WORDS OF WISDOM --from the ages

Perhaps the most valuable result of all education is the ability to make

yourself do the thing you have to do, when it ought to be done, whether

you like it or not . . ..

Tomas Henry Huxley

We are each gifted in a unique and important way. It is our privilege

and our adventure to discover our own special light.

Mary Dunbar

. . . making and keeping promises to ourselves precedes making and

keeping promises to others.

Stephen Covey

When eating bamboo sprouts, remember the man who planted them.

Chinese Proverb

Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present

and not giving it.

William Arthur Ward

The Pilgrims made seven times more graves than huts. No Americans have

been more impoverished than these who, nevertheless, set aside a day of

thanksgiving.

H.U. Westermayer

POLITOLOGY

-- "MYTH-MAKING & OUR ELECTION YEAR NARRATIVES" ---
        [ Selected from the complete article at
     http://manosinmigrantes.com/main/content/view/27/2/  ]

The bedrock principles of this society have been completely upended,
including and especially the precept of innocent until proven guilty –
and yet – the candidates are not being questioned about this.

Under the precept of "you're with us or you're against us," this
administration has created this "us against them" mentality and
environment. All this is predicated on fear, hate & blame. This has
created a scramble to define who is "us" vs. who is "them." So it
doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that currently, it is
Arabs/Muslims… and Mexicans who are on the outs. These groups are
nowadays not simply seen as "others," but also as "enemies." At best,
the Mexicans are seen as subservient populations.

This election should be about the candidates explaining their
positions on the notion of the United States as a "nation of laws"…
and about these politics of dehumanization. It should be about the
future of the nation and the future of humanity. It should be about
their positions on transparent government and about a government with
checks and balances.

In this election, there should be but one issue on the table: what
will be the relationship between the president and the people and laws
of the United States? Within the context of 2008, this means asking
the contenders:

I -Does the United States – does the U.S. president –have the right to
wage permanent preemptive war against any and allnations

II -Do the nation's laws apply to the executive branch of government?

Currently, under the guise of "the war on terror" this administration
has given itself the right to attack, invade and/or occupy any nation
on earth, for any reason. This has resulted in the creation of secret
government – with no checks and balances – and without the consent of
the people.


[ Selected from complete article at
     http://manosinmigrantes.com/main/content/view/27/2/  ]

Bamiyan Buddhist Satues to be rebuilt in Afghanistan?

In March 2001, six months before the September 11th bombing of the World Trade Center in New York City, the Taliban destroyed two ancient statues of the Buddha called Bamiyan in an attempt to cleanse the country of Afghanistan of what they perceived as Hindu heresy.

Education is of course the key to many of the problems of human kind, but
more cross-cultural education concerning religious understanding is
essential. The ignorance and lack of respect that can result in the careful
wanton destruction of a 1500 year-old shrine is a clear case of a need for a global
view , for all people.

The blue marble view of the finite globe, earth, must quickly change old ways of thinking.

Technology -- Information junk

The information explosion causes a flood of junk. Historically new media, beginning with cave drawings, have largest initial use in pornography,and the web is no exception.

I believe that after the technology settles, cave drawings, printed books, movies, and the web, filters and validators settle in to get rid of the junk, or at least direct it to those who want it.

The Web is new and needs filters and referee procedures. They will emerge from necessity through wide use. I do not think the answer is to shut it down or limit it.

Oscar Wilde might have said " The only bad idea is to limit the flow of ideas." He did not say that . Tom Greene did.

Selected by A. Reissner

i thank You God for most this amazing

day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees

and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything

which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,

and this is the sun's birthday; this is the birth

day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay

great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing

breathing any--lifted from the no

of allnothing--human merely being

doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and

now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

e.e.cummings

Voting is not only a right, it is an obligation.

Voting is not only a right, it is an obligation.

The phenomena of a democracy is very new in the history of humanity. While we
live our complex and very busy lives, it is necessary that we
understand our obligation to keep the success of this democracy intact
by voting.

ECOLOGY and ECONOLOGY

Globalization of information is clear and obvious but the globalization of transportation although clearly needed is less easily acheived. Shipment of goods is much more complex than the shipment of information.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PANAMA:

A PROBLEM:The Panama Canal has become a bottleneck in the global economy, as ships line up off both coasts of the narrow, 80-kilometer (50-mile) strip of land connecting North and South America. During peak periods, up to a hundred ships, some waiting up to nine days, form traffic jams off Panama's Atlantic and Pacific coasts. Passage rights are a precious commodity and jealously guarded, with the major shipping companies booking passage for their tankers, container ships and automobile transport ships months in advance. (http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,443376,00.html)

A SOLUTION: October 23, 2006 · Last updated 4:56 a.m. PT (http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1102AP_Panama_Canal_Referendum.html?source=mypi)

Panama is embarking on an ambitious expansion of its storied canal to accommodate today's larger ships, recognizing that one of the engineering wonders of the world badly needs an update.In a referendum authorized the construction of a third set of locks so that vessels too wide for the current 108-foot-wide sections can take the shortcut between the seas."Today we have laid the groundwork to build a better country together," said President Martin Torrijos, who staked his political future on the plan. The $5.25 billion project will create 40,000 jobs in a country where 40 percent of people live in poverty and were unemployment sits at 9.5 percent. Currently the canal employs 8,000.


OR IS THE CANAL THE SOLUTION?: A story clearly demonstrating ecology, economics and politics as tightly linked appeared recently in USA TODAY By Rebecca Dube - a summary follows:
(http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2006-04-03-nwpassage-debate_x.htm)

Melting ice is opening up the Northwest Passage (NWP) and reviving a dispute between the United States and Canada over who controls the potentially lucrative shipping route.The United States calls the passage an international strait, open to all. Canada claims control because it considers the passage an internal waterway, like the Mississippi River.As global temperatures rise and polar ice caps melt, the ice-free season may lengthen, making the Northwest Passage a viable shipping route the U.S. Navy says within a few years. A 2001 U.S. Navy report predicted that within 10 years, the passage would be open to non-ice-strengthened vessels for one month a year. Only icebreakers and specially made ice-hardened ships now travel the passage, mainly for military purposes and scientific research.A reliably ice-free Northwest Passage could be a far shorter alternative to the Panama Canal. A 12,600-nautical-mile trip from Europe to Asia via the Panama Canal would be 7,900 nautical miles using the Northwest Passage. That would save hundreds of thousands of dollars for shipping companies.

CANADA has claims against the US and Russia and Denmark For the NWP:

CULTUROLOGY --Populations and Languages -- just for fun

POPULATION:
In the beginning of the 20th century the entire world population was less than 2 billion people. Today the current world population has exceeded 6 billions (6,396,000,000).

World Population by Continents

Africa	885,000,000	(13.84%)
The Americas and the Caribbean	875,000,000	(13.68%)
Asia	3,875,000,000	(60.60%)
Europe	727,000,000	(11.37%)
Oceania	32,000,000	(0.50%)
TOTAL	6,394,000,000	(100.00%)

NUMBER OF COUNTRIES:
The United States' State Department recognizes 193 independentcountries around the world.

SPOKEN LANGUAGE:
There are 6,800 known languages spoken in the 193 countries of theworld. 2,261 have writing systems (the others are only spoken) andabout 300 are represented by on-line dictionaries as of May 11, 2004.They are listed at http://www.yourdictionary.com/languages.html.

Most Commonly SpokenLanguages

Rank	Language	Number of Speakers
1	Chinese (Mandarin)	1,000,000,000 +
2	English	508,000,000
3	Hindustani (Hindi and Urdu)	497,000,000
4	Spanish	392,000,000
5	Russian	277,000,000
6	Arabic	246,000,000
7	Bengali	211,000,000
8	Portuguese	191,000,000
9	Malay-Indonesian	159,000,000
10	French	129,000,000

(Source: University of Washington)
WRITTEN LANGUAGE:
The 2,261 languages that have writing systems use different types:

Type	What each symbol represents	Example
Logographic	morpheme	Chinese hanzi
Syllabic	syllable	Japanese kana
Alphabetic	phoneme (consonant or vowel)	Latin alphabet
Abugida	phoneme (consonant+vowel)	Indian Devanāgarī
Abjad	phoneme (consonant)	Arabic alphabet
Featural	phonetic feature	Korean hanguledu

TECHNOLOGY : WWW -- new tools --Web 2.0

Hello all

The W3C And the WWW is now 10 years old as a full world operation.WEB 2.0 is becoming visible.Instead of a passive "Give me a web page" WWW has become an active medium.

The new technologies in wide use for end user participation include

• Blogs (web logs),
• Wiki (distributred collboration composition tool,
• podcast(audio and video)
• use of tags (keywords on all information objects -pix notes-recordings)
• and RSS (real simple syndication)

As I explore these tools I will send you stuff-- beginning with a blog that contains messages I emailed to it, sent photos, wrote directly on it and telephoned it.

See
http://tjpgblog.blogspot.com/2006/08/hello-world.html
More later

(POETOLOGY) Haiku - a reading