Iran holding three journalists on charges of 'unauthorized reporting'

By Thomas Erdbrink
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, November 6, 2009; 2:19 PM

TEHRAN -- Iranian officials arrested a Japanese reporter and two Canadian reporters during anti-government protests this week and charged them with "unauthorized reporting," the semiofficial Fars news agency reported Friday. It did not identify the reporters or their news organizations. The three reporters join two others whose agencies said they were also arrested during Wednesday's protests marking the 30th anniversary of the U.S. Embassy here. Agence France Presse said its local reporter Farhad Pouladi was detained and the International Federation of Journalists said a Danish journalist, Niels Krogsgaard, was arrested in connection with the demonstration.

"The claim about the arrest of the AFP journalist is under investigation," the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency cited Tehran prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dowlatabadi as saying Friday. Iranian media gave no further details on the other arrested foreigners. All are still believed to be in custody.

On Wednesday authorities temporarily blocked all access to e-mail programs such as Gmail and Yahoo during the demonstrations to prevent people from sending images to foreign media organizations. Still, many managed to upload cellphone clips to video sites, which were widely broadcast by foreign-based Farsi language satellite channels.

Anti-government protesters used a state-backed rally commemorating the 1979 embassy takeover to stage their own demonstration against the government, which they call illegitimate. The confrontation led to clashes between security forces and protesters in the center of the capital. Foreign reporters were ordered to report only from the official demonstration.

Iranian officials have often accused Western media organizations of organizing and promoting the protests. Foreign journalists are largely barred from the country since several demonstrations and riots following June presidential elections.

-pictured- of the story of the Blind Men and the Elephant

fanaa- passing away
baqaa- levels of God
marifa- knowledge
latif-e-gitta- six subtleties
nafs- breath
qalb- maintaining good heart
sirr- total negation of ego
ruh- the effort of being created in God
khafi- primordial knowledge
akhfa- unity

Tibetan Prayer Flags

meditation for simply the self can lead to selfishness

The LAPD fights crime, not illegal immigration
The outgoing chief of police urges the department to keep focusing on community outreach.

By William J. Bratton, chief of the Los Angeles Police Department

October 27, 2009


On March 12, Juan Garcia, a 53-year-old homeless man, was brutally murdered in an alley off 9th and Alvarado streets in the Westlake District, just west of downtown Los Angeles. At first, the police were stumped; there were no known witnesses and few clues. Then a 43-year-old undocumented immigrant who witnessed the crime came forward and told the homicide detectives from the Rampart station what he saw. Because of his help, a suspect was identified and arrested a few days later while hiding on skid row. Because the witness was not afraid to contact the police, an accused murderer was taken off the streets, and we are all a little bit safer. Stories like this are repeated daily in Los Angeles.

Keeping America's neighborhoods safe requires our police forces to have the trust and help of everyone in our communities. My nearly 40 years in law enforcement, and my experience as police commissioner in Boston and New York City and as chief in Los Angeles, have taught me this.

Yet every day our effectiveness is diminished because immigrants living and working in our communities are afraid to have any contact with the police. A person reporting a crime should never fear being deported, but such fears are real and palpable for many of our immigrant neighbors.

This fear is not unfounded. Earlier this month, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced that 11 more locations across the United States have agreed to participate in a controversial law enforcement program known as 287(g). The program gives local law enforcement agencies the powers of federal immigration agents by entering into agreements with Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE. Although many local agencies have declined to participate in 287(g), 67 state and local law enforcement agencies are working with ICE, acting as immigration agents.

Some in Los Angeles have asked why the LAPD doesn't participate. My officers can't prevent or solve crimes if victims or witnesses are unwilling to talk to us because of the fear of being deported. That basic fact led to the implementation almost 30 years ago of the LAPD's policy on immigrants, which has come to be known as Special Order 40. The order prohibits LAPD officers from initiating contact with someone solely to determine whether they are in the country legally. The philosophy that underlies that policy is simple: Criminals are the biggest benefactors when immigrants fear the police. We can't solve crimes that aren't reported because the victims are afraid to come forward to the police.

The idea of engaging all members of the public in reporting crime and identifying criminals not only helps us with short- and medium-term goals of reducing crime; it helps improve relations with community members. We all have an interest in helping our young people develop into healthy, educated and law-abiding adults. Breeding fear and distrust of authority among some of our children could increase rates of crime, violence and disorder as those children grow up to become fearful and distrustful adolescents and adults. That is why the Los Angeles Police Department has not participated in 287(g) and the federal government is not pressuring the department to do so.

Americans want a solution to our immigration dilemma, as do law enforcement officials across this nation. But the solution isn't turning every local police department into an arm of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The Police Foundation published a report in April titled "The Role of Local Police: Striking a Balance Between Immigration Enforcement and Civil Liberties." The report confirms that when local police enforce immigration laws, it undermines their core public safety mission, diverts scarce resources, increases their exposure to liability and litigation, and exacerbates fear in communities that are already distrustful of police.

The report concluded that to optimize public safety, the federal government must enact comprehensive immigration reform. As police chief of one of the most diverse cities in the United States, and possibly the world, I agree. As I leave my position as leader of the LAPD, I will encourage my successor to adopt the same rigid attitude toward keeping Special Order 40 and keeping the mission of the men and women of the department focused on community cooperation instead of community alienation.

Working with victims and witnesses of crimes closes cases faster and protects all of our families by getting criminals off the street. We must pass immigration reform and bring our neighbors out of the shadows so they get the police service they need and deserve. When officers can speak freely with victims and witnesses, it goes a long way toward making every American neighborhood much safer.

William J. Bratton is chief of the Los Angeles Police Department. The Police Foundation's report is available online at http://www.policefoundation.

org/strikingabalance/.

Copyright © 2009, The Los Angeles Times

List of noted U.S. involvement in regime changes of foreign nations courtesy of - wiki -


Iran 1953
Guatemala 1954
Cuba 1959-
Turkey 1960
Democratic Republic of the Congo 1960
Iraq 1963
Brazil 1964
Iraq 1968
Chile 1973
Afghanistan 1973-74
Argentina 1976
Afghanistan 1978-1980s
Iran 1980
Turkey 1980
Nicaragua 1981-1990
Republic of Ghana
Iraq 1992-1995
Guatemala 1993
Zimbabwe 2000s
Serbia 2000
Venezuela 2002
Georgia, 2003
Ukraine, 2004
Equatorial Guinea 2004
Lebanon 2005
Palestinian Authority, 2006-Present
Somalia 2006-2007
Venezuela 2007
Iran 2001-present

Monday, November 2, 2009
Profiteering from misery: Alaskan Natives' migrant prison

Profiteering from misery: Alaskan Natives' private migrant prison for profit is disturbing trend in violation of the traditional teachings of Native Americans

By Brenda Norrell
Censored News
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/


UPDATED
TUCSON -- Native Americans say the disturbing trend of profiteering from foul and abusive private migrant prisons by American Indian Nations violates traditional teachings to honor the sacredness of life and all humanity.

The San Xavier District of the Tohono O'odham Nation has planned a migrant prison in secret for years. Recently, outcry from neighbors at Sahuarita, Ariz., halted the plan. However, a second site selected in secret is east of Three Points, Ariz. and has not been made public.

Mike Wilson, Tohono O'odham who puts out water for migrants against the wishes of the Tohono O'odham government, is among those opposing the migrant prison.

"The Tohono O'odham Nation is anxious to take blood money from the Department of Homeland Security. Shamefully, we who were once oppressed are now the willing oppressors," Wilson said.

The residents of Sahuarita and city officials of the City of Green Valley, including the mayor, were opposed to the prison. David Garcia and Wilson, both Tohono O'odham, met officials at the Pima County Board of Supervisors meeting on May 12, 2009 and opposed the prison.

Jose Matus, Yaqui and director of the Indigenous Alliance without Borders/Indigena Alianza sin Fronteras, points out that many of those arrested by the US Border Patrol, and dying in the Sonoran Desert, are Indigenous Peoples from southern Mexico and Central America. They are desperate for food and jobs after being forced off their lands by multi-national corporations. An increasing number of the dead are Mayan women, walking with their children.

Meanwhile in Montana, the private security firm American Police Force is under a state Attorney General probe, after masquerading as the police force in Hardin, Montana, a town with a long history of racism and attacks on American Indians. American Police Force is linked to Texas-based CorPlan Corrections, which is pitching the private prison to Tohono O'odham and other Indian Nations.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney was indicted in Texas for prison profiteering. Cheney invested in the Vanguard Group, which profits from private prison contractor GEO Group (formerly Wackenhut, which split into GEO and Wackenhut Transportation.)

The Vanguard Group reported $1.24 trillion in assets, in mutual funds, in 2009, with global offices, including offices in Scottsdale, Arizona and Valley Forge, Penn. Vanguard Group is among the top investors in Corrections Corporations of America, CCA, operating private prisons in Arizona and throughout the United States.

Wackenhut Transportation, owned by G4S, currently has a contract to transport detained and arrested migrants in buses at the Arizona border. The buses constantly flow from the border to Tucson. Aso, at the Arizona border, Elbit Systems, the Israeli contractor of the Palestine Apartheid Border, was subcontracted by the border wall profiteer Boeing for spy apparatus on the Arizona border.

In another twist, there's an Israeli/US border prison connection. US based Emerald Corrections was granted a prison contract in Israel. Israel’s government awarded a 22year contract to a consortium of Africa-Israel Investments, Minrav Holdings Ltd and Emerald Correctional Management to finance, design, build and operate the country’s first private prison at Be’er Sheva. Emerald operates the prison at San Luis, Arizona, on the US/Mexico border and others in Texas.

Private prisons, packed with migrants, were quickly built in Texas and along the Southwest border during the Bush administration. American Indians continue to be imprisoned at a disproportionate rate and receive longer prison terms than non-Indians, according to the ACLU. While the abuses in private prisons continue, Cheney has not been prosecuted.

Already, Alaskan Natives are in the private prison profiteering business, according to New York Times, citing the abuses today from a filed complaint of a migrant detention center in New York. Mildew, frigid temperatures and hunger were repeated complaints.

"In vivid if flawed English, it described cramped, filthy quarters where dire medical needs were ignored and hungry prisoners were put to work for $1 a day," New York Times reported.

A subsidiary of Ahtna Inc., an Alaska Native regional corporation, Ahtna Technical Services Inc., operates the Varick Street Detention Facility with the help of a Texas subcontractor.

Ben Carnes, Choctaw prison rights activist, was surprised by the news of Native-run prisons. "Wow. I always thought that if the First Nations were in the prison industry, they would manage it as a positive advancement in corrections, instead of just another stinking jail."

After viewing a photo of an outdoor migrant detention center on the Tohono O'odham Nation, often described as "The Cage," Carnes said, "The people cannot keep ignoring how the US imposed tribal council system is operating before they end up in those dog cages!"

Read the article below from the New York Times.

Corrupt prison hustlers linked to Tohono O'odham prison:
(Link to prison hustle in Choctaw and Chickasaw lands)
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2009/10/corrupt-prison-hustlers-linked-to.html

New York Times: Immigrant Jail Tests U.S. View of Legal Access
By NINA BERNSTEIN
New York Times
Published: November 1, 2009
A startling petition arrived at the New York City Bar Association in October 2008, signed by 100 men, all locked up without criminal charges in the middle of Manhattan.
Daniel I. Miller, a former detainee at the Varick Street center, complained of abuses there. "These people have no rules," he said.
In vivid if flawed English, it described cramped, filthy quarters where dire medical needs were ignored and hungry prisoners were put to work for $1 a day. Read article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/02/nyregion/02detain.html?_r=1

Indianz.com
http://www.indianz.com/
A subsidiary of Ahtna Inc., an Alaska Native regional corporation, runs an unusual immigrant detention facility in New York City under a $79 million, three-year contract with the federal government.
Ahtna Technical Services Inc. operates the Varick Street Detention Facility with the help of a Texas subcontractor. The jail houses up to 250 adult male aliens who face deportation for various reasons.
The Obama administration cites the jail as a model for the way legal services are provided to detainees. But the New York City Bar Association says detainees are frequently denied counsel and live under harsh conditions.
Ahtna has about 1,200 shareholders.
Relevant Documents:
Contract with Homeland Security for the operation of the Varick Federal Detention Processing Facility

http://www.ice.gov/doclib/foia/contracts/ahtnatechnicalservicesinchsceop07c00019asofp00012.pdf

ACLU: Racial profiling and prison sentences of American Indians
"Indian political participation is further diminished by the disproportionate number of tribal members disfranchised for commission of criminal offenses. There is a pattern of racial profiling of Indians by law enforcement officers, the targeting of Indians for prosecution of serious crimes, and the imposition of lengthier prison sentences upon Indian defendants. These injustices result in the higher incarceration of Indians and dilute the overall voting strength of Indian communities." (OCt. 14, 2009)
http://www.nativelegalupdate.com/2009/10/articles/aclu-alleges-widespread-voting-rights-problems-in-native-communities

US Detention Facilities:
http://www.globaldetentionproject.org/countries/americas/united-states/list-of-detention-sites.html
Posted by brendanorrell@gmail.com at 9:18 AM 0 comments Links to this post

THE STREETS SPEAK: COLOMBIAN GRAFFITI ARTISTS HAVE THEIR SAY STREETS SPEAK: COLOMBIAN GRAFFITI ARTISTS HAVE THEIR SAY

Written by Raimondo Chiari

Monday, 21 September 2009

Recent political graffiti from the streets of Bogotá provides creative commentary on militarism, US military bases, President Álvaro Uribe and extrajudicial military killings.
-
1, 2, 3 - Uribe - What's behind the FALSE POSITIVES
This message, written in the form of a chant, refers to a recent scandal over the Colombian Army’s practice of extrajudicially killing civilians, whose bodies are then dressed as guerrilla fighters (now called ‘False Positives’) in order to fabricate combat reports and results, leading to monetary and vacation rewards, as well as the promotion of army officers.

THE TRUTH UNDER THE EARTH: THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN GENOCIDE AND FEMICIDE IN GUATEMALA

Written by Colm McNaughton

Thursday, 22 October 2009

The war in Guatemala has never ceased. While the Peace Accords signed in 1996 demobilized some combatants and weapons - the killing, raping and torturing continues unabated. In 2009 the homicide rate for Guatemala, with a population of 13 million, is about 8,000 per year. Of these 8,000 murders approximately 10 percent are women and girls.

According to figures from Guatemala City based women’s group Grupo Guatemalteco de Mujeres (GGM) between January 2002 and January 2009 there were 197,538 acts of domestic violence, 13,895 rapes and 4,428 women were murdered. What is perhaps even more disturbing is that for this tsunami of violence there is a 97 percent impunity rate. One of the main reasons for near total impunity in the Guatemalan context is that the people responsible for the genocidal civil war against indigenous people in which 200,000 people were murdered and 50,000 disappeared have never, nor are they ever likely to be held accountable.

In August and September of 2009 I visited Guatemala, at least in part, to examine how the civil war has been superseded by an as yet undeclared social war, part of which is an ongoing femicide.

This journey really starts for me in early September 2009 in the Ixil triangle, which is an area in the western highlands framed by the three townships of Nebaj, Chajul and Cotzal. It is a fiercely indigenous region which has resisted the colonialism and brutal immiseration forced upon the region since the times of the Spanish invasion. Consequently, it bore the brunt of the genocidal ‘scorched earth’ policies enacted by the consecutive military dictatorships of Romeo Lucas Garcia and Rios Mont in the early 1980s. At this time there were more than 200 massacres and 16,000 deaths, which led to a population decrease of the region by a quarter.

I visited Finca Covabunga, which is just up the road from Chul, a bumpy, dusty, windy three hour trip through the mountains on the back of a pick up, north of Nebaj. On December 9, 1982, 75 men, women and children were massacred by the Guatemalan army. The exhumation of seven or so bodies from two graves - the rest had been eaten by dogs, birds and time - was organized by the Centre for Forensic Analysis and Scientific Application (CAFTA) and it was part of their ongoing campaign against impunity for genocide in Guatemala. In speaking with the folks from CAFTA they were not hopeful of a prosecution – there is no functioning legal system in Guatemala – but they keep on building the case anyway. Over the two days I was in the community, like everyone else I tried to find a little spot underneath the black plastic to watch the digging: a pair of gumboots here, a crumbling skull there, some paperwork in a pocket, all carefully collected, noted and packed. One of the most surreal experiences of my life is helping to clean up the site and carrying plastic bags full of clothing, body parts and personal affects of recently exhumed massacre victims to the four-wheel drive for further tests and safer storage. As the exhumation continued an old woman wept, someone let off fireworks, others cooked beans and tortillas, young boys played football and stony faced older men talked softly in conjobal, a Mayan language.

I talked and recorded survivors of the massacre. Margarheta lost her husband, animals, land and all her possessions on that day. She spent the next ten years living in the mountains running from the army. Digging up the bodies was painful for her as it brought back a flood of painful memories. I met another man, Juan, hunched over, with a tiny twisted frame, obviously in pain from years of unrelenting farm labor. He lost his whole family on that day, he kept repeating the same word ‘everything’, ‘everything’. He found it hard to walk, to talk.

A day or so after returning from Chul, I was visiting an activist friend, Nicolas, in his dirt-floored shack surrounded by his wife and eight beautiful kids. He had been unable to attend the exhumation because of other business. I played him the recordings and showed him the photos. He listened with a sharp intensity to every word. He looked at the pictures likewise, it was like he had lost something precious and he was looking for clues. He told me his grandfather and grandmother had been executed by the army. Later on, he explained he had only learned to read and write recently, after he and his people had come down from the mountains. I asked him if he was a guerilla. He replied with some sadness: ‘no, I was too young’. He was elated that people from other countries are interested in learning about and telling the story of his people’s suffering and resistance. He gave me a present, of a book, a powerful pictorial account of the struggle for memory in Guatemala. The title translates as ‘the truth is under the earth’. Indeed.

The next day Nicolas and I and a couple of other activists visited a community on the outskirts of Nebaj. It is named June 30th which commemorates the date in 2006 in which the community reclaimed land from the army - who had stolen it after eradicating the owners - and started growing food, teaching their kids and various other projects of self-determination. All these families that made up this community had been dispossessed by the ‘scorched earth’ policies of the army in the region and been living in the mountains for more than a decade. Now this community is in a low-intensity conflict with the soldiers at the army base, which is situated on the other side of the hill. What this war largely consists of is the continual harassment, rape and sometimes torture and killing of women, which usually occurs when the women go out to collect firewood in the forests.

While at the community I met a young woman of sixteen who had a six month old baby, the father is a soldier and the conception method was rape. Nothing has ever happened in regards to this rape. In June of 2009 a woman who had five young children, was raped, murdered and cut up by soldiers. Nothing will likely ever happen to the person/s who committed this heinous act - impunity for such crimes is total in Guatemala. This woman’s five children are now orphaned and being helped out for now by a much older aunt and they have no means of support. I visited these kids and the littlest one who is two, had her finger in her mouth the whole time, and she looked out the world with big accusing eyes.

After a meeting with the community and many different perspectives on what is happening - in four different languages - we asked the community if they would like us to accompany them on a wood-sourcing mission. They enthusiastically agreed, so after lunch we set off into the forest, literally to confront power and to defend memory against institutionalized forgetting. On the way we were shown the spot were the mother of five was murdered, and stories were shared by the women who heard the screams and found the body. It was about half an hour into chopping and collecting wood when first contact was made with the army. They called for back-up immediately and the community gathered. First, we eyed five soldiers in shorts and runners with machetes, ropes and bags, obviously on some sort of collection mission. They were soon joined by five more soldiers, wearing camouflage fatigues and heavily armed. They kept their distance, filmed the proceedings and generally added a malevolent presence and threat to the encounter.

The community members began to really speak their minds to the soldiers. After a while, the tension eased and soldiers and community members went on their way. As she was leaving, one older woman said to the soldiers, "I am not afraid of you. Back in the eighties and nineties we used to kill you sort of people, and we’ll do it again if we have to." The soldiers were visibly shaken by her words.

Won Buddhism founded in Korea

excerpts from the website wonbuddhism.info
1 : The Essential Dharmas of Daily Practice..

1. The mind ground is originally free from disturbance, but disturbances arise in response to sensory conditions; let us give rise to the absorption (dhyana) of the self-nature by letting go of those disturbances.
2. The mind ground is originally free from delusion, but delusions arise in response to sensory conditions; let us give rise to the wisdom of the self-nature by letting go of those delusions.
3. The mind ground is originally free from wrong-doing, but wrong-doings arise in response to the sensory conditions; let us give rise to the precepts of the self-nature by letting go of those wrong-doings.
4. Let us remove unbelief, greed, laziness, and foolishness by means of belief, zeal, questioning, and dedication.
5. Let us turn a life of resentment into a life of gratitude.
6. Let us turn a life of dependency into a life of self-reliance.
7. Let us turn a reluctance to learn into a readiness to learn well.
8. Let us turn a reluctance to teach into a readiness to teach well.
9. Let us turn a lack of public spirit into an eagerness for the publics welfare.

7 : The Dharma of Timeless Zen

As a rule, zen is a practice that leads to the achievement of freedom of mind through gaining awakening to ones own nature, which is originally free from discrimination or attachment. Since time immemorial, those who have been determined to achieve the great way have all practiced zen. If people intend to practice genuine zen, they first should take true voidness as the essence and marvelous existence as the function and, externally, be unmoving like Mount Tai when in contact with the myriad of sensory conditions, and, internally, keep the mind unsullied, like empty space. Let the mind function so that it is not acting even in action and not resting even at rest. If we do so, then all discrimination will not depart from absorption, so that the functioning of the six sense organs will tally with the self-nature of the void and calm, numinous awareness. This is what is called Mahayana zen and the method of practice in which we progress in concert through the Threefold Study. Therefore it says in a sutra, Give rise to a mind that, while responding, does not abide anywhere. This is precisely the great dharma of practice that remains unmoved amid the myriad of sensory conditions. This dharma may seem extremely difficult, but if only we come to understand in detail the methods of practice, then even a farmer wielding a hoe can practice zen, as can a carpenter wielding a hammer, a clerk using an abacus, and an official seeing to an administrative matter; and we can practice zen even while going about or staying at home. What need is there to bother with choosing a specific place and with talking about action or rest?

However, for people who are first beginning to practice zen, the mind is not easily controlled according to their wishes; it is like training an ox where, if the reins of the mind are dropped even for a moment, it will instantly harm ones commitment to the way. Therefore, if you keep exerting yourself without letting go of that spirit which is ready to fight to the bitter end no matter how alluring the sensory conditions you face may be, the mind gradually will become tamed and you will reach a state where the mind will do what you wish. Each and every time you are in contact with a sensory condition, do not forget to keep the thought in mind that an opportunity for practice has arrived, always roughly ascertaining only whether or not you are affected by that sensory condition. Thus, once there is a gradual increase in instances of behavior in which the mind does what you wish, you may from time to time let yourself be put in situations that you normally would find extremely attractive or abhorrent. If the mind is moved as before, then your commitment to the way is immature; but if it is unmoved, then you will know that this is proof that your commitment to the way is ripening. However, at the very time that you realize that the mind is unmoving, do not let down your guard, for it is unmoving by employing the mental powers, rather than naturally unmoving. The mind has been well tamed only when it is unmoving even if left unguarded.

If a person continues for a long time to practice zen so as to put an end to all the defilements and free the mind, then, you will be centered like an iron pillar and defended from the outside like a stone wall, so that neither wealth or status, or honor and glory, can coax the mind, nor can anyone make that mind submit through weapons or authority. Practicing all dharmas in this wise, you will never be enticed or obstructed, and even while residing in this dusty world, you constantly will attain hundreds and thousands of samadhis. Once you reach this stage, the entire world will be transformed into the one genuine realm of reality, and right and wrong, good and evil, and all the defiled and pure dharmas will become the single taste of ghee. This state is called the gateway of nonduality. Freedom in birth and death, liberation from the cycle of rebirths, and the ultimate bliss of the pure land all emerge through this gateway.

early snowfall in Beijing

"I tell you not to resist one who is evil. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other to him as well." Matt. 5:38-42

"Love your enemy and pray for those who misuse you" Matt 5:43-44

satyagraha- unwavering search for truth
ahimsa- avoiding harm of living creatures

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