Friday, December 26, 2008

Validating The World One Smile At A Time


Dec 26, 2008
		Magic of Free Parking Composer turned filmmaker Kurt Kuenne calls it "a fable about the magic of free parking." A short film about one parking attendant named Hugh Newman is really the story of small acts of goodness and everyday smiles.

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Friday, December 19, 2008

Arts Stimulus Plan

Arts Stimulus Plan
http://www.ips-dc.org/articles/974

Declaration by John Cavanagh, James Early, Barbara Ehrenreich, E. Ethelbert Miller, Marcus Raskin, Andy Shallal, Melissa Tuckey. Published December 18, 2008 12:00AM

Here’s a detailed call for the stimulus plan to include a program that will support artists and writers.

Programs that paid thousands of artists and writers comprised one of the most creative aspects of the New Deal. Thousands received relatively small outlays of funds for their work, and the nation’s artistic heritage was greatly enhanced. The same kind of initiative is needed today.

Congress needs to recommend that the government spend one percent of the stimulus plan on arts and culture (that would mean $6 billion if the final package is $600 billion), building on the New Deal’s Federal Art Project and the Federal Writers Project. Below, we offer 11 ideas on how the money could be spent. We also support ideas that link different parts of the stimulus package; for example, new murals and sculptures could adorn the new schools that will be built.

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) was created in 1935 to bring jobs to those who had become unemployed or underemployed during the Great Depression. Since artists and writers were also hit by the economic hard times, two divisions of the WPA were assigned the task of creating suitable jobs for such people — jobs that would not only take advantage of these individuals' talents, but would also serve to enrich America's cultural heritage and embellish public spaces. The grouping of the largest of these programs is collectively known as the “Federal Project Number One.” Included in this collective were the Federal Writers’ Project, the Historical Records Survey, the Federal Theatre Project, the Federal Music Project, and the Federal Art Project. All of these programs were divisions of the Works Progress Administration. Out of the approximately $4.8 billion allocated to the Works Progress Administration, Congress permitted $27 million to fund the Federal Project Number One projects.

The Federal Art Project, along with several other WPA-backed programs, created well over 5,000 jobs for American artists. These artists created over 2,500 murals, over 17,700 sculptures, 108,000 paintings, and 240,000 prints. The project's legacy still lives on, since it supported artists like Jackson Pollock, Arshile Gorky, and many other abstract expressionists whose work helped shift the most dynamic center of the art world to shift from its traditional location in Europe to where it now resides, in the largest cities of the United States.

The Federal Writers' Project created over 6,600 jobs for writers, editors, researchers, and many others who exemplified a given level of literary expertise. Established on July 27, 1935 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Federal Writers' Project (FWP) operated under journalist and theatrical producer Henry Alsberg, and later John D. Newsome, compiling local histories, oral histories, ethnographies, children's books and other works. These writers created over 1,200 books and pamphlets, and they produced some of the first U.S. guides for states, major cities, and roadways. In addition, the FWP was responsible for recording folklore, oral histories, and, most notably, the 2,300 plus first-person accounts of slavery that now exist as a collection in the Library of Congress. As with the Federal Art Project, the FWP's contributions to American literature were both significant and long-lasting, giving authors like Saul Bellow, Zora Neale Hurston, John Steinbeck, Sterling Brown, and many others the opportunity to continue their work in a time of difficult economic circumstances.

Here are some of the ways the funds could be used:

1. National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH): Increase funding for the NEA and NEH. Increase the staff at both agencies. Maintain many of the new NEA projects started by Dana Gioia, for example: The Big Read and Operation Homecoming.

2. Archives: Support the preservation of literary archives across the country. Many collections need to interface with modern technology; staff needs to be hired at various institutions. We don't want to lose our past.

3. A Secretary-level post for Culture/Arts: We support the idea of Bill Ivey, former NEA Chair under President Bill Clinton, and head of the arts/culture Obama Transition Team for a Secretary level post for Culture/Arts. Indeed, the United States and Germany are the only wealthy nations without a Minister or Secretary of Culture. Ivey’s initiative involves the refocus and revitalization of the extant Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, which could be a better interim and/or long-term mechanism for new arts and culture policies.

4. Arts Education: Educational institutions, especially public school systems in low-income and underserved communities, would hire artists and writers. Funds would be made available for artist and writer-in-residence positions.

5. Arts in Public Spaces: Support for the arts in public places; especially parks, metro stations, airports, etc. Every major city and community should have access to concert series and readings in their major parks, especially in times of economic hardship.

6. Workplace: Funds to bring poets and writers into the workplace. Build literacy by enlivening the reading public. Contemporary writers would bring their work to the people. Readings could be held around noon at workplaces.

7. Document history: Document U.S. literary and cultural history on a city, state and national level. This would be similar to the old WPA program. Interview major writers and painters. It could be done by doing a series of films.

8. American Artists Overseas: Money should be set aside to send American artists overseas for three-six month periods, with an emphasis on countries where the United States has been at odds. They would serve as cultural ambassadors and give lectures and performances. They would also collaborate with artists of the host country to produce cultural events.

9. Fellowships/Scholarships awarded to working/low income individuals who wish to enroll in creative writing programs: Many older people wish to return to school to pursue careers in the arts but have no money for tuition.

10. Black colleges: Money should be set aside to develop creative writing programs at historically black colleges. No creative writing program exists at any black college. This would create teaching jobs for many African American authors.

11. Libraries: We should support library infrastructure and provide writer and artist-in-residence programs for our libraries, especially those in low-income communities. Our nation's libraries are public treasures and many have been closed in recent years. Money is needed to keep our libraries open and alive.

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Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Obama Fails In Education Picks - Obama's "Way-to-Go, Brownie!" Moment?

Obama's "Way-to-Go, Brownie!" Moment?

by Greg Palast

http://www.gregpalast.com/obamas-way-to-go-brownie-moment/#more-2171

I will not pick a bad Secretary of Education

for the Huffington Post

Has Barack Obama forgotten, "Way-to-go, Brownie"? Michael Brown was that guy from the Arabian Horse Association appointed by George Bush to run the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Brownie, not knowing the south shore of Lake Pontchartrain from the south end of a horse, let New Orleans drown. Bush's response was to give his buddy Brownie a "way to go!" thumbs up.

We thought Obama would go a very different way. You'd think the studious Senator from Illinois would avoid repeating the Bush regime's horror show of unqualified appointments, of picking politicos over professionals.

But here we go again. Trial balloons lofted in the Washington Post suggest President-elect Obama is about to select Joel Klein as Secretary of Education. If not Klein, then draft-choice number two is Arne Duncan, Obama's backyard basketball buddy in Chicago.

Say it ain't so, President O.

Let's begin with Joel Klein. Klein is a top notch anti-trust lawyer. What he isn't is an educator. Klein is as qualified to run the Department of Education as Dick Cheney is to dance in Swan Lake. While I've never seen Cheney in a tutu, I have seen Klein fumble about the stage as Chancellor of the New York City school system.

Klein, who lacks even six minutes experience in the field, was handed management of New York's schools by that political Jack-in-the-Box, Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The billionaire mayor is one of those businessmen-turned-politicians who think lawyers and speculators can make school districts operate like businesses.

Klein has indeed run city schools like a business - if the business is General Motors. Klein has flopped. Half the city's kids don't graduate.

Klein is out of control. Not knowing a damn thing about education, rather than rely on those who actually work in the field (only two of his two dozen deputies have degrees in education), Klein pays high-priced consultants to tell him what to do. He's blown a third of a billion dollars on consultant "accountability" projects plus $80 million for an IBM computer data storage system that doesn't work.

What the heck was the $80 million junk computer software for? Testing. Klein is test crazy. He has swallowed hook, line and sinker George Bush's idea that testing students can replace teaching them. The madly expensive testing program and consultant-fee spree are paid for by yanking teachers from the classroom.

Ironically, though not surprisingly, test scores under Klein have flat-lined. Scores would have fallen lower, notes author Jane Hirschmann, but Klein "moved the cut line," that is, lowered the level required to pass. In other words, Klein cheats on the tests.

Nevertheless, media poobahs have fallen in love with Klein, especially Republican pundits. The New York Times' David Brooks is championing Klein, hoping that media hype for Klein will push Obama to keep Bush schools policies in place, trumping the electorate's choice for change.

Brooks and other Republicans (hey, didn't those guys lose?) are pushing Klein as a way for Obama to prove he can reach across the aisle to Republicans like Bloomberg. (Oh yes, Bloomberg's no longer in the GOP, having jumped from the party this year when the brand name went sour.)

Choosing Klein, says Brooks, would display Obama's independence from the teacher's union. But after years of Bush kicking teachers in the teeth, appointing a Bush acolyte like Klein would not indicate independence from teachers but their betrayal.

Hoops versus Hope

The anti-union establishment has a second stringer on the bench waiting in case Klein is nixed: Arne Duncan. Duncan, another lawyer playing at education, was appointed by Chicago's Boss Daley to head that city's train-wreck of a school system. Think of Duncan as "Klein Lite."

What's Duncan's connection to the President-elect? Duncan was once captain of Harvard's basketball team and still plays backyard round-ball with his Hyde Park neighbor Obama.

But Michelle has put a limit on their friendship: Obama was one of the only state senators from Chicago to refuse to send his children into Duncan's public schools. My information is that the Obamas sent their daughters to the elite Laboratory School where Klein-Duncan teach-to-the-test pedagogy is dismissed as damaging and nutty.

Mr. Obama, if you can't trust your kids to Arne Duncan, why hand him ours?

Lawyer Duncan is proud to have raised test scores by firing every teacher in low-scoring schools. Which schools? There's Collins High in the Lawndale ghetto with children from homeless shelters and drug-poisoned 'hoods. They don't do well on tests. So Chicago fired all the teachers. They brought in new ones - then fired all of them too: the teachers' reward for volunteering to work in a poor neighborhood.

It's no coincidence that the nation's worst school systems are run by non-experts like Klein and Duncan.

Obama certainly knows this. I know he knows because he's chosen, as head of his Education Department transition team, one of the most highly respected educators in the United States: Professor Linda Darling-Hammond of Stanford University.

So here we have the ludicrous scene of the President-elect asking this recognized authority, Dr. Darling-Hammond, to vet the qualifications of amateurs Klein and Duncan. It's as if Obama were to ask Michael Jordan, "Say, you wouldn't happen to know anyone who can play basketball, would you?"

Classroom Class War

It's not just Klein's and Duncan's empty credentials which scare me: it's the ill philosophy behind the Bush-brand education theories they promote. "Teach-to-the-test" (which goes under such pre-packaged teaching brands as "Success for All") forces teachers to limit classroom time to pounding in rote low-end skills, easily measured on standardized tests. The transparent purpose is to create the future class of worker-drones. Add in some computer training and - voila! - millions trained on the cheap to function, not think.

Analytical thinking skills, creative skills, questioning skills will be left to the privileged at the Laboratory School and Phillips Andover Academy.

We hope for better from the daddy of Sasha and Malia.

Educationally, the world is swamping us. The economic and social levees are bursting. We cannot afford another Way-to-go Brownie in charge of rescuing our children.

****************

Greg Palast is the father of school-aged twins and the author of, "No Child's Behind Left," included in his New York Times bestseller, Armed Madhouse. Palast is a Nation Institute Puffin Foundation Fellow for investigative reporting. Get a signed copy of Armed Madhouse for the holidays for a tax-deductible contribution to the Palast Investigative Fund at www.PalastInvestigativeFund.org

Subscribe to Palast's reports at www.GregPalast.com

Please re-post this.

Monday, December 1, 2008

Gratitude And Gratefulness Increases Happiness And Improves Our Quality Of Life

Whether 3rd grader, elder or any other age - expressing gratefulness increases your happiness and others. (No doubt expressing negative, toxic and other unhelpfulnesses has an opposite affect.
===

expressive writing of gratitude
something simple we can do to be happier

fewer health problems, decreased depression, an improved immune system and improved grades

writing letters of gratitude to people who had positively impacted the students' lives.

one letter every two weeks with the simple ground rules that it had to be positively expressive, required some insight and reflection, were nontrivial and contained a high level of appreciation or gratitude.

their happiness increased after each letter
the more written, the better they felt

improved ... life satisfaction and gratitude

having significant connections in your life has shown to have terrific psychological and physical benefits.

75 percent of the students said they planned to continue to write letters of gratitude

practicing [positive, affirmative, nurturing] expressive writing is associated with fewer health problems, decreased depression, an improved immune system and improved grades.

amazing resource: gratitude
helps us express and enjoy, appreciate, be thankful and satisfied

We all have it
use it to improve our quality of life.
===

Want To Be Happier? Be More Grateful

ScienceDaily (Nov. 27, 2008)

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/11/081125113005.htm

— Want to quickly improve your happiness and satisfaction with life? Then the pen may be a mighty weapon, according to research done by Kent State University's Dr. Steven Toepfer.

Toepfer, an assistant professor of family and consumer studies at university's Salem Campus, says that expressive writing is something that has been available to mankind since ink first appeared in Egypt more than 4,000 years ago.

"Everyone is pursuing the American dream. We are wealthier than previous generations, consuming more and experiencing more, but yet so many of us are so unhappy," Toepfer says. "The question of 'is there something simple we can do to be happier?' is one that I have been thinking about for many years and one that has interested people for much longer."

With that question in mind, Toepfer enlisted students from six courses to explore the effects of writing letters of gratitude to people who had positively impacted the students' lives.

Studies demonstrate, according to Kent State University's Dr. Steven Toepfer, that practicing expressive writing is often associated with fewer health problems, decreased depression, an improved immune system and improved grades.

Over the course of a six-week period, students wrote one letter every two weeks with the simple ground rules that it had to be positively expressive, required some insight and reflection, were nontrivial and contained a high level of appreciation or gratitude.

After each letter, students completed a survey to gauge their moods, satisfaction with life and feelings of gratitude and happiness.

"I saw their happiness increase after each letter, meaning the more they wrote, the better they felt," says Toepfer, who also witnessed improvement in participants' life satisfaction and gratitude throughout the study.

"The most powerful thing in our lives is our social network. It doesn't have to be large, and you don't always need to be the life of the party, but just having one or two significant connections in your life has shown to have terrific psychological and physical benefits."

In all, 75 percent of the students said they planned to continue to write letters of gratitude even when the course was over.

Studies demonstrate, according to Toepfer, that practicing expressive writing is often associated with fewer health problems, decreased depression, an improved immune system and improved grades.

"We are all walking around with an amazing resource: gratitude," says Toepfer. "It helps us express and enjoy, appreciate, be thankful and satisfied with a little effort.

We all have it, and we need to use it to improve our quality of life."

===

See also:

Mind & Brain

Reference

===

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Friday, November 28, 2008

A Charter For The Soul - Video of the Week: Charter For Compassion

A charter for the soul to live together in peace and harmony.

Replacing narrow fundamentalism of intolerance by bringing compassion in healthy ways, recognizing each persons humanity. Unconditional passion. Implementing the golden rule globally. A charter for the soul. Telling our own stories of compassion or the lack of it. Everyone participating whether religious or secular people. Out of a sense of love. To build a global community where people of all persuasions can live together in peace and harmony.

http://www.karmatube.org/videos.php?id=1402


Nov 28, 2008
	Charter For Compassion When Karen Armstrong won a prize to do anything she wanted, she created a "Charter for Compassion" to bring together voices from all religions and backgrounds and remind the world that while all faiths are not the same, they all share the share the core principle of compassion and the Golden Rule. In this moving video, Karen and many other friends lay out a beautiful narrative as an invitation into this collective inquiry.

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Monday, November 10, 2008

Nurturing Each Child As A Work Of Art, A Positive Being For The Further Evolution Of Humanity

Someone said:

"We are educating children from the neck up."

How right that person was! For what personal fulfillment, for what understanding, for what kind of world are schools preparing children? That is a question all educators should ask themselves.

We must make of each child a work of art, a positive element in the further evolution of humanity on planet Earth.

Robert Muller
http://goodmorning-world.blogspot.com/2008/11/gmw-1594-collect-beautiful-ideas-and.html

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Monday, November 3, 2008

How Girls (And everyone else) Can Unprogram Themselves To Be More Awake Use Intuition

Listening with Heart 360: The New Paradigm for Women [ILLUSTRATED] (Paperback)

[This is focused on girls living in the media dominated high tech worlds. The skills that can be learned are useful for becoming more awake to making better choices each instant of one's life - instant by instant - without the usual unconscious programming and conditioned habits of life.

The periodic negative and simplistic projections of the author leave a lot to be desired. The idea of positive ways of individuals setting aside their conditioning, becoming aware of their unconscious behaviors and finding more appropriate ways can be very useful. The use of intuition - acting with wisdom for the situation and circumstance can be a great alternative to the usual dysfunctional standard programming.]

by Elizabeth Diane
Link here to the book info

Here is the website:
http://www.listeningwithheart.com/home.cfm

Here are YouTube videos:
http://www.listeningwithheart.com/home.cfm

CHAPTER ONE - INTRODUCTION

Listening With Heart is not another self-help book. It is a help the world book, “by you helping.”

...

It is important to make the following point right from the very beginning. Listening With Heart is not against anything. We are simply interested in raising the consciousness of women. This book is not about making the media, advertisers or big business the scapegoat and the root of all women’s problems.

Listening With Heart is about making more women aware of where our thinking as a whole is. And where the female consciousness is at the moment, it is hurting and holding far too many women back for it to remain at its present level. And at this point in time our thinking is resonating far too strongly with what is called programming.

WHAT EXACTLY IS PROGRAMMING?

http://www.listeningwithheart.com/helpyou.cfm

Programming consists mainly of two parts. The first part is the media, advertisers, and big business. This type of programming is a system solely designed for the purpose of making money. The second type is the demands and expectations placed upon us by others. In other words, the second type of programming encompasses all of the roles that we play out in this thing called life.

In the beginning the programming does your thinking for you. When the programming is making your decisions , your thinking automatically becomes limited. We run into difficulties in our lives, particularly as women, because we honestly believe that the programming is our only option. There have probably been instances in your life where there have been new possibilities and the freedom to begin again, but you remain distracted. You begin to live to the rhythm of the programming and forget the value and worth in yourself. In no time at all, your natural stride is replaced by another’s walk and you begin to wonder why you feel out of step.

Programming is anything and everything that takes you away from your natural self and makes you believe and feel that you have to be something that you are not. Many times you can’t see it, but the programming is continuously floating around and you are battling it all of the time. The programming makes you feel like you just don't belong, that you are simply are not enough. You see if you are contented and happy with the way you are, then you will not be all that interested in the programming. On the other hand, if you are feeling incomplete and looking for something to make you happy, then GOTCHA! The programming is anything that makes you believe that you have to be a square but deep down in that real place you call home you are most definitely and without a doubt a circle.

Much has been written to educate women on the negative impact that the programming has on us. But unfortunately ladies, in many cases, all it has left us with is simply more information. There has been no significant shift in our thinking and the female consciousness has been stalled in a holding pattern. This is leaving far too many of us not only confused but also frustrated by the fact that we are not moving as fast or as far forward as originally anticipated.

THE MAJOR SIDE EFFECT OF ALL OF THE PROGRAMMING

The major side effect of all of the programming is the question:

"WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?"

How will this glass half empty type thinking ever lead you to feeling good about yourself? Remember that the first part of the programming is a system solely designed for the purpose of making money. Repeat. It is designed to make money not to progress your thinking. If this type of programming was interested in making you feel good, so that your thinking could be freed up to explore other areas, then we would see many more size 12-14 models. More women could then declare, “Hey I look similar to her, I could look good in that outfit and I don’t have to change a thing about myself to do it” The programming consists of an endless assembly line of “New and Improved” products that supply a myriad of answers to the side effect question, “What is wrong with me?” So they keep making money, (can’t fault people for making a living) but in the meantime too many of us continue to feel stuck or trapped because the programming is working and we are not accepting ourselves as we are.

And ladies, if we are not being ourselves, we are being someone else.

read more about programming

---

CHAPTER TWO - WHAT'S IT ALL ABOUT?

Listening With Heart can help you if you are living somebody else’s idea of life. It could the media, the magazines, your spouse, your boyfriend, your mother, your father, or your employer. It does not matter. What matters is that you have and have always had the ability to become the rudder of your own ship; to be on your own path living life on your own terms. On our own terms sounds good, eh? Just be prepared to hear your friend comment that you have indeed changed and that you don't sound like yourself. Your answer will be something like this. “I was tired of doing what everyone was telling me to do. I have decided to do things the way I want to do them. You know what? I get more done and have some spare time for myself. I do things in the order I want to rather than in the order others would have me do it. So everyone can start to take a number and I will get to it, in my own time.” When you can say that, and those around you accept you and love you; you are back in charge. The programming in this area has lost its grip.

What is an alternative to the programming? THE HEART. You see our heads can be programmed but the heart cannot be because the heart is where wisdom dwells. The heart is a reminder of what we once knew but carelessly did not commit to memory; each and every one of us has what it takes. It’s in our D.N.A. If this idea doesn’t resonate well with you, don’t worry, the programming is still working.

...
But the programming can never shut down that deep down place where we belong, the home of being enough. THE HEART.

The world gives us many wonderful roles: Daughter, student, sister, mother, career women, and wife. Please add in anymore that exist in your life. We not only cherish most of the roles bestowed upon us but more importantly we learn from them. But where we seem to get confused and it is very easy to get mixed up here; we are not those roles. Cue and enter the second type of programming that consists of all the expectations and demands placed upon us by others; the roles that we play.

it is not what we are doing but

WHO WE ARE NOT BEING

that is taking up our valuable energy.

---

CHAPTER FOUR

NATURAL WEIGHT: A LINE WOMEN CAN PUT IN THEMSELVES

Listening With Heart defines “Natural Weight” as:

A balance point (homeostasis) that the body will maintain ... as long as eating is primarily based in response to natural hunger. The balance point to a very large extent is determined by DNA.
---

CHAPTER NINE

THE SITUATION WHEEL

The situation wheel is designed for the purpose of taking away some the frustration of life’s circumstances you find when working on a problem. How many times do you think about a relationship you are in, ... any relationship concerning someone else and each time you do, you find yourself in the same spot? Say if someone said something or did something to you, even if it was months or even years ago. It is like opening a book, turning to the page and there it is. In other words, you have not moved since the last time this situation was at the front of your thinking.

Since you have not moved and would like to, we have designed the Wheel to help you along. You understand a car will not move if it did not have wheels, therefore let’s use the same principle to move your thinking along. In the physical world we invent things to help carry the load and make life more bearable. However, in our thinking, our six inch universe, the powerful space between our ears, we don’t seem to have the same help and find ourselves getting stalled far too often. The wheel is here to help you.

HOW TO USE THE WHEEL: A MOTHER AND DAUGHTER EXAMPLE

The following section will help prepare you to get your thinking more in line with the wheel. Look at it this way. Far too many women think about things as being right or wrong, happy and unhappy. Keep in mind your mind is not just two levels- upstairs and downstairs but more like a skyscraper with 100 plus levels. And this is the way to fill out the wheel. Each piece of the pie represents 100 levels. There are eight pieces to the wheel, seven situations and one for the overall performance.(OP) Here is an example of a mother and daughter working on their situations.
---

CHAPTER TEN - I WISH I MAY I WISH I MIGHT

Wishful thinking. Let’s begin by suggesting that you do your best not confuse wishful thinking with dreaming. This is a line that is blurred by far too many women.

A dream is a possibility fueled by forward momentum. Forward momentum that is provided by living with what is rather than wishing they be otherwise. In other words, dreaming has its seeds in authentic action or more simply, in the truth.

On the other hand, wishful thinking camouflages the truth. Although, wishful thinking may be a couple of notches above negative type thinking, the results unfortunately are very similar. INERTIA. STAGNATION. GOING THROUGH THE MOTIONS. STUCK. Why? It seldom progresses, same wishful thinking, different day. There is a very important point to be made here. Without the programming we wouldn’t need wishful thinking because we would be too busy out there living. How much of our lives are dedicated to wishful thinking without going out and doing something for ourselves?

Wishful thinking is an attractive option because in this place your husband is going to change after you have children, your child isn’t doing “those” things, and you are definitely happier now that you have lost the weight. Virginia Woolfe so succinctly wrote, “It is much more difficult to slay a phantom than a reality.” Wow! Did she ever understand the essence of the programming! Ladies, the programming is our phantom, cleverly and consistently disguised as our reality. And the programming initiates wishful thinking. Wishful thinking is tricky because it is extremely difficult to pinpoint. On the surface it doesn't present as threatening. But soon, a the lie begins its slow, seductive dance as the truth and you end up drawing your answers from there instead of from what is real. Please don’t make the mistake of assuming that you can relegate the truth to the back of your thinking in one area of your life, and not run the risk of having it impact on all other areas. Ladies, life is passing us by because it’s in motion and we are stuck. Stuck in the wake of wishful thinking that is leaving too many of us gasping and gulping for air. And the programming, well the programming has us all convinced that this is breathing!

Take a look behind the roles and there you are. As we progress through life what many of us do not realize is that our roles are only temporary, a fleeting part. But tightly we hold on, all the while not realizing that we are slipping right through our own hands. As one day rolls into another, some of us can’t help but feel that something is missing, a palpable emptiness. This is the space where we use to be. We wish that we could write that some other force was responsible for this loss, this vacuum, but the reality of it is no one is taking it from you, you are giving it away. And since you are the one giving it away, it is therefore very much in your power to take it back. The six-inch universe is just that, a universe. And in a universe a thought can travel as far as you want it to. We have become short sighted not because we lack a keen eye but mainly because our vision has been obscured. Let’s take a good look around. There has to be more to it, doesn’t there? We start off as young girls, who cannot imagine looking like anything other than a manufactured image, and end up as women twisting and turning, unable to face forward and simply be ourselves.
---

CHAPTER ELEVEN - GET INTO THE GROOVE

Thoughts are our mode of transportation through this life. Our six- inch universe, that ever-powerful space between our ears, is the place where we do all of our living. We don’t live “out” there somewhere, but our lives are either consistently propelled by the momentum of our thoughts or stalled by the inertia of them. Our thoughts are alive and literally have the power to take us anywhere and everywhere. So where is it exactly that your thoughts are taking you? Are you going places or just being programmed? Whatever we choose to think about becomes part of our world. And with each thought we are making a distinct impression on our six- inch universe. These impressions are called GROOVES.

Let us consider a thought or thought patterns to be very much like each separate song on a CD. You play cut one and of course get the first song, cut two the second song and so on. So how is it that our thoughts and thought patterns become grooves? Well, say that you have a favorite song on the CD and you press the repeat function so that you will hear the song over and over again. Each time that you have the same or similar thought a small groove is formed. Of course it makes sense that the more you have a particular set of similar thoughts the deeper and wider a groove will become.

So, who or what is responsible for the grooves of your thinking? Now this is a tough question because most sane women would say who the heck do you think is in charge of my thinking? I am. But are you really?

You see we live in a world that if you intentionally break someone’s leg you are most likely going to get charged and go to jail. Most of us must see the harm in order to understand it. However, when someone breaks a person’s spirit they are off the hook. The damage has been done to the person’s thinking, their six-inch universe. The injury has taken place in that invisible place where our grooves are spinning. What we need to begin to understand is that the programming is operating on this level. It would be beneficial if someone could come up with a physical way to protect our thinking so that the programming could not get in. But a visible, physical barrier doesn’t block the invisible programming. So we must arm the six-inch universes with our own thoughts.

It’s an interesting concept, women thinking for themselves. It’s a new millennium and it’s time ladies!

---

CHAPER TWELVE - DEPROGRAMMING: HOW TO TUNE INTO YOUR HEART

Intuition is a smooth flowing response to situations and people in our lives. It is a quiet voice that is there all of the time. We think that it originates in the head but it comes from the heart. When the heart speaks we hear it as wisdom and intuition is simply a flash of this wisdom that we are able to tune into. Intuition isn’t attached to anything; it just is. Intuition doesn’t fear; it just calls you to act. One of the reasons why intuition is so hard to define and explain is that you can’t force it or will it to come. You can’t even plan it. Intuition just comes to you in its own time and in a way that many times only you will understand.

There is no set pattern to follow and specific things to expect with intuition, as there is when we use our logic. But, because logic and rational thought are definitely needed to get by in this world, they remain at the front of our thinking for most of our day. If intuition simply got placed to the back of our thinking for safekeeping, we would still be aware of it. However, for most, intuition has become something that is very unfamiliar, something reserved only for the spiritually evolved gurus meditating in their caves. But we all have it. Intuition is our built in ability to listen to our hearts, to eavesdrop on eternity. It has no set curriculum, no definite right or wrong, no black or white in its thinking, just a reservoir of answers and a hope that you pick one.

Getting in tune with our intuition is very much like learning how to drive a car. At first you must concentrate a lot on the task, locating the indicators, the lights, focusing on the road ahead. Soon, however, we realize that we are driving and the tasks that once required concentration are more automatic. The more we use and act on our intuition the more it will seem like it is not intuition at all. Your intuition will become automatic and soon becomes a larger part of your thinking. You are beginning to remember what we are all born with. Our intuition invites us to take back all of the parts of ourselves that we have given away. You will know that intuition is a part of your life when things seem to be working out and the world seems a better place.

Whole and complete women can offer up a lot of strength and resistance to all that life and the programming can throw at her. Our hearts complete the picture. Without spirit we fall vulnerable and depend on society to give it to us. We become dependent on manufactured spirit like alcohol, drugs, and food to name just three. Soon our bodies become use to these and simply want more. But what we must keep in mind is that when our spirits are down, so are our emotions and this lowers our resistance to life and its daily knocks. We simply become bodies going through the motions and calling that a life.

---

CHAPTER THIRTEEN - LET'S KICK IT UP A COUPLE OF NOTCHES!

...

Love is a sphere of wonderment, very much like the sun, with billions of rays emitting from it. Much of the world’s thinking is weighed down and stuck in disagreement as to the ways that are best to get there. But if we could all realize that one size don’t fit all, we could relax and take comfort in the fact that we are all going to get there.

... Love is like a young child knocking gently at the door and if you are not in a peaceful frame of mind, you are not going hear it. You are too distracted.

Face it, most of us can drown out a full blast television set with all of the internal arguing and worrying that we do on a daily basis. So love remains at the door and we complain that it has become an orphan. In reality love hasn’t gone; the location of your mind is holding it at a precarious distance. To change the location of your mind, find time in your day to just be. It is in this stillness and quiet that doesn’t judge your name; that you can get to know yourself.

Listen, hear the gentle knock and let love in. The “ah ha” notion rushes in; everything that you ever wanted is right here, in front of you, and has been all of this time.

...

CHAPTER FOURTEEN - TO INFINITY AND BEYOND

...

First our thoughts are full of fresh and distinct possibility. But our six-inch universe is far too large a circle to fit into the ever- shrinking square of the programming. “Why isn’t it easy being me?” It is not easy because you are being someone else.

... The power of the six-inch universe has been underestimated. This is where we give the programming a life but it is also where we live. Where there is a different thought, there is another way. Where there is a new idea, there is a distinct path that wants its say. Express it in your own way. ...

[Being] somebody else is no longer the best person to live out your life. This is your life and the rest of it that we are talking about.
+++

Here are reviews from Amazon:

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Change your life by listening, September 19, 2008
By     Reader Views "www.readerviews.com" (Austin, Texas) - See all my reviews
Reviewed by Danelle Drake for Reader Views (9/08)

"Programming is anything taking you away from your natural self and making you think you have to be something you are not." Ok, I admit, I had to re-read this sentence more than once to understand it. I really didn't get it. "Life is too short for unnecessary sadness." No misunderstanding there - I get it - man, do I get it.

"'Listening with Heart' is all about building bridges over troubled spots after the red flags are flying." It's about thinking positive, not letting fear rule your life, and being happy with yourself. "Thinking more positive can be done from anywhere." `Listening with Heart 360" will help search deep inside yourself and assist you in becoming more aware of your self-perception. Step out of the mold and take a risk.

Many of the issues females face in the world today are dealt with inside the pages of this book. Troubled by a poor body image, you are introduced to negative and positive pounds. Write down what you eat, if you can't cut anything out, cut back. Change your habit - you can do it.

Weathering the storm of adolescence is always a challenge. Dealing with daughters experiencing puberty and having a positive response to your child is a definite challenge. You will be led to better prepare her for adulthood in ways that will help her become a strong, independent women.

Marriage and happily ever after, yes it can be realistic. Getting past the fantasy and living in the real world. You are expected to behave in one manner, and have many responsibilities. You are shown how you can still be a wife but also be a happy individual. If your marriage is not happily ever after, you are shown how this experience can have a positive outcome and make you stronger. Divorce is compared to childbirth; until you experience it, you have no idea.

"Listening with Heart 360" is designed to be read in conjunction with using their website. It will give you useful tools to help you analyze different life situations. As a parent of four daughters, I have read chapter 5: The Storm and chapter 6: The Hormonian Age several times and would highly recommend the book solely based on these chapters alone.

"Listening with Heart 360" by Elizabeth Diane and Andrew Marshall will activate your consciousness and lead you to think things you may never have considered. Opening your eyes about things you would never have thought will have a very positive impact on your self-perception. Regardless of the phrasing, you are given information to help you lead a more positive life.

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5.0 out of 5 stars The Enchanted Self, a Positive Therapy finds a paradigm friend in Listening With Heart, May 27, 2008
By     Dr. Barbara Becker Holstein "Dr. Barbara" (New Jersey, USA) - See all my reviews
The Truth: I'm a Girl, I'm Smart and I Know Everything As a positive psychologits who has developed a new paradigm for the treatment room, explained in The Enchanted Self, A Positive Therapy, designed to encourage hope, optimism and to specifically help women and girls use their strengths, talents, copins skills, and potential, even lost potential, to build happiness, purpose and meaning into their lives, I was thrilled to come across Listening with Heart. This book is filled with the wisdom that women need to hold on to themselves, their dreams and the 'songs of the soul' that they wish to sing. The book carefully explains how we are all influenced by programming that happens outside of ourselves in society and can so easily give up the destiny that is rightfully ours. In particular, girls are given help, via the ways that Ms. Diane and Mr. Marshall, teach their mothers, to understand the 'storm' of growing up as a teenager and how not to give in to the passions of that period of time that may not serve them well emotionally, socially or physically.
This is a very dense book with a tremendous amount of social and emotioanl material, plus a spiritual perspective that is uplifting. I would suggest that women, guidance counselors, therapists, junior and high school teachers, all take the time to read this book. As the authors say, "The Lady is on Stage and se is Getting Ready to Sing" on p. 104. Let's make sure us women and the next generation of girls, all sing!

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
This book introduces two authors who get it! Instead of inundating women with statistics and yet another strategy of how to cope with life's imbalances, Elizabeth Diane and Andrew Marshall address the root cause, not the symptom. And the root cause of imbalance experienced by girls and women alike is called programming.The book not only introduces the ahead of the curve concept called programming but also an innovative relationship tool called The Situation Wheel designed to help women improve upon any relationship in which she maybe struggling. With revolutionary insight into the 'de-programming' process, authors Elizabeth Diane and Andrew Marshall trigger new angles of thinking for girls and women. Whether it is in their attitudes toward their bodies or in relationships; this book can help women find their own authentic lives. A wonderful Mother/Daughter gift can be found between the covers of this innovative book. The book is a must read for all women because it is The New Paradigm For Women!

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

The Humility in True Genius - Focus, Practice Beyond The Normal

The Humility in True Genius

--by David R. Hawkins
Listen To Reading!

A universal characteristic of genius is humility; after all, those in whom we recognize genius commonly disclaim it, as they’ve always attributed their insights to some higher influence. [...]

Recognized geniuses may be rare, but genius resides within all of us. There is no such thing as “luck” or “accident” in this cosmos; and not only is everything connected to everything else, no one is excluded from the universe -- we’re all members. [...]

The process of creativity and genius are inherent in human consciousness. Just as every human has within himself the same essence of consciousness, so is genius a potential that resides within everyone -- it simply waits for the right circumstance to express itself. Each of us has had moments of genius in our lifetimes, perhaps only known to ourselves or to those close to us. We suddenly make a brilliant move or decision, or say exactly the right thing at the right moment, without quite knowing why. Sometimes we might even like to congratulate ourselves for these fortuitous events, but in truth we don’t really know where they came from.

Genius is often expressed through a change of perception -- a modifying of context of paradigm. The mind struggles with an unsolvable problem, poses a question, and is open to receive an answer. The source that this answer comes from has been given many names, varying from culture to culture and time to time; in the arts of Western civilization, it’s traditionally been identified with the Greek goddesses of inspiration called the Muses. Those who are humble and grateful for illumination received tend to have the capacity to access genius; those who credit the inspiration to their own ego soon lose this capacity, or are destroyed by their success. High power, like high voltage, must be handled with respect.

Genius and creativity then, are subjectively experienced as a witnessing; it’s the phenomenon that bypasses the individual self or ego. The capacity to finesse genius can be learned -- though often only through painful surrender -- when the phoenix of genius arises out of the ashes of despair after a fruitless struggle with the unsolvable. Out of the defeat comes victory; out of failure, success; and out of humbling, true self-esteem.

--David R. Hawkins, From "Power vs. Force"

Sunday, October 5, 2008

Price Charles - Small Family Farming, Organic Farming, GM Free World, Genetic Modified Food Is Not Essential

Price Charles - Small Family Farming, Organic Farming, GM Free World, Genetic Modified(GM) Food Is Not Essential

Genetic Modification - A global moral issue.

Watch Prince Charles Giving The Sir Albert Howard Memorial Lecture
On YouTube Video:
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=5dadwzpIbfo

For the first time in history this would lead to "one man's system of farming effectively destroying the choice of another man's" and "turn the whole issue into a global moral question." He quoted Mahatma Gandhi who condemned "commerce without morality" and "science without humanity". He added: "One must surely ask the question whether - if only from a precautionary point of view - it might be wise to keep some areas of the world free from GM-based agriculture."

Calls for global research for family farming with at least as much funding as the billions for GM.
GM is not sustainable, not wise.

To love the world.
Nurture a more just and non-exploitive society.

Improve quality of life for rural communities.

Reduce deforestation.

Restore equilibrium of humans and nature.

Organic agricultural ways can be sustainable for the world.

Use precautionary point of view - keep at least some areas of the world free from GM agriculture.

Not making profits at the expense of future generations.

Trust individual farmers.
Natures natural balance.

Small business are the mainstay of any economy.

Family farmers are the backbone, and the lifeblood and the guardians of the rural environment.

Nature's limits are not short comings that need to be fixed, but guidelines we need to understand and work within. Recognizing that they place limitations on our ambitions and the ways in which we pursue them.

Ghandi - "We may utilize the gifts of nature just as we choose, but in her books the debts are always equal to the credits."

====

Why Prince Charles is right: we need GM free food and agriculture for food security

Dr Vandana Shiva Last Updated: 4:01pm BST 21/08/2008
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/08/21/eashiv...

http://openseeds.blogspot.com/2008/08/why-prince-charles-is-right-we-need-gm.html

We are grateful to Prince Charles for cautioning the world on the blind and head long rush worldwide to spread GM seeds and crops especially the Third World.

Prince Charles warns GM crops risk causing the biggest environment disaster http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/08/12/eachar... Prince Charles accused by scientists of abusing position over GM comments http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/08/13/eachar... Why we need GM trees http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/08/20/eagm12...

His comments had become necessary because the biotechnology industry is using the food crisis to push GM crops on grounds that they increase yields.

This is doubly false. Firstly, because the current crisis is a result of speculation and diversion of food crops to biofuels, it is not a crisis of production.

Secondly, genetic engineering so far has only achieved transfer of single gene traits such as herbicide resistance and Bt. toxin production.

Yield and environmental resilience are multigenetic traits, and there is no GM crop currently engineered for high yields.

Monsanto has claimed that its Bt. Cotton in India yields 1,500 kg/acre. Most independent studies have found 300-400 kg/acre as an average, with many farmers facing total crop failure due to pest attack and some getting more than 1,000 kg if the weather was not too dry or two wet.

While Bt. Cotton is supposed to control the bollworm, it is evolving resistance and new pests which were not significant have exploded, requiring higher doses of pesticides.

As a pest-control strategy GM crops are a failure. Integrated pest management and controlling pests through mixtures is much more scientific and effective.

The more the industry makes unscientific and false claims about GM crops giving higher yields and using less pesticide the more they refer to "science" based decision.

The UK's Environment Minister, Phil Woolas said it was the government's moral responsibility "to investigate whether genetically modified crops could help provide a solution to hunger in the developing world. We see this as part of our Africa strategy."

One would imagine an environment minister would want to investigate whether biodiverse and ecological farming could help provide a solution to hunger, especially in Africa.

The recently concluded International Assessment on Agriculture Science and Technology has concluded that GMOs and industrial agriculture is not the solution. Small scale ecological agriculture is the answer to poverty and hunger. Mr Woolas should read the report.

He should also read Navdanya's reports on farmers' suicides in India. The suicides are concentrated in the Bt. Cotton belt.

Monsanto's Bt. Cotton is, in my opinion, costly, non-renewable, and unreliable. Farmers are getting trapped in unpayable debt and are ending their lives.

When I visited Krishna Rao Vaidya's widow on 10th Oct, it was evident he was driven to suicide because of debt.

On average a farmer like Vaidya takes his life every 8 hours in Vidarbha, over the past decade, 200,000 farmers in India have committed suicide.

Prince Charles said that GM crops and corporate control of agriculture "risked creating the biggest disaster environmentally of all time."

Two things were clear in the Prince's statement. He was addressing the risk of creating a disaster, not a disaster that has already occurred. He was also addressing the issue of disaster in a broad and comprehensive sense not in a narrow perspective of "safety".

As he stated "Relying on gigantic corporations for mass production of food would threaten, not boost future food supplies."

He warned that we would end up with "millions of small farmers all over the world being driven off their land into unsustainable, unmanageable, degraded and dysfunctional conurbations of unmentionable awfulness. I think it will be an absolute disaster."

For Prince Charles, the large scale uprooting of peasants and small farmers is a social disaster, a human rights disaster and a tragedy.

Corporate monopoly over our food systems is a food security disaster. And while in some places like India these disasters have already had an impact at a global level, they are a disaster in the making.

It is therefore unscientific, illogical and irresponsible for the Environmental Minister Mr Woolas to say that Prince Charles must provide "proof" that a disaster has happened.

I would imagine that he is aware of the environmental principle on which the UN Convention on Biological Diversity and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change rest.

The principle is called the Precautionary Principle. It is based on the recognition that when an activity or technology has the potential to cause harm, and there is no conclusive evidence to establish the harm that can be caused, then policy and decision making must err on the side of caution.

The Environment Minister also said "Government ministers have a responsibility to base policy on science and I do strongly believe that we have a moral responsibility to the developing world to ask the question: 'Can GM crops help'?

Minister, if you could travel with me through Vidarbha and see the tears in the eyes of farmers' widows, you would be compelled to ask the question:'Can GM crops harm'? That is your moral responsibility.

It is also your responsibility to sincerely base your decisions on real science, not pseudo science. Science based policy would recognise that an agriculture that conserves biodiversity also produces more food and nutrition per unit acre.

Science based policy would recognise that if farmers fall into debt, it is not an instrument for ending poverty, but a recipe for ending the lives of small farmers.

A science based policy would not blindly spread GM crops to Africa without assessing their role in India's agrarian crisis. A science based policy would not be based on unscientific principle of "substantial equivalence" which has prevented independent and serious testing of GM foods and crops.

That is why the Supreme Court of India has served notice on the Government of India to ask why a GMO moratorium should not be imposed till proper testing protocols and tests and facilities for biosafety are in place.

We are proud that Prince Charles will be delivering the Ninth Howard Memorial lecture for Navdanya this year. We organise the lecture to honour Sir Albert Howard, the imperial agriculturist sent to India in 1905 whose "Agricultural Testament" is based on the knowledge on sustainable farming he learnt from India's peasants.

We organise the lecture on Gandhi's birth anniversary to celebrate non-violent farming which protects all species, the farmers, the soil and our health.

GMOs are the latest step in a violent tradition of industrial agriculture which has its roots in war and has become a war against the farmers, the land, and our bodies. Prince Charles, like many of us, wants this war to end.

And all that the biotech industry and its allies in governments can talk about is the smartness of their weapons.

It is time they realised the debate is much wider and deeper. It is about the planet we live on, the societies we are shaping, the exclusions billions are condemned to, the super profits the gene giants and grain giants harvest, while the real harvest in the fields of real farmers shrink.

The industrial/mechanistic mindset has destroyed our farmers and food security. It cannot offer solutions to the agrarian crisis and food crisis it has created. We need to move to an ecological perspective based on diversity.

Unfortunately, GMOs fail the test of both ecological sustainability and socio-economic viability. They have accelerated non-sustainability, and deepened injustice and inequality.

It is time the world listened to the important message from Prince Charles.

Dr Vandana Shiva is a physicist, ecologist, activist, editor, author of numerous books and environmental campaigner. She is the founder of Navdanya, a movement for biodiversity conservation and farmers' rights.

Labels: africa, gm free, government, hunger, labelling, neonicotinoids, organic, pesticides, policy, prince charles

Charles Targets GM Crop Giants in Fiercest Attack Yet

In a provocative address to an Indian audience, the Prince echoes Gandhi with a stinging attack on 'commerce without morality'.

by Geoffrey Lean
Published on Sunday, October 5, 2008 by The Independent/UK
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2008/10/05-1

It is less than two months since Prince Charles was on the receiving end of a fusillade of scientific, political and commentariat criticism for voicing, yet again, his concerns about GM crops and foods. He was widely accused of "ignorance" and "Luddism"; of being too rich to care about the hungry, and even of trying to increase sales of his own organic produce. It was put about that Gordon Brown was angered by his intervention.

Prince Charles has again stirred controversy with his strong views over GM crops.(Getty Images)

Yet the Prince has responded by stepping up his campaign, making his most anti-GM speech yet, in delivering - by video - the Sir Albert Howard Memorial Lecture to the Indian pressure group Navdanya last Thursday. And he made it clear that he was going to continue. "The reason I keep sticking my 60-year-old head above an increasingly dangerous parapet is not because it is good for my health," he said " but precisely because I believe fundamentally that unless we work with nature, we will fail to restore the equilibrium we need in order to survive on this planet."

True to his word, he plunged straight into the most controversial and emotive of all the debates over GM crops and foods by highlighting the suicides of small farmers. Tens of thousands killed themselves in India after getting into debt. The suicides were occurring long before GM crops were introduced, but campaigners say that the technology has made things worse because the seeds are more expensive and have not increased yields to match.

The biotech industry strongly denies this, but two official reports have suggested that there "could" be a possible link.

Prince Charles expressed no doubts in his lecture, delivered at the invitation of Dr Vandana Shiva, the founder of Navdanya, and one of the leading proponents of the technology's role in the deaths. He spoke of "the truly appalling and tragic rate of small farmer suicides in India, stemming in part from the failure of many GM crop varieties".

Much of the controversy surrounds claims of failures by a Monsanto GM cotton called Bollguard. The GM company says that "farmers in India have found success" with it, and cites a survey in support. Its opponents produce evidence of their own to show the opposite.

But Prince Charles did not stop there. Broadening his offensive, he said that "any GM crop will inevitably contaminate neighbouring fields", making it impossible to maintain the integrity of organic and conventional crops. For the first time in history this would lead to "one man's system of farming effectively destroying the choice of another man's" and "turn the whole issue into a global moral question." He quoted Mahatma Gandhi who condemned "commerce without morality" and "science without humanity". He added: "One must surely ask the question whether - if only from a precautionary point of view - it might be wise to keep some areas of the world free from GM-based agriculture."

The Prince attacked the contention that "GM food is now essential to feed the world", saying that the evidence showed that modified crops' yields were "generally lower than their conventional counterparts". He called them "a wrong turning on the route to feeding the world in a sustainable or durable manner" and "a risky and expensive distraction, diverting attention and resources away from those real, long-term solutions such as crop varieties which respond well to low input systems that, in turn, do not rely on fossil fuels." There was substantial evidence "to show that a growing world population can be fed most successfully in the long term by agricultural systems that manage the land within environmental limits".

Recent research had shown, he added, that organic farming techniques had increased yields in Brazil by 250 per cent and in Ethiopia were up fivefold, while the world's biggest international agricultural study - headed by Professor Bob Watson, now chief scientist at Department for Food, Environment and Rural Affairs - had backed organic farming, rather than GM to tackle word hunger.

Kirtana Chandrasekaran of Friends of the Earth said: "Prince Charles is right that GM crops and industrial farming are profiting big businesses, not feeding the world's poorest."
===

Use Science, Not Propaganda, to Decide Issues

http://www.progress.org/gene07.htm

Prince Charles Challenges British Government To Be Scientific Regarding Safety

Prince Charles has launched a scathing attack on genetically-modified products, and the UK Government has responded with annoyance and propaganda rather than science.

In an article in last week's Daily Mail, Prince Charles poses a series of questions about the safety of GM foods and attacked the lack of independent scientific research. And he rejects the hype that GM crops represent a solution to feeding the world's growing population as a case of "emotional blackmail".

Asserting that the argument sounded ``suspiciously like emotional blackmail,'' the prince said the countries that could be expected to benefit took a different view. Representatives of 20 African countries, including Ethiopia, had published a statement denying that gene technologies would help farmers to produce the food they needed.

``They think it will destroy the diversity, the local knowledge and the sustainable agricultural systems . . . and undermine our capacity to feed ourselves,'' said the prince.

Deep divisions emerged within the British Government following the Prince's challenge. Although the prime minister's spokesman refused to be drawn into a direct clash with the prince, it was clear there is considerable anger in Whitehall at the way he has reignited the debate in Britain on the issue. The prince's intervention has delivered a body blow to the government's attempts to reassure corporations that their people could be made to accept unproven genetically modified crops as safe.

Here are the ten important unanswered questions posed by the Prince:

1. Do we need GM food in this country?
The Prince: The benefits, such as there are seem to be limited to the people who own the technology and the people who farm on an industrialised scale.

2. Is GM food safe for us to eat?

The Prince: Only independent scientific research, over a long period, can provide the final answer.

3. Why are the final rules for approving GM foods so much less stringent than those for new medicines produced using the same technology?

The Prince: Before drugs are released on to the market they have to undergo the most rigorous testing...Surely it is equally important that [GM foods] will do us no harm.

4. How much do we really know about the environmental consequences of GM crops?

The Prince: Lab tests showing that pollen from GM maize in the United States caused damage to the caterpillars of Monarch butterflies provide the latest cause for concern. More alarmingly, this GM maize is not under test.

5. Is it sensible to plant test crops without strict regulations in place?

The Prince: Such crops are being planted in this country now - under a voluntary code of practice. But English Nature has argued that enforceable regulations should be in place first.

6. How will consumers be able to exercise genuine choice?

The Prince: Labelling schemes clearly have a role to play, but if conventional and organic crops are contaminated by GM crops, people who wish to avoid GM food products will be denied choice.

7. If something goes wrong with a GM crop, who will be held responsible?

The Prince: It is important that we know precisely who is going to be legally liable to pay for any damage - whether it be to human health, the environment or both.

8. Are GM crops really the only way to feed the world's growing population?

The Prince: This arguments sounds suspiciously like emotional blackmail to me.

9. What effect will GM crops have on the people of world's poorest countries?

The Prince: Where people are starving, lack of food is rarely the underlying cause. The need is to create sustainable livelihoods for everyone. Will GM crops really help or will they make the problems worse?

10. What sort of world do we want to live in?

The Prince: Are we going to allow the industrialisation of Life itself, redesigning the natural world for the sake of convenience? Or should we be adopting a gentler, more considered approach, seeking always to work with the grain of nature?

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