you. You are a perfect vehicle for my soul to be seen and known.”

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes

Posted at 08:01 AM in Dr. Carol Carnes, Living Consciously | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 24, 2018

Off the Top of My Head

Kellogg's Honey Smacks Are Smacking of Salmonella

by John Lawrence, August 24, 2018

Oh no! One of the trusted American brands contains salmonella. Who would have thunk it.

NPR reported:

Kellogg's issued a voluntary recall of the brand's Honey Smacks cereal Wednesday. The cereal has been linked to a multistate outbreak of Salmonella Mbandaka, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

So far the outbreak has spanned 31 states with 73 cases of infection. There have been 24 reported hospitalizations and zero deaths.

New York, California, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania are among the states to report cases of the Salmonella Mbandaka strain, with New York reporting the highest most at 7.

Both the CDC and Kellogg's are advising consumers and retailers to throw out 15.3 oz. and 23.0 oz. boxes of the Kellogg's Honey Smacks cereal. Affected products have a 'best if used by' date on the top of the box between June 14, 2018 and June 14, 2019.

Illnesses in connection with the cereal started appearing in early March, according to the CDC.

Salmonella bacteria are the main cause of infection that leads to an illness called salmonellosis. Symptoms of the illness include diarrhea, vomiting, fever and abdominal cramps, and appear within 12 and 72 hours of consumption of salmonella bacteria. Drinking water and fluids is recommended, according to the FDA.

The Mbandaka strain? Is Africa getting even with the western world? This is what happens when a centralized food processing system generates products which are then delivered all over the world. Any outbreaks in other countries? Even if it weren't for the salmonella, Honey Smacks are crap anyway. The food supply is contaminated. Best to grow your own food or locally grown and processed food. Even organic food is no guarantee against salmonella and other contaminants although your chances of not contracting a disease are probably better.

Posted at 08:15 AM in John Lawrence, Food | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Tax-Cut Con Goes On

Why Social Security and Medicare are on the ballot.

By Paul Krugman

Opinion Columnist, New York Times

Aug. 23, 2018

Image

CreditStephen Maturen/Getty Images

What will happen if the blue wave in the midterm elections falls short? Clearly, at this point it still might: Democrats will surely receive more votes than Republicans, but thanks to gerrymandering and population geography, the U.S. electoral system gives excess weight to rural, white voters who still have faith in President Trump. What if, thanks to that excess weight, the minority prevails?

One answer, obviously, is that the unindicted co-conspirator in chief will continue to be protected from the law. And for those concerned with the survival of American democracy, that has to be the most important issue at stake in November. But if the G.O.P. hangs on, there will also be other, bread-and-butter consequences for ordinary Americans.

First of all, there is every reason to believe that a Republican Congress, freed from the immediate threat of elections, would do what it narrowly failed to do last year, and repeal the Affordable Care Act. This would cause tens of millions of Americans to lose health insurance and would in particular hit those with pre-existing conditions. There’s a reason health care, not Trump, is the central theme of Democratic campaigns this year.

But the attack on the social safety net probably wouldn’t stop with a rollback of Obama-era expansion: Longstanding programs, very much including Social Security and Medicare, would also be on the chopping block. Who says so? Republicans themselves.

In a recent interview with CNBC’s John Harwood, Representative Steve Stivers, the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee — in effect, the man charged with containing the blue wave — declared that, given the size of the budget deficit, the federal government needs to save money by cutting spending on social programs. When pressed about whether that included Social Security and Medicare, he admitted that it did.

And he’s not alone in seeing major cuts in core programs for older Americans as the next step if Republicans win in November. Many major figures in the G.O.P., including the departing speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, and multiple senators, have said the same thing. (Meanwhile, groups tied to Ryan have been running attack ads accusing Democrats of planning to cut Medicare funding — but hey, consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. So, apparently, is honesty.)

Now, Republicans who call for cuts in social spending to balance the budget are showing extraordinary chutzpah, which is traditionally defined as what you exhibit when you kill your parents, then plead for mercy because you’re an orphan. After all, the same Republicans now wringing their hands over budget deficits just blew up that same deficit by enacting a huge tax cut for corporations and the wealthy.

So it might seem shocking that only a few months later they’re once again posing as deficit hawks and calling for spending cuts. That is, it might seem shocking if it weren’t for the fact that this has been the G.O.P.’s budget strategy for decades. First, cut taxes. Then, bemoan the deficit created by those tax cuts and demand cuts in social spending. Lather, rinse, repeat.

This strategy, known as “starve the beast,” has been around since the 1970s, when Republican economists like Alan Greenspan and Milton Friedman began declaring that the role of tax cuts in worsening budget deficits was a feature, not a bug. As Greenspan openly put it in 1978, the goal was to rein in spending with tax cuts that reduce revenue, then “trust that there is a political limit to deficit spending.”

It’s true that when tax cuts are on the table their proponents tend to deny that they’ll increase the deficit, claiming that they’ll provide a miraculous boost to the economy and that tax receipts will actually rise. But there’s not a shred of evidence to support this claim, and it has never been clear whether anyone with real political power has ever believed it. For the most part it’s just a smoke screen to help conceal the G.O.P.’s true intentions.

The puzzle is why Republicans keep getting away with this bait-and-switch.

Fifteen years ago I wrote a long piece titled “The Tax-Cut Con,” describing what was even then a time-honored scam; it reads almost word for word as a description of Republican strategy in 2017-18. Yet I keep reading news analyses expressing puzzlement that men who were strident deficit hawks in the Obama years so cheerfully signed on to a budget-busting tax cut under Trump. To say the obvious: These men were never deficit hawks; it was always a pose.

And the gullibility both of the news media and self-proclaimed centrists remains a remarkable story. Remember, Ryan, who was utterly orthodox in his determination to cut taxes on the rich while savaging programs for the poor and the middle class, even received an award for fiscal responsibility.

Which brings us back to the midterm elections. Rule of law is definitely on the ballot. So is health care. But voters should realize that the threat to programs they count on is much broader: If the G.O.P. holds its majority, Social Security and Medicare as we know them will be very much in danger.

Paul Krugman has been an Opinion columnist since 2000 and is also a Distinguished Professor at the City University of New York Graduate Center. He won the 2008 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his work on international trade and economic geography. @PaulKrugman

Posted at 08:03 AM in New York Times, Medicaid, Medicare, Republicans, Social Security, Taxes | Permalink | Comments (0)

Let's Open Our Hearts

Dear friends,

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote this in his journal in 1837:

“I believe I shall some time cease to be an individual, that the eternal tendency of the soul is to become universal.”

It does seem to be so. Think about the wisest, most loving, compassionate, caring, visionary people you can, and you will notice that they have their arms and minds open to everything. They love the diversity of Nature, the mystery of the universe. They see potential in everyone, believing it is never too late for a transformation.

The more aware of our natural universality we become, the more open-minded we would be. There would always be a space in our mind for new ideas. We would have no prejudices, no loyalty to any certain tribe, we would see ourselves as belonging to Life. Our personal relationships would be devoid of jealousy or envy. We would harbor no resentments, rather, we would allow others to proceed as they must, according to their own inner guidance.

If it sounds as if we would be passive and weak, we are mistaken. We would have strength such as we have never known; the strength of a soul at peace; a soul who loves life and does not fear change. We would be like a great tree in the forest, standing tall, doing what is ours to do while the busy-ness of life goes on around us. It does seem sensible, doesn’t it? It would be unlike anything in Nature for us to become smaller, more hateful, more afraid of difference, less likely to discover and grow. We are meant to expand and include our universal nature in our self awareness.

Affirm: “Today I practice the fine art of seeing with inclusive eyes.”

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes

Posted at 07:29 AM in Dr. Carol Carnes, Living Consciously | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 23, 2018

Banks Are Becoming Obsolete in China—Could the U.S. Be Next?

by Ellen Brown, from truthdig

AUG 22, 2018

TD ORIGINALS

Alipay in the U.K.: Alibaba's proprietary payment platform, Alipay, has shown up in advertisements overseas, such as this one in London's Tottenham Court subway station. (Ged Carroll / Flickr)(CC BY 2.0)

The U.S. credit card system siphons off excessive amounts of money from merchants. In a typical $100 credit card purchase, only $97.25 goes to the seller. The rest goes to banks and processors. But who can compete with Visa and MasterCard?

It seems China’s new mobile payment ecosystems can. According to a May 2018 article in Bloomberg titled “Why China’s Payment Apps Give U.S. Bankers Nightmares”:

The future of consumer payments may not be designed in New York or London but in China. There, money flows mainly through a pair of digital ecosystems that blend social media, commerce and banking—all run by two of the world’s most valuable companies. That contrasts with the U.S., where numerous firms feast on fees from handling and processing payments. Western bankers and credit-card executives who travel to China keep returning with the same anxiety: Payments can happen cheaply and easily without them.

The nightmare for the U.S. financial industry is that a major technology company—whether one from China or a U.S. giant such as Amazon or Facebook—might replicate the success of the Chinese mobile payment systems, cutting banks out.

According to John Engen, writing in American Banker in May 2018, “China processed a whopping $12.8 trillion in mobile payments” in the first ten months of 2017. Today even China’s street merchants don’t want cash. Payment for everything is handled with a phone and a QR code (a type of barcode). More than 90 percent of Chinese mobile payments are run through Alipay and WeChat Pay, rival platforms backed by the country’s two largest internet conglomerates, Alibaba and Tencent Holdings. Alibaba is the Amazon of China, while Tencent Holdings is the owner of WeChat, a messaging and social media app with more than a billion users.

Alibaba created Alipay in 2004 to let millions of potential customers who lacked credit and debit cards shop on its giant online marketplace. Alipay is free for smaller users of its platform. As total monthly transactions rise, so does the charge; but even at its maximum, it’s less than half what PayPal charges: around 1.2 percent. Tencent Holdings similarly introduced its payments function in 2005 in order to keep users inside its messaging system longer. The American equivalent would be Amazon and Facebook serving as the major conduits for U.S. payments.

WeChat and Alibaba have grown into full-blown digital ecosystems—around-the-clock hubs for managing the details of daily life. WeChat users can schedule doctor appointments, order food, hail rides and much more through “mini-apps” on the core app. Alipay calls itself a “global lifestyle super-app” and has similar functions.

Both have flourished by making mobile payments cheap and easy to use. Consumers can pay for everything with their mobile apps and can make person-to-person payments. Everyone has a unique QR code and transfers are free. Users don’t need to sign into a bank or payments app when transacting. They simply press the “pay” button on the ecosystem’s main app and their unique QR code appears for the merchant to scan. Engen writes:

A growing number of retailers, including McDonald’s and Starbucks, have self-scanning devices near the cash register to read QR codes. The process takes seconds, moving customers along so quickly that anyone using cash gets eye-rolls for slowing things down.

Merchants that lack a point-of-sale device can simply post a piece of paper with their QR code near the register for customers to point their phones’ cameras at and execute payments in reverse.

A system built on QR codes might not be as secure as the near-field communication technology used by ApplePay and other apps in the U.S. market. But it’s cheaper for merchants, who don’t have to buy a piece of technology to accept a payment.

The mobile payment systems are a boon to merchants and their customers, but local bankers complain that they are slowly being driven out of business. Alipay and WeChat have become a duopoly that is impossible to fight. Engen writes that banks are often reduced to “dumb pipes”—silent funders whose accounts are used to top up customers’ digital wallets. The bank bears the compliance and other account-related expenses, and it does not get the fees and branding opportunities typical of cards and other bank-run options. The bank is seen as a place to deposit money and link it to WeChat or Alipay. Bankers are being “disintermediated”—cut out of the loop as middlemen.

If Amazon, Facebook or one of their Chinese counterparts duplicated the success of China’s mobile ecosystems in the U.S., they could take $43 billion in merchant fees from credit card companies, processors and banks, along with about $3 billion in bank fees for checking accounts. In addition, there is the potential loss of money market deposits, which are also migrating to the mobile ecosystem duopoly in China. In 2017, Alipay’s affiliate Yu’e Bao surpassed JPMorgan Chase’s Government Money Market Fund as the world’s largest money market fund, with more than $200 billion in assets. Engen quotes one financial services leader who observes, “The speed of migration to their wealth-management and money-market funds has been tremendous. That’s bad news for traditional banks, where deposits are the foundation of the business.”

An Amazon-style mobile ecosystem could challenge not only the payments system but the lending business of banks. Amazon is already making small-business loans, finding ways to cut into banks’ swipe-fee revenue and competing against prepaid card issuers; and it evidently has broader ambitions. Checking accounts, small business credit cards and even mortgages appear to be in the company’s sights.

In an October 2017 article titled “The Future of Banks Is Probably Not Banks,” tech innovator Andy O’Sullivan observed that Amazon has a relatively new service called “Amazon Cash,” where consumers can use a barcode to load cash into their Amazon accounts through physical retailers. The service is intended for consumers who don’t have bank cards, but O’Sullivan notes that it raises some interesting possibilities. Amazon could do a deal with retailers to allow consumers to use their Amazon accounts in stores, or it could offer credit to buy particular items. No bank would be involved, just a tech giant that already has a relationship with the consumer, offering him or her additional services. Phone payment systems are already training customers to go without bank cards, which means edging out banks.

Taking those concepts even further, Amazon (or eBay or Craigslist) could set up a digital credit system that bypassed bank-created money altogether. Users could sell goods and services online for credits, which they could then spend online for other goods and services. The credits of this online ecosystem would constitute its own user-generated currency. Credits could trade in a digital credit clearing system similar to the digital community currencies used worldwide, systems in which “money” is effectively generated by users themselves.

Like community currencies, an Amazon-style credit clearing system would be independent of both banks and government; but Amazon itself is a private for-profit megalithic system. Like its Wall Street counterparts, it has a shady reputation, having been variously charged with worker exploitation, unfair trade practices, environmental degradation and extracting outsize profits from trades. However, both President Trump on the right and Sen. Elizabeth Warren on the left are now threatening to turn Amazon, Facebook and other tech giants into public utilities.

This opens some interesting theoretical possibilities. We could one day have a national nonprofit digital ecosystem operated as a cooperative, a public utility in which profits are returned to the users in the form of reduced prices. Users could create their own money by “monetizing” their own credit, in a community currency system in which the “community” is the nation—or even the world.

Ellen Brown is an attorney, chairman of the Public Banking Institute, and author of twelve books including "Web of Debt" and "The Public Bank Solution." A thirteenth book titled "The Coming Revolution in Banking" is due out soon. She also co-hosts a radio program on PRN.FM called “It’s Our Money.” Her 300+ blog articles are posted at EllenBrown.com.

Posted at 08:35 AM in Ellen Brown, Banking, China, Public Banking | Permalink | Comments (0)

We Are All One

Dear friends,

One tree is not the forest. It takes quite a few trees to gain that distinction. One person is not humanity, but one person does represent it. If a new arrival on planet earth met you, would they have a good idea of what humans were about? If that new arrival were an adult being, not a newborn baby, would they be afraid of you or would they feel something like love? Would they be drawn to want to discover more of you?

It works the other way around, as well. When you encounter another human being who seems quite different from you, are you projecting fear or are you eager to discover them? Do you bring into the encounter a sense of joy and wonder at the diversity of human life? Be honest. Are you more likely to want to be with those who seem to be more like you? We have been trained to prefer “people like us.”

The great awakening comes when we find that people who seem to be very different from our clan are actually just like us! They also want their children to thrive, the world to be peaceful, nature to be respected, love to reign supreme. They sing and dance. They make instruments. They heal the sick and attend to the dying. They mourn their losses and celebrate the harvest. It is this very awareness of the sameness underneath the appearance of difference, that flies in the face of old-time religious notions, superstition about color and patriarchal oppression. The discovery of our oneness and our shared Source is the Power that makes all things new. We are no longer one tree standing alone; we have become the forest.

Affirm: “Today I see everyone as myself. What looks different is proof of the underlying Oneness.”

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes

www.bakersfieldcsl.org www.californiafreepress.net

Posted at 08:19 AM in Dr. Carol Carnes, Living Consciously | Permalink | Comments (0)

Off the Top of My Head

Lock Him Up! Lock Him Up!

by John Lawrence, August 22, 2018

The noose is tightening around Trump's neck. With Michael Cohen singing like a canary, Paul Manifort singing like a canary and Omarosa singing like a tweety bird, how much longer can Trump withstand the pressure to resign provided he's given a no-jail-time deal on the way out. He's in clear violation of all sorts of laws, but paying off Stormy Daniels to influence the election may have been the straw that broke the camel's back. However, there are numerous other straws as well. This guy operates using the same rules as a mobster. He uses money and power to skirt the law. Pay off this one. Sue that one. It reminds me of my attorney, Bernie. If Bernie says sue, we sue. If Bernie says sign, we sign. Bernie's got Dodger season boxes and an office full of foxes.

Oh, but you can't impeach Trump because the market would crash. That's his latest pronouncement. Better to have a mobster as President than to crash the market. We want to keep the US financial machine running smoothly.

The BBC reported:

"I don't know how you can impeach somebody who's done a great job," Mr Trump told Fox and Friends.

"I tell you what, if I ever got impeached, I think the market would crash, I think everybody would be very poor."

Pointing to his head, he said: "Because without this thinking, you would see numbers that you wouldn't believe in reverse."

Cohen says he handled hush money payments to two women during the 2016 presidential campaign.

The two women, thought to be porn star Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal, both claimed they had affairs with Mr Trump.

Under oath, Cohen said he had paid the money "at the direction" of Mr Trump, "for the principal purpose of influencing the election"

However, Mr Trump insisted the two payments had not broken election campaign rules.

He said that the payments had come from him personally, not from the campaign, but he had not known about them until "later on".

In July, Cohen released audio tapes of him and Mr Trump allegedly discussing one of the payments before the election.

The president also accused Cohen of making up stories to receive a lighter sentence.

He added: "And by the way, he pled to two counts that aren't a crime, which nobody understands.

"In fact, I watched a number of [TV] shows. Sometimes you get some pretty good information by watching shows. Those two counts aren't even a crime. They weren't campaign finance."

Oh, what tangled webs we weave! Trump's highest virtue or ...ahem vice?, is lying with a straight face. Oh, he can make up stories and his base believes them. It's great entertainment. He's no sober faced politician dealing seriously with the issues. He represents the depths to which the US has sunk in being an entertainment culture. We want a mobster to entertain us as President. Who cares if he's paid off porn stars? Look at the shows Americans watch. Look at the publications Americans read. It's the National Enquirization of the US. While the rest of the world is trying to act responsibly and live for some noble cause, even if many of them are misguided, Americans just want to have fun. Americans just want to be entertained. No other serious candidate can touch Trump in that regard. He'll be reelected by an even wider margin. And he'll promise another two bit tax cut for the hoi polloi, a megamillion for the upper class like him.

Posted at 07:55 AM in John Lawrence, American Culture, Entertainment, Off the Top of my Head, Trump | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 22, 2018

'Like a Parallel Universe': At Trump Rally, No Mention of Cohen or Manafort But Plenty of Surreal 'Drain the Swamp' and 'Lock Her Up' Chants

Published on Wednesday, August 22, 2018 by Common Dreams

"Trump's campaign manager and personal lawyer both became felons today. And Trump supporters still thought it made sense to chant 'Lock Her Up.'"

by Jake Johnson, staff writer

15 Comments

President Donald Trump arrives to speak at a rally Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018, in Charleston, W.Va. (Photo: Alex Brandon/AP)

President Donald Trump on Tuesday was directly implicated in a criminal conspiracy by his former personal attorney Michael Cohen and—almost simultaneously—a federal jury found his former campaign manager guilty on eight counts of financial crimes, but you wouldn't know it by watching Trump's inane campaign-style rally in West Virginia Tuesday night, where his frenzied supporters belted out chants of "lock her up" and "drain the swamp" while the president bragged about his luxury apartments and deadly new coal rules.

"Surreal on a day when two of Trump's top aides were handed 16 felony convictions between them, and both will, in fact, be locked up."
—Christina Wilkie, CNBC

"It's like a parallel universe," historian Kevin Kruse noted on Twitter as the Charleston rally kicked off late Tuesday.

While Tuesday's event featured plenty of ranting and raving about the "Russia witch hunt," the president didn't once mention the fact that his former fixer admitted under oath that he was directed by then-candidate Trump to violate campaign finance laws by paying hush money to a former model and an adult film actress.

The fact that Trump's former campaign manager Paul Manafort was just found guilty of a slew of crimes—including tax and bank fraud—also didn't come up during the hour-long rally.

Trump supporters in attendance Tuesday night—wielding signs that ranged from "Trump Digs Coal" to "Keep America Great"—didn't seem to mind these glaring omissions, nor did they seem to appreciate the irony of chanting "lock her up" after the first mention of Hillary Clinton while two men previously very close to the president are likely headed to jail.

Trump's campaign manager and personal lawyer BOTH became felons today.

And Trump supporters still thought it made sense to chant "Lock Her Up."pic.twitter.com/XjMRR5oVSq
— jordan (@JordanUhl) August 22, 2018

"Surreal on a day when two of Trump's top aides were handed 16 felony convictions between them, and both will, in fact, be locked up," CNBC reporter Christina Wilkie noted on Twitter after the chants, which were preceeded by "Drain the swamp!"

Crowd at Trump #MAGA rally chants "Drain the Swamp! Drain the Swamp!" then pivots to "Lock Her Up! Lock Her Up!"

Surreal on a day when two of Trump's top aides were handed 16 felony convictions between them, and both will, in fact, be locked up. pic.twitter.com/DCP4dKYAfp
— Christina Wilkie (@christinawilkie) August 21, 2018

“Lock her up” and “drain the swamp” chants during Patrick Morrissey’s speech at the Trump WV rally. Just like nothing’s happened.
— David S. Bernstein (@dbernstein) August 21, 2018

Both Manafort—who the president praised as a "good man" ahead of Tuesday's rally—and Cohen face prison time, and "Donald Trump himself would almost certainly be facing charges" if he wasn't president, noted the New Yorker's Adam Davidson.

"The question can no longer be whether the president and those closest to him broke the law. That is settled. Three of the people closest to Trump as he ran for and won the presidency have now pleaded guilty or have been convicted of significant federal crimes," Davidson concluded. "Tuesday's news also helps build an increasingly compelling case for impeachment and removal from office. It is now clear that the president engaged in at least one conspiracy to hide the truth from the public in an election he won with a tiny margin in three states."

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Posted at 08:30 AM in Common Dreams, Trump | Permalink | Comments (0)

Off the Top of My Head

Economic Warfare?

by John Lawrence

The US under Trump with its America First policy is pissing off the rest of the world including enemies and allies alike. Trump is using sanctions and tariffs as financial weapons to get what he wants.If some country doesn't bow down to the US, BAM, they're hit with sanctions. If Trump thinks that some country has an unfair trade advantage with the US, BAM they're hit with tariffs. Turkey, a NATO ally supposedly is so pissed off that they are looking eastward for friends and allies. The BRICS nations are forming their alternative financial system to get around US sanctions which are predicated on the dollar being the world's reserve currency.

The NY Times wrote:

The Trump administration imposed sanctions on Wednesday against two top Turkish government officials over the detention of an American pastor being held on espionage charges, threatening to plunge already-fraught relations with a vital NATO ally into crisis.

The move was an extraordinary use of financial sanctions against an allied government. It is sure to inflame tensions that were already simmering over a litany of disagreements, including Washington’s refusal to extradite a cleric suspected of leading a failed 2016 coup against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey and his country’s growing use of what many Western analysts have described as hostage diplomacy.

“The relationship is now officially in crisis, and the only way out is for Erdogan to do what he hates the most: back down,” said Julianne Smith, the deputy national security adviser to former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.

Sanctions can target whole countries or just certain individuals within countries.The dollar has been weaponized and so is toxic to many areas of the world. The US is losing its credibility as a just and fair partner. It is becoming a wiorld class bully. It's the Trump way or the highway. All this face off with Turkey is about the release of one pastor. Surely relations between two countries shouldn't boil down to the fate of one individual. This is totally petty. It is the demand of a madman to put international relations in the hands of one megalomaniacal bully.

Now the US is going to impose more sanctions on Russia because they helped North Korea evade the sanctions imposed on them. This has got to stop somewhere and where it's likely to stop is with the US losing power and prestige in the world. When the whole world is pissed at you, they will lose respect and devise alternative ways to get around US sanctions and tariffs. The dollar will lose its status as the world's only reserve currency, and the rest of the world will ignore US demands especially those made by Mr. Trump out of pique.

Posted at 07:59 AM in John Lawrence, Off the Top of my Head, Sanctions, Trump | Permalink | Comments (0)

Life in the Midst of a Miracle

Dear friends,

Alan Watts wrote that the “natural state of man is ecstatic wonder.” How often do we have that experience? Some will pursue it with drugs, sex or danger. But Watts was speaking more about how a tiny child experiences life. Constantly offered what she has never seen before, a child lives in ecstatic wonder. Can an adult in this changing and challenging world regain that perfect state? Perhaps, but it takes intention and a willingness to suspend judgment on anything.

Try, for a day, to view the most ordinary objects as if seeing them for the first time. In the midst of packing for my move, I am startled at the efficiency of the cardboard box. It is flat and can be made into a container. It holds things and can be picked up and moved about. One can write on it to identify its contents. When no longer needed, it can be made flat again and reused. Does this cause “ecstatic wonder”? Well, no, but it is a start. Being grateful and appreciative of such ordinary things is a train of thought that opens us to ever more startling discoveries.

Air, for instance. Like fish that are not aware of water, we do not give air much thought, unless it becomes polluted. Ordinarily we go about breathing it in and releasing it back out, without giving it its due. We cannot live without it, and yet, it is invisible and constant. We can blow it into shapes via balloons and even glass, but we do not see this as the miracle it is. I think it was Einstein who said “either nothing is a miracle or everything is.” I rather like the latter. The intention to see things rightly is a practice of mindfulness. It asks us to be more conscious of our surroundings and more present in the moment. Perhaps ecstatic wonder will not visit us today, but surely gratitude will.

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes

Posted at 07:29 AM in Dr. Carol Carnes, Living Consciously | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 21, 2018

Musk, Trump, and the Second Gilded Age

by Robert Reich

Monday, August 20, 2018

I’ve long admired Elon Musk as a technological visionary. But I worry about his sense of responsibility to the public.

Last week Musk announced on Twitter that he intended to turn Telsa, the electric-car maker he founded, into a private company. He said the funding was “secured” – a claim that sent Telsa stock skyrocketing – yet he produced no evidence that the funding was nailed down.

There are laws against corporate officials making these sorts of untethered claims, because if untrue they could hurt lots of innocent bystanders – including unwary investors and employees.

Does Musk’s behavior remind you of any other powerful person who also makes unfounded claims on Twitter that send heads spinning?

Donald Trump is no Elon Musk. Musk seems to genuinely care about the future of humanity.

But, like Trump, Musk loves to upend the status quo by breaking norms and maybe even some laws.

He also seems to share Trump’s unrelenting combativeness and penchant for hitting back. A few weeks ago, after a British diver involved in the Thailand cave rescue termed Musk’s offer of a submarine a publicity stunt, Musk called him a pedophile.

Musk has little patience for the media. At a recent quarterly earnings conference he refused to answer what he termed “boring” or “bonehead” questions.

Musk and Trump aren’t the only notable people in modern America exhibiting these tendencies.

Think of Travis Kalanick, the pugnacious founder of Uber. Or Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg.

Which raises the question: Is it necessary for true innovators to break norms and rules?

Some years ago the most fashionable buzzword in business was “disruption.” Real entrepreneurs, it was said, disrupt the status quo. They shake up conventional ways of doing things and upturn hidebound institutions.

Trump loyalists think that’s exactly what he’s doing in Washington.

But there’s a less charitable view of why these outsized personalities break the rules. They feel entitled to.

Consider Martin Shkreli, who, after buying the rights to sell Daraprim, a lifesaving drug, promptly raised the price by over 5,000 percent.

Shkreli was unapologetic. And he lashed out at journalists who criticized him, even buying Internet domains associated with their names and then mocking them on the sites.

(Last March Shkreli was sentenced to seven years in prison for criminal fraud in an unrelated scheme to bilk his former hedge fund investors.)

Add the former Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein. And many of the people Trump has surrounded himself with over the years.

Trump himself continues to place himself above the law.

All these men (note the absence of women) are driven. They’re often brilliant. (Trump is a gifted conman.)

They’ll also do whatever it takes to get what they want. They believe the norms other people live by don’t apply to them.

Their attitude toward the law is that anything they want to do is okay unless it’s clearly illegal. And even if it’s illegal, it’s okay if they can get away with it.

And they have contempt for anyone who gets in their way.

Researchers have found that great wealth and power often correlate with less compassion and stronger feelings of entitlement.

The very rich cheat more on their taxes, are more likely to shoplift, and more likely to cheat at games of chance.

The research doesn’t tell us the direction of causation – whether the rich act these ways because they’re rich, or if they got rich because they act these ways.

Whatever the causal relationship, the era we’re now in has created a few big winners – who, at least in their own eyes, are so successful they’re entitled to do whatever they want.

In the words of railroad magnate William H. Vanderbilt, “the public be damned.”

Vanderbilt said this in 1882, during America’s first Gilded Age – whose entrepreneurs created railroads, telephones, electric power, and steel mills, but who also bent the laws to suit their purposes.

Their wealth was unprecedented. Yet most workers barely eked out a living.

We’re now in America’s second Gilded Age.

Last week it was reported that in 2017 the average CEO of the 350 largest firms in the U.S. received $18.9 million in compensation. That’s a 17.6 percent increase over 2016.

At the same time, the typical worker’s compensation remained flat, rising merely 0.3 percent.

The first Gilded Age fueled a progressive era that tamed and regulated its excesses, beginning in 1901.

In very different ways, Trump and Musk epitomize America’s second Gilded Age. Will their audacity and excesses usher in a second progressive era?

Posted at 08:30 AM in Robert Reich, Trump | Permalink | Comments (0)

It Is Never Too Late To Experience Something New

Dear friends,

What is ours to do? Emerson said “the talent is the call.” We have more than one talent, usually, but there will be a strong pull in one particular direction. If we follow it (and it may require more of us than another talent) all space shall open up to us. It seems as if the universe is invested in helping us succeed. Not that we are not in charge but we seem to have unseen assistance. Decisions are made without the need for much deliberation; ideas that expand our talent arise effortlessly; the right people appear and we are in the glorious experience of “unfolding ourselves.”

This experience is more often than not in the beginning phase of our journey. The temptation is to assume we are done and can now rest on our laurels, as it were. That is when we get stale and repetitious. We stop learning about the very talent whose call we answered, thinking we have arrived. The joy of living comes from the not-yet-known, the ongoing push from within that lifts us out of sameness into new ways of doing what we have done for so long.

Sometimes it feels as if retirement is what we do when we don’t have any new ideas about our work. If we did we would keep on with it, delighting in discovery. Retirement did not work for me. I was still too much the student of my own subject. It is calling me into new ways of presenting the very teaching that called me into service. So, here I go again. All of us can resurrect that beginners mind; that enthusiastic being who is at the gate, like a well-trained horse, ready to leap into full expression as if it were the first time. Try something new today, whether it be your work, your relationship, your own physical health.

Affirm: “I bring a wealth of wisdom and knowledge into my world today , yet I am brand new; constantly re-made in the image and likeness of Intelligence and Love.”

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes www.californiafreepress.net

This Sunday is the last one at Mesilla Valley Center for Spiritual Living. I am moving into new ministry at Bakersfield CSL.

Posted at 08:23 AM in Dr. Carol Carnes, Living Consciously | Permalink | Comments (0)

Off the Top of My Head

Real Estate in Coastal Areas Diminishing in Value

by John Lawrence, August 21, 2018

Climate change is hitting home in coastal areas prone to flooding not only from hurricanes but from just heavy rainstorms - so-called sunny day flooding. Exposed homes in Charleston, SC have lost $266 million in value since 2005, and some homes that used to sell for $1 million have simply been demolished because a buyer can't be found. It's called climate gentrification. Houses suitably located on higher ground are appreciating in value while those coastal communities that used to be so pricey and desirable are going the way of the dodo bird. Charleston's historic downtown sits at low elevation, is surrounded on three sides by water and has recorded a rise in sea level of roughly a foot over the past century.

The Washington Post reported:

Elizabeth Boineau’s 1939 Colonial sits a block and a half from the Ashley River in a sought-after neighborhood of ancient live oaks, charming gardens and historic homes. A year ago, she thought she could sell it for nearly $1 million. But after dropping the price 11 times, Boineau has decided to tear it down.

In March, the city’s Board of Architectural Review approved the demolition — a decision not taken lightly in Charleston’s historic district.

“Each time that I was just finishing up paying off the bills, another flood would hit,” Boineau said.

Boineau is one of many homeowners on the front lines of society’s confrontation with climate change, living in houses where rising sea levels have worsened flooding not just in extreme events like hurricanes, but also heavy rains and even high tides. Now, three studies have found evidence that the threat of higher seas is also undermining coastal property values as home buyers — particularly investors — begin the retreat to higher ground.

No wonder people in their 20s are so depressed today. They have $40 thousand and up in student loan debt, housing in many areas is so high they could never hope to buy one and climate change is going to doom them to being the generation that experiences the brunt of it before the human population of earth dies out. What kind of a life is that to look forward to? They've effectively been screwed by their elders. When something could have been done about it, all the previous generation did was to elect a President Trump whose actions accelerated climate change. When civilization could have converted from fossil fuel to renewable energy, it did so at a glacial pace. A glacial pace of conversion is not fast enough to prevent the melting of the glaciers and the flooding of the shore lines not only in America but around the world.

Roughly one percent of buildings in the Charleston area are now seeing annual flooding. In 50 years that will be 15 percent. In the Harleston Village neighborhood, homes were damaged by flooding along the Ashley River in 2015 when a storm dropped 20 inches of rain on the city. Less than a month later an 8.7 foot tide flooded the neighborhood again. In 2016 Hurricane Matthew drove a 6 foot storm surge into the city. In 2017 Hurricane Irma again flooded Harleston Village. Homeowners wishing to sell their houses have had to resort to extreme and costly measures like elevating the entire house just to entice wary buyers especially if their homes have been flooded one or more times. Some homeowners are just giving up and demolishing their houses. It makes it easier to attract buyers who will build new elevated houses on the lot.

Chris Hedges thinks that every advanced civilization, wherever located in the universe, will eventually increase their energy demands so much that greenhouse gasses will ultimately destroy that civilization. Population increases and energy demands will likely doom them. However, the planet itself will survive and new species will eventually evolve. Maybe the whole process will just start all over again minus all the oil, gas and coal deposits used up by the last civilization.

Posted at 08:13 AM in John Lawrence, Climate Change, Global Warming, Off the Top of my Head | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 20, 2018

Saying Goodbye to Planet Earth

by Chris Hedges

Mr. Fish / Truthdig

The spectacular rise of human civilization—its agrarian societies, cities, states, empires and industrial and technological advances ranging from irrigation and the use of metals to nuclear fusion—took place during the last 10,000 years, after the last ice age. Much of North America was buried, before the ice retreated, under sheets eight times the height of the Empire State Building. This tiny span of time on a planet that is 4.5 billion years old is known as the Holocene Age. It now appears to be coming to an end with the refusal of our species to significantly curb the carbon emissions and pollutants that might cause human extinction. The human-induced change to the ecosystem, at least for many thousands of years, will probably make the biosphere inhospitable to most forms of life.

The planet is transitioning under our onslaught to a new era called the Anthropocene. This era is the product of violent conquest, warfare, slavery, genocide and the Industrial Revolution, which began about 200 years ago, and saw humans start to burn a hundred million years of sunlight stored in the form of coal and petroleum. The numbers of humans climbed to over 7 billion. Air, water, ice and rock, which are interdependent, changed. Temperatures climbed. The Anthropocene, for humans and most other species, will most likely conclude with extinction or a massive die-off, as well as climate conditions that will preclude most known life forms. We engineered our march toward collective suicide although global warming was first identified in 1896 by the Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius.

The failure to act to ameliorate global warming exposes the myth of human progress and the illusion that we are rational creatures. We ignore the wisdom of the past and the stark scientific facts before us. We are entranced by electronic hallucinations and burlesque acts, including those emanating from the centers of power, and this ensures our doom. Speak this unpleasant truth and you are condemned by much of society. The mania for hope and magical thinking is as seductive in the Industrial Age as it was in pre-modern societies.

Continue reading "Saying Goodbye to Planet Earth" »

Posted at 08:50 AM in Climate Change, Global Warming | Permalink | Comments (2)

Thinking About the Beauty of This Moment

Dear friends,

Have you noticed how when someone is ill, all they talk about is their illness, and the doctors and what medications they take? It might seem logical to do so, after all, it is the experience we are having. However, that is also why we might want to stop doing that. It is just an experience. Why would we stop talking about the universe or great ideas, or beauty or love? Why would we allow an experience to consume us to the point of taking over our reality?

Healing always happens as a result of us remembering that we are greater than any earthly experience; when we know how the mind is the key factor in change of any kind; when we are busy living as if everything were perfect. Epicurus said “the mind can participate in the sensations of the body, and yet maintain its serenity, and focus on its own well-being.” He said that during his own illness. He said he went on living his life the way it should be lived.

Today notice what our conversations are about. What story are we telling? How are we describing our life? Is it what we want to continue to believe or is there another way to see everything? Have we ceased to be the expression of all that is good? Or are we a patient, a statistic, an age? Do we whine and complain as if life were out to hurt us? Or are we thinking about how beautiful this moment is, how extraordinary it is that we can think and laugh and love?

There is tremendous power in denial; that is, denying the power of experience over Being. That is no contest. The Self is eternal and intact, always, no matter what. Let’s think about that and speak as if it were so.

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes www.mvcsl.org www.californiafreepress.net

Posted at 08:38 AM in Dr. Carol Carnes, Living Consciously | Permalink | Comments (0)

Off the Top of My Head

Urban Campsite for Homeless and Others

by John Lawrence, August 20, 2018

The solutions for the homelessness situation always end up with paying developers to develop more affordable housing. Only problem is it's never affordable, and it costs too much in the first place. The developer's profits could be used much more efficiently somewhere else. So here's a solution that wouldn't cost nearly as much. Develop campsites downtown. The City of San Diego was on to something when it took an unused, undeveloped part of Balboa Park and set up a rudimentary campsite there. Whether or not it's still there I don't know. It was only supposed to be temporary.

The San Diego Union reported in October 2017:

The first city-sanctioned homeless encampment is scheduled to open Monday in a public works yard near Balboa Park with tents, security, food, showers, restrooms and social services for more than 200 people, San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer and other officials announced Wednesday.

Speaking at the city operations yard that will be used for the camp area, Faulconer said the site will be short-lived, with a plan to begin moving people out after the first of three large industrial tents to temporarily house homeless people opens later this year.

So why did it have to be temporary? Here's my vision of what this could be. It would be similar to those campsites out in the mountains where tourists go and set up a tent or bring in their camper. So it would be nice, not a bare bones operation, and it would be open to homeless and others who just wanted a place to camp. The homeless would not have to pay; the others would. It would integrate homeless people back into society which is the main goal of resolving the homeless situation. Otherwise. a permanent underclass is developing.

Facilities there would include rest rooms with showers, laundry facilities, lockers and tents. Social worker services would be available for the homeless. Meals would be available for the homeless. Food is transportable so they could be brought in. Father Joe's in downtown San Diego provides meals for the homeless 365 days a year. That's why the homeless congregate there, but food is transportable and could be brought in from Father Joe's or other places. Picnic tables are cheap and simple to provide. Security would be provided. Transit passes would be provided for the homeless so they could get to job interviews, other services etc. Spaces would be available for campers, cars and RVs for those wishing to sleep in them. Many semi-homeless sleep in their vehicles in unsafe areas or areas where the police roust them out because it's illegal to sleep in your car.

So this solution would integrate the homeless and the rest of the population who just wanted a reasonable place to camp out, not in the woods, but closer to downtown. It would disperse homeless services and provide nonjudgmental shelter so that the homeless would be indistinguishable from the rest of the population. There would be no need to push belongings around city streets in shopping carts because lockers would be available. Transportation would be provided in many forms from bicycles to bus passes to transportation on demand for elderly and handicapped. Father Joe's demands that no alcohol or drugs be used in the shelter. This rule would not be in effect here as the Housing First solution provides. Security would see to it that fights or unsafe conditions would not be allowed and that children were safe in this environment. Barbering and beautician services could be provided so that homeless people would be indistinguishable from the rest of the population. Pets would be allowed. They are not allowed in most shelters.

All this could be done inexpensively without having to build houses which are expensive. What we are talking about here is nothing more than a glorified park or campground. In inclement weather indoor shelters should be made available, but otherwise outdoor camping plus a few other services would make the homeless have lives that are decent until they can back on their feet, and social workers would be there to help them to do so. In the meantime the homeless would not have to exist apart from mainstream society in a separate culture which is becoming a permanent underclass in the US.

Posted at 07:38 AM in John Lawrence, Homelessness, Off the Top of my Head, San Diego | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 18, 2018

'Your Bombs Are Killing Victims Here': U.S.-Made Bomb Hit School Bus in Attack That Killed 40 Yemeni Children

Published on Saturday, August 18, 2018 by Common Dreams

Munitions experts confirmed that a Lockheed Martin-produced bomb was behind the deaths of dozens in last week's attack

by Julia Conley, staff writer

3 Comments

Yemeni journalist Ahmad Algohbary holds up a piece of the U.S.-made bomb which killed 40 children last week. (Photo: @AhmadAlgohbary/Twitter)

The United States carries direct responsibility for the school bus bombing that killed 40 children in Yemen last week, according to munitions experts who found that the bomb used was sold to Saudi Arabia by the State Department.

The bomb used by the Saudi-led coalition in a devastating attack on a school bus in Yemen was sold as part of a US State Department-sanctioned arms deal with Saudi Arabia, munitions experts told CNN https://t.co/IfRrOXgmeU pic.twitter.com/b02l1R7w6a
— CNN (@CNN) August 17, 2018

CNN reported late Friday that experts and Yemeni journalists had found that the bus exploded after being hit by a Lockheed Martin-produced laser-guided MK 82 bomb.

"This American-made bomb killed them, killed the innocent children," journalist Ahmad Algohbary said this week, even before CNN verified the report. "Most of these victims were children. Your bombs are killing victims here, are killing children."

Right from the attack scene in Dahian town #Saada, I got remnants of a guided bomb used in attacking the school bus, with #US markings on it. #America has its hands stained with #Yemen kid's blood! pic.twitter.com/mYsRvuJJMR
— Ahmad Algohbary (@AhmadAlgohbary) August 13, 2018

The Trump administration reinstated sales of laser-guided missiles to the Saudis soon after President Donald Trump's inauguration, months after a bombing by the Saudi coalition of a funeral hall killed 155 Yemenis and led to the Obama administration's suspension of arms sales to Saudi Arabia.

A total of 51 people were killed in the attack, and 79 were wounded.

The bombing was denounced by outspoken critics of the United States' support of the Saudi-led coalition that has led an airstrike campaign in Yemen since 2015, in support of the government's war against the Houthis. The U.S. has provided fuel and tactical support to the coalition as well as weapons.

The report confirms what many Yemeni civilians already knew, as evidenced by mourners at the victims' funeral carrying signs that read "America kills Yemeni children," according to the Middle East Eye.

Yemen war: Mass funeral held for children killed in bus attack https://t.co/UFRtN3arpj pic.twitter.com/wTmrWhge1o
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) August 13, 2018

On social media, critics doubled down on their condemnation of the United States' support for the Saudi coalition in Yemen's civil war, in which 15,000 Yemeni civilians have been killed and injured.

The bomb that killed 40 children, in a horrific attack on a school bus in Yemen, was American made & launched by the Saudis.
The bomb was sold as part of Trump’s arms deal w MBS.

Trump’s MuslimBan includes Yemen, a country the US is bombing into oblivion. https://t.co/DCqNeDME2Z
— Rula Jebreal (@rulajebreal) August 18, 2018

Not only were US made bombs linked to the bombing of a bus full of young children in Yemen, but they've been linked to other incidents in Yemen, including the bombing of a wedding earlier this year. https://t.co/feXHgwvKE7
— Eliot Higgins (@EliotHiggins) August 18, 2018

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Posted at 07:57 AM in Common Dreams, The Military, The Military Industrial Complex, War | Permalink | Comments (0)

Off the Top of My Head

New Gun Technology Will Let Anyone Print a Gun

by John Lawrence, August 18, 2018

3-D printing was supposed to be the greatest thing since sliced bread or beer in cans. Yet we find that one of the major uses of it is to print out handguns and AR-15s. So now everyone who wants a gun can have one. These plastic guns have no serial numbers and so can not be traced. They can easily go through security at airports and other places. MNetal detectors can't detect them. What's next? Plastic detectors?

One guy is even putting the plans on the internet so now every enterprising 8 year old can make his or her own gun. Isn't that grand? It gives free speech a bad name. First of all it shouldn't be allowed to put the plans on the internet. That free speech should be curtailed.

In a sane society the benign uses of technology should be encouraged and the malign uses should be verboten. Whoever is running this or any society should steer it in the right direction and not just let it proceed willy nilly. These guns will use real bullets and will kill people just like conventionally built guns.

CNN reported:

Do-it-yourself firearms like The Liberator have been nicknamed "Ghost Guns" because they don't have serial numbers and are untraceable.

Wilson has built a website where people will be able to download The Liberator and digital files for an AR-15 lower receiver, a complete Baretta M9 handgun and other firearms. Users will also be able to share their own designs for guns, magazines and other accessories.

He says the files will be a good resource for builders, even though it's not yet practical for most people to 3-D print most of the guns.

"It's still out of reach for them. We'll get to watch it all develop," Wilson said. "The plans will be here when that moment comes."

[Avery] Gardiner, the co-president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, fears it will make it easier for terrorists and people who are too dangerous to pass criminal background checks to get their hands on guns.

"I think everybody in America ought to be terrified about that."

The American Gun fetish has gone too far. It just allows gun nuts and psychopaths to plan their next destructive act. They are the equivalent of arsonists who just want to cause destruction. Besides that it gives impetus to gangs who want to carry out criminal acts. It shouldn't be encouraged, but the Second Amendment does encourage it. Every gang banger can rest assured that the Second Amendment givers them the right to one and use a gun. They are just true Americans and patriots. The minute some situation gets out of hand someone pulls out a gun and that resolves things.

Like that man (white) that was pushed to the ground by another man (black). He pulled out a gun and killed the man that pushed him down. That's the Florida "stand your ground" law in action. Better not go pushing somebody around or they might stand their ground, pull out a gun and kill you.

The Obama administration fought the release of these blueprints online, but the Trump administration said "go ahead." It remains to be seen how the NRA which is a lobbying group for gun manufacturers will react. After all, if anyone can make their own gun, the gun manufacturers will lose business.

At the last minute as of July 31 a Federal judge in Seattle has put a stay on the release of the plastic gun plans online. Stay tuned.

Posted at 07:20 AM in John Lawrence, Guns, Off the Top of my Head, The Second Amendment | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 17, 2018

Medicare for All's Time Has Come

Published on

Thursday, August 16, 2018

CNN

If every major country on earth can guarantee healthcare to all and achieve better health outcomes, while spending substantially less per capita than we do, it is absurd for anyone to suggest that the United States of America cannot do the same.

Bernie Sanders

24 Comments

Supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) hold signs during an event on healthcare September 13, 2017 on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. Sen. Sanders held an event to introduce the Medicare for All Act of 2017. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Let's be clear. The American people are increasingly tired of a healthcare system that works for Wall Street investors, insurance companies and the pharmaceutical industry—but ignores their needs. They want real change, and poll after poll shows that they want to move toward a Medicare-for-all, single-payer system. And for good reason.

"The ongoing failure of our healthcare system is directly attributable to the fact that—unique among major nations—it is primarily designed not to provide quality care to all in a cost-effective way."

Today, the United States has the most expensive, inefficient, and bureaucratic healthcare system in the world. Despite the fact that we are the only major country on earth not to guarantee healthcare for all—and have 30 million uninsured and even more who are underinsured—we now spend more than twice as much per capita on healthcare as the average developed country.

According to a recent Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development analysis, we spend more than $10,300 per capita on healthcare. Meanwhile, Canada spends just $4,826, France spends $4,902, Germany spends $5,728, and the United Kingdom spends $4,264.

Further, despite this huge expenditure, which now constitutes almost 18% of our GDP, our healthcare outcomes are worse than most of these other countries. For example, our life expectancy is 2.5 years lower than Germany's and our mortality rate for children under the age of 19 is at the top of the list compared to other developed countries.

The ongoing failure of our healthcare system is directly attributable to the fact that—unique among major nations—it is primarily designed not to provide quality care to all in a cost-effective way. Instead, the system makes maximum profits for health insurance companies, the pharmaceutical industry and medical equipment suppliers.

The Medicare-for-all legislation that I wrote, which now has 16 co-sponsors in the Senate, would provide comprehensive healthcare to every man, woman and child in our country—without out-of-pocket expenses. No more insurance premiums, deductibles or co-payments. Further, it would expand Medicare coverage to include dental and vision care. In other words, this plan would do exactly what should be done in a civilized and democratic society. It would allow all Americans, regardless of their income, to get the healthcare they need when they need it.

Under the current system, while thousands of Americans die each year because they lack access to the healthcare they desperately need, the top five health insurance companies last year made $21 billion in profits, led by the UnitedHealth Group, which made $10.56 billion.

As tens of thousands of American families face bankruptcy and financial ruinbecause of the outrageously high cost of healthcare, the CEOs of major insurance companies receive disgustingly high levels of compensation. According to Axios, in 2017, the CEO of UnitedHealth Group, Dave Wichmann, received $83.2 million; the CEO of Aetna, Mark Bertolini, received $58.7 million, and the CEO of Cigna, David Cordani, received $43.9 million.

Today, as an indication of how dysfunctional our current system is, about one out of every five Americans cannot afford to fill the prescriptions given to them by their doctors because we pay, by far, the highest price in the world for prescription drugs. A 2013 study showed that in 2010, the United States paid, on average, about double what was paid in the United Kingdom, Australia, and Switzerland for prescription drugs. Since 2014, the cost of 60 drugs commonly taken has more than doubled, and 20 of them have at least quadrupled in price.

While millions of Americans are unable to afford the medicine they desperately need, or are forced to cut their pills in half in order to save money, five top drug companies made over $50 billion in profits last year and, in 2015, 10 prescription drug CEOs made a combined $327 million in total compensation.

"The insurance companies, the drug companies, Wall Street and the Koch brothers will undoubtedly spend billions on lobbying, campaign contributions and television ads to defeat Medicare for all. But they are on the wrong side of history."

Would a Medicare-for-all healthcare system be expensive? Yes. But, while providing comprehensive healthcare for all, it would be significantly less costly than our current dysfunctional system because it would eliminate an enormous amount of the bureaucracy, administrative costs and misplaced priorities inherent in our current for-profit system.

Instead of doctors and nurses spending a significant part of their day filling out forms and arguing with insurance companies, they could be using their time to provide care to their patients. We'd be able to save up to $500 billion annually in billing and administrative costs. That money could be used to greatly expand primary care in this country and make certain that all Americans got the healthcare they needed when they needed it—saving billions on expensive emergency room care and hospital visits. Instead of paying the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs, we could save hundreds of billions over a 10 year period through tough negotiations with the drug companies.

The benefits of a Medicare-for-all, single-payer system are so obvious that even a recent study done by the right-wing Mercatus Center estimated that it would save Americans more than $2 trillion over a decade, reducing the projected cost of healthcare between 2022 and 2031 from $59.7 trillion to $57.6 trillion. Needless to say, that wasn't the point the study attempted to emphasize. Rather, the author of the study was hoping the headline—"Medicare for All costs the federal government $32.6 trillion" —would frighten the American people and get them to oppose it.

While opponents of Medicare for all focus their criticism on the increased taxes the American people will have to pay, they conveniently ignore the fact that ordinary people and businesses will no longer have to pay sky-high premiums, co-payments and deductibles for private health insurance.

At a time when healthcare in 2018 for a typical family of four with an employer-sponsored PPO plan now costs more than $28,000, according to the Milliman Medical Index, the reality is that a Medicare-for-all system would save the average family significant sums of money.

A recent study by RAND found that moving to a Medicare-for-all system in New York would save a family with an income of $185,000 or less about $3,000 a year, on average. Even the projections from the Mercatus Center suggest that the average American could save about $6,000 under Medicare for all over a 10-year period.

A Medicare-for-all system not only benefits individuals and families, it would benefit the business community. Small- and medium-sized businesses would be free to focus on their core business goals instead of wasting precious energy and resources navigating an incredibly complex system to provide health insurance to their employees.

Needless to say, there is huge opposition to this legislation from the powerful special interests that profit from the current wasteful system. The insurance companies, the drug companies, Wall Street and the Koch brothers will undoubtedly spend billions on lobbying, campaign contributions and television ads to defeat Medicare for all. But they are on the wrong side of history.

Here is the bottom line: If every major country on earth can guarantee healthcare to all and achieve better health outcomes, while spending substantially less per capita than we do, it is absurd for anyone to suggest that the United States of America cannot do the same.

Posted at 07:20 AM in Bernie Sanders, Common Dreams, Health Care, Medicare | Permalink | Comments (0)

Connect With the Power

Dear friends,

It rained last night with thunder and lightning. This morning the digital clocks were flashing, signaling a power outage at some point in the night. My computer would not boot up for a bit and then it did not like my normal password. It took some patience and some positive affirmations, but suddenly it all popped up looking like it always does. It was “the power thing” again. Without it, our world comes to, if not a stop, then certainly a delay.

Whenever the current is not flowing, the first thing we do is check our connection. Is everything attached properly? It is such a simple but apt analogy to our relationship with our own spiritual power. We might ask “am I current in my thinking or am I attached to the past? Am I connected to the One Source?” It is too easy to attribute Cause to what is already in effect, but to do so is to disconnect from real power.

This is all very basic New Thought, but at the same time, it is the best kept secret in our world. Power is internal. The answer is within. The flow is constant; it is we who must connect with it. There is a current of Intelligence/Love running throughout the universe. It makes contact with what it has become through the avenue of consciousness. In other words, our own mind is the receiving end of a lavish and relentless giving. What we know becomes what we are, what we do and what we have. Let’s get back to basics. The Power is always ON.

Stay tuned in

Carol Carnes

Wednesday, August 15, 2018

Posted at 07:05 AM in Dr. Carol Carnes, Living Consciously | Permalink | Comments (0)

Off the Top of My Head

Trump's Tax Cut for the Rich Cost $1.5 Trillion

by John Lawrence, August 17, 2018

Most of that money went to rich people. What if you turned it around and gave most of that money to the poor and middle class. With Republican tax cuts the logic is that since rich people pay proportionately more taxes than the poor, they should get proportionately a larger tax cut. That leaves the poorest of the poor, who pay no taxes, with no tax cut at all. But what if you took that trillion and a half dollars and used it for supplements instead of cuts? Then the poorest people would get the largest supplement and rich people, who don't need the money, would get the least. It would still cost the government $1.5 trillion, but the most needy would be helped the most and the least needy would be helped the least.

The New York Times reported:

Senate Republicans’ $1.5 trillion tax cut would not pay for itself, according to a report released on Thursday by the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation. The report is a significant setback for Republicans, who have asserted that the tax cuts would grow the economy enough to cover the cost of the plan.

The report of the committee, Congress’s official tax scorekeeper, is the latest in a number of analyses that have found that the cuts could add a significant chunk to federal budget deficits, a move that would seem counter to years of Republican criticism of the deficits accumulated under the Obama administration.

In the Congressional Budget Office’s analysis of the Senate tax bill, the cuts would add $1.414 trillion to the deficit by 2027. That estimate does not include the amount that would be offset by the economic growth spurred by tax cuts.

This money going mainly to the rich does not take into account that most rich people park their money offshore in places like the Cayman Islands so that they pay no taxes at all. In fact rich corporations use loopholes and highly paid accountants to figure out how they get tax refunds from the government. Or they pay taxes in Europe where the tax rate is cheaper. They can book their profits anywhere so why not book them where they pay little or no taxes. That wouldn't be in the US.

Forbes reported:

The biggest taxpayer was the most profitable: Apple, which reserved $15.8 billion for income taxes on $59 billion in operating income. Apple reports its effective tax rate as 25.8%, which is quite a bit lower than the statutory 35% rate. The iPhone giant (like many tech companies with a lot of intellectual property) has become famous over the years for deploying legions of accountants to devise offshore tax avoidance mechanisms with names like “double Irish with a Dutch sandwich.” Why book profits in the U.S. if you don’t have to? Unfortunately for Apple, its pot of Irish gold appears to have evaporated. Last year the European Commission presented Apple with a $13 billion tax bill, payable to Dublin, on the grounds that Apple's tax structure had benefited from "state aid," a no-no. CEO Tim Cook has called it "total political crap."

These tax avoidance schemes serve to make the rich richer and to run up the national debt which is now over $20 trillion. Some day the chickens will come home to roost.

Posted at 06:49 AM in John Lawrence, Off the Top of my Head, Tax Havens, Tax the Rich, Taxes | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 16, 2018

HOLD THEM ACCOUNTABLE FOR UNDERMINING THE AFFORDABLE CARE ACT

by Robert Reich

Trump and Republicans in Congress haven’t been able to officially kill the Affordable Care Act. But they’re quietly using 5 strategies to destroy it. Know what they’re doing so you can hold them accountable on Election Day.

1. They’ve repealed the requirement that all Americans sign up for health insurance. Republicans slipped this repeal into their tax cut for the wealthy and corporations.

But that requirement had meant enough healthy people were enrolled to cover the sick. Without it, 4 million Americans will lose coverage by 2019 and premiums will increase by 10 percent, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

2. They’ve cut subsidies that help an estimated 6 million low-income Americans afford coverage through private insurers. Trump wants you to believe these cuts will save money. Baloney. Ending the subsidies is expected to drive up premiums, thereby increasing costs for taxpayers.

3. They want to flood the insurance market with junk plans. They’ve made it easier for small businesses and individuals to buy alternative types of health insurance with fewer benefits and weaker protections. This will leave sicker people and those with pre-existing conditions out in the cold.

4. They’ve made it harder for people to sign up for coverage – shortening the enrollment period, scaling back outreach efforts, increasing the amount of paperwork. It’s even been reported that the Trump administration redirected funds from a marketing campaign designed to promote enrollment to a campaign criticizing the law.

5. They’ve stopped defending key provisions of the law in court. The Justice Department has stopped defending the Affordable Care Act’s protections for Americans with preexisting conditions in a case brought by Republican attorneys general.

Remember, the Affordable Care Act was enacted in 2010 in order to make health insurance available to people regardless of their income or their health condition. It wasn’t perfect and was just one step toward a real solution like Medicare for All, but it was a historic piece of legislation.

Now, Trump is taking a wrecking ball to it. He promised during his campaign he’d repeal and replace it with something “far better,” but he’s not replacing it with anything. He’s just destroying it, step by step.

Don’t let Trump and his enablers hide what they are doing. When millions – including huge numbers of Trump supporters – lose the health coverage they had or their premiums go up, make sure Trump and the Republicans are held accountable.

Posted at 08:10 AM in Robert Reich, Obamacare, Republicans, Trump | Permalink | Comments (0)

We Are the Personification of Intelligence and Love

Dear friends,

Marcus Aurelius advised us “keep on degrading yourself, soul, and soon your chance at dignity will be gone.”

That is a most interesting statement. Can we ever lose our chance to live a dignified life, to hold ourselves in high regard, without ego, but with reverence for the nature of our own being? No, we cannot. Not in the spiritual sense. But if we keep putting ourselves down, labeling ourselves as less than, victims or worse, we might run out of time here on earth. Life in this form is fleeting. It is temporary. Our personal responsibility is to reveal as much of our true self as we can while we are here.

Identifying our true self is what religion is supposed to be about, but religion has labelled us as less than, as flawed beings, as hopeless sinners. No wonder the vast majority of people feel free to behave as if they don’t matter, or to feel as if there is no reason to be honest and kind. Modern spirituality, however, has liberated us from that kind of thinking. We have discovered who we really are; the personification of Intelligence and Love. We are the way they are uniquely revealed.

Our worthiness is not for sale. We have great spiritual self-esteem, based on the inherent wholeness out of which we draw our life. Yes, it is challenging to stay tuned in to the truth in this world of conflicting views on the nature of humanity. It is not easy to see the goodness in those who do terrible things in their quest for power. But try, we must. It is not God we need to have more faith in, but humanity itself. We are better than anything we have done up until now. Now is the perfect time to do what we can to help humanity regain its spiritual dignity.

Affirm “I believe that together we can create a world of love and joy, peace and plenty, vitality and celebration. I have faith in the true nature of every one of us.”

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes

Posted at 07:54 AM in Dr. Carol Carnes, Living Consciously | Permalink | Comments (0)

Off the Top of My Head

The Definition of Insanity

by John Lawrence, August 16 2018

The definition of insanity supposedly is "doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results." Well then, the definition of sanity would be "doing the same thing over and over and expecting the same results." So there, now that we cleared that up, let's go to a deeper level of precision. If you do the same thing over and over and get the same negative results, that would be insanity. What you're looking for is positive results. So if you're getting negative results, the sane thing to do is to change what you're doing. However, if you're doing the same thing over and over and getting positive results, keep doing what you're doing. That would indicate sanity. Don't change what you're doing if you get positive results each time.

So why would you change what you're doing if you're getting positive results? Boredom perhaps? The same 'ol same 'ol. You want a new experience. I think successful people don't get bored if they are getting positive results. They are willing to continue doing the same thing over and over. The positive results keep adding up. Consistency, according to Shakespeare, may be the hobgoblin of a small mind, especially a foolish consistency, but consistency or staying the course, if it is nonfoolish, is also the hallmark of a brilliant mind. Knowing where you're going, knowing what you're about can lead to great results, but you have to be willing to put up with a certain amount of ennui. And anything worth doing is worth doing even if it takes a lot of time to do it. Persistence pays off in the long run. Hopefully.

Posted at 07:16 AM in John Lawrence, Lifestyle | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 15, 2018

Meditation and Our Thoughts

Dear friends,

Alan Watts wrote about nature and humans; He said; nature “peoples” just as much as it “forests.”

We are of nature. In the same way that trees make oxygen, the ocean makes waves, we humans make thoughts. It is what we do. Our ideas arise in us without our having to do much to bring them up. Although, they are less scattered and more useful to us if they come from a quieter place. It is almost impossible to get rid of thoughts but we can slow them down, therefore giving us the space to decide whether or not to act on them!

Watts said “the mind grows thoughts just as the field grows grass.” What to do with what is growing in us? Knowing how thoughts become experience if left unattended, Ernest Holmes kept a little placard on his desk. It read “are you sure you want to experience the consequences of what you are now thinking?” If not, it is time relax the mind, let it wander. If we simply let it be, without resistance, it will settle down and await instructions.

Meditation is not eliminating thoughts. It is slipping the attention in between them by not resisting thoughts, but simply observing them. They lose their power if we leave them alone. It is worth our time to sit in silence every day. The stillness we have experienced in meditation tends to act as a stabilizing influence, softening the flee or fight reaction to outer stimuli. There is amazing power in a person who has taken charge of their own thoughts. It is a serious practice, but one which reaps great rewards.

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes

Posted at 06:19 AM in Dr. Carol Carnes, Living Consciously | Permalink | Comments (0)

Off the Top of My Head

A Realty Show for a Government. A Circus for a Presidency.

by John Lawrence, August 15, 2018

The USA has sunk to the level of a laughingstock among nations, but, domestically, the ratings are high. The Trump/Omarosa reality show is entertaining the nation to death. Trump calls Omarosa a low life and a dog. Well, she's hardly a dog. She gets a rating of 10 on Trump's beauty rating scale. Omarosa says Trump uses the "n" word and isn't fit to be President of the US. Franklin, Lincoln and Jefferson must be rolling over in their graves. Washington, who cut down the cherry tree and then couldn't lie about it, set a standard for truth telling that this bunch of loonies running our country has made a mockery of.

But I wouldn't be surprised if Trump were to be reelected. He's the Entertainer-in-Chief. Ronald Reagan set the standard for having the correct curriculuim vitae for aspiring Presidential candidates: be a movie star first. Ever since then, it seems that the American people have elected the most entertaining male as President. Of course we've had the whole Camelot thing with John Kennedy who was bonking Judith Exxner on the side along with the Chicago mob boss, San Giancana. Frank Sinatra set Kennedy up with Exxner and Marilyn Monroe. So Camelot was not really Camelot, only nobody knew about it at the time.

But surely, a little gravity at the national level might be in order. The Democrats are staking their future on that. Trump promised bread and circuses just like the Romans did, and he sure has delivered on the circus aspect. The bread....not so much. I wonder what he's calling Omarosa in private. Probably a lot worse than "dog."

Posted at 06:08 AM in John Lawrence, Looney Tunes, Off the Top of my Head, Trump | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 14, 2018

Trump's "Space Force": More "Whitey on the Moon"

Published on Sunday, August 12, 2018 by Informed Comment

How little progress we have made since the 1960s!

by Juan Cole

19 Comments

The president's PAC has come up with multiple Space Force logos. (Photo: Trump Make America Great Again Committee)

Trump and Pence want to spend $8 billion to establish a new branch of the U.S. armed forces, the Space Force.

I have enormous respect of the U.S. military. My father was a 20-year man. Two of my uncles served in WWII. We think an ancestor on the McIlwee side, spelling it Mucklewee, served in the Revolutionary War.

But, the U.S. military was intended by the Founding Fathers to be an institution for self-defense. Most of them thought a standing army would kill democracy. Since the end of WWII just such a standing military has been set up and is now gobbling up over $700 billion a year. Actually, the true amount of military-related expenses is over $1 trillion a year. War-fighters are an ever shrinking part of this military.

And here’s the secret of the way the scam works. A good half of the Pentagon budget is given back out to military contractors. It is, in essence, corporate welfare on a huge scale. Officers who retire often form provision companies on getting out. They know what their former colleagues need and want, and their former colleagues will take the call when they make the offer. The retirees with their new companies take the profits.

Many of the former officers you see interviewed on CNN and other cable news shows are actually making money off wars even as the opine on them, and despite print press exposes, CNN et al. have never apologized for the practice, never identified biased guests, and never acknowledged it is happening.

The U.S. military doesn’t need to be nearly so large if it is a defense force and if it were run like a public sector corporation (think Reneault) instead of as a way to enrich cronies. Nor does “defense” spending create many jobs, and the ones it creates are way more expensive to the public than most others.

The U.S. military isn’t very good at counter-terrorism (see: Afghanistan), and where it is, it doesn’t need those sort of resources. ISIL was defeated by the Iraqi military, Shiite militias, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards with the support of 6,000 U.S. special operations forces and lots of sorties by the U.S. Air Force. That didn’t cost $700 billion. It cost the U.S. $14.3 billion, and it was arguably the biggest active security threat to the U.S. at the time.

The biggest challenge the United States faces is climate change, and addressing that would actually save us money. Inventing more ways of scaring the public and throwing money to military contractors won’t save any money at all, and since there are no military threats in space, it can’t be a defense unit.

One who understood that the (mostly white Protestant U.S. elite) will gladly spend trillions on war but won’t step up to put a social safety net under American workers was Gil Scott-Heron:

Lyrics

A rat done bit my sister Nell.
(with Whitey on the moon)
Her face and arms began to swell.
(and Whitey’s on the moon)

I can’t pay no doctor bill.
(but Whitey’s on the moon)
Ten years from now I’ll be payin’ still.
(while Whitey’s on the moon)

The man jus’ upped my rent las’ night.
(’cause Whitey’s on the moon)
No hot water, no toilets, no lights.
(but Whitey’s on the moon)

I wonder why he’s uppi’ me?
(’cause Whitey’s on the moon?)
I was already payin’ ‘im fifty a week.
(with Whitey on the moon)
Taxes takin’ my whole damn check,
Junkies makin’ me a nervous wreck,
The price of food is goin’ up,

An’ as if all that shit wasn’t enough
A rat done bit my sister Nell.
(with Whitey on the moon)
Her face an’ arm began to swell.
(but Whitey’s on the moon)

Was all that money I made las’ year
(for Whitey on the moon?)
How come there ain’t no money here?
(Hm! Whitey’s on the moon)
Y’know I jus’ ’bout had my fill
(of Whitey on the moon)
I think I’ll sen’ these doctor bills,
Airmail special
(to Whitey on the moon)

Songwriter: Gil Scott-Heron

Whitey on the Moon lyrics © Carlin America Inc

If anything proved Mr. Scott-Heron’s perspicacity, it is the emergence of the Space Force in the Trump era.

Trump is crashing the Affordable Health Care Act without putting anything in its place, so that millions of people will lose their healthcare insurance. For a while there, Nell could have gotten an affordable doctor visit for her rat bite. She wouldn’t have been uninsured. But Trump has just kicked Nel back off health insurance.

Trump’s tax scam (“cut”) also will balloon the federal deficit and throw trillions in windfalls to some 300,000 Americans, leading to a steep reduction of government services and help for the families and children who are struggling.

And in that case, wherein Trump has managed to project his racism even into the vacuum of outer space, and given how he has cheapened and coarsened the lives of working Americans, I have no sympathy for this new piece of Trumpism.

How little progress we have made since the 1960s! Nell’s still being bitten by rats. And Whitey’s still planning to be on the moon, this time in a military uniform.

Posted at 06:46 AM in Common Dreams, The Military, Trump | Permalink | Comments (0)

What My Heart Knows Is True

Dear friends,

One of my favorite scenes in the movie “Castaway” with Tom Hanks, is when he, stranded on a deserted island, and after many failed attempts, manages to start a fire using friction and little dabs of dried coconut husks. It saved his life, allowing him to have light and heat and to cook the fish he learned to catch with a home-made spear. Watching the process, which the director allowed to unfold in real time, we saw his determination and refusal to give up.

The truth of Emerson’s words comes to mind: “there is no fire without fuel.”

There is no real change without a vision; no forward movement without optimism; no great discovery without commitment; no true love without passion. Our word, our big idea, our desire will sit idling in potential until it becomes the “fire in our belly.” What that actually is, is conviction. We have become one with the image, to the point that we can say with real certainty “this is mine to do.”

The question for us today, one that might seem grandiose, is simple:

“What would save my life?” What would lift me out of sameness, boredom or the sense that my life is stuck, that I am not going anywhere or serving my true purpose? Try not to answer with “”winning the lottery” That would be a nice, but temporary elation, not what we are considering here. Try to allow your mind to wander in your imagination, searching for fuel, as it were. Do not consider the “how” of it. Stay with the “what.” It is a simple mental practice, but one which can ignite our self-identity, leading us into uncharted realms of possibility.

Try this: “I freely allow my Higher Awareness to reveal what my heart knows is true for me. I ask with complete faith that the answer is now, “What would save my life?”

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes