On this day, October 30, 1945, Jackie Robinson of the Negro Leagues Kansas City Monarchs signs a contract with the Brooklyn Dodgers becoming the first black baseball player, breaking the Jim Crow Law or Racial Barriers for major league baseball.

The Dungan Revolt was a religious war in 19th-century China. It is also known as the Hui Minorities' War and the Muslim Rebellion. The term is sometimes used to refer to the Panthay Rebellion in Yunnan as well. It was an uprising by members of the Hui and other Muslim ethnic groups in China's Shaanxi, Gansu and Ningxia provinces, as well as in Xinjiang, between 1862 and 1877.

The purpose of this uprising was to develop a Muslim country on the western bank of the Yellow River (Shaanxi, Gansu and Ningxia (excluding the Xinjiang province)). A common misconception is that it was directed against the Qing Dynasty, but there is no evidence at all showing that they intended to attack the capital of Beijing. The uprising was actively encouraged by the leaders of the Taiping Rebellion. When the rebellion failed, mass-immigration of the Dungan people into Imperial Russia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan ensued.

article courtesy of -wiki-

Under a biotechnic economy, consumption is directed toward the conservation and enhancement of life: a matter where qualitative standards are imperative. One uses the word life in no vague sense: one means the birth and nurture of children, the preservation of human health and well being, the culture of the human personality, and the perfection of the natural and civic environment as the theater of all these activities. Here are substantial goals for consumption not envisaged in the abstract doctrine of increasing wants, operating within an ever-expanding circle of new inventions and multiplying productive mechanisms.

quote from Lewis Mumford, his book The Myth of the Machine

Nirvana - Something In The Way - Unplugged -

Cannasatago, a Onondaga Haudenosaunee spokesman once said “You who are wise must know that different Nations have different conceptions.” Connasatego made this statement to an English colonial official in 1744. The relevancy of this philosophical statement to this day and age is uncanny. Cannastego was a member of the Onondaga tribe. The Onondaga tribe was a member-nation of the Six Nations or Iroquois Confederacy. Mohawk, Oneida, Onondasa, Gayuga, Seneca, and Tuscarora, were the tribes that compromised the Haudenosaunee or “People of the Longhouse.” Though their reach once compromised a bulk of the Eastern North America, their reservations are now in New York, Quebec, Ontario, Wisconsin, and Oklahoma.

The Haudenosaunee political foundation is centered on the idea of the Seventh Generation. The idea is that individual humans and human communities are responsible for taking actions that positively affect Seven Generations hence forth. They must avoid negative actions that affect the Seventh Generation.

The Haudenosaunee believe in the mantra “To be of one mind.” Essentially, each human is committed to directing their individual strengths so that the spiritual instructions of the creator are carried out. The idea is grounded on the life of harmony in nature that was created by the “Almighty Creator.”

"I only hope that my death contributes to a halt in the impunity of the police of Acre, and which have already killed fifty persons like me, seringuiero leaders [who are] commited to save the Amazon forest and to show that progress without destruction is possible." -a qutoe from Chico Menedes prior to his murder-

Serengueiros, a Brazilian word for plantation workers who are forced to harvest rubber tree (also titled Serengueiros) for work in the deforested parts of the Amazon. Seringalistas are the corporate owners, few actually from Brazil, most from out of the country, who own the deforested or stripped land. Fazendeiros are the Brazilian managers and landlords of the rubber plantations. The Brazilian government has sold millions of hectares of Amazon forest to multinational corporations.

Francisco "Chico" Menedes born in 1944, in Porte Seco, Brasil and assassinated on Dec. 22, 1988 was considered a seringueiros. Chico led peaceful protests, including "sit in's" of forest marked for logging or burning. Chico advocated the sustainable use and development of the Amazon Rainforest in the face of overwhelming offs. Multinational corporations have been plundering the land for rubber, chestnut, amongst other trees. Farmers and ranchers also threaten the existence of the Amazon ecosystem. A 2000 study estimated that the current rate of land loss in the Amazon basin is five millions acres of forest a year.

In the face of total annihilation. The complete eradication of your home, your community, your job, your life. Where do you find the will to continue? How do you acknowledge the existence of love and hope? When a catastrophe, on par with Nagasaki, Hiroshima, or Hurricane Katrina imposes its judgement on your home, town, city?

The "havoc" or "calamity" that plague the Native and Indigenous peoples of North and South America is a familiar beast. It is poisoning the native man, woman, and child in the African Congo. It is polluting the water and air fro the native man, woman, and child in the Australian 0utback. It is terrorizing the peaceful life of the native man, woman, and child in the Jungles of Burma and Cambodia. This terror is not natural. Though it is man made, the terror, plays by the rules of "professionalism" and "law" all judged by "specific language" designed to limit and enslave.

The multinational corporations who fund the unsustainable exploitation of the Amazon are a perfect case study for the defense of not just the environment but the peoples who have inhabited these ecosystems for thousands of years. The Indigenous communities of the world are forced into a world of poverty, crime, death, and suicide.

The peoples of the Guarani and the Kaiowa tribes in the Amazon reflect a staggering amount of suicides since the mid 1990's. By 2003 the Guarani and the Kaiowa had lost over 300 individuals to suicide, 42 alone in the Mato Grosso do Sul state of Brazil. On March 5, 2002, Kaiowa Ramao da Silva commited suicide in the face of eviction from his grass-roofed hit. The doorway was so low that he had to "kneel to hand himself."

In 2002, the U'wa's, an indigenous tribe in the Colombian highlands won a battle against Occidental Petroleum. The tension during the legal dispute for oil drilling rights on the American Indian land culminated into a fever pitch when a large majority of the U'wa's threatened mass suicide if the plans from Occidental were not scrapped. The entire event tarnished the hope for Presidency of then Vice-President Al Gore and his bid on the Democrat Party nomination in 2000. Al Gore had inherited a minority holding in Occidental Petroleum from his father. Despite the withdraw of Occidental Petroleum from the U'wa's ancestral mountain land, the tribes are still threatened by the prospect of another company picking up where O.P. left off.

The victory against Occidental came once leaders of the tribe took their issues and concerns to the investment firms in the United States that funded much of Occidentals activities. In the end, the firms divested millions of capital of support from the Occidental Petroleum projects. U'wa members issued a press release shortly after the victory "The money king is only an illusion. Capitalism is blind and barbaric. It buys consciences, governments, peoples, and nations. It poisons the water and the air. It destroys everything. And to the U'wa it says that we are crazy, but we want to continue to be crazy if it means we can continue on our dear mother Earth.

My mind shall not be perverted... I shall abide cherishing goodwill and with no hatred in heart.

That which is selfless, hard it is to see;
Not easy is it to perceive the truth.
But who has ended craving utterly
Has naught to cling to, he alone can see.
(Beyond the Dichotomy)

lessons from the venerable Buddha from the book,
"The Lions Roar: An Anthology of the Buddhas Teachings Selected from the Pali Canon"
translated by David Maurice

Where the Wild Things Are

Several top commanders in Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards have been killed in a suicide bombing in the volatile south-east of the country.

14:18 GMT, Sunday, 18 October 2009 15:18 UK

Iranian commanders assassinated

Gen Shooshtari was deputy commander of the ground force
Several top commanders in Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards have been killed in a suicide bombing in the volatile south-east of the country.

Iranian state television said 31 people died in the attack, in the Pishin region of Sistan-Baluchistan, and more than 25 were injured.

Shia and Sunni tribal leaders were also killed. A Sunni resistance group, Jundullah, said they carried it out.

(more on BBC.CO.UK)

According to ABC news (full article), citing U.S. and Pakistani intelligence sources, U.S. officials have been encouraging and advising a Pakistani Balochi militant group named Jundullah that is responsible for a series of deadly guerrilla raids inside Iran, reported ABC News online. The Jundullah militants "stage attacks across the border into Iran on Iranian military officers, Iranian intelligence officers, kidnapping them, executing them on camera", This militant group is led by a leader, Abd el Malik Regi, sometimes known as "Regi." The U.S. provides no direct funding to the group, which would require an official presidential order or "presidential finding" as well as congressional oversight. A CIA spokesperson said "the account of alleged CIA action is false". -wiki-

The Baloch or Baluch (بلوچ) are the majority ethnic inhabitants of the region of Balochistan in the southeast corner of the Iranian plateau in Southwest Asia, including parts of Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.

Anger at US mixed marriage 'ban' (in Louisiana)

13:37 GMT, Friday, 16 October 2009 14:37 UK

Mr Bardwell does not believe in mixed-race marriages

A white US justice of the peace has been criticised for refusing to issue marriage licences to mixed-race couples. Keith Bardwell, of Tangipahoa Parish in Louisiana, denied racism but said mixed-race children were not readily accepted by their parents' communities. A couple he refused to marry is considering filing a complaint about him to the US Justice Department. Mr Bardwell said he had many black friends and frequently married them.

'No integration'

Mr Bardwell, who has worked in the role for 34 years, said that in his experience most interracial marriages did not last very long and estimated that he had refused applications to four couples in the past two-and-a-half years. He said he had "piles and piles of black friends" but just did not believe in "mixing the races". "They come to my home, I marry them, they use my bathroom. I treat them just like everyone else," he said. He said he had discussed the issue with both black and white people before making his decision. "There is a problem with both groups accepting a child from such a marriage," he said "I think those children suffer and I won't help put them through it."


Mr Bardwell added that he checked the race of the couple in question, 30-year-old Beth Humphrey and 32-year-old Terence McKay, when they first phoned him requesting a marriage licence. Ms Humphrey, who is white, said that when she phoned Mr Bardwell on 6 October to discuss getting a marriage licence signed his wife told her about his stance. Mrs Bardwell recommended that the couple see another justice of the peace, who did agree to marry them. Ms Humphrey said she had not expected such comments "in this day and age" and that she was looking forward to having children with her husband.

American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana attorney Katie Schwartzmann said that her organisation has requested an investigation into Mr Bardwell, describing the case as one of "bigotry". She said the Supreme Court ruled in 1967 "that the government cannot tell people who they can and cannot marry" and that Mr Bardwell had knowingly broken the law. However, Mr Bardwell denied mistreating anyone and said if he oversaw one mixed-race marriage, then he would have to continue to do it for everyone. He said: "I try to treat everyone equally."

Pres. Obama is the third sitting U.S. President to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize: Theodore Roosevelt won the award in 1906 and Woodrow Wilson won in 1919. In addition, former President Jimmy Carter won the award in 2002, in 1925, then-current Vice President Charles Dawes won the prize with Austen Chamberlain, and former Vice President Al Gore shared the 2007 prize with the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Obama is also the third African American to win this honor — Ralph J. Bunche was the Nobel laureate for 1950 and Martin Luther King, Jr., received the prize in 1964.

courtesy of -wiki-

The Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded 89 times to 119 Nobel Laureates between 1901 and 2008 – 96 times to individuals and 23 times to organizations.

Amitabha, also known as Dharmakara

vispassana- insight into the nature of reality

egoism is the key to misery...

My liberty and opportunity found just this once
Understanding how hard they are to get and how quickly lost
Bless me not to waste it in the pointless business of this life
But take its essence and make it count!

The Jewel Tree of Tibet: The Enlightenment Engine of Tibet Buddhism by Robert Thurman

Kostas Georgakis, died of self-immolation in protest of the fascist Greek junta of the 1970's.

"I am sure that sooner or later the people of Europe will understand that a fascist regime like the one based on Greek tanks is not only an insult to their dignity as free men but also a constant threat to Europe. ... I do not want my action to be considered heroic as it is nothing more than a situation of no choice. On the other hand, maybe some people will awaken to see what times we live in. "

"I cannot but think and act as a free individual"

East meets West

Hellenism and the Indus

courtesy of -wiki-

Alexander in Afghanistan and India

In 326 BC Alexander the Great conquered the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent as far as the Hyphasis River, and established satrapies as well as several cities, such as Bucephala, until his troops refused to go further east. The Indian satrapies of the Punjab were left to the rule of Porus and Taxiles, who were confirmed again at the Treaty of Triparadisus in 321 BC, and remaining Greek troops in these satrapies were left under the command of general Eudemus. Sometime after 321 Eudemus toppled Taxiles, until he left India in 316 BC. Another general also ruled over the Greek colonies of the Indus: Peithon, son of Agenor, until his departure for Babylon in 316 BC.

In 305 BC, Seleucus I led an army to the Indus, where he encountered Chandragupta. The confrontation ended with a peace treaty, and "an intermarriage agreement" (Epigamia, Greek: Επιγαμια), meaning either a dynastic marriage or an agreement for intermarriage between Indians and Greeks. Accordingly, Seleucus ceded to Chandragupta his northwestern territories, possibly as far as Arachosia and received 500 war elephants (which played a key role in the victory of Seleucus at the Battle of Ipsus):

"The Indians occupy in part some of the countries situated along the Indus, which formerly belonged to the Persians: Alexander deprived the Ariani of them, and established there settlements of his own. But Seleucus Nicator gave them to Sandrocottus in consequence of a marriage contract, and received in return five hundred elephants."

—Strabo 15.2.1(9)

Alexander conquered land in Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, not to mention Iran, Syria, and the Balkans coast. The Seleucids, successor kingdom of Alexanders would go on to rule the area between the Mediterranean Sea and the Eastern Regions of the Indian sub continent. It would then gain Independence from the Persian influenced Seleucid and be run as the Greco-Bactria Kingdom. Finally, the Mauryan empire would invade and begin to form what we know today as modern India, pre-Islamic invasion.

"Yona" is a Pali word used in ancient India to designate Greek speakers. Its equivalent in Sanskrit, Telugu and Tamil is the word "Yavana". "Yona" and Yavana are both transliterations of the Greek word for "Ionians" (Homer Iāones, older *Iāwones), who were probably the first Greeks to be known in the East. In Telugu another word "Yavanika", means drama stage, an invention brought by Hellenistic people. "Yunani", likewise, means medicine from Greeks.

Hadda is a Greco-Buddhist archaeological site located in Afghanistan.

Ingushetia's cycle of violence
bbc.co.uk
Page last updated at 11:02 GMT, Saturday, 3 October 2009 12:02 UK

Political violence and killings seem to be daily occurrences in the tiny mainly Muslim republic of Ingushetia in the Russian North Caucasus, which shares a border with Chechnya. Dom Rotheroe explains why.


Batyr Albakov's family learned of his death via the internet "Don't mention to our mother that he was tortured before he died," one of the sisters of the late Batyr Albakov whispers to us before we interview his family. "She doesn't know about that and she has a weak heart."

They came in the early hours of 10 July to take Mamma Albakov's son away. Two carloads of security forces had barged their way into the family flat in Russia's Caucasian republic of Ingushetia. Eleven days later, Batyr's family learned of his death through a report on the internet.

In that time, the 26-year-old aeroplane engineer had supposedly become an Islamic militant, acquired a gun and camouflage gear and been killed in a shoot-out with security forces.

Daily violence

The lie to this is given as soon as Batyr's mother is out of the room, and his siblings show us the mobile phone photos they cannot let her know about.

The photos of their brother's body reveal an array of gruesome injuries - multiple haematomas, knife wounds, an arm almost severed at the shoulder - that could hardly have been sustained in a gunfight. Such incidents occur almost daily in Ingushetia. The territory with its 300,000 people has suffered for sharing a border with Chechnya during the latter's two wars for independence from Russia.


After Russia finally took control of Chechnya, extremist rebels proclaimed an Islamic Emirate Of The North Caucasus and spread the fight into Russia's other mainly Muslim republics, like Ingushetia. Their jihadi ideology has not found much sympathy with the general population. A few miles down the road from the Albakovs we meet another grieving family. Some days before, two of their sisters were shot dead by militants in their roadside kiosk.

'Fake' attack

It was probably because they were selling alcohol, which is not a crime in conservative but secular Ingushetia. Yet, like the Albakovs, the family of the murdered sisters lay the final responsibility on the Russian and Ingush authorities and their security forces. The way these institutions have cracked down on not only the militants but many innocent people has made them the perfect recruiters for the insurgents.

Batyr Albakov's sister, Lisa, blames it on statistics. The security forces have to show they are actively combating the militants, she says. But it is much easier to grab a civilian and dress his corpse up as a militant rather than go into the woods and actually fight the jihadis. People here seem to think the only good thing the Russian authorities have done is replace Ingushetia's loathed President Zyazikov with the popular Yunis-Bek Yevkurov last year.

Mr Yevkurov cracked down on the previous regime's corruption and initiated talks with the militants, yet this June he was nearly killed in a suicide bomb attack on his car. In a society in which blood vendettas are part of a man's honour, young male relatives of the deceased have to seek their own justice. Since then the fight against the militants has indeed been stepped up, but so has the violence against civilians by the security forces. More than 200 people have been killed so far this year, the same figure as for the whole of 2008.

More and more young men are going "into the hills", as joining the rebels is known. Some may do so out of religious belief, yet Magomed Mutsolgov of human rights NGO, Mashr, believes that at least 80% leave home because of revenge. Mashr's office is dominated by a board displaying photographs of the 174 people, including Magomed's younger brother, who have disappeared without trace during the past seven years.
The vast majority of them, Magomed says, were kidnapped by security forces. In the other 500 cases of abduction and murder that are not on the board, not a single member of the security forces has been brought before a court.

'No justice'

It is a complaint we hear all over Ingushetia, that there is no law or justice. President Yunis-Bek Yevkurov was nearly killed in a suicide attack
In a society in which blood vendettas are part of a man's honour, young male relatives of the deceased have to seek their own justice. They head into the hills to get a gun and take revenge. And while with the extremists, their ideology may shift accordingly. Some may become suicide bombers, of which the North Caucasus has seen a resurgence this summer, culminating in an attack on Ingushetia's main police station in August which killed 21 and injured more than 100 more.

My most poignant memory of the Albakov family is of Batyr's younger brother, Beslan. Beslan's rejects blood revenge and wants legal justice for his brother, a justice he knows will never come. He also knows that the security forces will suspect him of seeking revenge and therefore may come for him at any time. His quietly desperate face is the face of Ingushetia today, trapped between the rock and hard place of the militants and the authorities who seem intent on feeding the ever-growing cycle of violence.

'Fluorescent Adolescent', Arctic Monkeys

Arise with poetry; stand with propriety; Grow with music.
-Confucious-