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08-08-08 Olympic Games

go here

It's Hiroshima day -- don't look away

By Marianna Torgovnick August 6, 2005

AMERICANS WILL be reminded today of the 60th anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.
Most likely, we will miss once again the true impact of this event,
not just for the Japanese who experienced it,
but also on us and on how we now live.

It's not, of course, that we don't know that Americans flew the planes that killed at least 60,000 Japanese, most of them civilians, in Hiroshima, and,

three days later, 40,000 more in Nagasaki (figures from the Avalon Project at Yale law School). It's not that Americans don't know that the United States remains the only nation ever to have used atomic weapons against civilian populations.

It's that the events, unlike D-Day, say, or the liberation of the concentration camps, place Americans in ambiguous, unpleasant, or even guilty roles.

It seems natural that, as a culture, we prefer to look away. It seems natural that we prefer to emphasize events that reflect how we like to think of ourselves, that show a face we like to show to the world.

So don't expect to see today marked by daylong ceremonies like June 6, the 60th anniversary of D-Day.

Don't expect to see President Bush fly to Hiroshima to make a policy speech there in the way that he and other presidents, most notably Ronald Reagan, have flown to Normandy.

Don't expect to see the crew members of the Enola Gay smiling or saluting into the camera, their faces marked, perhaps, by the weightiness of their deeds.

The anniversary is likely to be mentioned, but quickly, almost as a kind of stealth event, under the radar screen and under the claim -- always controversial and often inflated -- that the bombings prevented an invasion and saved, and were designed to save, millions of American and Japanese lives.


http://imnutsincapsbushfires.blogspot.com/2005/07/nuclear-button.html

Hiroshima mon amour

http://print.google.co.in/print?id=t0F4b7wQOysC&dq=hiroshima+mon+amour&oi=print&pg=PA15&sig=uCW8t9PjmrnQEQ00kjTzSOqPRVU&prev=http://www.google.co.in/search%3Fhl%3Den%26lr%3D%26tab%3Dnn%26ie%3DUTF-8%26q%3Dhiroshima%2Bmon%2Bamour%26btnmeta%253Dsearch%253Dsearch%3DSearch%2Bthe%2BWeb

the WEST is shit scared of INDIA and CHINA

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.u want cheap and good quality
OUTSOURCE to INDIA and CHINA
NOKIA has

There is no morality in Business and WAR
USA is concerned
they are loosing jobs to INDIA and CHINA
so they raise the bogey of HUMAN RIGHTS Violations

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INDIA does not have a strong Regulatory Body like the USFDA
so the Drug MNCs are outsouring CLINICAL TRIALS to INDIA

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History of Nations

History of Nations. This is a site which has a history of every nation on Earth. At least, every nation which is currently independent. (There is nothing on Welsh history for example.) This is an informative and easy to use site which I am sure I will be visitng from time to time. From the site: Welcome to History of Nations! This site has a history of every nation in the world. Each country if covered by a brief essay which gives the highlights of each nation's history.

The national histories at this site are divided into six regions.

These are: Africa - This is for the nations of the world which are located in Africa. This includes some of the island nations which lie off of the coast of Africa. It also includes Egypt which also has territory in Asia.

Asia - This is for the nations of the world which are located in Asia. It includes Taiwan evn though Tawain is technically not independent of China.

Europe - This is for the nations of the world located in Europe. It includes Russia which is mostly in Asia but is considered a European nation. It also includes Turkey which is also mostly located in Asia.

North America - This is for the nations of the world located in North America. This includes most of Central America and the island nations of the Caribbean.

Oceania - This is for the nations of the world located in the Pacific which are not considered part of Asia. This includes Australia and New Zealand.

South America - This is for the nations of the world located in South America.
Posted by M at 4:19 AM

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ABOUT AUSTRALIA by VEST

1000 posts done

I have completed 1000 posts

it is time for introspection

whn i started blogging

(after being coached by Keshi)

I was scretive about my identity

but now I dont give a damn

I even did a shocking HNT

I had bitter enemies who turned into best friends

I had lovers plenty who turned into Saby-haters

i will not live forever

my life is now an open book

I received many threats from annony mouse callers

my password was hacked and I lost many blogs

I have been cloned

I have been cussd

All in all, it has been funn

- Saby/ Jim/ Julia/ Rani

on Death

Today, a doctor reflects on death and the machinery of sustaining life. The University of Houston's College of Engineering presents this series about the machines that make our civilization run, and the people whose ingenuity created them.

Sherwin Nuland's book, How We Die, sat on my desk for a year. Now I've finally read it and it was a jolt. Nuland takes on the most forbidden topic of all. Society lets us talk about politics and sex as long as we're careful. But talk of death remains taboo.

Nuland is a surgeon and medical historian. His book deals with a primary dilemma. To be a doctor is to fight death. Yet death always wins in the end. Doctors, armed with spectacular new technologies, engage in a combat they cannot ultimately win. It is a situation that becomes more paradoxical all the time.

Nuland begins by explaining death itself. And it isn't pretty. Death is invariably caused by a lack of oxygen brought on by a hundred different scenarios of system failure. It is seldom a matter of passing gently over the Great Divide. In a harrowing sequence of chapters he explains how our bodies fail in heart disease, cancer, AIDS, Alzheimer's disease, and more.

For those of us old enough to know our time's limited, Nuland's book is frightening at first. But it grows reassuring as he demystifies death. He takes it out of that place where things go bump in the night. He puts it where it can be seen and understood.

He also deals with another seldom-discussed aspect of death. It is that the old usually reach a point where they accept it.

Nuland quotes Jefferson who, at 71, wrote to John Adams, then 78.
Our machines have been running seventy or eighty years and we must expect ... here a pivot, there a wheel, now a pinion, next a spring will be giving way; ...

There is a ripeness of time for death ... when it is reasonable we should drop off and make room for another growth.

But Nuland's main concern is with doctors and their machines, their compulsion to win the unwinable fight with death, their frequent inability to talk candidly with patients. He tells of the reflex need to fight for a patient's life long after there's any profit in it for the patient. He tells how he cheated his own brother of the chance to deal with his death by cancer. He offered empty hope instead of joining him in grieving the inevitable end.

In the poignant apogee of this remarkable book, Nuland quotes the hopeless words doctors tell each other when they fail to level with a patient: "I could not take away his hope." Then he adds,
Unless [we're] aware [we're] dying and ... know the conditions of our death, we [can't] share any sort of final consummation with those who love us. Without this consummation, no matter their presence at the hour of passing, we will remain unattended and isolated.

Others have certainly raised questions about the technologies of preserving life. But Nuland, coming from the very center of those technologies, tells us what every technologist in every field should understand. It is that we cannot let the objective purpose of our machines become ends in themselves. The true purpose of any machine can only be shaped by the people it is meant to serve.

I'm John Lienhard, at the University of Houston, where we're interested in the way inventive minds work.

Nuland, S., How We Die: Reflections on Life's Final Chapter. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1994.

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Chapter 1 Summary
In Chapter 1, "A Strangled Heart," Dr. Nuland relates his personal experience of an individual he chooses to call James McCarty. As noted in the Author's Note before Chapter 1, all but one name was changed in the stories the author will share. Dr. Nuland was in his third year of medical school and working an evening shift at a university hospital. Mr. McCarty had been admitted to the hospital after he experienced pressure in his chest and left side. James McCarty was the picture of an overweight workaholic who gave every indication of enjoying the good life in excess. He was admitted after experiencing severe pains and pressure in his chest and left side. His condition was evaluated as "recovering" and he was moved to a room for observation. Medical student Nuland.....


Read the rest of this Literature Guide with our How We Die, Reflections on Life's Final Chapter Access Pass.

more chapters here

Rise India - We shall not, we shall not be moved

The Congress Govt survived the NO TRUST VOTE amidst charges of bribe giving and bribe talking, the SENSEX soared



Next day, Bangalore (the IT capital) was bombed - low intensity fire crackers

Then Ahmedadbad - higher intensity

Earlier it was Jaipur (the tourist capital) - cycle bombs

but of all these Mumbai had faced the worst





India and Indians believe in destiny

Life goes on as usual

NO FEAR, NO PANIC



We will get there

no matter what they try



We are one

hindus and Muslims and Christians and Sikhs

Watch CHAKE DE India at 12 PM today on TV

what is Love?

Paul tells it like it is
go here

if u want to find Paul fast

go to google search type original faith

and hit I AM FEELING LUCKY

I sure hope only the girls will go for looking for him

Paul is not that way inclined

Now America will elect their President on November 4, 2008
u have a choice:

Gen Mc Cain, who wants a fight to the finish in IRAQ

he dont count the body bags

and u have Barrack Obama

who wants a political settlement

the Glory (?) of WAR

The United States presidential election of 2008, scheduled for Tuesday, November 4, 2008, will be the 56th consecutive quadrennial United States presidential election and will select the President of the United States and Vice President of the United States. The two major parties' candidates have not been officially chosen, but their presumptive nominees are John McCain, the senior United States Senator from Arizona, for the Republican Party and Barack Obama, the junior United States Senator from Illinois, for the Democratic Party. The 2008 election is particularly notable because it is the first time in US history that two sitting senators will run against each other for president[1] and because it will be the first time an African American will be a major party presidential nominee.

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women bloggers amaze me ....

they have a topic every day to blog about
they talk more lissen less
most topics are I did this I did that
I met X

I went to a party

men bloggers talk about ideas and are more interesting
what if all men were Gays?

what if VEST becomes Prime Minister of Australia?
and I of India

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Original Faith

Book Note: Original Faith Available . . .
Original Faith: Finding the Interfaith Soul of Progressive Religion and Spirituality has just become available on Amazon and Target. (For libraries, it’s also in the WorldCat catalog.)

The number of inquiries about the book has gone up lately, so although the press release hasn’t gone out yet and parts of the information on the book’s Amazon page are still being developed, I wanted to let you know.We’re hoping to get an international sales channel that would allow people outside the US to order online without having to pay so much postage, but not sure yet if that can happen.

I truly appreciate your readership here – the level of thoughtfulness that people have brought to these threads has been wonderful.The book covers the whole range of spiritual life and growth as broadly and deeply as I’ve been able to experience and understand it. It was written over a period of twenty-five years, starting from when I was leading a full life, through years of disease progression, and into severe disability – “in sickness and in heath,” as they say. (I guess I was sort of married to it…)

Here are the contents. I believe that the book is likely to have something to offer you wherever you happen to be in your own experience and understanding of what our being here is all about:

Contents

Chapter 1: What Love Is

Chapter 2: Despair Under Heaven

Chapter 3: The Fact of Faith

Chapter 4: Stumbling Block: Ego

Chapter 5: Willingness and Practice

Chapter 6: The Nature of Work

Chapter 7: Nature’s Work of Transformation

Chapter 8: Working from World-Center

Chapter 9: Owning the Greater Claim

Afterword: Owning the Darkness

Love –Paul
Posted by Paul at 10:53 AM Permalink 29 comments

Missippi Burning, Burning Cross

VIDEO

A prostitute may not be a prostitute: Pretty woman

Richard Gere was lost
Richard Gere picked up a hooker by mistake to show him the way
Julia was interesting
Richard got interested

He took her home
treated her well
He wanted her as a companion
Richard moved in rich circles
He got his man to teach her the fine arts
How to use cutlery, how to dress, and superficial stuf like that
knowing that is superficial and dont really matter


Soon Julia was transformed into a lady, almost
One day at an event at the race course, he had to tell his business partner that she is just a hooker
His business partner was an asshole
He treated her like a hooker

Julia cried, she wanted out
packed her bags and was about to leave

Richard walked in
where u going? he asked

She told her what he had done
Richard asked her to stay, she was adamant
Richard emptied the wad of bills in his wallet (a huge sum) and gave it to her
and said Bye

She left
without the money

Prostitute definition: one who can be bought by money

Corrective Action

u see a starving man on the street

what do u do?

Suggested Actions:

1. take him to Mother Theresas home

Fine, but thats not enuff

2. Do a Root Cause Analysis now

Why is he starving?

Ans: No food, no money

Why is he so poor?

Ans: No job, no income

Why no job, no income?

Ans: No education, no vocational kills

CORRECTIVE ACTION

Kill the Root Cause - Teach him to fish

send him to a good FREE school

send him to Christian schools, started by foreign Jesuits

in Mumbai:

St Xaviers

Fr Agnel

Cardign

Don Boscos

He will be 82 today

He had a ruff childhood
studied in boarding schools
took the cane many times

joined the Royal Navy
before he cud pee straight

he was handsome though
got seduced by two elderly ladies
he cant recall who had him first

sailed many ships
destroyers and frigates

rose in the ranks
retired as an Admiral i think

got knighted by the Queen
wrote a book on his life

told all
the joys,the sorrows, the ecstasies

lived life to the full
and then married a Rose, named Mary

and stayed married 55 years and still counting
He is weird


Happy Birthday Vest
wish him here

What’s a hippie?

… maybe it’s the time of year. Yes, and maybe it’s the time of man. And I don’t know who I am. But life is for learning.

- Joni Mitchell/CS&N (Woodstock) 1970

What’s a hippie? What’s the difference between an old hippie and a new hippie? Once a hippie, always a hippie? These and similar questions are the source of much debate today. New subcategories like web-hippies, cyber-hippies, even zippies have become fashionable. But what is a hippie and are you one? To answer this question, let’s see what defines a hippie. Some say it’s the way people dress, and behave, a lifestyle. Others classify drug users and rock 'n' roll fans or those with certain radical political views as hippies. The dictionary defines a hippie as one who doesn’t conform to society’s standards and advocates a liberal attitude and lifestyle. Can all these definitions be right?

It seems to me that these definitions miss the point. By focusing on the most visible behavioral traits these limited descriptions fail to reveal what lies in the hippie heart that motivates such behavior. To understand The Way of the Hippy, we must look at those circumstances that preceded the birth of the hippy movement, the important events that changed our lives, our resulting frustration with society, and the philosophy that developed from our spiritual maturation.

Hippy is an establishment label for a profound, invisible, underground, evolutionary process. For every visible hippy, barefoot, beflowered, beaded, there are a thousand invisible members of the turned-on underground. Persons whose lives are tuned in to their inner vision, who are dropping out of the TV comedy of American Life.

- Timothy Leary (The Politics of Ecstasy) 1967

My view is that being a hippie is a matter of accepting a universal belief system that transcends the social, political, and moral norms of any established structure, be it a class, church, or government. Each of these powerful institutions has it’s own agenda for controlling, even enslaving people. Each has to defend itself when threatened by real or imagined enemies. So we see though history a parade of endless conflicts with country vs. country, religion vs. religion, class vs. class. After millennia of war and strife, in which uncounted millions have suffered, we have yet to rise above our petty differences.

The way of the hippie is antithetical to all repressive hierarchical power structures since these are adverse to the hippie goals of peace, love and freedom. This is why the “Establishment” feared and suppressed the hippie movement of the ’60s, as it was a revolution against the established order. It is also the reason why the hippies were unable to unite and overthrow the system since they refused to build their own power base. Hippies don’t impose their beliefs on others. Instead, hippies seek to change the world through reason and by living what they believe.

Imagine no possesions, I wonder if you can, No need for greed or hunger, A brotherhood of man. Imagine all the people sharing all the world.

- John Lennon (Imagine)

To be a hippie you must believe in peace as the way to resolve differences among peoples, ideologies and religions. The way to peace is through love and tolerance. Loving means accepting others as they are, giving them freedom to express themselves and not judging them based on appearances. This is the core of the hippie philosophy.

…see the whole thing is a world full of rucksack wanderers, Dharma Bums refusing to subscribe to the general demand that they consume production and therefore have to work for the privilege of consuming, all that crap they didn’t really want anyway such as refrigerators, TV sets, cars, …all of them imprisoned in a system of work, produce, consume, work, produce, consume, I see a vision of a great rucksack revolution thousands or even millions of young Americans wandering around with rucksacks, going up to mountains to pray, making children laugh and old men glad, making young girls happy and old girls happier, all of ‘em Zen Lunatics who go about writing poems that happen to appear in their heads for no reason and also by being kind and also by strange unexpected acts keep giving visions of eternal freedom to everybody and to all living creatures.

- Jack Kerouac (The Dharma Bums) 1958

The hippy movement erected signposts for all to see. Some warn us of impending danger, others direct us towards richer, more fulfilling lives, but most show us the road to freedom. Freedom is the paramount virtue in this system. Freedom to do as one pleases, go where the flow takes you, and to be open to new experiences. This engenders an attitude that allows for maximum personal growth.

If you want to be free, be free, because there’s a million things to be.

- Cat Stevens (If You Want to Sing Out)

Our society only permits you one or two weeks a year of freedom to pursue your own agenda. The rest of the time we are slaves to the system. Hippies reject the 9 to 5 lifestyle and therefore are objects of ridicule by those whose lives run by the clock. Programmed people are jealous and resent the freedom we possess. The unmitigated freedom that hippies represent is the greatest threat to any system in which control equals power.

I like ideas about the breaking away or overthrowing of established order. I am interested in anything about revolt, disorder, chaos, especially activity that seems to have no meaning. It seems to me to be the road towards freedom - external freedom is a way to bring about internal freedom.

- Jim Morrison

With all this freedom comes a lot of responsibility. The system does not make it easy for us to survive without sacrificing our values. Therefore we must discover alternative ways to make a living without being a drag on our planet’s resources and our fellow humans. Hippies have pioneered numerous lifestyles and alternative businesses including communes, cooperatives, holistic medicine and health food. We focused everyone’s concern on the environment to highlight our responsibilities to our planet and to future generations.

I’ve been smiling lately, dreaming about the world as one. And I believe it could be, someday it’s going to come.

- Cat Stevens (Peace Train)

Other beliefs that spring from our core philosophy are: an earthy spirituality such as a belief in Gaia (the earth as an organism), the Greens movement (political activism), even shamanism and vegetarianism. These philosophical and political views reflect a respect for nature and the planet as a whole, something lacking in our capitalistic and materialistic societies. The world needs hippies to point out alternatives to the entrenched system and warn of the impending disasters that await us if we don’t change our lifestyles. The goal is not to make everyone a hippie (what would we have to protest?). Rather we can try to influence others by example, through tolerance and love and teaching the virtues of the hippie way.

You create your own reality.

- Seth (Seth Speaks)
So being a hippie is not a matter of dress, behavior, economic status, or social milieu. It is a philosophical approach to life that emphasizes freedom, peace, love and a respect for others and the earth.

The way of the hippie never died. There have always been hippies from the first time society laid down rules, to Jesus, to Henry David Thoreau, to John Lennon, to you and me. I believe there’s a little hippy in all of us. It’s just been repressed by our socialization process. We need to find it and cultivate our hippie within. Only then can we reach our true potential.

I took the road less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost (The Road Not Taken)

As hippies age they come to terms with the same situations all humans must face. Wiser than before, let’s help the younger hippies find a way to save the earth and achieve more freedom than exists in our wildest dreams. Let’s find our common ground, build a worldwide community, and once again let our freak flags fly and become all we are destined to be.
Peace and Love,

Skip
Return to Hippyland homepage

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Hottest female blogger

click on the title

Original Faith

: A Few Book-Related Items
This low-traffic holiday week is great for doing chores associated with a book launch – and it’s been a lot of fun having some of you run into Original Faith becoming available here on the site.Some of you have asked if I’d sign your copy. Wish I could. Main obstacle is that I can’t mail things myself, so it would be added work for someone already out straight with doing things for me.Some have asked if I’ll keep blogging – definitely.I’ll be very interested in reactions to the book and welcome your feedback, either via this blog or email. I can’t answer all email but will certainly read it all and will answer as much as I can.If you like the book, please recommend it to someone and pass on my URL. This would be especially useful in helping Original Faith find a readership in my circumstances.Next up: Starting to think about love…
Posted by Paul at 8:00 PM Permalink 11 comments
Wednesday, July 02, 2008

Book Note: Original Faith Available . . .
Original Faith: Finding the Interfaith Soul of Progressive Religion and Spirituality has just become available on Amazon and Target. (For libraries, it’s also in the WorldCat catalog.)The number of inquiries about the book has gone up lately, so although the press release hasn’t gone out yet and parts of the information on the book’s Amazon page are still being developed, I wanted to let you know.We’re hoping to get an international sales channel that would allow people outside the US to order online without having to pay so much postage, but not sure yet if that can happen.I truly appreciate your readership here – the level of thoughtfulness that people have brought to these threads has been wonderful.The book covers the whole range of spiritual life and growth as broadly and deeply as I’ve been able to experience and understand it. It was written over a period of twenty-five years, starting from when I was leading a full life, through years of disease progression, and into severe disability – “in sickness and in heath,” as they say. (I guess I was sort of married to it…)Here are the contents. I believe that the book is likely to have something to offer you wherever you happen to be in your own experience and understanding of what our being here is all about:ContentsChapter 1: What Love IsChapter 2: Despair Under HeavenChapter 3: The Fact of FaithChapter 4: Stumbling Block: EgoChapter 5: Willingness and PracticeChapter 6: The Nature of WorkChapter 7: Nature’s Work of TransformationChapter 8: Working from World-CenterChapter 9: Owning the Greater ClaimAfterword: Owning the DarknessLove –Paul
Posted by Paul at 10:53 AM Permalink 25 comments
Saturday, June 28, 2008

About Paul

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Teach India

Education is India’s greatest strength and its greatest weakness. There are millions of children in fields, on the road, in factories—everywhere but in school.

You have it in your power to change that. All they need is a little bit of your time

— Jaideep Bose Narendra Jadhav’s father, a Class IV worker with the Bombay Port Trust, was semi-literate, his mother not even that. Jadhav grew up in a Mumbai slum, his formal education started at an unremarkable municipal school and culminated in a PhD in economics from a US university.

He rose to become chief economist and principal adviser at the Reserve Bank of India, and is now vice chancellor of Pune University—the same city where his dalit ancestors were forced to leave before sundown and sweep their own polluting shadow with a broom

Nirjharini Bhattacharjee swept the corridors of her school and cleaned the cups to pay her fees and feed her family. She was an exceptionally bright child and her teachers encouraged her to keep at her studies. She grew up to join Rishi Bankim College in Naihati, West Bengal, did her Master's, and cleared the National Eligibility Test (NET), qualifying as a lecturer. Today, she is principal of her college, and thinks nothing of picking up a broom or wiping the blackboard clean
E Balaguruswamy was born to a small farmer in a hard-up Tamil Nadu village. Their home had no electricity but it did have a precious supply of candles, which the young boy used up to study late into the night. He became vice-chancellor of Anna University, is currently a member of the Union Public Service Commission and the author of several best-selling books on software languages
Vilind Shah’s lot was similar to Balaguruswamy’s, only far worse. Born into an impoverished farming family in Amreli, Gujarat, he went blind at three, was sent to a special school and would probably have lost his way but for the kindness of a gentleman who noticed the boy’s potential and paid for him to go to college in Mumbai. Shah is now a professor of history at the University of Chicago
Vinayak Lohani went to IIM-Calcutta. When he graduated, he did not compete at placement interviews with blue-chip companies. Instead, he went out and opened a school for street children in Joka, where IIM-C has its campus, on the outskirts of Kolkata
Over the next few months, we will bring you stories that will inspire you, warm your heart, move you to tears—and, we hope, to action. They will be stories of hope defeating despair. Of children who struggled through years of grinding poverty to put themselves through school and college and who are today leading scientists, professors, engineers, doctors, bureaucrats and CEOs. Of adults who have given up mouth-watering salaries to dedicate themselves to teaching the untaught so that they may have a fighting chance.
Education is modern India's greatest leveler and its redemption. It is the tide that lifts every boat. We are all prisoners of birth, but education has the power to snap the meanest bonds of economic and social enslavement. It is the route out of the caste ghetto, the path out of the slum, the road to the high table. A degree in engineering or medicine gives the child of a mill hand as much opportunity as any son or daughter of privilege.
At home and at work, chances are that your domestic help, driver, dhobi, liftman, watchman and peon are doing whatever it takes to send their children to an ‘English-medium’ school, buy them a second-hand computer, pay for their tuition, get them trained in IT. They dream of empowering their child with the kind of ambition they never dared have. And when the child excels in a board exam, gets into a big college or lands a good job, all those years of hardship and uncertainty melt away. In that defining moment there is a reinforcement of faith in the future—that it is possible to break the cycle of inequity by honourable means.
It is a well-worn cliche that ours is a country of glaring contradictions. Yes, we have one of the biggest education systems in the world—1.2 million schools, 6.3 million teachers and 290 million students, which in itself is more than the population of every country in the world except China, India and the US. And yes, literacy has grown from 28% in 1961 to 68% today. But the other end of the scale is crumbling. We still have over 287 million illiterate people (from the age of five)—the largest in any country, and larger than the population of Indians (five and above) at the time of Independence.
If India is today considered an emerging superpower and if the stereotype has shifted from snakecharmer to IT whiz, some of the credit must go to our education system, to our IITs and IIMs, and to grassroots initiatives like the midday meal scheme and the Navodaya Vidyalayas. This system has produced one of the world’s largest pools of science and tech graduates and created a robust middle class. And with well-educated Indians in influential positions in the developed world, notably the US, India has a voice that commands respect and attention on the global stage.
And yet, the many successes cannot hide the system’s sprawling underbelly. Millions of underprivileged youth have no access whatsoever to any form of schooling: of the 460 million between 6 and 24 years, 170 million are not in the education system
The drop-out rate is depressing: a staggering 90% don’t make it to college.
There are thousands of schools and colleges, both state-run and private, that provide no real education, and we don’t need empirical proof to bear this out. There is enough and more anecdotal evidence
There’s a massive deficit of teachers. And of the 4.7 million-odd who teach between classes I and VIII, almost half have not studied beyond senior secondary
Infrastructure is dismal: almost a third of primary and middle schools don’t have pucca buildings, 87% have no computers Ironically, our greatest source of strength is threatening to become our biggest weakness. Our education system is choking. Strategically, we are in danger of losing our global competitive advantage. Entrepreneurs have found that education is a great new business, and there’s nothing wrong with that so long as there is a genuine intent to provide quality education. But private education comes at a price, and the question is, can it reach children in slums and villages? If it can, can they afford it? The answer quite simply is no. As aspirations rise and disparities widen, and as the need for equity assumes even greater urgency, there is only one solution: to redeem the classroom.
For all of us at The Times of India, education is a near-obsessive priority. In many of our editions, we have more correspondents covering education than any other beat. We believe the time has now come for us to do more than just write about it. We think we can play a role in helping to bring education to the boy who in the pouring rain hawks pirated books at the street lights, the girl who runs after you with a bunch of roses she needs to sell before the day is out.
It is with a deep sense of mission that we are launching Teach India. There are thousands of good men and women who are doing exemplary work by teaching children who cannot afford a ‘good school’, children who survive on the brutal fringes of society, for whom living is a daily struggle and learning a luxury. We cannot even hope to equal their efforts.
What we hope to do, instead, is bring together those who want to make a difference and those already making a difference in education. So many of us genuinely want to give back to society and do something for the less fortunate. Many of us are doing things in our own limited, unorganised way by writing a cheque to an orphanage or paying the school fees of the house help’s child. But what if you want to go beyond the cheque book and give of your time as well? Are you faced with the dilemma of where to begin?
Teach India could be the answer. It taps into a powerful combination of urge and need. It seeks to put those of you who have the urge to lend a helping hand in touch with NGOs who work with underprivileged children and are in need of volunteers. It’s for you to decide what you would like to teach, and how much of your time you want to commit. And it is for the NGOs to decide the skills they require most.
Every survey has shown that an overwhelming majority of our readers belongs to the elite – technically termed SEC A, the highest socio-economic class. They have money; more importantly, they have had an education. What could be more satisfying than being able to share your knowledge and experience with children who may be wise beyond their years, but have never been taught how to write their name, or told why there is day and night, or why an apple falls to the ground instead of soaring to the sky? Do you think you can spare two hours a week — or even two hours a fortnight — to teach, to make a difference? You could be a college student, a bureaucrat, a doctor, a lawyer, an actor, an architect, a police officer, a pilot, a housewife, a retired professor. It doesn’t matter, as long as you take your commitment seriously. What’s more, we suspect it’ll be great fun—and you might end up learning a thing or two.
In the second phase of Teach India, which will unfold in a few months’ time, we will support a newly formed non-profit organisation, Teach For India, with board members such as Rajat Gupta, Anu Agha and Shaheen Mistry of Akanksha, to enlist some of the country’s brightest graduates who are willing to give two years of their lives to teaching underprivileged children. A similar program in the US called Teach For America (TFA) has been an astounding success. Today, students graduating from the most prestigious colleges vie to be accepted in this program, and TFA alumni have gone on to become influential voices in education policy in corporate America and in US administrations.
When we launched India Poised on the first day of the last year, we found that in vast swathes of our society, public governance—most worryingly, in education and health—was on the verge of collapse. Our Lead India campaign, which we rolled out on the sixtieth anniversary of our Independence, was born out of our belief that the country was in dire need of a clean and effective leadership. Lead India, we believe, struck a chord. (We are committed to the initiative and hope to carry the lessons of the first year into our next Lead India campaign.) In the course of our India Poised and Lead India campaigns, we have felt a growing need to focus on education, especially at the primary level, and among the underprivileged. Education has been a life-altering force for millions of Indians, and it will be our endeavour to bring the joys of learning to many more, and perhaps in the process, help level the playing field. The boy at the street lights could be a future vice chancellor, the girl with the roses could blossom into a principal. Think of how much joy it would give you to know that you played a part in making that happen. For all of us at The Times of India, an initiative such as this—which we hope will grow into a movement—gives us a meaning beyond ourselves, a greater purpose in life. We believe it’ll do the same for you.

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How I beat the system: Living cheaply

I dont cut my hair or shave
I am a gourmet cook, I dont eat out
.
I dont drink SCOTCH, I used to drink FENI, home made booze
I dont wear perfumes
.
I dont buy branded shirts and trousers
I dont drink COKE, I drink nimbu pani
.
soaring gas prices dont affect me
I walk or catch a train
and I dont travel first class
.
I dont need to walk on a tread mill in a GYM
I walk on Gods earth
.
My girl friend is mature and beautiful, she dont need creams and perfumes. She knows I like her smell
.
I surf the net on my clients PC
I dont pay for netting
when I have to
I net on CYBER CAFE
its much cheaper at Rs 25 per hour
.
I used to drink much
Now I dont drink at all
.
I smoke a lott more than 2 packs a day
I had been suckered by the Malboro Man
I hope to kick the habit soon

.
I just smoked my last smoke
.



I dont need INSURANCE and CREDIT CARDS, coz I dont need much money. In case of emergency, my friends loan me money with out charging interest

I have been inspired by MKG
His simplicity began by renouncing the western lifestyle he was leading in South Africa. He called it "reducing himself to zero," which entailed giving up unnecessary expenditure, embracing a simple lifestyle and washing his own clothes.[34] On one occasion he returned the gifts bestowed to him from the natals for his diligent service to the community.[35]
Gandhi spent one day of each week in silence. He believed that abstaining from speaking brought him inner peace. This influence was drawn from the Hindu principles of mauna (Sanskrit:???? — silence) and shanti (Sanskrit:????? — peace). On such days he communicated with others by writing on paper. For three and a half years, from the age of 37, Gandhi refused to read newspapers, claiming that the tumultuous state of world affairs caused him more confusion than his own inner unrest.

After reading John Ruskin's Unto This Last, he decided to change his lifestyle and create a commune called Phoenix Settlement.
Upon returning to India from South Africa, where he had enjoyed a successful legal practice, he gave up wearing Western-style clothing, which he associated with wealth and success. He dressed to be accepted by the poorest person in India, advocating the use of homespun cloth (khadi). Gandhi and his followers adopted the practice of weaving their own clothes from thread they themselves spun, and encouraged others to do so. While Indian workers were often idle due to unemployment, they had often bought their clothing from industrial manufacturers owned by British interests. It was Gandhi's view that if Indians made their own clothes, it would deal an economic blow to the British establishment in India. Consequently, the spinning wheel was later incorporated into the flag of the Indian National Congress. He subsequently wore a dhoti for the rest of his life to express the simplicity of his life.

I cried because I had no shoes ...

go here

HIV Children

You can read about this at this website: http://www.dawnanddusk.org/

Please tell your friends and family who can read Hindi to support and also people who would love to read Hindi- can also support this book :) and the kids.
http://www.dawnanddusk.org/
Author of this beautiful book, my dear friend from India said:
"As I have said this is my dream and publishing this book not only gives me an opportunity to give some thing back to the community but also fulfills my dream to help children".
Congratulations Dawn! I'm so happy that your dreams realized!
Please visit Dawn:
http://fizaa.blogspot.com/
Dawn said:
Yes 20% of the amount that I get from this book will be given to an Orphanage “International Child Welfare Service” in Chennai, India. They have many programs and one of them is called as “Dawn and Dusk Home, A Home for the HIV+ children”, - those kids who were born with it not because of their fault.
Great job Dawn!

Caraf

June 8 is Carafs birthday

Happy Birthday Caraf

Caraf

Keshis birthday is on June 25

Please kiss Keshi for me

she dont talk to me no more

Heyyyyy wait a minute

kissing is not talking

Thanks caraf

I will do it myself

Kyle's birthday is on Sunday June 15th.

WoodStock India, Goa !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Johnny remembers
Woodstock live videos
favorite hippy links

Woodstock theme video
PLUS
A huge list of links for each performer at Woodstock

go here

nostalgia

I came upon a child of god

He was walking along the road

When I asked him 'Where are you going?'

This he told me

I'm going down to Yasgur's farm

Think I'll join a rock 'n' roll band

I'll camp out on the land

I'll try and set my soul free

We are stardust

We are golden

And we've got to get ourselves back to the garden

Well then, can I walk beside you?

I have come here to lose the smog

And I feel just like a cog

In something turning

Well, maybe it's the time of year

Or maybe it's the time of man

And I don't know who I am

But life's for learning

We are stardust

We are golden

And we've got to get ourselves back to the garden

By the time I got to Woodstock

They were half a million strong

Everywhere there were songs

And celebration

And I dreamed I saw the bombers

Riding shotgun in the sky

Turning into butterflies

Above our nation

We are stardust

We are golden

And we've got to get ourselves back to the garden...

The first Hippie is said to have been a drop-out Jewish carpenter, named Jesus ("The Nazz") .He rebuked the state approved religious leaders of his time and instructed his disciples to sell what they had, give to the poor and follow him, preaching and teaching the good news of the Kingdom of Heaven. His disciples are a priesthood of believers (male and female) filled with the Holy Ghost (Spirit of Truth). It is not a popular message with the rich and powerful or those that want to be.

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Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young

Hippy life in Goa

How Woodstock happened

Welcome to Goa, be my guest

His holines, Sri Sri Ravi Shanker

“Art of Living has also backed out because Artie doesn’t want to do it for a social cause. It seems like a money-making racket. So we pulled out. We got an email from Artie, who soon after his return to the US from India, showed disinterest in doing it the ‘social cause’ way. He said he was living off his girlfriend’s money and wanted to make some money out of the concert. This beat the whole purpose.We immediately gave up the idea,” says Suryaveer Singh, who had 19% stake in the company Full Circle formed to back the project. The other stake holder and organiser Lalit Bhatnagar, however, rubbishes the rumours saying things are going in the right direction. According to him, the project is still on and Art of Living is very much a part of it. “Sri Sri Ravishankar is in the US and might be even meeting Artie for further discussions. People have quit the project due to personal reasons,” he confirms.As far as the Goa Woodstock goes, it’s all a hoax according to Lalit. There are also groups on Facebook and other sites about the impending concert in Goa, which Lalit says is untrue and that the Bangalore festival is slotted for end of this year. Incidentally, Shillong is also being considered as the venue. The rift has left the people who quit the project with a feeling of betrayal. “We were the ones who put Lalit and Artie in touch with Art of Living,” rues Suryaveer. The festival plans to get some original acts from the original Woodstock including Santana and other acts such as Red Hot Chili Peppers. Read more on this article...

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what is GOA ?

What for the hippies flower-power was, is for the techno generation "Goa". A term borrowed from the portuguese colony in India where these parties originally began, and to some extent still continue. Nowadays the parties occur all over the world, with specific centres where they are more or less popular. In north Germany there is a large following, some 20 thousand or so, with the largest of the group around Hamburg. There are also smaller groups across the whole of Germany, the smallest of these in the South. Not many people are required to make party viable - wherever there are enough people to cover the costs of at least one DJ and the hire of sound equipment and venue. The size of parties varies enormously. From very small private/birthday events for 100 to annual "happenings", "gatherings" and "festivals" of up to 10,000. It isn't possible to give figures on the size of attendances - reliable information is simply not obtainable. As a general guide in our party info it can be taken from the number of DJs in the lineup, especially when a larger number of professional DJs are included, that the party is of the larger variety.
Psy-Trance is an absorbing form of repetitive beat music to which certain melodic and accoustic sounds are blended or are performed live in addition. Some of these sounds stem from exotic instruments, such as sittahs, gongs, drums and didgereedoos. Unlike other forms of techno music there is little by way of verbal addition, although some samples are derived from the human mouth. There are no songs or anthems (as with House) or repetitive speech elements (such as with Rap). Trance music is designed to increase and decrease in the higher frequencies in waves which ebb and flow, leading the dancer to repeated ecstatic peaks. To some it is a form of meditation. To some merely a way to work off a bit of winter fat. The dancers are extremely social and gentle with one another. If anyone else is accidentally touched or trodden upon there follow hearty apologies, or sometimes just a gesture, the palms pressed together in a prayer position, the traditional Indian greeting. Many Osho/Bhagwan followers (sanyassins) go to the parties and contribute their particular sexual and philosophical thinking to it. Osho advised certain dances as a form of meditation, as did Gurdgieff with his spiritual and ritualistic dances, drawn from the traditions of the whirling dervishes.
Dancing to trance is a very personal and individual experience. No advice is given or to be expected and experiences vary according to the background and outlook of the individual "trancer" him/herself. No common philosophy appears to exist amongst the dancers - most of the sayings, rituals and thinking at parties seems borrowed rather than adopted. Images of "Shiva" or "Krishna" may often be found in parties but most seem unaware as to what they actually are or what their significance is. These images are simply "used" to lend flavour to the party and not hallowed as something sacred. As is the use of tippees, totem poles, pyramids and runes. They merely provide atmosphere and carry no further meaning. Certain similarities in social approach can be perceived amongst the people and these are the hallmark of trance parties - the gentleness and respect, the chance to dance unmolested (this is especially noted by the women), the smiles and feelings of joy.
I have often been asked to describe the difference between a "rave" and a "trance party". Ravers dance to fast and furious beats until they are completely exhausted. Generally such parties are frequented by the younger set, teenage through early twenties, and are accompanied by a large consumption of chemicals which stimulate fast dancing such as "speed". Trancers, on the other hand, tend to be older on average, although a wide age range is common, from older teens to grandfathers. It's a question of outlook of the person. I know many 50-something trancers who dance as hard and as long as the younger ones, and bring a certain air of mysticism and experience to the party. Raves are generally organised by commercial undertakings and are advertised and reported on in the press and on TV and Radio. Trance parties are generally organised by ordinary people, a small group of DJs and helpers who expect little in remuneration and the parties are rarely advertised or reported upon in the press (some reports exhibit total surprise and call the scene "neo-hippy" or "techno" and attempt to compare it with things such as the Berlin "Love Parade" or even "Woodstock"). The Trance parties are therefore something special and wish to remain underground. They are a grass-roots welling-up of a new format for open air festivals. North Germans are indeed lucky to have so many such parties to choose from during their short but extremely colourful summer.
The elements of an open air trance party in Germany (in no particular order)1. Soundsystem with a surround (4 speaker) effect. Normally enlosed by circle of staves to determine the dance area proper. Sometimes this area is surrounded by a ring of tippees - which is popular.2. Some kind of booth, stage or shack where the DJs can spin without being bumped by dancers.3. A chillout area, offering carpeted areas under makeshift "tent" material (normally using brightly coloured indian/asian printed hangings and not very waterproof) complete with someone offering chai (spiced tea with ginger) and light snacks.4. An adequate carpark where the people can setup tents, barbecues or whatever they need to feel at a kind of home-from-home for the duration of the gathering.5. An assortment of private traders selling everything from imported asian fabrics and clothing, jewelery, records, tapes and CDs and the sort of stuff one finds in a headshop. Sometimes this is called the "hippy market" area, and can spread around a large area.6. A bar/tent (in Germany a lot of beer is drunk at any event, regardless of how spiritual the premises of the party). Sometimes there are alternative drinks available too such as "smart drinks" and guarana mixes from private traders.7. Trance-DJs, of course. Otherwise it wouldn't be a trance party.8. Lots of colour - particularly neon which glows under ultra violet light, of which there is always a lot too! The "deko" (decoration) of parties is often undertaken by struggling artists who paint large pictures on fabric specifically designed to be hung at a series of parties.9. Flyers are distributed in parties, also magazines such as the Mushroom and the KERNEL Goa Infoblatt.10. Of course there is also a lot of dancing too...

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About Me
The Hippy Guy
Been a hippy since the sixties! That's right, and I figure that Jesus was a hippy. Long hair, beard, sandals. You know the type. And in the sixties they wouldn't have even let him into church looking that way. View my complete profile

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Joan Baez, anti-war lyrics

The Jesus Movement

"Something's happening here and you don't know what it is, do you, Mr. Jones?" - Bob Dylan,

ca.1965.
In the late 1960s, strange-looking beings with long, scraggly hair, blue jeans, colorful clothes and beads started showing up on the doorsteps of churches. Most of the churches were like Dylan's Mr. Jones. There was something happening but they didn't know what it was.
It was the "Jesus Movement." God was moving in an unexpected, unusual, and totally groovy way. The hippie counterculture that had brought us LSD, the "Summer of Love," "free love," Woodstock, and Altamont, was turning on to Jesus in large numbers. It was another one of the surprises God springs on His church from time to time!
It all started in 1967, when the "Living Room," the first Christian coffeehouse, was opened in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury by some hippies who had discovered Jesus. The Word of God spread like wildfire among the "street people" who were trying all kinds of spirituality. Soon there were Christian coffeehouses, counseling centers, and communes all over California and the rest of the country, from Sunset Strip to Washington, DC.
Many churches saw that God was doing something and welcomed the "Jesus People." Pastor Chuck Smith was one of the first to welcome long-hairs and ex-dopers to his "little country church" in Orange County. Calvary Chapel became an epicenter of the Jesus movement earthquake. Many other churches, like the Church on the Way, Peninsula Bible Church in San Francisco, and Christ Church of Washington turned on to the Jesus Movement in a big way. Jesus people also spawned the Vineyard and scads of house churches and contributed to the growth of the charismatic renewal movement in mainline churches.
The Jesus people brought their music with them when they came to church. Larry Norman sang, "Why Should the Devil Have All the Good Music?" Drums, guitars, amplifiers and backbeats freaked out a lot of people who thought the organ was the only instrument God allowed in a church building. Jesus freaks took their rock'n'roll, rewrote the words, and went on the road to broadcast the gospel to the counterculture. By the early 1970's bands playing Christian music and sharing their testimonies were all over the place. Dudes like Larry Norman, Love Song, Second Chapter of Acts, Phil Keaggy, Randy Stonehill, the Resurrection Band, and countless others were playing coffeehouses, nightclubs, churches, and Jesus festivals.
By the early '70s, the movement had bubbled over and made its mark on pop culture. Dozens of books and magazine articles told the strange tale of how Jesus captured the hippies. Pop music started featuring spiritual themes--Jesus Christ Superstar, Godspell, "Spirit in the Sky", "Put Your Hand in the Hand of the Man from Galilee," "My Sweet Lord" were all hits. Larry Norman sang, "Last year we looked at Jesus from afar; this year He's a superstar" ("Readers Digest").
Jesus People also put their music to work in worshiping God. Guitars started showing up in Catholic "folk masses" in the 60s, and by the 70s they were a staple in Young Life and other youth group meetings. A whole canon of guitar-based worship songs started to come together, led by the Maranatha series. What a trip!
The Jesus Movement opened the way for all sorts of changes in the way we do church today. It spawned a whole "Contemporary Christian Music" genre. In most of today's churches, guitars, drums, big sound systems and worship choruses are in, and not many people even remember how to play an organ or sing in a choir. Worship services are more informal, "seeker-sensitive," and people are showing up at church in shorts and tennis shoes, trends that were all made possible by the Jesus Movement.

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Jesus Hippy ?

There is no character more openly despised by the mainstream of American culture than the "dirty hippy". All you have to do is check out one of the many websites directed against them to verify this observation right from your desktop.

Among Christians, the "dirty hippy" is often thought to be the anti-type of the follower of Christ. Lazy, unsuccessful, a slacker, a scoffer, a sinner who does drugs and has sex indiscriminately, someone who listens to the devil's rock and roll music; ask and many evangelical Christians will tell you: the hippy is hell-bound.

Now, when compared to hippies, we Christians have an image in America that is ultra clean cut. The image people have of us is shockingly like the T.V. show the The Simpsons' cartoon parody of the Christian, Ned Flanders. We are thought to be clean cut, gainfully employed, "clean" mouthed, simplemindedly gullible, little house-holders with nice fences and neat lawns. Christians are mostly known as law abiding, tax-paying, clean-living, moralistic, judgmental, suburban and rural people.

We do nothing to dispel these images; if anything, the American Christians are invisible, living comfortably in an increasingly homogeneous suburban culture, conforming ourselves in every respect to a life-style that demands a certain customary behavior pattern. In turn, we rigidly demand everyone's obedience to that same pattern of behavior. The "dirty hippy" just doesn't fit in, and why should he?

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