One More Shooting and Slaughter of American Innocents

Coincidentally and eve ironically, I got this political cartoon from none other than the Salt Lake City Tribune.

The Solution to the Middle East

I figured it out.

I figured out a way to end the violence and fighting between the Israelis and Arabs and all others in the Middle East.

We--the world community--give each side one nuclear warhead with the requirement that we--that same world community---shoot off those 2 warheads at precisely the same time, at the other side.

Problem solved.

Peace in the Middle East, at long last.

Quote of the day -- on the Judeo-Christian tradition

Freedom From Religion Foundation

"As a historian, I confess to a certain amusement when I hear the Judeo-Christian tradition praised as the source of our concern for human rights. In fact, the great religious ages were notable for their indifference to human rights in the contemporary sense. They were notorious not only for acquiescence in poverty, inequality, exploitation and oppression but for enthusiastic justifications of slavery, persecution, abandonment of small children, torture, genocide."

—Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., historian and Pulitzer Prize winning author, "The Opening of the American Mind," The New York Times, 1989.

See more at: http://ffrf.org/news/day#sthash.vvxGNPNl.dpuf

Thoughts. On the world

The problem with most humans is that in order to live and be able to hopefully understand or make sense of it--life--is that we anthropomorphize it.

We give life and/or the universe human characteristics. We anthropomorphize our worlds and so, the universe.  We give the cold, uncaring, ever-progressing--however slowly--universe a personality and rules.  And we do this so much so we name it.

For a lot of us, it can be merely “god” or “God.” For others, a lot of others, we take it further than that, even. We give, usually him, a specific name. Some examples are, of course, Jesus, Yahweh, Mohammed, Allah, or any number of monikers. We complicate things, the world, the universe and so, our lives and our own worlds.

The only real rule is love.

Love everything. Be kind. Share. Smile. Help one another.  All good stems from one rule, this one rule.

Love.

Yesterday's important anniversary

Yesterday in 1945, the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp was liberated by the Russian army. The Nazis had abandoned the camp 10 days earlier, forcing most of the prisoners into a death march that killed thousands. Those deemed too weak for the march were left behind, including these children. 

They did not know their ordeal was over until the 322nd Rifle Division of the Soviet Red Army arrived.

Since 2005, January 27th is known as International Holocaust Remembrance Day, in memory of the victims of the Holocaust, which resulted in the murder of one third of the Jewish people along with countless members of other minorities.

See the United Nations Resolution which created this Remembrance Day at http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/remembrance/international/pdf/un_decision.pdf

Still photograph of the children from the Soviet Film of the liberation of Auschwitz, taken by the film unit of the First Ukrainian Front, shot over a period of several months beginning on January 27, 1945 by Alexander Voronzow and others in his group. Child survivors of Auschwitz, wearing adult-size prisoner jackets, stand behind a barbed wire fence. Among those pictured are Tomasz Szwarz; Alicja Gruenbaum; Solomon Rozalin; Gita Sztrauss; Wiera Sadler; Marta Wiess; Boro Eksztein; Josef Rozenwaser; Rafael Szlezinger; Gabriel Nejman; Gugiel Appelbaum; Mark Berkowitz (a twin); Pesa Balter; Rut Muszkies (later Webber); Miriam Friedman; and twins Miriam Mozes and Eva Mozes wearing knitted hats.

Quote of the day--on "the Lord's day"

Think about it.

Israeli military: above the law, decency, humanity and international law

An Israeli judge ruled today that their nation's military was in no way responsible for the death of a protester he bulldozed because the Israeli government wanted to destroy homes in the Gaza Strip. The news and headline today:

Israel judge rules Rachel Corrie responsible for her own death

Parents of American activist Rachel Corrie fail in their attempt to place blame on Israel after their daughter was killed by a bulldozer in Gaza at a protest

JERUSALEM — Nine years after their daughter was crushed by an Israeli military bulldozer in the Gaza Strip, the parents of American activist Rachel Corrie lost their legal bid Tuesday to hold Israel responsible for her death and force authorities to reopen the investigation.

A Haifa judge rejected the parent's negligence lawsuit, calling Corrie's death an accident that she brought upon herself by refusing to leave what had been declared a closed military zone. "It was a very regrettable accident and not a deliberate act," said Judge Oded Gershon.

And sure, people will take sides--the driver did see her, he didn't, whatever.

As you can tell here--and as you would guess if you know me--I'm on the side of the protester and her family. I find it at least extremely difficult to believe that the driver of the bulldozer didn't see her or know she was there. She "was wearing a fluorescent orange jacket and standing just a few feet away" from the bulldozer and driver at the time.

In fact, I'll go one step further on this. I feel sure the official order from the Israeli government was to go forward with the destruction of the homes no matter what. It may well have been only spoken but I feel strongly that was their position.
This flies in the face of decency and of humanity, as I said in the title, above, but it also goes against international law. A nation and its government isn't supposed to tear down anyone's home, regardless.

Was the young lady--Rachel Cory, 23--pushing her luck?

Apparently the answer to that is yes.

Did the right thing happen? Should she have been killed so a nation's government could tear down homes they didn't want?

Absolutely not.

Link: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/middleeast/la-fg-israel-corrie-verdict-20120829,0,4476903.story

Quote of the day

“We can reject everything else: religion, ideology, all received wisdom. But we cannot escape the necessity of love and compassion.... This, then, is my true religion, my simple faith. In this sense, there is no need for temple or church, for mosque or synagogue, no need for complicated philosophy, doctrine or dogma. Our own heart, our own mind, is the temple. ... The doctrine is compassion. Love for others and respect for their rights and dignity, no matter who or what they are: ultimately these are all we need. So long as we practice these in our daily lives, then no matter if we are learned or unlearned, whether we believe in Buddha or God, or follow some other religion or none at all, as long as we have compassion for others and conduct ourselves with restraint out of a sense of responsibility, there is no doubt we will be happy.” ― Dalai Lama XIV

Fighting. At the Church of the Nativity. In Bethlehem. At Christmas. Just as Jesus would have wanted

Can you believe these people? Here's the description of the video from YouTube: "A fight broke out at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem after rival groups of Orthodox and Armenian clerics clashed over the boundaries of their jurisdictions inside the church." Nice. So much for that "turning the other cheek" stuff, eh? WWJF? (Who would Jesus fight?) Then, not to be outdone, the Jews got into it: Israelis Clash Over Strict Religious Codes

Seriously, does it not seem as though the whole world has gone mad? (I must say, however, that I love that smiling, laughing kid in the middle background of the picture. He's totally loving it. I hope he's not a brat.) Link: http://www.npr.org/2011/12/28/144364324/israelis-clash-over-strict-religious-codes

Our institutions are failing us

Our governments are not doing their collective jobs well at all, our churches have us do silly, pointless, unproductive things to ourselves--
maybe this is an improvement, since they used to have us kill one another--while. finally, our corporations drain and killus.

All I need to say about our govenrments not working is the current national and international financial, economic and banking crises. That along
points it all out but add that they are taking money in all kinds of amounts from businesses and business people, instead os doing their job and working
for us, the people they are supposed to be representing and working for.

--Some examples of our silly church practices::

==Hassidic Jews, with their required haircuts and black, "just so" clothing;

--Sikh Indians, with their rules about men never cutting hteir hair;

--Mormans with their "magic underwear";

--Catholics with their magic "blessings" and "holy water" (you gotta be kidding me);

--Amish people not using electricity (aparently because God doesn't want us to be warm in the winter or cool in the summer, eh?);

--Swirling dervishes, who do all that spinning to "get closer to God."

Shouldn't churches just be concerned with getting us all to help and work with one another? Wouldn't that be a better use of their--and our--time?
Wouldn't that be a better function for a church? All churches?

Examples of how our corporations are killing us:

--Bhopal, India in 1984 when Union Carbide has a gas explosion;

--Our food corporations are putting chemicals in our foods, along with fats and salt and sugars of all kinds, that are having the effects of making our
lives more miserable, while we're here, and then kiling us prematurely;

--those same food corporations and chemical corporations (and no doubt others, too) poisoning our soil, air and water, all for their various uses and
profits;

--the nature of corporations and their structures, period, which constantly, annually, require ever-increasng profits, to the detriment of their own
employees, since so much of their profits frequently, obscenely-largely go to executives and executive pay, while being taken from the most of the
employees;

And one of the subtle worst--taking all our working lives from us but giving us no means to take care of ourselves once their through with us and we're
elderly, preferably with a pension or some such;

This isn't working. Our instutions are failing us. They need to make sense and work for us. They're not, as I've illustrated.

We need to change them and have them work for us.

We need to get busy and take our lives and our worlds back.

"Workers of the workd, unite."