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Kevin Anthony Stoda
Educator and Political Scientist
GERMANY, USA, PHILIPPINES, Oman
eslkevin1@yahoo.com SHARE
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KEVIN STODA-has been blessed to have either traveled in or worked in nearly 100 countries on five continents over the past two and a half decades.--He sees himself as a peace educator and have been-- a promoter of good economic and social development--making-him an enemy of my homelands humongous DEFENSE SPENDING and its focus on using weapons to try and solve global issues.
"I am from Kansas so I also use the pseudonym 'Kansas' and 'alone' when I write and publish.- I-keep two blogs--one with BLOGGER and one with WORDPRESS.- My writings range from reviews to editorials or to travel observations.- I also make recommendations related to policy--having both a-strong background in teaching foreign languages and degrees in teaching in history and the social sciences.--As a Midwesterner, I also write on religion and living out ones faith whether it be as a Christian, Muslim or Buddhist perspective."
(4 comments) SHARE Friday, March 20, 2009 BED-INs and Other Protests Needed Now
The 40th anniversary of John Lennon and Yoko Ono's bed-ins in Amsterdam and Montreal dove-tails this March with anniversaries of the U.S. coalitions invasion of Iraq and Rache Corry's Murder in Israel. George W. Bush commemorates his years in office by visiting Canada--only to find protest. The world needs more active protests and people-to-people cooperation this March 2009. DO SOMETHING. Bed-ins, etc.
SHARE Friday, February 25, 2011 GULF CIVIL SOCIETY FORUM calls for Gulf Monarchies to abandon absolutism and to adopt European-style Parliaments
In the midst of the rising unrest and popular arrest in North Africa, the Gulf Civil Society Forum had met in Qatar from January 11 through 13 of this year and had had the purpose of gathering "together around 250 representatives from democracy advocates and civil society activists from the MENA Region, was to prepare a common Civil Society platform of principles and goals".
SHARE Saturday, April 12, 2008 TRIBE, TRIBALISM AND CULTURAL CHANGE-KUWAIT 2008
On April 1, 2008 the AWARE Center in Surra, Kuwait hosted a "diwaniya" (i.e. a meeting) which focused on the evolving tribal system in Kuwait and its current impact on Kuwaiti society. The presenter that evening was anthropologist Dr. Mohammed Al-Haddad of Kuwait University, who has published extensively on the phenomena of tribalism for many decades. The presentation and subsequent discussion was considered fairly timely
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, August 17, 2010 A WORLD OF PRETENDERS: Partial Review of the Filipino Novel, THE PRETENDERS by F. Sionil Jose
When we talk of world literature in the 20th Century, almost the only Filipino author of great fame in Asia is F. Sionil Jose. It is about time to sit down and study his works--as reform may finally be on the way in the Philippines, a land somewhat frozen still by its colonial and tribal past.
The book THE PRETENDERS is a good place for Western educators and academics to start.
SHARE Tuesday, November 3, 2009 PHILIPP ROESLER, of Vietnamese Descent. to Head the Health Ministry in Germany, as his own Party Plans to Push for more
Roesler is the first South-East-Asian-born German to be appointed to such a high post in Germany. Roessler is an eye doctor by profession and is known as a man-of-the-people, especially due to the tone he displays when he speaks. Moreover, Roesler is quite able to take complicated themes and articulate them in simple & understandable ways for a mass audience.
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, January 23, 2012 (Part 2) Two Large Scale English Teacher Exchange Programs Compared in Japan and Taiwan
East Asian states are turning to foreign language education and foreign language teachers from abroad to empower their students. This second article, which focuses on the issue of grassroots and the need to empower local stakeholders early on, is part of a series of pieces comparing large-scale teacher exchange programs.
SHARE Thursday, March 17, 2011 Mitigation of Tsunami's and Earthquakes--Has JAPAN DONE ENOUGH?
This means that if Asian countries continue to reclaim land from the sea in their ocean side construction projects, as Japan does, they need to do so while respecting the other ecologically sound demands of our more natural ecosystem. For example, contractors also need to develop or create (and maintain where possible) natural barriers, such as coral reefs and mangroves.
(6 comments) SHARE Saturday, August 11, 2018 What was the main thing that USA failed to learn after WWII and is costing us so dearly to this very day?
In their work, Junke and Hunter have explained that Kennan had very often shared that almost unequivocally, "Americans who expected the full fruits of total victory [in the late 1940s]" had failed to understand the war. It was one case of a wider phenomenon, the 'failure to appreciate the limitations of war in general--any war--as a vehicle for the achievement of the objectives of the democratic state.'"
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, August 30, 2008 The 3 Mistakes of My Life by ChetanBhagat
The article reviews why Chetan Bhagat's recent book represents yearnings of younger Indians who feel held hostage to politics of historical India--even as many do their best to move on and build their own dreams. In this story of love, cricket and business, Bhagat ties the tales of popular culture to the horrific riots of Gujarat and the great earthquake of the early part of this decade.
(5 comments) SHARE Tuesday, March 2, 2010 WHY ARE THE TOTAL FIGURES ON UNINSURED AMERICANS and Residents between 30 MILLION & 90 MILLION? CAN'T ANYONE COUNT??
This last week, President Obama asked the right questions but he used some questionable statistics. With lackluster, Obama told lackluster Republicans: "I'd like the Republicans to do a little soul searching and find out are there some things that you'd be willing to embrace that get to this core problem of 30 million people without health insurance and dealing seriously with the pre-existing condition issue." Why 30-mill?
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, August 5, 2010 The Obituary of Joey Velasco and the Table of Hope
Velasco's magnum opus, Hapag ng Pa-asa, was seen by the author Lo on the wall of a souvenir store over the St. Nino Shrine in Cebu City several years ago. The tale of this most thought-provoking version of The Last Supper by Velasco had already become the source of sermons and legends.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, September 12, 2008 Book Review: THE SIEGE OF MECCA by Yaroslav Trofimov-Was this Largely Forgotten Uprising in Islam's Holiest Shrine reall
I recommend that all victims and those affected through the blow-back from the wars in Afghanistan and the Middle East in recent years take time to read Trofimov's fairly factual non-fiction work, THE SIEGE OF MECCA, and then inform others about its contents.
This is not a conspiracy theory book but a fairly well researched and extremely readable work. You won't be able to put it down and it provides needed clarity
(6 comments) SHARE Sunday, September 15, 2019 Review of G.S. Griffin's RACISM IN KANSAS CITY
What do you know about Racism in your hometown? Have you ever studied the history of your own town through the eyes of racism's role in its history? Kevin Stoda who lives in Kansas City does this in reading G.S. Griffin's RACISM IN KANSAS CITY. He then argues that it should be required reading in local schools and colleges
(4 comments) SHARE Wednesday, April 25, 2012 How important is Classroom Attendance for University Students?
On the one hand, American university students are forced to have high attendance in the classroom. In contrast, universities in other lands are often not too concerned at all about attendance. Only recently in India and the Middle East have schools even begun to consider actual attendance in courses to be of concern. This is because they are test -driven societies. The test is more important than time in the class.
(14 comments) SHARE Tuesday, January 2, 2018 How Much Should a Family Do? How much Should Health Care and Government Cover?
We will all chip in what we can financially, but what should one expect from our culture? our society? our country? our healthcare system?
What are you expecting your government to do better in this 2018? The average family is spending about 27,000 dollars a year on health care. It should not be allowed to get any worse.
Change and support from society and government is needed and requested now.
SHARE Sunday, April 4, 2010 Why the words of Gabriel Garcia Marquez in 100 years of Solitude Need to be read better, especially by European readers
Is Europe only ready to take from the rest, like Latin American Magical Realist literature, while still not giving back any more of its wealth, its education and its sciences of peace (not war) to Latin America and the other continents? Whatever happened to real lovers of Latin America, like the Humboldt brothers? It is time for Europeans to reorganize and rescrambled their histories in time
(4 comments) SHARE Tuesday, January 26, 2010 THE KITE RUNNER--AND AMERICAN FANTASY IN AFGHANISTAN
I was riding on a series of trains through Bavaria during a light snowstorm today. As I rode--and then ran through--the central terminals in Nurnberg, Wurzburg, and Aschaffenburg on my way back to Wiesbaden this below zero day in history January 2010, I took time to read through Khaled Hosseini's THE KITE RUNNER, set primarily in pre-9-11 Afghanistan.
SHARE Thursday, October 4, 2007 Roberto Clemente: The Enduring Spirit
Roberto Clemente was known as humanitarian who died serving others. He has also been seen as a great athlete, teacher and philanthropist. He was from Puerto Rico but his memory is linked with the of modern U.S. history dealing with integration and hispanic history. His memory should be linked to nicaragua where fundraisers are needed today to help the victims of Hurrican Felix.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, June 12, 2009 HOMESCHOOLING: VERBOTEN IN GERMANY STILL IN 2009
Some Germans have asked for asylum in the USA because Germany still does not permit homeschooling. Homeschooling is a hot issue in Germany--even though most people are begining to see some need for alternatives to the state and private schools, which don't necessarily serve some students well.
(8 comments) SHARE Tuesday, February 16, 2010 FOOD, INC. & GROWING CALLS FOR CHANGE IN THE ANTI-HEALTH ALLIANCE IN AMERICA
I don't know why USA insurance and other insurance companies around the globe aren't supporting the film, FOOD INC. Bad nutrition and bad food offerings in supermarkets around the globe are causing more costs in health care than the nicotine industry causes annually.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, January 2, 2018 On Continued Awareness of Religious Persecution Abroad--as well as in the USA
Progressives should be careful and be fair in our narrations of religious persecution. The USA and other countries are persecuting Muslims. Other countries, like Eritrea, persecute both Muslims and Christians. In September I heard more news of Hindus with political clout persecuting Christians outside of India. USA sends law enforcement officials to force European countries to enforce anti-Muslim legislation..and in Burma..
(16 comments) SHARE Saturday, May 23, 2009 An Active-Museum and How Oral, Aural, and Visual Memory Are Taught and Can Empower Peoples
At a time when the USA has not even begun to deal with torture, it is interesting and important to see how museums and societies are dealing with crimes of the enormity of the Holocaust.
The author lives in Germany and recently took a tour of the Westside neighborhood in Wiesbaden with the AKTIVE-MUSEUM. The Active Museum sees the whole city of Wiesbaden as living museum of Holocaust and Shoah crimes. If only other lands.
(18 comments) SHARE Saturday, November 17, 2007 KUCINICH CHARGES THAT AMERICAN MEDIA OWNED BY MILITARY CONTRACTERS ARE BIASED AND SUPPORTS HIS CLAIM
Congressman Dennis Kucinich (Ohio, Democratic Party Candidate for President) argued fairly successfully on the Voice of America (VOA) program , Press Conference USA of VOA News Now, this past weekend (Nov. 17, 2007) that the American media is biased against him and its campaign. This, he claims, is why he is not running at least 3rd or 4th in Democrat election polls already.
(4 comments) SHARE Tuesday, September 7, 2010 Naomi Klein & John Grisham versus Bankers, Lawyers, Milton Friedman and the Skewed Thinking of Modern Business
Have the tenets of Naomi Klein's book, THE SHOCK DOCTRINE, affected Americans view of the world and how does her work fir in with our age and memories of America? This article begins to explore the shifting paradigms in America's social and political education. The article looks at the works of sociologist William Cecil Headrick and the writings of John Grisham as well.
(2 comments) SHARE Saturday, November 6, 2010 Many Pacquiao--Great Asian Hope
Not since Jose Rizal has the Philippines seen such a talented fighter.
SHARE Sunday, August 24, 2008 Kuwait Expects to Deport over 800,000 Immigrants
It sounds like at least 4 nations will suddenly have to find jobs for nearly a million people in the next year-otherwise Kuwait will not only be exporting oil, but unemployed peoples as well in 2009 and 2010.
(4 comments) SHARE Wednesday, April 1, 2020 Kansas City (Missouri and Kansas) , A Tale of Two States and the Corona Virus
As a political, social and medical experiment one can juxtapose two state governors (A Kansan Democratic one and a Pro-Trump GOP one) and their responses to the Covid-19 Pandemic. Or, you can compare wealthy urban vs. inner city or suburban responses to the virus pandemic. The author does this by looking at lives in Metropolitan Kansas City
SHARE Saturday, March 22, 2008 The late Clair Patterson, Dr. James Hansen and the Need for more Scientific Heroes across the Globe
In the 20th Century one scientist was a bigger hero than most. He was Dr. Clair Patterson and against university leaders and against oil companies. He led the campaign to take lead out of our gasoline and stop poisoning our atmosphere. Now, in the 21st Century, we need many more scientists like him (from China to the USA to India)to stand up to their benefactors and leaders and get global warming under control and pronto.
(3 comments) SHARE Sunday, December 7, 2008 "Wakarimashitaka?" Thirty Minutes with Ojii-San Itoigawa
It has been nearly 15 years since I began writing about the issues around international comparative history and social-linguistic and cultural understandings in Japan. In that decade the world faced the 50th anniversary of the Bombing of Hiroshima, the end of the War in the Pacific and in most of the Western & Eastern World, and the end of Holocaust. It is now almost 15 years since those commemorations & new ones will come
(11 comments) SHARE Friday, January 29, 2010 HOW TURKISH-GERMANS & TURKS IN GERMANY SEE HOLOCAUST EDUCATION--Review of a Recent Poll
Almost a week before international Holocaust Recognition Day (today January 27), the German newspaper, DIE ZEIT, ran a three article series on how Turkish Germans and Turkish peoples in Germany see the Holocaust and Holocaust education in Germany. One of the articles included a lengthy review of an opinion poll exclusively of Turkish Germans and Turkish peoples in Germany.
SHARE Sunday, November 30, 2008 ONE OF THE WORST MILITARY OCCUPATIONS MONEY HAS EVER BOUGHT-ONE TESTIMONYAS TO WHY GENERAL PATREAUS AND OTHERS NEED TO B
Capt. Montalvan joins hundreds of rank and file American and British armed force members who have "not find dying in Iraq very honorable" over the past five years. He spoke at the Winter Soldier hearings on Capital Hill this Thanksgiving weekend. [1]
The basic message of Winter Soldier can be summed up in this statement, America. This statement came from Adam Kokesh, who cannot stand any more complicity by America in war
(44 comments) SHARE Saturday, October 1, 2016 Why aren't more Anti-Trump Christian Ministers being persecuted in America this election?
In the old days,sometimes congregations in America used to tar-and-feather ministers who spoke up against communal vices. In the Bible, Jesus told would-be Christian leaders and disciples: "I am sending you out like sheep among wolves.Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves. Be on your guard; you will be handed over to the local councils and be flogged in the synagogues [temples, churches]." Talk Trump now
(7 comments) SHARE Sunday, February 7, 2010 It's the Footnote in NASA's Report that Worries Me--Just Another Asteroid Heading Our Way, eh?
In January 2010, I barely followed the scientific and popular discussions around the world concerning whether the Apophis Asteroid will hit the earth--either in 2029 or 2036. I scoffed at the Russian worries that the earth might be hit or even disturbed by the comet.
(3 comments) SHARE Monday, January 18, 2010 AMERICANS OFTEN FORGET HOW MUCH HAITI AND EVENTS THERE AFFECTED EARLY U.S.A. HISTORY
Three million human beings have been deeply hurt or affected by the destruction of Haiti, America's neighbor to the south and homeland for many legal residents in the USA. American compassion should come first. Then better education for all about American history and the history of underdevelopment in North America (including the Caribbean & Central America) should follow.
(9 comments) SHARE Sunday, December 7, 2008 Business Management Practices Ensure Energy Tech Revolution Will Bypass U.S.
In the Ford story, known as "Business Lesson from the Japanese," Ford management is used as a metaphor for the worst aspects of the anti-labor, and anti-developmental approach (of the worst corners) of the American leadership and corporate mismanagement business model of the 19th and 20th centuries.
However, the same metaphor could be applied to General Motors or Citicorp or even the entire AMERICA INC.
(4 comments) SHARE Sunday, May 9, 2010 JEREMY LAURANCE WRITES that MOST BABIES BORN IN BRITAIN TODAY WILL LIVE TO BE 120
I came across a Jeremy Laurance article that really made me think positively about the fact that Europe's population is continuing to get much older each year. The article was in the WORD AND PRESS (Feb. 1, 2009) and was entitled, " Most Babies Born in Britain will live to be 120". This demographic shift is already being perceived in Eastern Asian countries, such as Japan and South Korea. Retirement ages of 70+ are
SHARE Thursday, February 28, 2008 SAFETY and LIVING in KUWAIT, i.e. PROXEMICS & LIVING NEXT to the CIVIL WAR in IRAQ
Report of intital research as to how safe the three million residents of Kuwait feel. In the 1980s, U.S. President Ronald Reagan attempted to strike fear into Americans hearts by noting that the wars in Central America were only a day's drive from Texas.
In contrast Kuwait with thousands of Americans and 2 million expatriates from around the globe is both situated only miles from the Civil War in Iraq--yet people feel safe
(3 comments) SHARE Tuesday, November 18, 2008 BBC's WORLD HAVE YOUR SAY & DEATH PENALTY DISCUSSION IN AUSTIN, Texas By Kevin Stoda Nov. 18, 2008--I have been liste
Nov. 18, 2008--I have been listening this evening to World Have Your Say of the BBC in Austin, Texas whereby the topic of the hours is a discussion the death penalty. The BBC program was being carried out at radio station KUT in Austin. The BBC did an extremely unfair job on the program in failing to provide the listeners with enough alternative views--especially as opposition has risen in Texas in recent years.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, September 14, 2015 Jim Morrison, the Beat Poet?, and a Revolving Door Upbringing
The whole world would have looked like a Revolving Door to Jim Morrison after visiting just a dozen schools--but he had to move to nearly two dozen. In those cold war days, if you were an American kid, like Jim Morrison, you'd have had to become (or develop) a new person/person in every place you arrived at, i.e. if you didn't wish to be quashed by the authorities pigeonholing you.
(9 comments) SHARE Saturday, March 8, 2014 How to Think and Survive in a Militarized US Society
This is an important time for us in the peace movements in the USA and around the world. We are finally gaining a mass of heroes around which we can raise generations to think, act, and serve the country and the world differently. The struggle for resistance to a militarized American mind is important. As a lifelong educator, I wish to share part of the process and insights from my early life. I also lift up new heroes.
(93 comments) SHARE Thursday, April 17, 2014 Clive Bundy and Jesus' Parable of the Vineyard
"A man planted a vineyard, rented it to some farmers and went away for a long time." So, starts one parable that raises up the sins of the posse of Clive Bundy.
SHARE Saturday, August 2, 2008 Amritsar Massacre, Memory, misguided religious Nationalism, and recent Homicides in India
This article summarizes the various levels of violence faced by people in India and from India around the world during this third millennium. The author does this by reviewing the linkages between religious attitudes and practices concerning protest, witnessing and violence. He takes a pilgrimage to look at the site of the Amritsar massacre, through India, on to Afghanistan and back to the USA.
(7 comments) SHARE Sunday, August 24, 2008 INTERNET BUZZ IS AS HIGH AS EVER ON "IMPEACH BUSH & CHENEY" AS 2008 ELECTION DRAWS TO A CLOSE
Even though media wonks and the Democratic Party leadership haven't got it yet, media consumers and internet users are JUST as interested as ever in seeing an impeachment of both George W. Bush and Richard (Dick) Cheney for crimes against the constitution and abuse of power.
Both YAHOO and GOOGLE SEARCH engines are showing as high (or higher) a number of hits on the topic of impeachment as they have throughout 2008
SHARE Saturday, August 16, 2008 Ashes to Memory or Commemoration
As America gets older, it is called to deal with a national issue that involves local communities, individuals and families. More and more Americans--for a variety of reasons--are choosing cremation over buriel. How do americans remember and commemorate their parents? How do parents and others want to be commemorated? How little or how much? America currently has too many rules and laws on this matter,leaving uncertainty
(7 comments) SHARE Monday, March 19, 2018 Is there a strong correlation between growing up/living in a Sundown Town and Voting for Trump?
Did you grow up in a Sundown? Did your Trump Voting Cousins? Do you know what a sundown town is?
The author asks you to ponder the links and to do something to transform America's self-image through education and commitment to reform everywhere this 2018. Researchers are particularly encouraged to share with educators (like the author) their knowledge & undertake statistical analysis to boot.
SHARE Wednesday, October 10, 2007 Lars Anderson's CARLISLE VS. ARMY-What Does it Tell us about the Way Things Used to Be?
This article reviews the Lars Anderson book called CARLISLE vs. ARMY: Jim Thorpe. Dwight Eisenhower, Pop Warner, and the Forgotten Story of Football's Greatest Battle. It is a book that attempts to combine several histories inlcuding the memory of WOUNDED KNEE, a partial Jim Thorpe's biography, the cadet days at West point of Dwight D. Eisenhower, & the history of American Football. The author does a fine job, but more
(2 comments) SHARE Sunday, April 26, 2009 Revolutions of 1989-Part 1: Tiananmen Square & After Effects in Europe
Aside from Jantzen's THE WRONG SIDE OF THE WALL: AN American in East Berlin During the Time of the Peaceful Revolution, there has been far too little written which accurately portrays life in East Germany in the year leading up to the end of communist totalitarianism. Often in Western Textbook narrations, the role of the massacre in Beijing that same year diminished. Likewise, the role of church and students are ignored
SHARE Sunday, September 7, 2014 Disowning Sons? (in Islam?)
Is there a growing trend for parents to disown their offspring who go off to fight in jihads without their permission? What is the rationale for the trend (if there is one)?
(5 comments) SHARE Saturday, December 29, 2007 EVALUATING THE ARCHITECTURE AND MUSEUM YAD VASHEM AFTER THE BUILDING OF THE WORLD'S TALLEST BARRIER WALL 2007-2008
The author has spend several decades studying the images projected at various WWII era commemoration sites, from Thailand to Japan to Germany and Poland. In this article, the author evaluates and juxtaposes what it means to visit the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem in the wake of the creation of mammoth barrier wall in the eastern occupied territories of Palestine in 2007.Although the museum is worthwile its haunting
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, February 2, 2009 POPE BENEDICT GOES OUT OF HIS WAY TO OFFEND JUST ABOUT EVERYONE THIS PAST MONTH
Why do there continue to be similarities of the now-retired U.S. President Bush and the 80-plu year old German born Pope Benedict X. Perhaps both set out to be uniters but every word and act seemed to turn them from uniting to actually dividing peoples. This article explores a bit this similarity and begins to ask what the legacy will be of a German born pope raised in the 1930s and 1940s under Nazism in Bavaria.
SHARE Wednesday, July 11, 2007 SUSTAINABILITY, KUWAIT SOCIETY, PROGRESS TOWARDS DEMOCRACY, LIBERAL EDUCATION SIDELINED DUE TO IMTERMEDIARY WASTA
Far too much is made about the role of religion in the Middle East. With Kuwait's tremendously large invest fund, currently at 200 billion dollars--mostly invested in North America and Europe--, Europeans and Americans need toget to know how the society and governments in the Gulf States really work--"wasta" is the secret and it is explained in this article.
SHARE Sunday, September 29, 2019 Censorship of Teachers and Students
All of our lives we face some sort of censorship from media, but our schools are called to do the same. How many good teachers have been tossed aside do to self-censorship or open censorship in schools and educational settings in the USA? How many students have had their right to protest and to write under first amendment been hampered by censorship?
(3 comments) SHARE Friday, July 21, 2017 What if Modern Prophets did what they were supposed to do instead of being mislead and misleading? (Political Satire)
James Dobson (founder of Focus on the Family), Jerry Falwell Jr (president of Liberty University), Richard Land (seminary president and Southern Baptist leader), & Paula White (Florida preacher and televangelist)--along with Billy Graham's offspring suported Trump and the GOP, who brought us Trump Care and expanded wars in 2017. However, there were a few prophets, like Max Lucado and Myself who spoke up with clearer message.
(3 comments) SHARE Friday, September 11, 2015 Book Review: Two Years On-- Review of The Snowden Files--and Media Oversight still Needed
Luke Harding presents a fine introduction and overview to the Snowden Files and what they have meant to all of us--any where on the globe. He also turns his attention particularly to the UK and how the lack of constitutional restraints on secret services are more out of hand than in the USA.
(4 comments) SHARE Saturday, October 6, 2018 Most people on this planet do not perceive Maps nor Directions in the same way Americans do?
The important thing to comprehend is that people have maps in their heads for the places they live, so many seldom use a road name (or refer to a two-dimensional map) to comprehend where the borders or grids in their heads are at work. Meanwhile, American tourists traveling through these countries are looking in vain for street names on maps they have come across.
(8 comments) SHARE Saturday, June 21, 2014 Rolling Back the Clock? --Progressive Style?
By rolling back the clock on injustices, we (and our children) will experience an America where cases of war criminality are tried in court and not by drone attacks from above. We could even offer up former presidents, vice-presidents, defense secretaries, lawyers and others up to the International Court in the Hague to show our contrition to the world and immediately take real acts of remorse--paying indemnity to victims.
(4 comments) SHARE Saturday, June 25, 2016 To Oman from Kansas: Humble Solution for one Petroleum Overly Dependent Economy
Oman went from one of the most underdeveloped nations in the 1970s to one of the more developed Arab nations in a period of about 30 years. It did so by over-relying on petroleum industry--as did all the other countries in the GCC. With the recent glut in the oil market, all petroleum countries are scrambling to create a sustainable economy. The problem is these lands have focused on austerity. (This part 1 of a series)
(9 comments) SHARE Sunday, September 26, 2010 CSI (only a tv series) vs. OSBI (Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigations) --in a Warning to Potential Jurists & to Our C
Potential Jurors absolutely need to note this. TV Series, like CSI and NUMBERS, are largely fictional in what they portrays as the real world of investigation, law, order, and justice in America is totally under-funded agencies (personnel) or filled with bullies, ill-equipped, and incompetents. In short, our non-fiction is still sadly too often the realm of false arrests and bad policing (or investigating) in America.
SHARE Saturday, June 2, 2007 REVIEW OF BOOK: Gary Chapmen's LOVE LANGUAGES OF GOD
This modified review of the metaphors of LOVE LANGUAGES created by Gary Chapmen in a series of books is used in this piece as a platform or vehicle to augment discussion across religions, sects, churches, mosques, etc.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, March 25, 2011 What's a Filipino? What's a Revolution? What's a Filipino Revolution?
Cruz explains that when the Spaniards first came to colonize the Philippines over 400 years ago, the children of the Spaniards who were born on the archipelago, newly named after a King of Spain, Felipe II, were called "Filipinos". In Mexico or Latin America the term would have been "criollos" for such children of direct Spanish descent. In contrast, "the Spanish called the natives of the island "indios'".
(4 comments) SHARE Sunday, April 19, 2009 BOTH CHAPLIN AND HITLER WOULD BE 120 YEARS-OLD THIS APRIL
This April 2009, the world is reminded that each human has a choice to live enduringly as a lover or hater of men. This is the 120th anniversary of the birthdays of Charles Chaplin and Adolf Hitler.
SHARE Saturday, November 1, 2008 Michael Moore's Top Ten Things the President Needs to do in 2009
The interview with Amy Goodman is called, "Moore on the Election, the Bailout, Healthcare, and 10 Proposed Decrees for the New President's First 10 Days" and is a landmark in good progressive analysis and should become a classic--if Tuesday November 4, 2009 doesn't renew the lengthy string of election disappointments progressives have witnessed time-and-again over the past 4 or more decades.
(12 comments) SHARE Monday, March 21, 2011 HBO GETS IT, DO YOU--AMERICA??? GOTTA BE A REVOLUTION
HBO seems to have gotten the spirit of the age. It decided to show the film, TAKING WOODSTOCK, this March while most of the country is fixated on the abuses on "American Working and Poor Peoples' that newly elected state legislatures in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Ohio have been carrying out in the name of the Koch Brothers and the GOP this 2011.
(2 comments) SHARE Sunday, February 23, 2020 To my Dear Trump-Supporting Relatives
I am aware that many of you have defriended me on Facebook for my progressive views about reforming the country after so many bad decades of no or low wage growth in your towns and villages in rural Missouri. I don't condemn you, and Iunderstand how your anti-education, anti-multicultural, and anti-immigrant (or anti-newcomer bent) came to be in the first place.
(5 comments) SHARE Monday, March 30, 2020 Corona Shock Doctrine Opportunity based on Historical Reflection of Quarantined lands
I predict that in the second half of 2020, peoples in the West-after months of suffereing with a global pandemic will demand changes as they go into the streets and visit the seats of power to reclaim sovereignities that these same masses have missed out on.
They will at least temporarily kick out those who are seen as representatives of the 1% or 0.1%. i.e. who have the most representative or dictatorial powers
(8 comments) SHARE Thursday, June 9, 2016 Will Duterte Help Reform the Philippines or Will he be a Black Mark and Repeat Abuses of the Past?
The garrote was the principal device used for capital punishment in Spain and the Philippines for one and a half centuries. Will the new President of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, take the Philippines forward or will he join the long history of mediocre to bad presidents? He has promised to resign if he fails in 6 months? Can we hold him to that? In this book review of DEATH BY GARROTE, these issues are discussed.
(5 comments) SHARE Saturday, January 21, 2017 FORGOTTEN FIRE--one of the Things Your Teens are Reading and Learning
As prescribed in Viktor Frankl's classic logotherepeutic autobiography of MAN'S SEARCH FOR MEANING, Vahan is slowly able to recover or find feelings of peace and joy in both (1) his memories of loved ones, like his sister or mom, in his past and (2) in his occasional hopes and dreams of a real future with some sort of new family.
SHARE Monday, January 1, 2018 Aging Prisoner in 3-Strike-&-You're-Out State(s): America 2018
Mary Price has noted that this 60-year-old prisoner's problem is not rare in America of our century. She wrote, "One of the saddest byproducts of our nation's addiction to incarceration is the graying of our federal prison population, a development comprehensively documented in a scathing Justice Department report that shows caring for aging prisoners is fast becoming a fiscal nightmare."
(3 comments) SHARE Wednesday, April 8, 2015 Oman, its Youth, Their Job Security, Omanisation, Inefficiencies, & the Future
Currently Omani women make up about 45 or 46 % of the jobs in the government or public sector while only making up about 22 percent in the private sector. The military provides the largest numbers of jobs in the country of any entity but women play less of a role in that sector. The military and government of Oman are putting up a lot of monies now to retrain those leaving the military, i.e. forced to retire young
(4 comments) SHARE Sunday, April 12, 2015 What's it like living next door to War-Torn Yemen? (Part 3): More on Empathy & Reflections
What does American national religion have to do with what America represents or abroad? If you are not American, what kind of national religion did you grow up in or were you programmed with? What about Christianity? what other religion holds sway? What ideology? What theology? What is the way to live now and when the warring is done?
(4 comments) SHARE Monday, December 16, 2019 If I Ran as a Progressive Republican Against Trump Would He Threaten My Life?
In they were not a fringe group but important, determined men at the heart of the party, with "Fighting Bob" La Follette, governor of and later senator from Wisconsin, at their head. He was joined by Sen. Hiram Johnson of California, Senators Borah of Idaho, Norris of Nebraska, Beveridge of Indiana. They were followed by teachers, city councilors, legislators, writers, and most articulate of all, by journalist William A White
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, May 15, 2009 Marriage, Integration, and Immigration Policy -Modern Bureaucracy Reflecting the Worst
Marriage, Visas and Bureaucracy ar e the focus of this piece which attacks the growing love for more control, more planning, more managing, more bureacracy that 2009 and 8 years of Homeland Securty have left us. The example, though, will come primarily from Germany and the EU because the growing rleiance on bigger governemnt is running amok everywhere.
SHARE Sunday, October 28, 2007 VIETNAM TODAY AND AMERICAN'S RELATIONSHIP TO IT
The author sets out to make a case for thousands of more Americans to get involved in helping Vietnam to become more politically economically hopeful in the coming years. He argues that it is not only a historic duty but important in terms of developing global awareness and critical thinking for all citizens in an age that has been lacking such skills.A positive change in American recollection of Vietnam War era is critical.
(8 comments) SHARE Friday, November 21, 2008 Vatican Appears to be Attacking Opposition to SOA
...just as much as charging that women have no role in leading churches.
This past week,Democracy Now did a lengthy interview with Father Roy Bourgeois on the surprisingly strong threat he has received from Pope Benedict to be excommunicated before this weekend if he doesn't disavow his belief and support of women taking over leadership and ministry of the Catholic Church.
Catholics need to stand behind women as priests
(2 comments) SHARE Saturday, May 6, 2017 Oman: Thoughts on Emotional Intelligence in our Schools, Teaching and Education Practices
In contrast to research on emotional intelligence in the workplace (where research is inconclusive), emotional intelligence in our education systems appear to be quite beneficial and sound practice. This article shares the message on Emotional Intelligence offered by Dr. Faical Ben Khalifa of Dhoar University given at IMPROVING TEACHING QUALITY 1 : a SYMPOSIUM held at ROTANA RESORT, SALALAH, Oman earlier this year.
(4 comments) SHARE Monday, December 15, 2008 YOUTH PROTEST AND ANARCHISM-ARE THE GREEK YOUTH RIGHTS A HARBINGER OF YOUTH UNREST TO COME WORLD WIDE?
Youth riots from Greece jumped to Paris to Madrid and Moscow last week. Unlike many other protests in recent years, this one was led initially led by 13 to 17 year-olds in Greece. This article discusses youth facing off against oligarchies and the status quo in Japan and Kuwait as well. Is this a harbinger or a new trend in the coming decade?
SHARE Thursday, June 19, 2008 Editor of Kuwait Times on Press Censorship
On June 10, Jamie Etheridge, the Texas-born managing editor of the KUWAIT TIMES, one of Kuwaits 3 major English daily newspapers, led a diwaniya at the AWARE CENTER where she focused on censorship in the Kuwaiti press. Etheridge, who arrived in Kuwait from Texas in 2004, also writes for STRATFOR and the CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR. She discusses the three main issues related to censorship in Kuwait.
(2 comments) SHARE Sunday, September 27, 2009 IF MICHAEL MOORE WAS GERMAN, HE MIGHT HAVE BEEN ELECTED CHANCELLOR this SEPTEMBER 2009
On the eve of the German national elections on Sunday September 27, 2009, Michael Moore opened his new movie: “CAPITALISM?: A LOVE STORYâ€. If Michael Moore was heading a progressive party in Germany today, perhaps Angela Merkel wouldn?t be reelected in September 2009.
SHARE Tuesday, February 16, 2010 AMERICA NEEDS CO-DETERMINATION ON ITS BOARD OF DIRECTORS
The concept of co-determination refers to two distinct levels and forms of employee participation: co-determination at establishment level by the works council and co-determination above establishment level, on the supervisory board of companies, which is the main subject of this entry." At the supervisory level of all large companies in Germany, the employees
(8 comments) SHARE Thursday, February 18, 2010 CIA ON CAMPUS--ARE THEY ON CAMPUS NEAR YOU?
I attended and taught at Texas A&M around the time that 9-11 occurred. Before and after that time, I was continually harassed and chased after by certain students and faculty who might certainly have had direct CIA ties or financial support. (Former CIA Director and present Defense Minister taught in the same building I was enrolled in for my studies at Texas A&M.)I wonder if I shouldn't have ordered that FORTUNATE SON book
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, March 21, 2019 Review- Gina Apostol's INSURRECTO, a tale of American and Filipino Memories that most of us need to be aware of
Pulitzer-Prize winning author, Viet Thanh Nguyen, has surmised, Apostol's book of memes and memories, "INSURRECTO', plunges us into the vortex of memory, history, and war." INSURRECTO takes American readers to the land of the Philippines as defined by cinema, yellow journalism, popular sports figures (like Mohammed Ali) and Youtube videos. It takes present day Overseas Working Filipinos on a tour of what it is like to live in
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, November 6, 2019 A Place where America Needs to Turn for Help
Every evening and morning, I look out at the Kansas City VA Medical Center just down the hill from where I live here off Linwood Avenue in eastern Kansas City, Missouri. It is also a place where Vets go to get help as well as a place to go to commit suicide.
(5 comments) SHARE Sunday, May 17, 2009 Gran Torino Hits European Theatres by Storm
Why is the movie GRAN TORINO doing so well? It has already earned nearly 300 million since it opened last December 2008? This writer discusses the social and material issues in America that the film reveals to watchers from around the world? In short, a society is judged by how it treats the least of its members.
(5 comments) SHARE Sunday, April 9, 2017 Famine & Endless War Today--WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT?
Nowadays, over 17 million people are under threat of famine in war-torn Yemen, making it one of the world's worst hunger crises. Please, try to get your governments to start giving aid and food-- not weapons of war --to the parties and victims involved in the wars and conflicts of Yemen.
CLAMOR LOUDLY, PLEASE--A CRY FROM THE BORDER OF YEMEN.
SHARE Monday, November 3, 2008 Write-In Votes in American Elections: Vigilance Requested Now
Some like the idea of write-in voting. Others say it is a scam. Others say it is a waste of volunteers times very often at the polls. However, some Americans, such as overseas voters often have to do write in votes.
(3 comments) SHARE Tuesday, November 13, 2007 On the Image of EAGLES & AMERICA
According to American mythology. American Bald Eagles are related as a symbol of prestige and power. This article discusses a new metaphor concerning the Bald Eagle and transformation in America.
(3 comments) SHARE Sunday, May 24, 2009 Close Guantanamo, Move It to School of the Americas, Prosecute Both
As of May 21, 2009, Kevin Stoda has appropriately been publically advocating --a move of the Guantanamo Prison --to Ft. Benning, Georgia, where the infamous SCHOOL OF THE AMERICAS (SOA) WATCH has been located for decades.
(4 comments) SHARE Friday, April 8, 2011 Why Universities which try to GO PAPERLESS are often making it hard for older and disabled
I'm about 49 years old but in today's economy I plan to work at least 30 or more years. So, I decided to apply for a doctorate. I was accepted but over the past 15 years universities have tried to go paperless. It is overkill and dehumanizing--not to mention unfair for older, new, and disabled students.
(3 comments) SHARE Wednesday, May 15, 2019 "Our Slave Heritage and Family Hero"--Recollections of Oman and slave heritage by a young Omani
Americans talk about slavery and our generations who have lived in the wake of slavery. In Oman, a country that only abolished slavery in 1970, people are even more intimate with slavery and how it had affected development of modern families. This is a short essay by one Omani student reflecting on her grandfather and ancestors who were slaves in the family. It then ends in an appeal to Omanis to seize the day & hard work.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, April 10, 2015 What's it like living next door to War-Torn Yemen? (Part 2): More on Empathy, Life & Pilgrimage
Some 30+ years ago, I went abroad the first time in my life to see if I could make it as an international development worker. I was from the wealthy United States of America but I felt called to serve abroad.
This academic and educational training work is the sort-of-work that brought me here to Salalah in 2011.
SHARE Wednesday, May 17, 2017 OMAN; Where Motivation is not Enough for L2 Acquisition
Many teachers point out that motivation is a key to learning. However, research into English as a Second or third language education indicates that motivation (in and of itself) is far from enough for us to witness academic success in English for non-native speakers.
The findings Marwan Al-Yafi's study on motivation of students in local colleges and universities demonstrates this.
(7 comments) SHARE Saturday, January 8, 2011 Over 51+ million Americans Living in Poverty
David DeGraw, who wrote this cited Public Record article, went on to say, "Let's also consider the staggering amount of Americans -" 52 million, roughly 17% of the population -" who are currently enrolled in "anti-poverty" programs. Over 50 million are on Medicaid, 41 million are on food stamps, 10 million are on unemployment, 4.4 million receive welfare. Not counted in this "anti-poverty" total are 30 million children
SHARE Wednesday, February 10, 2010 POOR NEDA SOLTANI--AND ANOTHER FACEBOOK CONTROVERSY LEADING TO EXILE
Neda Soltani, although she is fluent in English, is now in Frankfurt, Germany starting her life totally anew--and with no hope of immediately returning soon to Iran, where she now fears for her life either from state or from citizens because of the mistaken identity episode of last summer. From now on media and citizen users of internet platforms, please be careful with what you put up on the internet and what you take off.
SHARE Sunday, December 2, 2018 The Southernization of America
Even in the 1960s, as small kid, I knew that there was something wrong with my father's supporting the Southern Hero George Wallace for President. We lived in Illinois Dekalb county, which appears to have had several sundown towns in the decades of his childhood. (Several Northern counties in Illinois voted heavily in Wallace's favor.). Similarly, I knew that something was very wrong in America when the Nazis in Skokie
(9 comments) SHARE Sunday, December 28, 2008 BBC reflects bad trends in American media
BBC appears to be going down hill as the news year ends. It appears all the major news media around the globe need to do much better in covering war to environmental issues.
Here is a quick look at two stories that have been neglected or blown on BBC radio around the globe this holiday week.
(2 comments) SHARE Saturday, June 6, 2009 TAKING COMMUNION WITH JACKIE ROBINSON
The feast of Corpus Christi is approaching. In Germanny the day is a nationally recognized holiday. The writer has picked up an old autobiography of Jackie Robinson and finds it appropriate to view communion and the body or life and death of Christ through the memory of the Great Experiment to integrate major league baseball and eventually all of America by end of 20th Century
(9 comments) SHARE Wednesday, November 30, 2016 Growing Moral Relativism among American Evangelicals is Worrying the Rest of the Planet
For decades, for American Evangelical Christians there was "no more a severe charge than the judgement that one has abandoned the gospel." said Wes Markofski in his New Monasticism and the Transformation of Evangelicalism. Now, the overwhelming majority of Christian Evangelicals are proudly using Post Modern Relativism to make their voting decisions. The greater world looks on in horror.
SHARE Monday, April 25, 2011 Comparison of Two Large Foreign English Teacher and Internationalization Projects in East Asia
In the 1980s--in order to improve Japanese foreign relaions and image in the world, Japan set out to create the world's largest teachers exchange project, a project largely focused on goals of related to improving international communication. Now, Taiwan is on such a journey--having recently created a modest Foreign English Teacher project. The author has been involved in both projects.
(3 comments) SHARE Wednesday, February 4, 2009 GERMAN TV RUNS FIRST MOVIE FOCUSING ON THE TROUBLES WHICH GERMAN VETERANS FACE COMING BACK FROM AFGHANISTAN
German soldiers too tend to not be historically well treated after being in war zones. Germans have been in Afghanistan since 2001 in supposedly non-combat zones and non-combat roles. Nonetheless real fighting does occur and Germans and other Europeans are getting killed there. Finally, German TV and cinema are bringing out the first film on post traumatic stress syndrome and how it affects family and soldiers.
(6 comments) SHARE Monday, April 30, 2007 A Federalist Peace Theory, 1946-1992
Democratic peace theory posits that democratic regimes are in general about as conflict- "Žand war-prone as non-democratic regimes--as well they have rarely gone to war with one anohter. It "Žis explained in this article that another regime type does the same--namely the federation as a regime type.
SHARE Friday, July 20, 2007 DISCUSSING the N-Word, the B-word, and F-word in our Media, Music, and Images around the Globe
This past week, I was listening to an interview on Democracy Now with Professor Michael Eric Dyson, which also included a report on hip-hop by Mumia Abu-Jamal. The title of the lengthy interview was: "Professor and Preacher Michael Eric Dyson on Hip Hop & Politics, Don Imus, the "N"-word, and Bill Cosby". In the interview, the Georgetown Professor and popular writer Dyson defends the use of the n-word by blacks.
(6 comments) SHARE Friday, May 1, 2009 The Berlin Wall 20 Years After: Let's Compare Other Walls
With the 20th anniversary of the End of the German/German wall in 1989, it is appropriate to compare other walled lands around the world. This articles looks quickly at the USA-Mexican fence, the Israeli Barrier Wall and Korean Hermitic wall. This quick tour reminds us that torture and walls are related historically and in our present.
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, July 13, 2009 REVIEW OF DER SPIEGEL'S "The Dark Continent: Hitler's Holocaust Helpers"
Poles have been upset by a three-part DER SPIEGEL article from early May 2009. The first piece had been entitled, "THE DARK CONTINENT: HITLERS HOLOCAUST HELPERS". I had just finished reading the articles myself and was not quite certain what all the hoopla in Poland might be about. I explained to my friend that the piece's title was just a play on two famous non-fiction works of the past decade.
SHARE Sunday, March 21, 2010 ARABBOY: A Youth in Germany--or the Short Life of Rashid A., tells about her Childhood in Berlin
Guener Yasemin Balci is author of ARABBOY: Eine Jugend in Deutschland oder Das kurze Leben des Rashid A. ( Frankfurt am Main: S. Fisher Verlag, 2008, pp. 287.) ARABBOY is a controversial book describing the alienation of recent Middle Eastern immigrants to Berlin and Germany. The book offers new insights into the culture of victims and perpetrators, a theme which has marked modern German history
(5 comments) SHARE Wednesday, January 20, 2010 FACTS on HAITI
"Two hundred some years ago Haiti was the richest colony in the world, but today it is the poorest and most unequal country in the Americas. A successful slave revolt in 1804 defeated the French planter class, but the only other independent country in the Americas, the United States, refused to welcome a Black Republic because of the powerful example it set for marginalized and oppressed people everywhere.
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, July 8, 2017 Is failure to employ our knowledge of schema theory hurting our L2 Learners?
Textbook designers know that students need them. Educators agree they are needed. But, why are teachers in Oman generally not employing pre-schematic activators in their classrooms? Does your school education system have a similar hole in its education delivery?
(3 comments) SHARE Wednesday, April 15, 2015 In your opinion, what are possible reasons behind reduction in oil price?
Oil price has declined. It has impact on overall price level. It is believed that the general inflation rate throughout the world is likely to fall only a little bit due to reduction of oil prices. What are your views on this issue?
(3 comments) SHARE Tuesday, October 23, 2007 Citibank, U.S. Credit Management and Me
This is the 3rd of 3 articles on the theme of how Citibank is tied up in world-wide mispromotion of fairness, democracy, good governance, and help for the poorest and more troubled economically. This piece focuses further on credit management scams--namely one by the now bankrupt US CREDIT MANAGEMENT of Irving, Texas.
(48 comments) SHARE Saturday, March 25, 2017 A Letter from Paul to Timothy this Eastertide 2017
Imagine if someone from the Old Testament or New Testament were to come back to life in our day. What would he or she say or write about this planet in 2017. What message would he or she have for this planet. In this tale, I propose that Paul of Tarsus come back to life and write from Palmyra in Syria today to his beloved disciple Timothy one more classic letter. Here it is.
(8 comments) SHARE Sunday, June 5, 2011 Calling for a National Holiday in Recognition of Whistle Blowers and Profiles in Courage!
Taiwan, China, and several governments around the world technically have a national holiday to promote the region's most honorable civil servant, Chu Yuan,who was also a poet and whistle-blower some 2300 years ago. His legend is part of tomorrow's DRAGON BOAT FESTIVAL and legend--which is even celebrated in Washington, D.C. I would like to use this occasion to encourage America to recognize its real profiles in courage, too.
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, November 22, 2009 Germany's Sleeping PTSD Crisis
Germany has been keeping quiet about growing PTSD related stress from the nation's various peace keeping duties in recent years.
(3 comments) SHARE Saturday, May 18, 2019 Gregoria felt that "Administrative Leave" was like being a Cockroach or Prisoner
When Gregoria Samson revisits the tales of Kafka, she cannot help feeling a part of these stories. On the one hand, she feels off-balance, like Kafka's friend who is in some sort of exile in Russian. On the other hand, Greogroia especially feels part of the life of Gregor in The Metamorphosis
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, March 7, 2010 ISLAMIC HISTORY--WHERE THE LIGHT SHONE THROUGHOUT THE DARK AGES OF WESTERN EUROPE, i.e. from 7th Century Onwards
Listed here are the themes of the exhibition on Islamic science and how their inventions and creations spread across both Northern African & Middle East, Europe (1) 2010: The thousand-year-old inventions that still shape everyday life(2) Market: How influential ideas spread through travel and trade(3) School: Learning (4)(4) Hospital: How ancient approaches to health have influenced today's medicine etc.
(7 comments) SHARE Saturday, November 22, 2008 Dear Dr. Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize Laureate,
We need to stop the horrid flood of wasted money in Washington being misspent on the so-called BAILOUT this autumn to W. Bush's cronies.
Naomi Klein has called it criminal already and W. Bush has failed to even appoint the full-legally required oversight personnel for the give-away to his cronies.
Ask Obama to have Paul Krugman and Naomi Klein to go to Washington to take over the country till Obama takes over the shop.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, July 15, 2009 Genius and Hard Work for the Planet Go Unrewarded in the World of Crony Capitalism and Crony Governance
Gregor Czisch of Kassel, Germany worked almost a decade producing one of the most amazingly forward-looking and clear-thinking piecess of research any PhD student on the planet could ever be expected to produce. Now, Czisch's work is the basis for the 400 billion dollar North African Energy project, known as Desertec-i.e. the largest European and African energy development project undertaken. Dr. Gregor is often out of work
(14 comments) SHARE Wednesday, February 18, 2009 A Need for Religious Self-Reflection in Memorializing War
What do Adolf Hitler, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, The Pope and the lack of many critical memorials to wars have to do with the average American?
This articles explores the relationship by using the comparative approach, i.e. how modern Germany handles memory at the personal, educational, and national or international level.
SHARE Thursday, January 3, 2008 ???? ARMED FORCES RADIO AND VOICE OF AMERICA RADIO: "WE ARE YOUR RADIO STATION, NOT YOUR ROLE MODEL!" ----????
The author, in Kuwait, begins by discussing an identification slogan from Voice of America radio: "We are your Radio Station--not your Role Model". The author questions the attempt by VOA (and by extension Armed Forces Radio) to admit that they need to think more outside the box and apply the same standards--"loose lips sink ships" to how government sponsored radio stations funcion in the Middle East. We live in one village.
(16 comments) SHARE Wednesday, April 29, 2015 Obama is Going Back to Basically Sound Political Science & Should Veto and Carry Out Executive Orders!
Game theory is the study of strategic decision making. Specifically, it is "the study of mathematical models of conflict and cooperation between intelligent rational decision-makers." By failing to use veto power and executive orders properly both the Clinton and W. Bush did much less in their second terms of office than they could have. Only by using vetoes and executive orders more often can a president be effective.
(55 comments) SHARE Monday, December 19, 2016 Should I finally return to the States and teach Civics, Government, Human & Civil Rights to America's Kids today?
I agree with the SPLC "For the sake of the children and their education, presidential candidates should begin modeling the kind of civil behavior and civic values that we all want children to learn in school. Barring such a change in tone, however, teachers and school administrators will face an uphill battle. Remaining impartial will be difficult when the students' conversation revolves larely around Trump."
(2 comments) SHARE Tuesday, May 1, 2007 IMAGINE IF George W. Bush HAD PARTICIPATED in the MK ULTRA PROGRAM
Imagine if thirty years after the horrible MK ULTRA project was supposed to have been closed down, an American who went through the program is elected President of the United States of America.
This is a piece written mostly in documentary-film style & describing the type of film we are waiting from Oliver Stone and others in Hollywood to give us.
SHARE Saturday, November 22, 2008 Big Boy Rules and the Kuwait Connection
As I have lived in Kuwait for half a decade, I am quite aware of the bad business practices and firms in this country, which have nonetheless made a lot of money for Kuwaiti's many North American- and Middle East-based subcontractors.
Author Fainaru spent time with the K-Marts of American Service companies based out of Kuwait and running their own little sideshows in Iraq.
Naturally, Blackwater is one well-known nam
SHARE Friday, February 29, 2008 KUWAIT INDEPENDENCE DAY, KUWAIT NATIONAL DAY, &THE RISE OF A NEW FACELESS POVERTY ON THE MIDDLE EASTERN LANDSCAPE
This article begins by reviewing the sociological concepts of relatve poverty and absolute poverty. It looks at work by sociologist Dr. Mark Olson in Kuwait. Olson has posed a new sociological construct to study and analyze poverty, i.e. to classify poverty. This article then turns to what is special about the construct and how it is helpful for understanding the rise of "faceless poverty" on a global scale in the USA etc.
(24 comments) SHARE Tuesday, October 14, 2008 Support Third Party Candidates
In most of America's breadbasket people do have choices beyond the Republican and Democratic parties. Kansas has at least 3 alternatives on the ballot while Colorado may have 14 such alternatives. Sadly, Oklahoma offers no alternatives.
The author encourages Americans to vote for alternatives, like Nader-Gonzalez, or for the Reform and Libertarian parties. Nebraskans can vote Green There are plethora of possibilities
(40 comments) SHARE Sunday, March 28, 2010 HERE IS WHY THE TEAPARTY FOLKS SHOULD BE ENCOURAGED TO LEAVE THE CONTINENTAL USA
This past week (and month), it has become clear to most good and honest Americans that some people living in the United State's, like RushLimbaugh and Sarah Palin, do not need to live any more within the geographic United States anymore--that is, if they continue to evoke violence and oppose the fact that 32-Million more Americans will receive healthcare this next year due to recent congressional passage of HEALTHCARE
(3 comments) SHARE Thursday, September 10, 2015 Don Mosley's book, Faith Beyond Borders, Calls Us to Act
Since the 1990s, Mosley and his Jubilee Partners have been speaking to Christian churches every where.M says "I long for the day when every church congregation in the United States that claims to follow Jesus clamors to have the privilege of sponsoring at least one of these refugee families! The churches themselves would be tremendously blessed, and the suffering in those 'warehouse' camps would be drastically reduced, What i
(2 comments) SHARE Sunday, March 29, 2015 Low Level Mutual Embargo via the USA and Oman through Postal System--Why?
Who says government agencies are logical? or supportive of community interests? An embargo by definition is a "governmental restriction on trade for political purposes."
But there are other ways intergovernmental agencies use embargoes to make it hard for their cross-national partners (and its own citizens) by usage of embargo by state authorities. Kevin Stoda discusses this with his example on Oman-USA today.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, January 4, 2019 This quote is paraphrased from recent M*A*S*H rerun, originally set in Korea, 1951-1952 BUT IT FITS IN 2019
"Without a doubt, I think that after 15 years of the recent Iraq War and nearly 18 years of the War in Afghanistan (and other wars on terror), Americans are praying that 2019 will be "a damn sight better than the past years of endless war". This quote is paraphrased from recent M*A*S*H rerun, originally set in Korea, 1951-1952.
(2 comments) SHARE Saturday, October 18, 2008 LOYAC, Kuwait for Kenya (K4K), and Nutri Viva Speak at AWARE Center-Is there hope for Kuwait and the Gulf Nations to Pic
At a time when Kuwait has run many budget surpluses and as Kuwaiti-paid wages have increased at 10% annual rate in recent years, it is certainly a hopeful sign that Kuwaiti youth have an interest in reaching across borders and promoting international peace and development.
Youth in Kuwait have a few outlets, like LOYAC, to empower young leaders to reach out.The presentations at the AWARE Center on the even of WORLD FOOD DAY
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, March 22, 2010 Perpetrators, Victims, Sexual Assaults, Gang-like Behavior and Abuse
"Another child abuse scandal is in the German press. Frankfurter Rundschau newspaper says that up to 100 pupils at a school in Hesse may have been victims between 1971 and 1985. Odenwaldschule is an elitist, private school with famous alumni like the writer, Klaus Mann." The charges at the Odenwald School come in the midst of a major set of scandals raising the same charges against priests at catholic schools
(10 comments) SHARE Wednesday, August 19, 2020 Without a doubt America needs CPR !
(1) If you were involved in revising our current constitution through amendments and constitutional conventions, what would you tell the committees organizing such and event?
(2) How should we proceed with assisting Americans now and in the future with CPR?
(3 comments) SHARE Wednesday, June 5, 2013 Memory from Nazi Germany and Images of the Trial of Bradley Manning
Nazi-led Total War (1943-1945) under Goebbels and Hitler brought only further starvation and destruction to his homeland--even after Thoelking had been thrown in the brig and he had been threatened with charges of aiding and abetting the cause of the enemy. Why should not a soldier (Manning) speak the truth about war to his comrades and the powerful military brass in such an instance? Likewise, why should soldiers be prohi
(3 comments) SHARE Saturday, November 22, 2008 Gulf War Syndrome Recognized: Now Aid Those in Kuwait & Iraq
Gulf War Syndrome is real but residents of the Persian Gulf region --including millions of expatriates--are not kept up-to-date on medical research on a disease that bares their region's name.
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, April 27, 2017 Victoria Tuzlukova on the Needs of Oman and Arab World Education in 21st Century
The following paraphrase is concerning the reception of keynote address by participants from dozens of countries to a symposium on improving TEACHING QUALITY, held on 10 April in Salalah, Oman. WHY DO WE NEED 21st CENTURY SKILLS IN OMAN?
Actually, the entire Arab world sees the need already. However, petroleum based economies, like Oman's and most lands in the Arabian peninsula are more and more aware of needs for change.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, July 1, 2015 The View From Yemen's War From Across the Border
Are you still having a sense of media black out on the war in Yemen? Here is the view from the corner of Oman which borders Yemen.
SHARE Monday, March 7, 2011 The Bourne Ultimatum and What the World is Wanting (Looking for) from America
President Obama continues to permit assasination units target both Non-American and Americans around the globe. The director of the Bourne Ultimatum got it right. The world is tiring of this sort of American super-patriot garbage. Viewers around the world expect such junk in action films but not as official USA foreign policy. I too, as an American, am against these rogue elements having sanction from America. Aren't U?
(2 comments) SHARE Saturday, October 4, 2008 Yemen as Tourist Site--Yemen as Site of Culture Wars
This article reviews the current state of life for Yemenis after a year of AlQaeda attacks, which have come in the aftermath of the Sa'ada Peace Treaty. Bombings increase but most Yemenis are not involved nor interested in promoting the violence of extremism. This may be something that is missed in Washington and the West. That is, unlike in Pakistan where AlQaeda is active, Yemenis as whole are positive to the WEST.
(24 comments) SHARE Saturday, November 19, 2016 Can the Electoral College's Electors Elect Someone other for President than....?
The electoral college was essentially written into the constitution to avoid what was known as mobocracy. America is now at a crossroads. Will its electors do the right thing as the founding fathers intended in writing the constitution?
SHARE Friday, February 5, 2010 ANOTHER FORGOTTEN BUT IMPORTANT WOMAN OF HISTORY: BERTHA VON SUTTNER
Most people on the planet Earth these days have no idea who likely had the most influence in leading Alfred Nobel to create what has come to be known as the Noble Peace Prize. This was likely the result of the activities and leadership of one Germanic woman, who was born in Prague during the Habsburg final Empire. That women was the Bohemian Bertha von Suttner.
SHARE Saturday, February 9, 2008 Serendipity and a Journey to West Bali 2008
In contrast to Eastern India where Hindus attacking Christians and Christian communities have been high in recent years, the case of Bali and Hindu and Christian relationships have been improving substantially. Bali is an island of Hinduism in the Muslim archipelago of Indonesia. The isle also has christian communities; the author takes the reader to several and points out possible points of integration that could be a model
(7 comments) SHARE Monday, November 15, 2010 WHERE IS THE PROGRESSIVE BUDGET?
the bottom line for progressives should be: WHERE ARE OUR LONG-TERM AND SHORT-TERM BUDGET PROPOSALS?
SHARE Wednesday, June 29, 2016 Another Modest Development Proposal for my Omani Friends: Renewable Energy
In my college days in Kansas 4 decades ago, I studied a few courses related to international development and the courses often focused on concepts like sustainable development.The Sultan of Oman, i.e. in the country I have lived and taught in for the past 5 years, is currently suffering from a economic and development downturn.The problem is that, like my home state of Kansas, Oman has focused on austerity.Renewable Energy...
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, June 1, 2012 Culture Shock Oman: Modesty in the LR
I want to share the following anecdote not-because the incident in-itself is all that profound--, but rather, it is how I responded and began to search for explanation behind the "culture shock" or how I sought to recover from it which provide a model for what I suggest you follow when living and working abroad, especially in the Arab world.
SHARE Sunday, June 3, 2007 THREE FEMALE HISTORICAL REPRESENTATIVES DISCUSS RECORD OF WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE IN KUWAIT AT AWARE CENTER
At the end of May 2007, the AWARE Center in Surra, Kuwait invited three noted female Kuwaiti activists to speak on and reflect on the previous year's elections. That is when women voted and ran for office of their National Parliament in Kuwait for the first time in that nation's history. They also discuss what needs to be done in the future.
(4 comments) SHARE Tuesday, February 28, 2017 Black just doesn't mean Black (neither does White): Emotional Intelligence and Cultural Intelligence
Don't let visions of black-clad ninjas, black-suited SS agents or Mussolini's henchmen--, nor even ISIS shock troops--cloud or blind our imaginations of blackness--of other colors, and other cultures, i.e. to fit our pre-conceptions or imaginations of life in other lands and among other peoples here on planet earth.
(7 comments) SHARE Wednesday, October 22, 2008 Health Care for America Now Says, "Get Your Congressmen and Senators on Board" NOW!
HEALTH CARE FOR AMERICA NOW is a non-profit organization concerned with this matter of better health care in the USA today. They wrote me recently and stated: The insurance industry is pushing for less regulation. They want more leeway to drop people with pre-existing conditions and deny you care. Today, people around the country are standing up and calling Congress to stop them. . . .With health care costs rising and wages
(11 comments) SHARE Tuesday, April 21, 2015 OMAN & ITS SPECIAL HISTORY: Retrospect, Present, & Future?
How has Oman managed to mostly stay out of the Middle East debacles in Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain, Iraq and Syria while its neighbors, like Saudi Arabia and the UAE (along with Yemen) have been engulfed in fighting and in financing civil wars? Let's review the history and see if peacemakers can learn from the Oman story, which in the 1950s and 1960s saw jihadis from Saudi+Maoist and Soviet insurgencies+ other fighters here.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, October 31, 2008 Homeless Veterans and Future Homeless Vererans Being Ignored
With the election days away, it is appropriate to focus on the needs of veterans. It is also important to demand politicians help out and reduce the number of victim-vets returning home in 2009.
(5 comments) SHARE Saturday, November 29, 2008 Going to Church with Friends from Mumbai during the Seige in India
How should rational people face death? How should spiritual people face terror?
This article starts in Kuwait, goes to Mumbai back and forth with sidesteps to memories of MLK and Studs Terkel back in the USA.
Why?
The author and other spiritualists are searching to build a new common dream and a path to get there.
Join in a discussion.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, July 2, 2010 The Real McChrystal FINALLY Gets Raked through the Coals
Many parts of the USA still do not have access to basic good news sources, like Democracy Now. Today, I heard several good stories from Democracy Now Online that I want to share to real Americans facing censorship of sorts. T"he Real McChrystal FINALLY Gets Raked through the Coals" is the focus of this short summary of a great piece
(5 comments) SHARE Tuesday, October 20, 2009 The Lack of Congressional Outrage and the Dollar Decline
William Black was explaining how the stock market boom and the continued existence of many BAD & BIG BANKS in the USA were now screwing up long term investment in all parts of the more “real American economyâ€. He pointed out that the stock market's current boom or growth was simply a matter of banks sitting on mountains of bad loans rather than declaring the bankruptcies properly.
SHARE Sunday, October 2, 2016 Thinking through Oman's Current and Future Educational Demands
3rd in a series; In each of the essays, comparisons between Kansas (my homestate) and Oman are undertaken in a way that focuses on past, present and future Omani development. Oman, like all of the GCC countries is overdependent on petroleum industries and needs to think through new possible development activities--and implement them very quickly.
(6 comments) SHARE Wednesday, September 1, 2010 Which damages our children first? the media or fuzzy thinking in society????
Which damages our children first? the media or fuzzy thinking in society????
As many readers know, I became a father last spring, so I am gong to be increasingly concerned with the issue of media and family, child & home. My wife and I, for example, have decided to not have a TV at home for the first few years of our daughter's life. Are we overprotecting our child?
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, June 10, 2009 FROM PRAYER TO DEMONSTRATION: The Neglected History of East German Churches in the 1980s
During this 20th anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall, many in Germany are reevaluating the events of that age and reflecting on what it means in Germany and in the world today. This article focuses on two pastors involved in the Revolution of 1989/1990 in Eastern Germany. They are Rainer Eppelmmn and Markus Merkel. They faced jail and attempted murder but they fought non-violently and successfully.
(11 comments) SHARE Monday, September 6, 2010 Employers Who Fire the Most Workers Receive 42% Higher Salaries, America Wake Up!!
Please, America, listen to good stories and circulate them in your emails--instead of all the junk and propaganda that is out their by BIG BUSINESS AND LOBBY INTERESTS against your best interests. Study: CEOs Who Fired Most Workers Earned Highest Pay
(6 comments) SHARE Sunday, December 26, 2010 WILL AMERICA CONTINUE TO MISEDUCATE ITS CHILDREN ABOUT REAL COSTS OF WAR????
I wrote a lengthy blog on how the USA always fails its youthful soldiers and then asks the future, current, and older generations to keep paying the costs--over and over. That article was called, " SOME PARENTS OF VETERANS COMING HOME FROM IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN ARE HAVING TO GIVE UP RETIREMENT TO TAKE CARE OF THEIR BRAVE OFFSPRING ." I want to weave the main gist of that article into the Feast of Holy Innocents Day Protests
SHARE Friday, March 12, 2010 PAUL NIAVIS, THE ORIGIN OF "AVATAR", and Carl Orff's CARMINA BURANA
The first environmentalist book was written in Latin by a German scholar named Paulus Niavis (born Paul Schneevogel). He wrote a book that condemned the despoilation of the land and destruction of the forests and mountain civilizations in Europe in the late Middle Age. Writing on the Cusp of the AGE OF DISCOVERY and an age of global exploitation, he condemned the blindness of greed which led to destruction of culture & env
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, April 27, 2011 Americans, it is High Time to Repeal the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005
Why should these banks and ill-run financiers--and the firms they trade our debt with-around-the-clock ¡Xbe allowed to continue to harrass Americans with penalties while they were bailed out in the trillions of dollars by the USA government with our tax money over the past 4 years?It is insanely unfair not to grant reprieves to the Americans suffering under the thumbs of these goliaths.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, September 22, 2009 SIGNS OF THE CHANGING GERMANY: THE EXAMPLE OF DOMINIK BRUNNER
As I write this article, there has been another act of violence in schools in Germany. In Ansbach , Bavaria several students and their attacker are now in the hospital. The attacker brought an axe to the Carolinen School. The violent 19-year old then set off several Molotov cocktails in the gym. Today it is 6 months since the last major attack in German Schools, i.e. in Winnenden by Stuttgart.
SHARE Sunday, January 25, 2009 ATHEIST BUS CAMPAIGN TO GO EUROPEAN-WIDE
The campaign by atheists to open the discussion about what is acceptable in terms of publically advertising one's faith has been a successful one in Europe this January. Not only have atheists praised the campaign but Christians and Muslims alike have shown active interest and discussion. Will the signs be on buses in the USA soon>
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, February 17, 2010 STOP-LOSS RAP SONG WRITER AND SINGER SENT TO IRAQ FOR COURT MARTIAL
"A soldier put his anger at being sent back to Iraq in a rap song. The military, however, did not think it was fun or creative." So, the young soldier, Mark Hall, was arrested and his free speech banned.
SHARE Monday, September 3, 2007 Federalism, American Civil War Musters and the Middle East
On a visit to an American Civil War muster, the author focuses on: (1)what America's Civil War can teach us about issues today, (2) what people to people events and activities might teach us about our own nation's and global history, and (3)how federalism in American history can empower clearer thinking in solving major issues of our time, including how diverse nations and tribes can reach agreements.
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, December 1, 2007 I DECIDED TO RUN FOR PRESIDENT IN THE IOWA CAUCUS AND WHY YOU SHOULD RUN, TOO
Tonight I decided to run for President of the USA.
I initially went to a web page of the Iowa Republicans and registered as follows on a page dedicated to On-Line OR E-leaders with the Republicans: After looking at the candidates in the Republican Presidential arena, I realized that progressive evangelicals were being left out. So, I decided to run and asked for help getting a petition introduduced. Here is why. kevin
(4 comments) SHARE Thursday, May 30, 2013 Collective Occlusion: American Narratives and Silencing of Important Cultural Memories
Each of us grows up in a home with a distinct history and a distinct perspective on the meaning of larger historical events. Our parents' stories shape our historical consciousness, as do the stories of the ethnic, racial, and religious groups that number us as members. We attend churches, dubs, and neighborhood associations that further mold our collective and individual historical selves.
SHARE Wednesday, April 28, 2010 Defenestrations and God's Warriors
"Defenestrations and God's Warriors" is a collection of videos, memories, and articles used to weed through the images of violence, broken glass, and terror across the ages. Kamikazes are heroes. Peasants are victors. Video violence is good for you. Question what you read and see. Read through this a historical collage going from the defenestrations in Prague to Japan, the Middle East, Mexico and NYC and our memories now.
(16 comments) SHARE Wednesday, September 22, 2010 WILL THE BORDERS BETWEEN CANADA, THE USA, AND MEXICO BECOME HARDER AND HARDER TO CROSS OVER THIS NEXT DECADE?
Are Canadian, American and Mexican borders going to continue to close? Has the neo-con, neo-liberal approach to political economic developemtn plus security issues and xenophobia set a course for a North America of walled fortresses over the next decade? here is a model to provoke some discussion. We need a better vision than we have now for borders and border towns in NAFTA states.
(5 comments) SHARE Tuesday, January 11, 2011 DEMAND CORPORATE TAX ON MILITARY INDUSTRIAL WELFARE RECIPIENTS IN 2011
The situation has gotten worse.
Consider refusing to allow the federal government to keep our income taxes if this keeps up and likewise demand corporate taxes on military industrial welfare recipients in 2011-2100!
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, September 21, 2009 THE RETURN OF THE MOST DANGEROUS MAN IN AMERICA
This article on THE RETURN OF THE MOST DANGEROUS MAN IN AMERICA, Daniel Ellsburg, was one of the articles that was recently attacked and erased on OpEd News last weekend. Ellsburg an his wife are encouraging more whistle blowers in U.S. government NOW.
(4 comments) SHARE Friday, September 23, 2016 Outliers, Colorism, Cohorts, Bad Practices, Good Practices, & Better Analysis
How did three of our oldest leading politicians end up dominating the 2016 campaign--Sanders was born during WWII and Trump and Hillary wre born a year or two after the war? Do cohort generations and theory related to the nurture and opportunity of man explain all the outliers of history? Think about it as you read the popular soon-to-be classic book OUTLIERS, which is gaining more explanatory power as the years go by.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, May 1, 2020 MayDay! MayDay! MayDay!
"Mayday is an emergency procedure word used internationally as a distress signal in voice-procedure radio communications.
It is used to signal a life-threatening emergency primarily by aviators and mariners, but in some countries local organizations such as firefighters, police forces, and transportation organizations also use the term."
Now, Let me Call Out: MAYDAY MAYDAY MAYDAY here in Missouri, too.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, December 28, 2010 FEAST OF THE HOLY INNOCENTS IS TODAY--ACT TODAY AND PROTECT MORE INNOCENTS IN 2011
This is the 3rd of three articles connecting innocents and victimhood to war and costs. It is advocated with this peice that the peace movments around the world adopt cyclical calendars to keep us focused and in touch with older traditions as we call for newer and more invigorated mass movements. This invigoration has inspired many longterm movements, memories and disciplined reforms in the past. We can teach our children.
(3 comments) SHARE Saturday, June 7, 2008 NEWS AND WARNINGS: Westerners Seek Jobs in Gulf to Beat High Living Costs
As many Americans, including many who have lost jobs in the current recession and many who have served in foreign wars, come looking for money and work in the Middle East, the author seeks to share stories of warning about working in the Gulf States--where crony and family capitalism dominate one's freedom, work life, and choices.
(9 comments) SHARE Friday, October 1, 2010 WILL U.S. SUPREME COURT EXEMPT CORPORATIONS FROM ALIEN TORT LAW--EVEN AS U.S. STATES CAN STILL BE BROUGHT TO COURT?
"So long as they incorporate, businesses will now be free to trade in or exploit slaves, employ mercenary armies to do dirty work for despots, perform genocides or operate torture prisons for a despot's political opponents, or engage in piracy--all without civil liability to victims." This statement came from Judge Pierre Leval in his dissention to his own 2nd COURTS decision early in September on the ATS.
SHARE Thursday, November 12, 2009 THREE WALL STORIES, THREE NEWSPAPERS, THREE PHOTOS & THREE EDITORIALS
On the drive to Berlin from Wiesbaden, I came upon a McDonald's offering a free BILD newspaper (dated October 31, 2009) , with cover stories and photos of 3 aging men who are intrinsically intertwined in the popular myths about the collapse of communism and the opening of the Wall in Berlin on November 9, 1989. The faces were of Helmut Kohl , George Herbert Walker Bush & Michael Gorbachev. What do you remember of the days?
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, June 12, 2008 U.S. Indebtedness is Rising by over $1 Trillion a Year
This article responds to Kotlicoff, Laurence's "The Emperors Dangerous Clothes", published in Stiegletz's ECONOMIC VOICE. In the piece Kotlicoff shares how carried away not only the media has become in using manipulated neo-con and neo-liberal narrations to tell America's story of the past half century. The world of academia, Kotlicoff notes, has also gone astray. This is why accountants at worldcom, enron, and elsewhere
(3 comments) SHARE Sunday, December 7, 2008 Real change comes from within
A. W. Tozer vs. current evangelism trends and FOX-NEWS-pro-war evangelism dividing Americans of all faiths these days. Tozer began stating:"What is the worst enemy our church faces today? enters. Many are ready to say, 'The Liberals are our worst enemy.' But the fact is that the average evangelical church does not have too much trouble with liberalism."[p. 2]
SHARE Friday, June 18, 2010 For Our World Literature Teacher Friends this Summer
Occasionally, the author and teacher, Kevin A. Stoda, likes to make teaching lessons or units available to his peers around the globe. Here is one such unit. It focuses on modern literature and how to get students to do research and put diverse ideas together overa semester. It focuses on literary trends and Nobel laureates. Feel free to share and pass on. HAVE GREAT SUMMER, TEACHERS wherever you are!
SHARE Saturday, February 14, 2009 NEED FOR RELIGIOUS SELF-REFLECTION--Mother of Suicide Bombers, Jim Jones, Hamas, Israel, Vietnam, Ira, Hitler-like Love
Nearly twenty residents have publicly left the Catholic church in Wiesbaden, Germany this month, i.e. in the wake of Pope Benedict's inability to apologize (and admit the fallibility of a Pope) after the blunder of his Papacy recognizing a holocaust denier (named Williams) amongst the members of the Pius Brotherhood. This article discusses the need for memorials to commemorate US and Iraqi victims in War.
(2 comments) SHARE Sunday, June 12, 2011 Is there a Rise of American Stoicism, American " Inshallah", and possibly American "Shoganai"
As an American, what do you expect of yourself, your destiny, your society? Are your choices limited, such as Middle Eastern and East Asian societies? How has America been changed by its decades of wars since WWII have we adapted limiting world views or will we fall back on the old German "Dolchstoss" stabbed in the back mentality when we bail out of the next two wars. What will be the new dominant typical American view?
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, April 28, 2017 Victoria Tuzlukova: "How many of you weren't born in the 21st Century?" (Part2)
The framework for 21st century learning is discussed around the globe but seldom haave most Middle East countires taen leadership in this area. Can Oman? or its neighbors?
This is the second of a multipart series on this topic and what it involves. The paraphrase of the speeches and discussion at a recent conference in Salalah Oman is shared here.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, November 7, 2007 WRONG IS RIGHT (1982) why I NEVER FORGOT IT and AMERICA shouldn't either
Author focuses on media, politics, propaganda, public misinformation and how history is acquired. In an age when most Americans acuquire more from TV, films and DVDs than they do in school about history, Americans of all political and social stipes need to review the class film WRONG IS RIGHT (1982). The film was so ahead of its time one reviewer thought it was science fiction that predicted 2002-2003 almost perfectly.
(5 comments) SHARE Tuesday, September 16, 2008 Declaring Victory and Moving on -What a Horrible Concept!
During the Vietnam War era in the 1960s, several generals and military officers suggested to the President of the United States (and all Americans, including the military), "Let's declare victory and go home!"
I have asked myself over the years whether (psychologically or) orally declaring a victory when there is not a clear victory is a good procedure for America to ever follow.
I conclude by listing 12 facts to guide U
SHARE Sunday, February 8, 2009 Germany 2009--The Heroe's Role of a Life Passed-By or Passed-Up?
I came across a fascinating article, "Die Heldenrolle un das verpasste Leben", by Simone Schmollack. The article contrasts the fiction and reality by viewing the life and drama of the life of an East German-born actor, Peter Koehnke. This article was in the Rhein-Main Press Journal this weekend and began with a visit to the filming of the Tom Cruise film, OPERATION WALKUERE.
(5 comments) SHARE Sunday, December 16, 2007 Dear Christians and American Supporters of Founding Fathers: "Here is Why Bush and Cheney should Resign Now-and why Pelo
This article looks at the christian image of GOD as FATHER a makes a tour d' force of explaining how there lies common ground Among christians, jews, muslims, and American secularists to demand the resignation of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney--and probably Nancy Pelosi this holiday season. This is an epitemic appeal to christian leaders and lay leades as well as to lovers of the FOUNDING FATHER'S America. do it in 2007!
(4 comments) SHARE Wednesday, November 2, 2016 Is Anne Graham Lotz correct? Are Amish and Evangelicals (& others like them) Falling for False Prophets and Trump
Can Tony Campolo and the daughter of Billy Graham agree on one thing? Yes, they agree that evangelicals are not paying attention to Jesus and the red letters of the Bible. They both warn against the structural evils that promote false prophets in the 2016 election. They both ask us to not be deceived as evangelicals. Work for Jesus, not false prophets like Trump and those who support him in 2016.
(5 comments) SHARE Saturday, May 9, 2009 CULTURE, DEMOGRAPHICS, CHURCH-MOSQUE STRESSES
In Europe Christians and others concerned about cultural change are worried about the growth of Islam on the continent. The real sources for the stress are seldome handled. One of these stresses is by the lack of christian and muslim dialogue worldwide to find out what they have in common. Another problems is the unwieldy and unfriendly immigration policies which Americans and non-Americans face when desiring to move to EU
(3 comments) SHARE Sunday, September 27, 2020 Trolls and the 3 Possibilities concerning Russia's Covid Vaccine
One obvious alternative explanative for Russian confidence in their own vaccine is that the Russian government and its research facilities, may have developed the current Covid-19 virus themselves. The virus may have spread from Russia to Europe after a new strain emerged or was created in Russia or elsewhere. But what will Trolls do with such a conspiracy story?
SHARE Saturday, November 13, 2010 MEET s REAL ECONOMIST: HA-JOON CHANG
In one recent interview Chang notes that a strange academic culture has been dominate for the past half century. Good economists were considered those who were good at econometrics. Theorists and activists among economists are considered the lower-standard economists. (The same situation functions in schools of political science in the USA and in Europe in this same period.)
(10 comments) SHARE Thursday, January 12, 2017 In a Nutshell, the 20 Year Slide in American Political and Popular Culture really went into full Swing with Clinton
Some are saying that the era of Trump is showing a shift in American Culture as well as in American Political Landscape. I question such a narration and look at what the mainstream press, like Newsweek and The New York Times, seem to fail to put together before their reading public. In short, the election of Trump is an extension of the legacy of the impeachment of Bill Clinton back in the 1998-1999 period.
(5 comments) SHARE Sunday, February 12, 2012 "SUBCONTRACTING" and Teaching Word-Wide
Have you worked as a subcontractor? How have you been treated ? how secure have you felt? This article looks at the topic of subcontracting and education--world-wide.
(3 comments) SHARE Friday, January 22, 2010 MEDIA WATCH GERMANY----GERMANS REMAIN MOSTLY CLUELESS BY MEDIA ON MILITARIZATION OF HAITI IN LAST WEEK
Amy Goodman says that most places are unbelievably peaceful. Throughout the region, people have been digging out each other and looking forward to a civilized world helping them out.
Many of these Haitians interviewed by DN were astounded that the United Nations and the USA are more concerned with rioting and violence than helping them help themselves dig out their loved ones.On Saturday,US forces diverted several planes
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, September 3, 2010 Filipino OFWs may NOT be Discriminated Against, Says Hong Kong Commission: Meanwhile in Philippines All Investigations a
In the wake of the crazy ex-policeman in Manila taking hostage a busload of tourist and killing 8 from Hong Kong, there were announcements of layoffs and firings of Filipino workers in Hong Kong and elsewhere in late August. Meanwhile, the Filipino government has hardly been very trustworthy in carrying out investigations--leaving neighboring states to wonder if justice will be served by Filipino government.
(6 comments) SHARE Monday, June 20, 2011 It's About Face!
Many westerners have observed that Asians--as a whole--are very very concerned about "mianzi" [ - å] or face. However, it is too rarely ever explained what sort of totality lies behind the concept of face. Liu notes, " Everything you do is about "face' here in Taiwan! How you give and save it for yourself and for others is extremely important, both professionally and socially."
(13 comments) SHARE Friday, June 25, 2010 Key Judge in Lousiana Fails to Recuse Himself--Should He be Impeached?
According to Democracy Now and other national media, the judge who stopped the Obama's Administration's 6-month moratorium on drilling in the Gulf of Mexico this week likely should have had to recuse himself before taking part in the case.Judge Feldman may have been correct in his decision, but he was not the judge who should have made such an injunction--his hands and bank account are bloodied and well-oiled
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, October 14, 2015 Hunger of Memory--Nearly a Quarter Century Later
It has been over a quarter of a century since Richard Rodriguez hit the national stage in American imagery and media. Has he been a positive or negative force in the modern era of multiculturalism? I think so--even though Rodriguez has been anti-affirmative action, anti-bilingual education, and been anti-chicano.
SHARE Friday, April 28, 2017 Victoria Tuzlukova on the Needs of Oman and Arab World "How many of you weren't born in the 21st Century?" (Part2)
The framework for 21st century learning is discussed around the globe but seldom haave most Middle East countires taen leadership in this area. Can Oman? or its neighbors?
This is the second of a multipart series on this topic and what it involves. The paraphrase of the speeches and discussion at a recent conference in Salalah Oman is shared here.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, January 14, 2011 HISTORY--THE WAY IT OUGHT TO BE RECALLED: THE FLIGHT OF MATHIAS RUST FOR PEACE
One reader has said, "This had to be one of the top 10 most remarkable flights accomplished in the history of aviation: Orville Wright at Kittyhawk Glenn Curtiss from Albany to New York Charles Lindbergh to Paris Chuck Yeager breaking the soundbarrier Jimmy Dolittle's Tokyo raid Mathias Rust to Red Square The Enola Gay to Hiroshima Dick Rutan & Jena Yeager around the world ..."
SHARE Tuesday, June 21, 2011 A Society without Orientation[s]
How does being a high-context culture make it hard for you to understand the need for having employee orientations and other orientation get-togethers? This is the third part in a series of articles contrasting how Westerners and East Asians handle relationship building. Special focus is made on Taiwanese and Chinese exceptionalism versus how the Japanese have adapted much better to embracing positive attributes of the West
(5 comments) SHARE Sunday, November 15, 2009 DOES THE USA ARMY NOT KNOW THAT THE KOCH DOESN'T REALLY LIKE FOREIGNERS—AT ALL? Why is USA army moving from Heidelberg
In Germany, many Americans who come over to join their family members here have found that they will never get any visa to work in the state of Hessen. The job situation for Americans is so bad that the USA Department of Defense is currently telling teachers arriving at the DOD schools throughout Germany (but especially in the Wiesbaden region) not to try and bring spouses nor kids over here
(9 comments) SHARE Monday, December 29, 2008 WHETHER DISCUSSING DEVIL'S ARITHMATIC or WONDERING ABOUT PERIODIC TABLES, ISRAEL and PALESTINE are FASCINATED BY NUMBERS
Jane Yolen wrote a fictional work on the Holocaust some years ago. The book dealt with the numbers and statistics used by the Nazi's (and their helpers from all over Europe) who came to see both their dehumanized Jewish and non-Jewish Untermenschen compatriots from across the continent as statistics to be calculated or canceled out. Primo Levi wrote largely non-fiction works on the elements and the Holocaust. Now Israel and #s
(6 comments) SHARE Thursday, October 8, 2020 Covid and GOP: What's the matter with Kansas?
I know Kansas (like Missouri where I live) is a red-state that voted for Trump big-time in 2016, but why is the GOP doubling down on both infecting fellow Kansans and on even killing off some Kansas voters at an increasing rate--right before an election? They are like the many faithful of Jim Jones drinking the Trump cool-aid.
(6 comments) SHARE Friday, January 27, 2017 American Firms and Leaders have Bet the Farm on War--but we need more political economic research to model the truth
Stiglitz wrote nearly a decade ago that 3-5 trillion dollars was the cost of the Iraq invasion and occupation. I think the numbers are more like 20 Trillion for the period since the Cold War ended or even since 2001, when George W. Bush took office. We need more research and social studies to focus on this in schools and colleges NOW.
(5 comments) SHARE Monday, October 27, 2008 Redistributing Wealth, Centralized Planning Has Biblical Roots
Dear America, if socialism is a bad word and central planning is anathema too you, at least, look to your religious and cultural heritage to see that progressive taxation, government regulation and good planning belongs here--along with communities working together for fairness, justice, freedom, liberty, emancipation and harmony.
(2 comments) SHARE Tuesday, April 27, 2010 Off to the Races: WORLD SOCIAL FORUM HAS RESPONDED to Friedman's Challenge
Mr. Friedman, what do you suggest if tecnhonology development racers--like in Germany and the USA--don't seem to really want to race in 2010 and beyond?
Well, I think that people need to do their homework and undertake some butt-kicking in Washington, D.C., Berlin, and elsewhere where state governments stand in the People's way to protect our planet and climate.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, April 30, 2009 REVOLUTIONS OF 1989-Part 3: UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF UNCERTAINTY By Kevin Stoda, Germany NOTE: This is the second par
As 2009 continues, economic crises continue to be the main headlines. The same would have been true for Eastern Europea and the Soviet Union throughout 1989 (and years prior to that) but news was less critical and definately censored in those days. In the darkness of no news people could read between the lines and make person-to-person visits to comprehend that 1989 or thereafter meant consumerism and change.
SHARE Tuesday, July 21, 2009 WHY COGNITIVE and EPISTEMIC REGIME THEORISTS PREDICT that CHINA, INDIA, BRAZIL, and other large developing states will j
At the G-8 Summit in Italy last week, many observers were disappointed when India, China, Brazil, South Africa and Mexico did not commit themselves to targeting Co2 and other gas reductions along as they had been asked to do by many signatory states of Kyoto Climate Control treaty. It surely would have been helpful to the entire planet if these other five key developing states had done more than orally recognize CLIMATE ISSUES
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, November 19, 2007 DEPLETED URANIUM STRIKES AGAIN-THIS TIME IN THE USA
Finally, a British-funded study on DU Weaponry has been conducted in the United States. A report in November 18th's Guardian reports that "23 years after a US arms plant closed, workers, and residents have cancer-and experts say their suffering shows the use of such [DU] weapons may be a war crime."
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, September 25, 2008 FIRE!!!! Are Americans and the World Missing the Boat in Diagnosing what has occurred in the USA-i.e. Bubble, Bubble, Cr
A few years ago, Kevin Phillips wrote a sadly accurate and insightful book entitled AMERICAN THEOCRACY, in which he accurately predicted all of the economic troubles in the USA this autumn 2008. In his analyses, Phillips clearly saw that the failed attempt to boost the economy in the early Bush years of this decade simply covered up one bubble with another larger one. This is why Phillips called the Fed Reserve Board Chair
SHARE Thursday, March 3, 2011 More on Blue Butterflies and Teaching Kids
As I watched the first minutes of the film, I could hardly believe that the tale was even vaguely based upon a true story, but I was wrong. Apparently, the film is, indeed, based on the life of a the Quebec-born, David Marenger, who at the age of six was diagnosed with cancer and given only a few months to live.
(3 comments) SHARE Sunday, July 18, 2010 DEAR ARIZONA AND YOU DEMAGOGUE-WANNABEES
I am not certain if any of class of demagoguery in Arizona (and in the GOP) we see today will ever reach the heights of John R. Brinkley or Father Coughlin, but I wanted to write you all this letter and warn you about how the wind is blowing. I should know because I lived most of my life in the land of the goat doctor.
(4 comments) SHARE Friday, February 27, 2009 Lot, Lotto, and Casino Capitalism
What does the Biblical character Lot have to do with casino capitalism today? Is it more than a coincidence that Lot sounds like the word Lotto? The world needs solutions tested in time but new for this millennium in many ways. Where do we begin? How about the World Federalist movement?
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, March 24, 2011 Are You Gamed Enough?
Another way that movies are almost fully reflecting our world or reality comes from Gerald Butler's GAMER, FOX Corp., the USA military and the American military and prison complexes.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, February 16, 2016 Will Oman Ever Get Saudi Arabia (Kicking and Crying) out of its Yemeni Quagmire?
As the USA continues to sell billions of dollars of military hardware and manpower training to the Saudi Kingdom, the nation of Oman sits perched to help the KSA get out of its quagmire in Yemen. However, isdom in Saudi Arabia is still lacking as bombings of Sana'a and other parts of Yemen continue to destroy the lives of thousands and millions
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, May 14, 2008 Zainab Al-Suwaij Speaks at the AWARE CENTER on "A Special Model for Muslim Women in a Modern Society"
Speaking on the topic, "A Special Model for Muslim Women in a Modern Society", Zainab Al-Suwaij visited both Kuwait University and the Aware Center Kuwait this first week of May, i.e. just 10-days prior to national elections, when Kuwaiti women are hopeful of gaining their first seats in parliament. At the AWARE CENTER, Al-Suwaij was introduced as co-founder and executive director of the American Islamic Congress (AIC)
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, December 31, 2010 CHANGING CALENDARS, CHANGING WEEKENDS, CHANGING CENTENNIALS
Just a few years back we were all hoping that fex-time would be the way of the future for all employees and students. The benefits to our mental and physcial health were to be enormous. Now with the economies in many lands to be providing few jobs. There is too little serious talk about flexible calendars in education and work. This article reminds us that multiple calendars are already present in much of the world.
SHARE Saturday, November 13, 2010 THE ANTI-PRIVATE CITIZEN APPROACH OF THE U.S. SENATE
" If you want to be heard by your senator, you'd better hire a lobbyist!!!!"
PUBLIC CITIZEN has written its readers recently of an important experiment for political scientists to follow-up on.
Will political scientists follow-up on this? Will Progressives get a bigger stick and get American governments to change the status-Quo?
(12 comments) SHARE Saturday, December 27, 2008 ISRAEL, SO THIS IS CHRISTMAS?
In Gaza 140 are dead already as a result of the air attacks partially financed by USA tax dollars. Both Israel and the U.S.A. call unnecessary deaths "collateral damage" this Christmas rather than calling them crimes against humanity.
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, September 11, 2010 TAXING THE CEOs & OTHER HOARDERS to JUMPSTART THE ECONOMY NOW--THIS IS A NO BRAINER
D.C. Johnston, author of FREE LUNCH, a book on how the wealthiest corporate leaders are milking the government of its money, stated last week in DN that if Obama is not re-elected president, it will be largely because he did not put enough money behind the stimulus packages in 2009-2010.
Obama's last chance to jumpstart the economy for next year is before us this autumn election.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, September 15, 2009 INITIATIVES FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE NEEDED IN GERMANY--and elsewhere—NOW
The issue of “Lohndumping†and cries for social justice art at heart of GERMAN ELECTIONS REGULARLY. I think not only do Germans and their labor unions need to organize with so muchenergy today in 2009, but Americas and other peoles need to get on the ball and organize subcontractors and underpaid citizens and immigrants more.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, October 4, 2010 "Heaven and Earth" Meets Afghanistan--Another American and Asian Story--
If America is ever learn from its continuing involvement in Asian wars, Americans are going to have to start watching this older Oliver Stone film and reading non-fiction works like Le Ly Hayslip's tales now. Hopefully, redemption in Afghanistan and Iraq will not have to wait till future generation learn and grow up to the facts and horrors of becoming one's own worst enemy come war-time.
(3 comments) SHARE Saturday, May 24, 2008 Some Parents of Vets Coming Home From Iraq & Afghanistan Forced to Give Up Retirement To Care For THeir Brave Offspring
As a lifelong progressive for peace (with great leanings towards non-violent action rather than war to solve conflict issues), I have been concerned for decades as to how one-sided or biased both the American family and its educational communities-not to mention the media-have been in brazenly glorifying America's military power platforms for pressurizing less blessed nations around the globe. My concern has turned to dismay
SHARE Saturday, February 26, 2011 STOP THE APPEASEMENT OF THE LIBYAN HITLER, EUROPE
Europe has watched a bloodbath going on across the Mediterranean for far too long. In fact, over the past decade, European nations and the European Union had even cozied up to the Ghadaffi Regime. Enough is enough Europe. Start helping the victims of Ghadaffi's dictatorship before a lot mor people get killed.
(10 comments) SHARE Sunday, June 17, 2018 How I spent this Father's Day Weekend as Pilgrim at MSD High in Parkland, FL
This father took time to go on Father's Day morning to visit Parkland High School, where students have been leading a national movement to end needless mass-shootings in America. As both a teacher and a father, the author sees this as a pilgrimage to end the horrible status quo of the past 2 decades.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, February 21, 2014 Empathy for Learners—One Way to Have more for TESOLers in Oman and Elsewhere
Currently on Planet Earth, roughly one hundred million people have found themselves teaching English or some other second, third or fourth language, like Chinese, Spanish or French, to others. Teaching and Learning Languages is a lifelong project for some. For others, it is just the act of helping one's fellow man become economically viable. This article is about empathy, and lifelong learning for the teacher/student.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, September 10, 2008 Future of the Gulf States if Obama's Vision Realized
In a week that included the Republican national convention in the USA and several labor related deaths in locations in the wealthy United Arab Emirates, i.e. where the financial center Dubai is located, one author from the oil rich land of Kuwait, Dr. Hisham Al-Awadi wrote in the FRIDAY TIMES about his vision of a world following in the wake of a successful Barrack Obama presidency.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, May 15, 2008 AMERICAN & BRITISH COLLAGE dating from 1978 to 2008: MEET THE CLASH, LISTEN TO THE VIDEO AND READ THE FACTS, JACK
A lot of nostalgic Americans etc are called to attention by usage of phrases and metaphors form oldy music memories, like in the title of the recent OP-Ed article, MY, MY, IT'S AMERICAN PIE: A Mother's Day Celebration.
I think, as an educator, that it is important to introduce other connections to music,video and memory in a way that reaches out to more and more Americans of many ages. Here is a musical and video collage.
SHARE Friday, June 24, 2011 Teaching and Contrasting Cultures using "Dust in the Wind", "Winds of Change" and "Blowin' in the Wind"--Part 2
In the first part of this article, I wrote about how using the song "Dust in the Wind" in a junior high class here in Taiwan was one good way to teach culture--not just culture about my home state of Kansas--but about Western culture (to students in East Asia). In this Part 2 i look at how to use the Scorpion song "Wind of Change" to extend that comparative cultural practice while recycling the metaphor of "wind"
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, May 15, 2008 Uranium and Lead Kuwaiti's Sand Heads for Idaho
Over the past two weeks, for the first time, news was shared in Kuwait that sand that has been contaminated since the 1991 U.S. Coalition War in Kuwait has now been shipped to U.S. soil and is currently heading to Idaho. The sand's contamination resulted from U.S. military vehicles and munitions combining in a combustive accident at the end of that war. The shipment was undertaken somewhat in stealth
(7 comments) SHARE Thursday, October 2, 2014 Iranian Apples and a thought on Americans' relationships to Cuba
When will the boycott with Cuba end and when will we (in North America) be connected to each other as Middle Eastern states are connected despite so many tensions to neighboring states, like Iran?
SHARE Monday, January 10, 2011 "Religion and Preferences for Redistributive Policies in an East Asian Country" i.e. Taiwan
There is a lot of confusion about religion in the world today and how it effects, imperils, or even ahs little influence on politics. Here is an important issue raised in Taiwan concerning secularizing or religion oriented trends in Asian political economic developments
(4 comments) SHARE Saturday, July 12, 2008 When are India and its villages going to unite?
Even though India is officially a federal state, it has had a centralized mentality since J. Nehru took over in 1948. This has slowed development in many rural areas. This article focuses on health care and empowerment of the local communities in India today
SHARE Saturday, November 27, 2010 Serendipity: Fighting and Singing Insects
Till-our-present-day, international cricket combat championships are still held in Beijing, the traditional seat of the Chinese empires. However, crickets and their do-jo masters have made the trip from Japan, Taiwan and the Koreas. Naturally, poets and other romantics have also sung odes to the joy of listening to crickets in the evening. Most of us consider crickets therapeutic and relaxing to listen to.
(3 comments) SHARE Tuesday, May 28, 2013 Is it possible to learn three languages at the same time? Yes, if you have the motivation and reason for doing so.
I have had to learn or tried to learn many languages as an adult working & living abroad. However, my primary and secondary school experiences in Kansas, Missouri and Illinois did not prepare me to do so. In fact, my high school offered no foreign language class at all. Is it possible to learn three languages at the same time? Yes, if you have the motivation and reason for doing so.
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, September 23, 2007 POGO-The Project on Government Oversight Needs More Support and Awareness-as do federal whistle-blowers
On September 21, 2007 a pair of young senators from Missouri and Virginia have presented a bill with over 25 supporters calling for far greater oversight investigating war-time contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Project on Government Oversight (POGO)is a good website to see wht more can be done. Browse their web site and see what they offer.
(2 comments) SHARE Sunday, November 23, 2008 A Multi-Front War's Impact on US Economy Leads Again to Recession
The lesson is don't try and hide the elephant in the room.
If endless wars are sucking up money, let everyone know the facts, so we can handle the debacle before it gets way-out-of hand.
America must avoid any more suicidal melt-downs like the Soviet Union faced in the 1980s, i.e. when that former federal state overspent on wars on multiple fronts over decades, without paying attention to growing and building HOMELAND ECON
SHARE Sunday, May 22, 2011 Continued Lack of Testing Partnerships in East Asia as decades roll on
Shouldn't language teachers in Taiwan, therefore, demand that tests--and contests--more appropriately support good learning habits, good teaching, and good language acquisition and langugage practices? Of course, teachers need to be involved in such advocacy all of the time.
SHARE Tuesday, November 6, 2007 WRITERS' STRIKE PROVIDES OPPORTUNITIES: Think! Instead of Watching Reruns-Change the World: Day 2
This is the second part in a series of articles in which the author makes suggestions as to what viewers (and readers) should do in their spare time during the writers strike. First, size up some good candidates and support them. Second, Close down the government. Third, run for office yourself. Fourth, find a way to put together a progressive coalition. Fifth Impeach Bush. Wow! You never have to watch bad TV again.
(4 comments) SHARE Tuesday, April 28, 2009 Arlen Specter and the Miracle Bullet Theory comes to Obama's Democratic Party
Arlen Specter as a young man helped come up with the single-bullet theory as a membere of the Warren Commission investigating the murder of John F. Kennedy. What committee will Democrats put Specter on? the investigation of crimes in the Bush-Cheney administration?
SHARE Sunday, July 22, 2007 KAKUEI TANAKA'S LEGACY, TEXAS, AND THE LOCATION OF THE REACTOR IN KASHIWAZAKI, JAPAN
Pork belly politics are as American as Texas toast. The rice fields of Japan in Niigata prefecture brought the Japanese one of the more colorful kingmakers, Kakuei Tanaka, in the country's post-world war two history. Will Japan help Texas develop nuclear power in the future with local Texas kingmakers help?
The earthquake in Niigata prefecture should shake nuclear futures. Here is a report the earthquake & its Texaslink
SHARE Saturday, September 13, 2008 Vigilantism & Web Abuse: Who Will Be Victims in Your Neighborhood
What about other users on the web these days all around the planet? Do we need some (international) officials working both nationally and internationally to stop webuser vigilantism and web abuse of private persons?
I am beginning to think that the time is coming.This was especially true for me after I did a quick search yesterday on Google for the name of a friend, who has worked in labor advocacy and labor uni
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, March 7, 2011 5 things that EVERY TAXPAYER IN AMERICA NEEDS TO COMPREHEND
Governor, today liberals are demonstrating all over the country in what CBS has called a liberal version of the Tea Party. Their main complaint is that a lot of corporations aren't paying their fair share. For example, Bank of America in 2009 paid nothing in corporate income taxes.
(6 comments) SHARE Friday, February 25, 2011 Taiwan has moved closer to becoming a smoke-free country by lowering cigarette sales by 13 percent over the past year
Out of 23 million Taiwanese, there are approximately 5 million smokers. I suspect that the numbers are lower than this--as that particular article was written two years ago and the national and local campaigns continue. Moreover, visibility of cigarettes and smoking are becoming almost null through fairly draconian media rules and self-imposed political correctness campaigns run by editorialists in major newspapers.
SHARE Sunday, November 11, 2007 Women in Kuwait Today Contrasted with Sandra Day O'Conner's mid-20th Century America
This article compares primarily the "glass ceiling" for women faced at mid-20th century in the USA with the "glass ceiling" and legal situation for women in Kuwait today. It begins by reporting on the BBC interview held by Sandra Day O'Conner recently and then contrasts the former Supreme Court Justice's experience with that of women in the Gulf Arab world today.
(2 comments) SHARE Sunday, June 5, 2011 Why are the Taiwanese workers of today hyper-focused on Mainland China? Is it inevitable or a bad bias to be overcome/?
According to the TAIWAN NEWS ( May 27, 20110 , in an article entitled ¡§China becomes a hot destination for Taiwan¡¦s workers: Poll¡¨, 77 percent of Taiwanese employees are willing to explore further job opportunities on the mainland [People¡¦s Republic or communist China].¡¨ I wonder who undertook this unnamed poll because the article seems to be spun towards a PRO-unification and AT-ALL-COST friendly relations with China.
(7 comments) SHARE Friday, September 5, 2008 Republican Super-Sinner Party Cannot Be Allowed To Retake The White House
As many of you readers know, I am an evangelical Christian and have been ashamed of "good" Christian folk supporting the most lavish spending cynical groups of Republicanism imaginable for the past 30-plus years.For over three decades, I have witnessed conservative evangelical alliances hoodwink clergy and laity all along the perspective (from misguided Baptists to born-again Catholics) who deny the facts
(5 comments) SHARE Monday, August 20, 2007 AMERICANS TRICKLE BACK TO LAOS-or should be doing so
It is a very important time for America and Americans to begin to build relationships that our nation destroyed in the past. Visiting Laos is the main recommendation of this author. He tells of his recent visit and observations to Laos--focusing on what memories or American amnesia dealing with the bombing of Laos in the 1960s and 1970s. Finally, he makes recommendations on how to help Laos do better.
(4 comments) SHARE Sunday, November 4, 2007 PRESENTATION AT AWARE CENTER ON "MUSLIM CONTRIBUTION TO EUROPE" WITH SPECIAL FOCUS ON TOLERANCE
In part, this educated presenter, Dr. Hussain, sought to clarify the dual forces in world historiography which have kept buried the positive relationship which Islam provided the West approximately a millennia ago--essentially helping the West to eventually exit the Dark Ages and Middle Ages by providing it with higher levels of scientific, medical, astronomic, and mechanical insight.
(4 comments) SHARE Sunday, September 7, 2014 "Spiral of silence" ensues when we begin one-by-one silencing ourselves in social media, so as not to be embarrassingly
Self-censorship? Is it the worst sort of censorship? A lot of people are tending these days to only share political issues, social issues, and other issues of our day with those who are like minded, i.e they share their thoughts usually only on a particular social media platform if they feel there are like minded persons reading their material.
(3 comments) SHARE Thursday, February 27, 2014 The relationship between an SS-WhistleBlower in Nazi Germany and what we need to be witnessing MORE OF
Dear Americans and proponents of peace, justice, and freedom world wide,
Creative resistance is now more needed than ever. Begin to react, infiltrate, and change this status quo that has spiritually, emotionally, and socially impoverished our world with endless war as its only main productive aim. Stop terrorism and all its ilk–even if it is state terrorism as Kurt Gerstein faced on a daily basis throughout his youth.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, June 29, 2011 Part 3: Teaching and Contrasting Cultures "Blowin' in the Wind"
In short, most of the class of Taiwanes students focused on the straining and stoic momentum expressed in the text, "Blowin' in the Wind". Well over the majority did not interpret it as a hopeful, marching, protest song.
In short, these students would concur with Bob Dylan himself, who had said, " "This here ain't no protest song or anything like that"."
(8 comments) SHARE Friday, March 7, 2008 HOW DID IT USED TO BE IN AMERICA 30 YEARS AGO, Grandpa??? Marking 30 Years of Radical Rightwing Islamic movements in the
Since the 1970s, a sort-of counterrevolutionary narration of history has been pushed by popular main stream media. It is a conservative narration that posits that Ronald Reagan revived a positive place for America--a vision for the 21st century its proponents claim. This on-line candidate for U.S. Senat in Kansas begs to differ. There were actually some positive events between 1975 and 1979 that young Americans need to know
(8 comments) SHARE Sunday, January 25, 2009 THE SHOE FITS & FACTS REVEAL APPROXIMATION OF GESTAPO PRACTICES TOO COMMON IN MILITARISTIC ISRAEL
The author has written previously that there continues to be too many similarities between the behavior of national socialists agains Jews and minorities in occupied lands and what we have witnessed more and more in the Holy land from the state of Israel. This three week war in Gaza and the death of many individuals makes the shoe fit ever more. What does this mean for American foreign policy? What will you do?
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, January 22, 2010 Dostoyevsky and the Rhine Society in and around Wiesbaden circa 1865
In literary circles, it has been well-noted that in despair, very lonely, and already in trouble for gambling too much, Fyodor Dostoyevsky fled his many debts in Russia and came to Wiesbaden around 1865. To this day there are still many evident links to Dostoyevsky and the Russian love with/of the West (especially Germany) in 19th Century Wiesbaden. The very street in Wiesbaden City which bares his name, Fiodor-Dostojewski
SHARE Wednesday, June 11, 2008 PERHAPS THE LARGEST WAR PROFITEERING IN ALL HISTORY: U.S. Spending in Iraq since 2003
The BBC finally jumps on the bandwagon and reports for the first time that it has collected enough British and U.S. government reports to claim that over $23 billion dollars have disappeared in Iraq since 2003. At the same time Brits and many in the British government are interested in beginning to call troops home. Will the USA join them in cooperation for such withdrawal?
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, April 28, 2012 Group Evaluations that Support and Clarify Professional Practices and Soft Skills for Students
In the Arab world, there have sometimes been discrepancies between the training offered at the tertiary levels and the present (& future) needs of the labor market, many students, teachers and integrate themselves as individuals in a successful group, office, or team. Evaluation practices that support students and society well in terms of both improving individual achievement in the academic- and professional worlds.
SHARE Wednesday, March 31, 2010 21ST CENTURY IS STILL LOOKING FOR SARTRE
45+ years ago Jean-Paul Sartre turned down the Nobel Prize. "Sartre maintained that his ideals about freedom conflicted with those of the Nobel Committee and that he did not want to be "institutionalized' with the prize money, then worth about $53,000--which he believed would corrupt his writing. Days after the announcement, he told a reporter, "A writer ought to live according to his own lights.'"
SHARE Friday, December 12, 2008 WILL SHINSEKI'S APPOINT MEAN AN END TO THE "CULT OF DISHONESTY" AT THE VETERANS AFFAIRS?
"A recent report by the Rand Corp estimated that among 300,000 troops returning from overseas, one in five had suffered a traumatic brain injury. Between 2002 and 2004, the numbers of veterans claiming unemployment for ex-service members increased by about 75 percent. The cost is more than one-half billion dollars in treatment and lost productivity . Shinseki was one-of-the-very-few active generals in who opposed Rumsfeld
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, September 9, 2010 It's about Consumers & Families, Stupid!
Warren has stated unequivocally that ALL IMPORTANT meetings on how business regulations, government plans, and policies are to be created, structured, and implemented in the good-old-USA need to have this question raised in their midst.
"How does this X affect American families?"
Note: X can stand for policy, regulation, maneuver, practice, trend, project, law, or business activity.
(6 comments) SHARE Tuesday, June 2, 2009 How a Train Station in Wiesbaden Became Confrontation Between the Bundesbahn and its Nazi Reich
The Deutschebahn or German Railway is one of the better run and more profitable railways in the world, yet, little is done to have its train stations or its leadership recognize any linkages in memory related to the Holocaust or slave labor under the Nazi Regime in the 1930s and 1940s. A train is in Wiesbaden to help raise awareness among children and general public this week. The dots need to be connected.
(7 comments) SHARE Saturday, April 10, 2010 Dear President, NO MORE SPARTA!!!!! America needs to return to more Athenian Democracy this 2010
Dear President Obama,As I am expecting my first child next month, it is time to get serious on change and reform in the core pillars of American Democracy
This past week has been an eye-opening period for many Americans--propaganda and cover-ups about the war and too-many victims are seen every where. This is why increasingly, Americans want the country to stop playing the role of an out-of-control Sparta.
SHARE Friday, January 25, 2008 ABU DHABI DIALOGUES ON PROTECTION OF WORKER RIGHTS PRODUCE AGREEMENT-BUT it's just a start!
Twenty states agreed an important first start and partnership towards improving the rights and mobility of foreign labor in the Middle East this the Abhu Dhabi Dialogues. Here is a summary of the document and of key responses from interested parties, such as the IOM's chief.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, May 11, 2007 Shaven Head and Mourning from Cambodia to Virginia Tech
The author shaves his head in morning for 32 days. It is time for a renewal in America in terms of moral standards, true help the need, and true protection and sense of safety for all.
(14 comments) SHARE Thursday, April 14, 2016 Why Sanders and the Pope Mostly Get Along
All and all, Sanders and the leaders of CST teaching of the Catholic church have a lot in common to think and talk about this weekend. I am looking forward to seeing what comes of the renewed Socialist-Catholic relationship in years to come.
(6 comments) SHARE Monday, October 4, 2010 FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS & continuing need for 100% Universal Health Care Coverage Pronto, Sportsfans
I'm sure cultures of peoples around the globe are busy dissecting Americana via cinema and such a film is great for doing just that. By watching, FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS, the avid viewers from around the planet are observing the priorities and ideals displayed in this piece of Americana directed by Peter Berg and Josh Pate.Without good universal medical care, American youth and victims of FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS are to continue.
SHARE Sunday, November 28, 2010 More Serendipity: BIODIVERSITY plus our ONGOING MELT-DOWN-in-ECONOMICS, and Need for Better Education
EDUCATION will be one of the keys to turning around the world from the abyss. It is like the matter of biodiversity itself. Active educators and grown consciousness of the importance of survival of biological diverse ecosystems are the only way to focus action. Stupidity is the act of doing what you know to be wrong. The world is acting stupidly on many fronts. Better action oriented education is needed.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, February 17, 2021 Have you called the FBI on Trump, 134+ Congressmen and Senators yet ?
Why did I file a tip with the FBI sharing my concern that based on current public facts I overheard on the radio, Trump, 134+ Congressmen and Senators, et al., for breaking the RICO Act?
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, March 25, 2010 MARCH 19: CONTINUE DRINKING GREEN-ZONE KOOL-AID?--No, Thank You, USA!!!!
Well, many Americans--who argued against the attack and subduing of the country of Iraq back in 2002 and 2003--were jeered by FOX NEWS and scorned by the Bush-Cheney Administration as "Sadam's Kool-Aid Drinkers". The reference to "cool-aid" naturally referred to the Jim Jone's self-suicide Kool-aid of the 1970s cult. The implication was that we were brainwashed. The real Kool-aid was at the White House.
SHARE Tuesday, June 28, 2011 End the 21st Century "Shoganaism" American-style--"Yes, We Can!"
America fought a WWII in order to set new standards and get rid of the dominate world paradigm. We created a Different World order with Nuremberg Trials, Geneva convention, Declaration of Human Rights. Over the past decades we have become like the Germans and Japanese of the 1930s-1940s who said "Shoganai" or "I couldn't do otherwise. I was just following orders or the status quo."
SHARE Thursday, May 10, 2007 BOOK REVIEW FROM THE EDGE OF THE PLANET: Bill Bryson's A SHORT HISTORY OF NEARLY EVERYTHING
In reading Bryson's book, it has often been ignored how he took time to lift of environmental heroes, like Clair Patterson, who probalby did more to help the enviroment in the 20th Century than any other scientist. Bryson's work is particularly poignant to a reader in an archipelago so far from the USA as globally possible
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, December 6, 2009 GERMAN HISTORY IS FILLED WITH NON-GERMANS, BUT MOST GERMANS DON'T STUDY HISTORY MUCH AND IGNORE THE HISTORICAL FACTS
Engelmann notes that from the turn of the 20th century census statisticians were fudging the count of foreigners so that these large “foreign†population with in the German Empires' borders, from Kalingrad to Strassbourg were vastly undercounted. Similarly, today the number of Germans are undercounted because they refuse citizenship to youth of refugees and stateless persons.
(2 comments) SHARE Saturday, February 20, 2010 Seth Wessler Shares to the World again: What Happens when Great Recession meets 1996 Welfare Reform?
The number of Americans receiving food stamps is at an all-time high. Earlier this year, the Agricultural Department said one in eight Americans--nearly 38 million people--received food stamps last October. The New York Times reported that about six million Americans receive food stamps, saying they have no other income. A new investigation from ColorLines Magazine shows that AMERICA HAS AN IMAGE OF SOCIAL ECONOMIC BASKET CASE
SHARE Tuesday, January 12, 2010 NOW YOU'RE SPEAKING MY WAY, REVIEWING the MESSAGE OF Gary Chapman to the Married World
I have just returned from the Philippines, where I spent over a month with my wife. Along the way, I read and reviewed parts of two books by two American authors that have helped me and my marriage. The first book was given to me by my church in Kuwait, just after my wife and I were married in a formal ceremony a year ago. The second book was Gary Chapman's NOW YOU'RE SPEAKING MY LANGUAGE.
(6 comments) SHARE Monday, November 16, 2009 Eminent Domain and America
I have just heard of Pfizer Pharmaceutical's decision to leave New London, Connecticut...state of Connecticut has done nothing to protect the citizens of New London abused by local usage of eminent domain for decades. Many other states have been concerned of the run amok real estate and city planning practices in Connecticut, New York and other places in America. Americans are growing wary, but more must be done.
I would
(4 comments) SHARE Sunday, February 15, 2009 Collateral Damage Fuels Terrorist Tactics
Protests and Counter Protests in Dresden and Protests in Afghanistan
Too often readers don't connect the dots between stories. This is in some ways no different than the soldier, politician or weapons producer who fails to see "collateral damage" as people and their livelihoods. IHT gave a great example of connecting stories on a single page. I connect the dots. The stories come from Dresden in Germany and Kabul in Afghanis
(7 comments) SHARE Friday, January 29, 2010 WHY IS WASHINGTON IN SLOW MOTION?
Let's start counting the ways that Washington, D.C. is either sleepwalking through history or running the clock back on progress or simply existing in slow motion: A, B, C, D, E, F and yours//
(3 comments) SHARE Monday, November 1, 2010 Will anyone be remembering Chung Shan (Sun Yat-sen) in China in 2011-2012?
Americans need to know more about Chinese history, culture, language and national beliefs. This article talks about all four of these topics in anticipation of the 100th anniversary of the 1911-1912 Revolution in China. Read on please if you are novice and want to know more about China (and US) history or culture.
(2 comments) SHARE Saturday, February 20, 2010 Barnett: TIBET ISSUES MAY BE SOLVABLE
"We are seeing changes in China. There are very important discussions coming on this. This writer who I've been working with, Wang Lixiong, an enormously significant intellectual, who's starting to use terms like "cultural imperialism' to describe China's way of treating Tibetans. These conversations are beginning to emerge inside China. Very significant.But it's going to be a long time before they lead to real policy changes
(6 comments) SHARE Saturday, October 11, 2008 BANKING IS NOT THE CREATOR OF PROSPERITY BUT THE CREATION OF IT
From Kevin Phillips, to Paul Krugman, to Noam Chomsky--over the past 3 decades American political economic leadership has been asked to stop hollowing out the U.S. social and health domain by allowing financiers and others in the U.S. to dominate uttering in their bankrupt claims that Americans cannot afford good health care for all or good economic growth for all regions of the USA. Such bad policy has cost America dearly
(4 comments) SHARE Friday, September 24, 2010 TIDBIT ON ELISE
How would a nation of garbage trucks playing a classical tune going to make Beethoven feel?
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, October 10, 2013 Should I do like the Romans do or should I make waves? How Migrant Teachers and Students face Issue of Attendance Today
At times, migrants, academics, and students simply conform to one another's expectations, but more often than not either the instructor, the administrators, or students will have to be subservient to the historically dominant culture on campus. However, sometimes this approach to living and working abroad is not the one that is needed nor most useful. Taking time-spent in the classroom as one issue the author explores change
(3 comments) SHARE Monday, April 4, 2011 April 4 as children's or our children's-future day?
For Jim Wallis, this is a time to fast for America. For Maya Angelou, it was her birthday. For MLK, it was a pair of bookends to a traumatic year. For Buchenwald, it meant liberation. For Taiwan, it means a celebration of children. What does April 4 mean to you and how do you celebrate it?
(4 comments) SHARE Sunday, April 24, 2011 Sense of Safety here in Taiwan
I hope that back in the USA, there are still some parts of the country which provide similar senses of safety for indidividuals and crimes.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, October 28, 2008 PEACE PILGRIM SIGHTED
This Eastern Europe was wearing baggy clothes--including wearing a sweater with the words "Peace Pilgrim" sewn on it.
Who was the Peace Pilgrim?
We should be prepared for such a witness this year-and the next . . . . and the next . . . and the next.
In the meantime, download a book on the Peace Pilgrim-in her own words-at this web site:
(4 comments) SHARE Saturday, November 1, 2008 Vote against Republicans across the Board in 2008
Well, all across the great American country-but not in Kansas currently-citizens are voting to throw the bums out-including many bums who are more interested in WALL STREET and their oil buddies than they are in promoting Middle American and Main Street needs. Even if Kansas doesn't join the rest of the country, its progressive voters can turn attention on their needs by pulling off a 5% increase in non-Republican votes
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, July 26, 2010 IN A LAND THAT LEADS THE WORLD IN JOURNALIST DEATHS ALMOST EVERY YEAR, CRITICISM CAN ONLY BE LABLED amadomacasaet@yahoo
I was perusing national newspapers this past weekend came across a section called the "Business Circuit" in the THE MALAYA BUSINESS INSIGHT. In four short vignettes or stories the author, unnamed (but using the email address of amadomacasaet@yahoo.com ) detailed the status of political-economic development in the Philippines, nearly 25 years after the last dictator of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos.
(5 comments) SHARE Thursday, November 10, 2016 Kevin Stoda throws his hat in the Ring for SCOTUS
If Trump can run as an outsider, can an outsider be appointed to the Supreme Court? Of course, here is my perspective. However, is such an outsider good for America--maybe. However, there will surely be surprises. We hope for the best and demand Trump unite America by seeking out a middle-ground nominee for SCOTUS.
(3 comments) SHARE Thursday, May 12, 2016 Federal Solutions are in Semitic Tradition and Arabian Peninsular States Should Embrace Them
The great federalist Daniel Elizar wrote, " The biblical grand design for humankind is federal in three ways: " It is based upon a network of covenants beginning with those between God and man, which weave the web of human, especially political, relationships in a federal way -- that is through pact, association and consent." Arab, Hebrew other cultures have historically embraced federalist solutions but not enough these days
(2 comments) SHARE Tuesday, April 19, 2011 Could a better focus on TONE improve our (U.S.A.) international relations with Asian states?
Westerners working in the East have to be attuned to the spoken tone used. In contrast, Eastern and Southeastern Asians need to be aware of vocal tone--and the fact that it is often ignored or used differently by many Western speakers. Moreover, they will have to put more weight on the meaning of the spoken word than on the tone or context in which it might be used.
(4 comments) SHARE Monday, June 15, 2009 THE SHAME OF UNESCO? OR THE SHAME OF EXCLUSION FROM MEMORY?
Nils Minkmar, a Saarland-born German and French writer & observer of political and social life in the modern world, wrote a stinging article against the likely promotion to UNESCO leadership of the Egyptian Culture Minister, Faruk Hosni.In short, quite appropriately, Nils Minkmar is preemptively attacking any efforts to make Faruk Hosni the next General Director.
SHARE Saturday, June 16, 2007 KUWAIT INC., GULF ARAB INC., AMERICA INC. & China and Other Incs.
Too many people assume that it is religion, tribalism, and tradition that makes the Gulf Arab world ticket. This article takes a poltiical economic perspective and demonstrates that it is cartelism and monopolies that are making and breaking economic justice and the grown of democratic access in the region. The article also takes time to find parallels between the USA, China & Japan as well.
SHARE Saturday, February 20, 2010 FRANCE & GERMAN SCHOOLS AGAIN UNDER ACTUAL ATTACKS AND DEATHS
At first glance the problems in German and French schools seem to be coming from different directions. The shootings and attacks in Germany have taken place often in well-to-do towns and in schools that were financially and socially well-off --while a lot of the violence in France has been seen in urban and suburban ghettos.
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, July 3, 2010 Memories of Jobs and Non-Payment by Employers
These first few weeks in July 2010 some 2.5 million Americans will not receive unemployment checks because U. S. Senators from across the Land could not take their wealthy salaries, perks, and insurance and donate them all to the pool of money needed to protect families across America from weeks with no income.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, November 19, 2008 More Things to Learn and Ponder from Kuwait
The legal-economic system of Kuwait allows investors to get more involved in enforcing regulation than is often the case in the West.Do European and American investors have the ability to force the shutting down of a run-away market?
Second, third and fourth articles reviewed in this piece also try to widen our view on the Gulf states in 2008 and what king of social dialogs can be helpful for the West to be aware of.
SHARE Thursday, April 9, 2009 Is Your Kid's Summer Camp an Ideological Training Camp?
This week Germany banned certain youth camps because they had been indoctrinating campers with right wing hate ideology. The author urges parents to teach children to think critically as a protection against those who would warp their sensibilities.
(3 comments) SHARE Monday, July 23, 2007 At 8a.m. Monday July 23: Google Search Shows 2,000,300 Results under "Impeach Cheney Bush"
Yesterday, here were 2,000,000 hits for sites, web pages and articles discussing the reasons and need to "impeach Bush and Cheney" as well as other articles on the topic of impeachment in the past and future. Today there were 30,000 more!
This is necessary and proper. Please join the millions of Americans who seek impeachment--if not a conviction. America's destiny demands it.
SHARE Wednesday, December 3, 2008 HUMAN CRISES STEMMING FROM SEIGE IN AIRPORT IN BANGKOK By Kevin Stoda, a regular Thai tourist and SE Asian Traveler "
This is the audaciousness these 3000-plus protesters of Thailand as they appear to the world while they continue a somewhat unpopular siege of the main national and main international airports now in November and December 2008.
The peoples of most of Thailand, i.e. outside of Bangkok, as well as travelers and investors from around the world today ask the King of Thailand to speak out & end this nonsense before his birthday
(2 comments) SHARE Tuesday, June 2, 2009 GERMANY IN THE MIDST OF CHANGE: NEW GERMANS FROM 113 LANDS WHILE THOUSANDS LEAVE THEIR HOMELAND, "DEUTCHLAND"
Germany is facing the most extreme slide in demographics of any country in Europe. It is currently depending on a strict integration and immigration policy to keep freeloaders from around the world out. While it tries to keep people out, Germans are leaving their homeland and Europe at a fast rate. The German government seems to be failing in its integration, demographic and anti-emigration practices.
(3 comments) SHARE Thursday, September 20, 2007 "NATIONAL PRIORITIES PROJECT"-A Useful Website to See How Taxes are Misspent and Priorities are Lost in America-
I have spent these past few day reviewing the talking-point pages and fact sheets on the NATIONAL PRIORITIES PROJECT (NPP). It is a very informative site for anyone concerned with the political-economic mess our leaders have landed Americans in.
NPP effectively provides data and evidence for citizens and youth concerned about the unfair burdens placed on many peoples and regions of this great land.
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, June 5, 2011 Building Connections and Gaining International Perspectives in Taiwan and East Asia
Amy C. Liu does a great job in defining on pages 84 & 85 of your book.In TAWAIN A TO Z: The Essential Cultural Guide, she writes that guanxi (----ä¿‚) is "[f]undamental to doing business with the locals." i believe this to be a more universal case of building connections and relationships. The Taiwanese and East Asian cultures are not really that different than others--just simply more closed to foreigners or wall-building.
SHARE Tuesday, November 10, 2009 NETWORKS AGAINST NAZIS, NPD MARCHES STOPPED?, & Other Anti-Fascist News from Germany
This is called an “Action Week Against Anti-Semitism†in Germany. This week was chosen because November 9, 1938 was the day when most synagogues in Germany were burned down during the Nazi era. Judges are permitting an NPD march today, November 7, by the NPD in Friedberg, Hessen. Friedberg has a long history in the Jewish community in German, for example, many noted rabbis over the century came from Friedberg.
SHARE Wednesday, November 28, 2007 APARTHEID MAPS-ISRAEL & PALESTINE BANTUSTANS
One really needs maps and photos to understand what is being negotiated between Israel and Palestine this coming month. As many churches and Islamic groups are praying for peace. Here are a set of maps provided by the Jerusalem-based PASSIA (The Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs). These are historical mapsCheck out the links on housing demolitions, barrier checks, ignoring of human rights
SHARE Thursday, May 13, 2010 CHARTER OF FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS OF THE EUROPEAN UNION and Me--A PETITION
The European Union has a Charter of Human Rights but does not really have much enforcement going on, especially on behalf of immigrant labor--who live by the thousands and millions in Europe. The author is providing an example claim to the EU Ombudsman--as individual states can delay justice for over 5 years before foreign labor receive their right to access these supposedly universal rights in the EU.
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, May 1, 2008 TRANSLATION PROBLEMS SERVE AMERICA POORLY ABROAD, ESPECIALLY in WAR ZONES-WHY ISN'T the GOVERNMENT PUMPING BILLIONS into
America of the last half of the 20th century has ignored its growing deficit in language skills--from foreign language skills to emotional intelligence to translation skills. This has encouraged great wastage of resources.
Spin is not enough. America needs a play to overcome its overall deficits in markets from China to the Middle East.It needs to stop wasting money and support Foreign language in schools & university
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, March 25, 2010 UM Kansas Bishop Scott Jones Restates Churches Centuries-Long Commitment to HEALTH CARE AS HUMAN RIGHT
In a bid to caution many mainstream Americans (including Christian ones) from going at each other's throats on health care, the Kansas Area Bishop for the United Methodist Church felt called to circulate the following statement asking peoples to not use nor misuse the issue of "Health Care" and recent legislation to perpetuate a greater cultural divide.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, February 22, 2012 Jeff Quinn's "Man On The Scene: Kaliu"--Insights into Taiwan and East Asia
In a way, this sort of confusion at what it means to live and travel in a globally integrated world are revealed both in Jeff's reflections in Kaliu and in the reality of the confusing geo-political hotspot--which we all still-know as the Two-China Policy reality that U.N. member states and their citizens have been confronting for 4 decades now
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, June 25, 2012 Angela Merkel should be asked to leave office or to learn from history
The German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, has failed to learn what was good about the economic systems in either the former East or the former West Germanies. This failure is killing Europe and the Eurozone.
SHARE Saturday, November 13, 2010 A Suggestion for the Thousands of Native-English Speakers Teaching Abroad: Why not create weekly Newsletters?
I have worked teaching English for 25 years and know that well over 100,000 Natives Speakers of English are now teaching abroad in over 100 lands delivering English training and teacher training. Several years ago in Japan I started using newsletters to help staff and students touch base with me more often. Here is a recent example of length and content I use.
SHARE Tuesday, December 28, 2010 Feast of the Holy Innocents is Today--WHAT ARE YOU MOURNING AMERICA?
This is the second part of a set of FEAST OF THE HOLY INNOCENTS remembrance articles (i.e. a show of support for the poor and innocent victims of mindless war-economics) and a protest roll-call
at, by, & for, military families in the USA and abroad.
SHARE Monday, February 14, 2011 Missouri case needs to be reviewed by the Supreme Court
Missouri Public Defenders have gone on strike this past year due to the fact they cannot handle the current caseload making it even harder for those charged with crimes to get a fair trial in Missouri. The same situation reigns in Texas and numerous other USA states.
(5 comments) SHARE Wednesday, September 26, 2007 Greenspan vs. Naomi Klein and Amy Goodman
Greenspan never once called into question the spending and misspending of the U.S. government on the Iraq invasion.
SHARE Thursday, October 25, 2007 LETTER FROM FIJI: A Call for America to Recognize Reforms
This article introduces an estimate of reforms on-going in Fiji by a reformist insider who until recently was working to improve labor rights and relations in Kuwait.
SHARE Monday, October 26, 2009 Guenther Wallraff Returns—from WAY DOWN UNDER to BLACK on WHITE
About two decades and a half ago, journalist Guenther Wallraff went under-cover in his own Western German (BRD) society, i.e disguised as a Turkish guest worker: Levent (Ali) SigirlioÄŸlu. Ali looked for the many bottom-rung-societal-jobs in Germany which millions of foreigners had undertaken in the Post-WWII Western European miracle years to help empower the West German society to become one of the wealthiest lands in the
(3 comments) SHARE Monday, December 20, 2010 NOTES ON HUMAN RIGHTS SITUATION IN TAIWAN AS REPORTED IN TAIWAN PRESS
Rarely have I come across such a mixed menagerie of human rights stories, i.e. as the Taipei Times, put out on the day after Human Rights Day 2010. Learn a lot about Taiwan in 2010-2011 by reviewing the news, too.
(4 comments) SHARE Thursday, June 25, 2009 GOLDMAN SACHS AND OTHER BANKS STILL BAMBOOZLING AMERICAN TAXPAYERS AND GOVERNMENT
Nomi Prins, the author of books and articles on how conservatives take your money--even if they fail to win elections--is charging the USA Federal Reserve and our money-grubbing bankers of taking even more and blowing it on themselves.
SHARE Saturday, January 5, 2008 Dear New Hampshire Voters and Other Americans: Let's Review Why the Median Income in America has Not Been Good for Deca
Author summarizes points made several months ago on Democracy Now's 2007 Debate Between Greenspan & Naomi Klein. However, the author does so by focusing on a more concise narration of the economy of the USA written months before by Larry Beinhart and published in Op-Ed just as the housing scandle was breaking.
The author reminds New Hampshire and other voters what a real recovery means.
(22 comments) SHARE Tuesday, March 18, 2008 WINTER SOLDIER BLACKOUT CONTINUES: Look in the Mirror America!!!!!
Well, America, I plead with you to spend at least one hour watching some of the hour-long recordings of those presentations.
Go on the web and get hooked on to the biggest news story of 2008 and the most important stories of the past decade-the real stories of our new heroes, WINTER SOLDIERS 2008.
Penny Coleman says, "If America listens to what they say, the war would be over tomorrow."
(7 comments) SHARE Monday, January 18, 2016 Americans are ready for a surcharge on fuels to be used for making the economy more sustainable
In order to transform the country's economy into a more sustainable one, citizens and expats are welcoming a 20 to 25 % price rise in fuels this week.
Meanwhile, Americans are asking for a transformation to a more sustainable political-social economy. Polls show it.
(8 comments) SHARE Saturday, February 20, 2010 Barnett: TIBET ISSUES MAY BE SOLVABLE
"We are seeing changes in China. There are very important discussions coming on this. This writer who I've been working with, Wang Lixiong, an enormously significant intellectual, who's starting to use terms like "cultural imperialism' to describe China's way of treating Tibetans. These conversations are beginning to emerge inside China. Very significant.But it's going to be a long time before they lead to real policy changes
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, November 4, 2010 FOX and OTHER FICTIONAL BUT FIENDISH PROPAGANDA--Stop the Billionaires and Propagandists Today
Sane voices have been to hard to find. I wish to share a saner view of our country, of how to view the world, and how to ask the right questions about war, i.e. as we get ready to vote today. I conclude with a suggestion to follow the examples of good dialogue used by Keith Ellis in a recent interview.
SHARE Monday, May 7, 2012 MISSING CLASSES--What to do when Motivating Lessons are not Enough: Notes from Developing Lands
Over 25 years ago, when I first studies international development, I was told to not allow a lot of cultural baggage to get in the way of development. We were told to not judge nor impose. However, I have come to one of those junctions where the society is developing adversely and a spade needs to be called a spade. Learning does not take place in a vacuum. I am talking about issues of absenteeism, truancy and time.
SHARE Friday, June 15, 2007 KUWAIT INC., GULF ARAB INC., AMERICA INC. & China and Other Incs.
About one to two decades ago, it was popular to bash Japan by calling it one big cartel or megalopolis of cartels. American economists, businessmen, and cheap political hacks named the country: JAPAN INC. Why has not the same criticism been leveled systaematically at WTO partners in the wealthiest Arab Gulf States--as well as in China and Japan?
(8 comments) SHARE Thursday, September 17, 2015 The Tories and Immigration: "Is Cameron in the minority on the issue of Immigration?"
Spectator wrote, "In theory, the Conservative party should be the natural home of new voters who are ambitious, entrepreneurial, hard-working and family-orientated. The immigrant vote--to the extent it can be considered a coherent block at all--ought to be fertile Tory territory. By and large, these are families who have moved to Britain to get ahead and to avail themselves of what Michael Howard called 'the British dream'."
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, September 1, 2010 Taiwan also Has a High Rate of Boys to Girls
Shelly Huang wrote on Taiwans attempt to punish hospitals working against thee nation of Tawian's demographic interests. She notes, "The nation's relatively high average of 1.11 boys born for every girl puts Taiwan at No. 9 behind countries such as China, India and Vietnam that traditionally value male children more than female children, statistics by the department's Bureau of Health Promotion showed."
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, February 18, 2010 WHISTLE-BLOWING AND PAYING THE WHISTLE BLOWER WHO STOLE THE DATA IS PAYING OFF BIG IN GERMANY: Why doesn't America follo
A month ago, the "former banker for the Swiss giant UBS who blew the whistle on the biggest tax-evasion scheme in US" was sent to jail in the USA "to begin serving a forty-month federal sentence. Bradley Birkenfeld first came forward to US authorities in 2007 and began providing inside information on how UBS was helping thousands of Americans hide assets in secret Swiss accounts."America needs to support Whistle Blowers.
SHARE Tuesday, January 15, 2013 My Octogenarian Taxi Driver and finding Insights into Oman
In no other country have I learnt more from indigenous Taxi drivers than I have in Oman. (I have been to over 100 lands.) I suggest you probe your taxi driver to find out what is going on when you travel here. I have heard that even the Sultan sometimes drives a taxi to get the pulse of his nation, too. So, take advantage of this opportunity for insight when in Oman.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, May 2, 2007 Why we all Need to Read "Nathan der Weise" from Lessing and Discuss it with our Islamic Friends
Outside Germany, most people have never heard of Gotthold Lessing's play, NATHAN THE WISE. They should, however, since it is being performed in theaters all over the world outside of Germany. The play is about religion and culture wars,is set in the midst of the crusades and finds great discussions and plot amongst Jews. Christians and Muslims--as everyone learns secrets about their past and identities.
SHARE Friday, October 30, 2009 Press and Secrets: Even when People are OUT Political Correctness Dominates in German Press
Since as early as 2000, the new German Foreign Minister, Guido Westerwelle, has been one of the three or four most-well known gay politicians in Central Europe. The Free Democratic (FDP or Liberal) Party leader, Westerwelle, took his party to an unprecedented electoral success in September of this very year.Westerwelle's appointment had brought criticism to his preferred gender relationships here in Germany.
(2 comments) SHARE Saturday, January 15, 2011 IF THIS SPEECH WERE GIVEN TODAY BY MLK
Nor does the human spirit [WITHIN US] move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one's own bosom and in the surrounding world. Moreover, when the issues at hand seem as perplexing as they often do in the case of this dreadful conflict, [I.E. THE SOCALLED WAR ON TERROR] we are always on the verge of being mesmerized by uncertainty. But we must move on.
SHARE Monday, February 23, 2009 Dear Conservative Church Fellowships, Let's Talk about Empowerment of Women and Families,
Many op-ed readers are overwhelmed or uninformed about the OTHER. That is they are clueless as to how to communicate with conservative christians. Like in all cultural wars, one needs to know and appreciate the thought and language process of the other. I have been participating in multicultural and bilingual fellowships for three decades. This letter is one way to open discussion and to share argumentation style.
SHARE Sunday, April 20, 2008 From Kuwait Elections for Parliament to American primaries-a Landscape of News, Self-Censorship, Non-sense, and the Outr
OK, Kuwait does have some official censorship, so it therefore should be the case that the USA news is better. Right?
Wrong! Here is an example of how the media in a censored land outshines nearly 85% of American press in monitoring news, human rights, government, etc.
This is why blogging is great--but possibly enough.
That is why the US media needs to be forced by average Jo and Joe America to do much better.
(6 comments) SHARE Wednesday, June 13, 2007 PLEASE, JAPAN, STOP THE WHITEWASHING OF MEMORY!
Over the last few years, the world has witnessed resurgence in Japanese memory-loss related to WWII and the invasion of China at the government level. Not a month seems to go by without the Japanese Prime Minister or some other official visiting or sending gifts to the infamous Yasukuni Shrine (Shrine dedicated to war heroes) near Tokyo.
(3 comments) SHARE Sunday, October 7, 2007 CONTINUING to PONDER GOD and HOW SOME CHRISTIANS BECAME DISORIENTED and LOST THEIR WAY by FOLLOWING and PURSUING RIGHT-W
Many Christians in America haven't yet thought through the problems caused in terms of group think and propaganda involved with word choices in how they express their struggles in life, faith, world, and making themselves understood politically and socially. The mutual coopting of the religious right and the Republican party (Con or Neo con) affected the way we think and express ourselves. The author looks at one example.
SHARE Sunday, February 24, 2008 FOREIGN POLICY QUESTIONS FOR THE NEXT PRESIDENT ANSWERED BY A COGNITIVIST-NOT A NEO-CON, A NEO-LIBERAL, NOR EXTREME RIGH
As far as I can tell no candidate has answered all of the foreign policy questions posed by the International Herald Tribune Editorial staff this past week. Since I am the on-line candidate for president in the Republican and Democrat parties this year, I will answer them. Perhaps McCain, Obama, Clinton, and Huckabee will take time to put their two cents in, too. I have answered from a fairly clear cognitivist IP perspective
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, June 11, 2009 SUSTAINABLE VOTING & DEVELOPMENT--EUROPEANS ARE STILL EXPECTED TO ACT & VOTE PAROCHIALLY IN THESE 2009 EUROPEAN PARLIAME
Everyone talks about sustainable development but sustainable development also takes democratic participation. This is what Michael Kopat of Wuppertal's influential institute ZUKUENFTSFAEHIGES DEUTSCHLAND says in a recent speech in Wiesbaden Germany. Europeans and North Americans should follow his advice and political analysis when voting.
(2 comments) SHARE Sunday, December 9, 2007 "IMPEACH CHENEY AND BUSH": YAHOO is GOING STRONG with nearly 4.5 Million RESULTS while GOOGLE APPEARS MANIPULATED DOWNW
With "Impeach Bush Cheney" search engine results on YAHOO rising upward to nearly 4.5 million as of December 8, 2007, why are GOOGLE results spiraling downward by well over 60% in the same period?
This article is the third in a study of how the GOOGLE algorithm for its searches reflect or fails to reflect the American pulse as concerns "IMPEACH CHENEY BUSH".
(2 comments) SHARE Saturday, February 20, 2010 BANKRUPTCY OF AMERICA IN MULTI-FACETED WAYS IS THE GOAL OF TERRORISM--just ask Osama
I have been reading a recent email letter from a progressive group trying to persuade Americans to work for a bottom up revolt against a system that has:
Thrown trillions of Dollars in the Wars on Terrorism, etc. and bankrupt the USA as occurred three decades ago in the USSR.
--Thrown out Basic American Liberties wholesale.
--Promoted further homegrown terrorism.
--Led to deaths of over 5000 American soldiers.
etc.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, April 22, 2009 REVOLUTIONS OF 1989-Part 2: CONTEXTUALIZATION of CHURCH'S ROLE
Was the collapse of communism less related to globalization than to the simple fact that people wanted change in 1989 at a time when the majority of leaders were willing to join the masses in attaining change. Or, did the people run ahead and the leaders have to follow? What roles did the church and protest leaders play in the Revolutions of the late 1980s in Europe? What lessons can we learn today from pre-collapse Europe?
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, June 25, 2010 McChrystal, USA FLAG and Miscommunication Skills
Social conflicts often involve some misunderstanding.Parties in conflict communicate by what they say (or do not say) and how they behave toward each other. Even normal interaction may involve faulty communication, but conflict seems to worsen the problem. Was General McChrystal just looking to get fired or did he really want to communicate more than incompetence in leadership style? Let's look at metaphor of misunderstanding
SHARE Saturday, April 27, 2019 Should we take a peace dividend for the next generations and reduce our wastefulness in terms of Defense and Security?
With this article I'm passing on my suggestion(s) and concerns to the DCCC and Sharice Davids (Congresswoman from Kansas 3rd District) whom I told yesterday to "Use a reduction in armed forces (bases in 177 countries) and out-of-control DOD spending to pay for Green New Deal Infrastructure, Schools, & Medicare for All."
Nancy Pelosi needs to follow suit or get out of the way of progress/progressives. In short, there's money
(5 comments) SHARE Monday, May 5, 2008 KUWAITI KALEIDESCOPE: May Day 2008, Elections, and other Insights
This is an editorialized summary of the news from around May Day 2008 at the nexus of where Iran, Iraq, and the Persian Gulf meet--namely Kuwait. The review begins with a report on the labor situation in Kuwait. Then it turns to national elections which are due on May 17. It looks especially at younger voters and critical trends in editorializing and predicting what will happy next in this MAD MAD World.
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, April 3, 2008 A Friend of Kuwait-who could have died--writes on Tribes, families, raising children and violence against foreigners
This letter was provided to ALONE by a passenger on a bus in Kuwait who was almost killed on the night of 2 April 2008. ALONE notes that he was likely contacted to share this letter because he had presented a lecture on Safety in Kuwait some months ago. The letter raises issues of tribal practices in Kuwait and endangerment of unempowered Kuwaitis in a system of mafia-like godfather groupings in the Gulf State.
(22 comments) SHARE Monday, April 22, 2013 How to Help your Employees, Administrators, and Students Understand What Unites Them - and What Makes Them Unique
Too many countries, especially those here in the Middle East, are focusing on high-stakes exams instead of making the classroom reflect more of what we experience in the real world. In this paper the author encourages colleagues, trainers, and teachers across two continents to strive to use simulations and simulation games in class and in training sessions. He focuses on on well-known simulation on culture: BARNGA.
SHARE Tuesday, November 20, 2007 A VISIT FROM THE HOLY SEE-ARCHBISHOP IN KUWAIT PROMOTES DISCUSSION BETTER RELATIONS WITH ISLAM
The author describes (Nov 12, 2007) the visit of Archbishop Mounged El-Hachem (Apostolic Nuncio to the State of Kuwait) to the Aware Center in Surra, Kuwait in which he presented on "Dialogue between Christians & Muslims Today". He focused on documents from Vatican II and an October 13, 2006 letter from Muslim clerics and scholars from 49 nations.
(7 comments) SHARE Sunday, July 29, 2007 NEEDED NOW--CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS FOR PEOPLE'S RIGHTS AND MAINTENANCE OF PEOPLE'S AUTHORITY
The first step to constitutional reform in America is to define our progressive agenda in amendment form. The next step is to call for constitutional convention. Both processes need to be started immediately. One of the more important early amendments should be to increase citizens ability to hold conventions and to pass amendments, i.e. reform the process of making an carrying out amendments by lowering from 3/4 to 2/3...
(2 comments) SHARE Sunday, October 5, 2008 I Called it Right! I Called it Wrong
By now Americans and the world know that too much of the American economy over the past 3 or so decades was based on debt and debt as an export commodity should not be the name of the game. That is why I predicted the collapse of conservative and neo conservatism in 2000, i.e. with the non-election of Bush-Cheney. One could see a crash--coming delayed only by war spending and bad governmental response. Progressive RU ready?
SHARE Wednesday, February 10, 2010 GOVERNMENT FINANCED TRAINING PROGRAMS ININNER-CITIES, SMALL TOWN AMERICA DEMANDED NOW FOR PROMOTING GOOD JOURNALISM
a Major problem in for all of us is the current collapse in America (and worldwide) of journalism as a wage-earning industry. This slide has been a decades-long crash in good journalistic media in the USA--a nation taken like a pig to slaughter in the recent wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. The new internet media may have sped up this crashing around us of good media in most places where it counts in America
SHARE Saturday, January 17, 2009 Monkey Business 2008-2009 and ....Germany Joins In Just as Major Election Year Begins
My aunt sent me this article on MONKEY BUSINESS last week--the very week that the German government set a record for the bailout package for a single bank, namely the German Commerz(Commerce)Bank. The cost to German tax payers is 18,000,000,000 Euros.
I believe German photos can empathize quite well as they go to the polls in 2009. The first elections since the bailout are tomorrow, January 18 in the state of Hessen.
(4 comments) SHARE Monday, September 28, 2009 EUROPE CONTINUED TO PROMOTE DEREGULATION AT G-20 IN PITTSBURGH
Lori Wallach, the director of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch division, stated in an interview that, in contrast to their own rhetoric, many of the EU states (and the EU itself) continue to promote the most extreme and de-regulating initiatives for financial services in the DOHA ROUND, even as they publicly push for finance rules to primarily protect themselves at the G-20 Conference yesterday.
(2 comments) SHARE Tuesday, July 1, 2008 Ghandi-Like Protest in India--How about in the USA?
This article looks at the legal system in India and asks how Gandhi-like protesters are treated there. Is it any different than in the USA?
(6 comments) SHARE Saturday, October 25, 2008 PARDON ME--HCAN is not single-payer
Unfortunately HCAN is a decoy to once again kill healthcare reform in this country. Obama's plan is essentially Clinton's plan. She found that the insurance lobby was so powerful the best approach was to just give them what they want. So the Obama/Clinton/HCAN plan is to leave the private health insurance industry in control, allowing them to keep insuring the healthiest and wealthiest people and reaping the profits of
SHARE Tuesday, February 9, 2010 BEATING M*A*S*H--Well that took a long Time: Let's Consider Why?
Well, one of the AP's big headlines following the Super Bowl on Sunday was "Super Bowl is Most Watched TV Show Ever". I was startled as I realized that the Final Episode of M*A*S*H had been able to hold its own against the Super Bowl, sponsored so much by the Department of Defense's recruiting services to the tune of millions year-after-year for over 26 years. [That episode was called "Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen".]
(8 comments) SHARE Monday, July 2, 2012 Attendance Reforms Still Needed in Schools & Universities of the Arab World
The issue of "dumbing down" the curricula has been a worry for educators , students, and families for generations.But the government can do better when it allocates resources, so that "dumbing down" is not demanded of a curriculum.This article makes a proposal concerning student allowances and bonuses to promote good learning behaviors and models, especially in Middle Eastern classrooms.Unemployability is already a big issue
SHARE Thursday, August 30, 2007 American Education in USA--in TERRE HAUTE where one Sign at the Steakhouse reads: DRAFT BEER, NOT SOLDIERS
Young people have high university and college debts.Young people are disillusioned with educational options and costs.Some people oppose the draft as a solution to America's recruitment shortfalls, however, no one is discussing drastic reduction in American military waste and over-expansion of budgets each year.
The media and propaganda budget of the USA government's military machines overwhelm young people in debT.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, September 15, 2009 SPD's FUTURE WILL CONTINUE to LOOK GOOD—BUT ONLY AFTER it WORKS OUT its DIFFERENCES with THE LEFT in 2010 or 2011
until the SPD's national leadership and their supporters can work out their differences, the SPD is likely to be the odd-man-out when national election day arrives. Currently, the SPD is only expected to get about 23% of the national vote on September 27. Therefore, rumors are abound that following this anticipated-2009-catastrophe, the SPD will rethink its attitude towards working with THE LEFT party.
SHARE Monday, June 25, 2007 ABUSE OF A BENEVOLENT AGENCY by media & IT'S NOT THE GOVERNMENT; IT'S PEOPLE-TO-PEOPLE THAT COUNTS IN MAKING PEACE
The first part of this article focuses on how popular culture in the form of TV reruns can affect America's image and the images of benevolent volunteer organizations, using the Mennonite Central Committee in the TV series THE AGENCY as an example. Then the author discusses the need to increase people-to-people efforts, especially in the Middle East today.
SHARE Saturday, April 10, 2010 MANY GERMANS HAVE NOT YET GOTTEN USED TO THE IDEA THAT THEIR COUNTRY IS AT WAR
Until the new CDU, CSU, and FDP coalition German government came to power after elections last autumn for nearly a decade it was taboo in Germany for the defense ministry to say the W-word. However, with the worst and most intensive fighting of its 50-plus years of history taking place in Kundus (Afghanistan) last week, Germany's Bundeswehr says the words much more freely now.
(4 comments) SHARE Wednesday, January 2, 2008 IOWA VOTERS, PLEASE, SHAKE UP THE SYSTEM AND CHANGE THE WORLD IN 2008!
Candidate Kevin Stoda asks Iowa Republicans to be become emancipated from BIG MONEY--that is why he is running on the web. His first five actions upon taking office would be to (1) focus on the poor being hurt by current banking closure and possibly remunerate losers of proper who who have already lost their property over the past year. All bailouts for large lenders will have to place banking sector under new rules etc.
(4 comments) SHARE Wednesday, May 13, 2009 Is Now the Time When Spin Is No Longer Enough?
This article looks at three subjects: (1) mothers day, (2) parents raising their children and their grandchildren these days and (3) spin in the media intended to cover up the facts of life which affect Americans lives each day. The author asks WHEN WILL TOO MUCH SPIN LEAD TO AMERICANS SAYING too much???
(3 comments) SHARE Friday, February 13, 2009 C & A Takes Google to Court-Should other Bloggers, too?
According to the WELT KOMPAKT (Feb. 10, 2008), the department chain C & A has taken Google, Inc. to court to prohibit its AD SENSE advertising on German websites.
The claim is that Google's AD SENSE has unfairly edited its already paid-for advertising.
The AD SENSE business is a Google advertising business, whereby thousands of Google Bloggers can make money through advertising exclusively for Googleclients however...
(7 comments) SHARE Sunday, July 12, 2009 WHICH CAPITALIST PATH WILL WIN OUT? ASIAN AUTOCRATIC? EUROPEAN CONTINENTAL? or AMERICAN-BRITISH?
Reflections upon the end of the so-called Pure Market Antidote to political-economic-and socialized management of societies have been heavy since American home markets began tearing the stock and financial markets of the planet apart in 2006. In the title of this article of mine, I am asking what kind of modes of capitalism will come to dominate over the following decades. What do readers think will take place?
(8 comments) SHARE Friday, April 11, 2008 ARE MUSLIM RETALIATIONS EVER JUSTIFIED!? And are Muslims Oversensitive?
The AWARE CENTER focuses on providing a forum for Westerners and Arabs to get together face-to-face, and on this evening, March 27, 2008 there was great interest in this topic--as reflected by the wide-range of nationalities at the diwaniya (or meeting in Arabic) that evening. On this evening, there were audience- and participant members from many countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, and North America & representing many diffe
SHARE Wednesday, February 3, 2010 Well, let's put up some NGO's for office against the Great Corporations of the World?
I just saw the video clip of a Maryland corporation running for Congress. The spoof shows MURRAY HILL INC. telling us Americans in the Wake of One of the Worst USA SUPREME COURT DECISIONS in 200 years that Corporations are ready to officially take their seats in the Senate, the House of Representatives and the White House.An alternative to corporate institutions officially taking over the White House would be NGOs for Prez.
SHARE Sunday, December 16, 2007 WHERE YOUR TAX DOLLARS REALLY GO?-WHEN IS ENOUGH ENOUGH, AMERICA? The total outlays for defense spending this 2008
Author discusses the casualties in the American economy and social sense of security caused by throwing money at a "endless war on fear". The author notes that currently the military debt in budget for 2008 is 2.4 trillion dollars. The author rewrites one of those on-line critiques of taxes in the U.S. in general to make the point.
SHARE Sunday, June 17, 2007 THE USE AND ABUSE OF NEWSWEEK: WAS THAT A JAPANESE GOVERNMENT PLANT IN NEWSWEEK in April or WAS THAT JUST BAD HISTORY?
Last April 2, 2007 NEWSWEEK published a special issue on memories of American soldiers (and even a few Iraqi families) who have been killed in Iraq since 2003. For some reason in the very same issue NEWSWEEK published a self-victimization piece by a a Japanese Historian who had worked previously as advisor to the Prime Minister of Japan. The article contained bogus claims that Japan force women into slavery as prostitutes.
(2 comments) SHARE Tuesday, February 2, 2010 IN THE USA, GERMAN FAMILY RECEIVES ASYLUM FROM PERSECUTION
This is the second of two articles submitted on bullying German society. This one focuses specifically on home schooling as an laternative to sending children to schools where bullying or "mobbing" is too common.
SHARE Thursday, March 3, 2011 2-28 Day in Taiwan (Formosa)
During the prior decade, the date 2-28 began to be commemorated in Taiwan, but sadly most Taiwanese residents do not openly take this date to reflect on what there fore-fathers faced in terms of the erasing of Formosan memories from the 1950s onwards.
Meanwhile, thousands of statues and busts of the so-called founding father of the KMT--Chiang Kai Shek--remain throughout the country.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, November 1, 2010 I Agree that the US Wealthy Demand TOO MUCH CODDLING!! Don't you?
Why does the USA Chamber of Commerce and Some Multinational Corporations not like Clinton??? Obama's criticism of large companies for using tax breaks to ship jobs overseas. That's it.
SHARE Saturday, September 22, 2007 GET TO KNOW BURMA-SO-CALLED MYANMAR!!
This article introduces readers to how the Burmese struggle today fits into a larger global pattern of supporting military juntas and thugs. It also introduces readers to basic concepts of the decade-long struggle. It also shares links to infromation on heroes, like Aung San Suu Kyi and Dr. Cynthia Maung.
SHARE Tuesday, October 28, 2008 Centralized Planning of Society is Often Biblical, Not Necessarily Socialist
Moreover, on the charge that Obama is socialist, MacArthur chuckles, "Barack Obama is a socialist like Harper's Magazine is a media conglomerate. It's the most preposterous charge I've heard in a pretty crazy campaign. When they keep saying that Barack Obama puts socialism ahead of entrepreneurship, I keep thinking of the vast amount of money he's been collecting from Wall Street for his campaign."
SHARE Sunday, August 2, 2009 BREAKDOWN IN COMMON SENSE AND DISCIPLINE: TOO COMMON IN HISTORY OF WAR
Whether it is Douglass MacArthur or recent American generals and officers in Iraq or Afghanistan, THE USA MILITARY machine continues to ignore facts on the ground, such as noncombatants on the ground when carrying out warmaking. Why has the USA milityary not improved in its capacity to protect civilians? I think it is because we never take genersl and officers in for war crimes trials like we should and as code of behavior
SHARE Tuesday, April 13, 2010 Almost no foreign non-profit insurance carriers will make a reciprocal coverage agreement with the many for-profit-USA (
This lack of insurance coverage for Americans--like for my sister formerly and I currently--whenever visiting the USA with our families has been the RESULT of the fact that USA HEALTH CARE HAS BEEN SO-OUT-OF-CONTROL-EXPENSIVE that almost no foreign non-profit insurance carriers will make a reciprocal coverage agreement with the many for-profit-USA's wealthier and larger insurance firms.
SHARE Monday, March 17, 2008 Even as Kuwait and Gulf Region face the 3rd driest winter in over 50 years, Kuwait will invest $77billion dollars or mor
This article introduces the phenomena of a $77 billion dollar investment project on the Iraqi border by Kuwaiti Investors an government. It would seem on the surface a fairly risky move--with global warming, war in Iraq, potential war with Iran all possibly affecting this humongous investment. The project would take place south of where the Euphrates enters the Persian Gulf. Why is there such a gambit now in 2008?
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, March 5, 2008 RECORD HIGHS onYAHOO at 8,250,000 hits-i.e. IMPEACH BUSH CHENEY (IT'S UP ON GOOGLE again, TOO)
At 9:45pm Iraq Time, I checked YAHOO to gain a pulse on how the buzz on the internet is currently on about "IMPEACH BUSH CHENEY" this March 3, 2008, i.e. as the U.S. faces its most expensive single-theater war in history for the 5th straight year.
YAHOO registered 8,250,000 hits. This is an increase of nearly 3,800,000 hits in 3 months time on YAHOO.
(3 comments) SHARE Tuesday, July 24, 2007 REAL BLOGGER FEELS IGNORED BY GOOGLE SEARCH WHILE SPLOGGERS GET TOO MUCH SUPPORT FROM GOOGLE
Splogs and sploggers need to be elinated from search engine results to a greater degree than they have been till now. In this article, a small experiment is shared in which GOOGLE engine results are compared to other search engine results. The difference between GOOGLE results and other's results is best explained by a subtle concurrance by Google that blogspot is likely promoting splogs.
SHARE Tuesday, October 20, 2009 According to Broader Unemployment Figures 17% of Americans are Jobless--and soon even higher
According to early reports this October, “The government's broader measure [of unemployment], known as the'U-6' for its data classification, hit 17% in September, 0.2 percentage points higher than August.†The only one benefitting from this is the department of defense, which met its recruitment goals in all areas for the first time in 35 years.
SHARE Sunday, August 5, 2007 COLLAPSED BRIDGE IS JUST ANOTHER SIGN OF "THE LOSER SCHOOL OF GOVERNMENT" DRIVING AMERICA TO BE A THIRD WORLD COUNTRY
America's SPENDING annually of over $1,000,000,000,000 to 2,000,000,000 on (a) a national war machine, (b) its prior war debts & commitments, and (3) promoting arms trades abroad will not make AMERICA competitive with CHINA or any other power over the next 100 years.
Nor will it be an encouraging place for our children or grandchildren to grow up in.
Demand that future government bonds support America.
SHARE Monday, January 14, 2008 CALL TO REPLACEMENT INCOME TAX WITH THREE SMALLER TAXES TO HAVE BETTER GOVERNANCE
As Mike Huckabee has advocated a flat sales tax to replace the income tax in the USA, it is time to consider a better plan: This plan envisions replacing the current single income tax with a tax that voters can use to tell the government what their spending priorities are and what the government's priorities should be. This 3-part tax plan envisions using 3 smaller taxes to replace the income tax. It is also fairer to poor
SHARE Tuesday, October 27, 2009 Why did the European Press do Such a bad job of covering world wide and continental actions?
Bill Kibbons,a cofounder of 350.org, stated, “Here's the thing about Obama and Copenhagen and everything else. We can't blame our leaders yet, because we haven't built the kind of movements that demand that they do things and that give them the political space to do it. If Copenhagen is a failure, that failure will be measured not in decades, but in geological time. President Obama can't let it be a failure."
SHARE Monday, January 10, 2011 COLD
As an oral historian for over three decades, I have been interested in having peoples of my and my parents generations passing down the realities of history. I think that our children do carry what we pass down to them. I want to share--what a lot of folks my age and older take for granted--our history of cold and struggle for fuel efficiency in our liftime. Read and pass on your own story.
(3 comments) SHARE Sunday, December 2, 2007 DAY 2 OF THE CAMPAIGN IN IOWA
Too few Republicans born or raised after 1980 know that there were once fantastic progressive movements and leaders in the party. The focus of this writing is reminding voters of this fact in advance of the Iowa caucus. A change is needed in 2008 and the party needs to allow social evangelicals, Republican unionists, and progressive Republicans have a voice for a change. America needs it.
SHARE Tuesday, September 23, 2008 The Bin Ladens, The Hurricanes (like Ike), and Legacy of Bush and America: any MEMORIAL for bad Governance 2001-2008???
America and the World have seen quite a show this past week--including a proposed 800 billion dollars being spent on badly run companies. However, there was a lot more going on this past week. We need to chew on there as the election knocks at the door. Can the US put the pieces together and nail the lid on the coffin to bad governance and leadership?
SHARE Thursday, November 1, 2007 PROTESTS, SYMBOLISM: SHAVED HEADS IN BURMA HIT THE STREETS AGAIN
The first section of this article reviews what has occurred in Burma over the past 6 weeks since the Military Junta's crackdown began. The author attempts also to explain the role and position of monks in a greater movement against one oth worst regimes of the past 3 decades. Finally, the author looks at the issue of how to support good movements (with a focus on imagery and opposition).
(4 comments) SHARE Monday, July 7, 2008 ISN'T THE BEIJING OLYMPICS OUR PARTY, TOO? SHOULDN'T WE SPEAK OUT?--A View from India
India, the USA and countries from around the globe are sending athletes to the Olympics in Beijing in September. Due to the trajedies of earthquakes, pressure has been put off China to some degree, but some student groups and others are asking that athletes, their trainers and families in China at the olympics speak out. Here is a summary of the view from India and some suggestions for Americans.
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, May 17, 2008 Kuwait Marks 45th Anniversary as UN Member by Trying to Deport Bangladeshi Workers and by Harassing only Ex-Pats going o
On May 1, the International Day of Labor, Bangladeshi laborers who had not been paid in many months held a second strike for non-payment of salaries for the fact that their employer had allowed their Kuwaiti visa to expire without renewal. This means that without wanting to be so, hundreds are currently illegal in Kuwait.
Many local news agencies noted the plight of these laborers. I also published the story.
(4 comments) SHARE Saturday, February 2, 2008 "Now that EDWARDS, KUCINICH, RICHARDSON and OTHER PROGRESSIVES HAVE ABANDONED the RACE, I WILL NOW RUN for PRESIDENT o
Someone needs to state ECONOMY IS CONGURENT TO WAR and explain to the media consumers and voters that the WAR is DOMESTIC Politics. With 170,000 american troops in Iraq now and hundreds of thousands more set to go there over the next two or three years, "It's the War Stupid, i.e. the economy". This is a wake up call to progressives to put the heat back in the 2008 elections:WAR IS COSTING AMERICANS TOO MUCH
SHARE Tuesday, May 13, 2008 US & UK Collage: 1978 to 2008:
I desire to share two videos and collection of music wrapped in collage about Pax- Americana and Pax-Britannia dating from 1978 through 2008
As you Americans and British go through the 6th year of war in Iraq and the 8th year of the so-called War on Terrorism, it is fascinating to note that "If I Were A Terrorist: A James Pence Video!",
, is now one of the most popular and most controversial videos in America's heartland,
SHARE Tuesday, April 29, 2008 The Almontaser Case & the Fact that Many in Education Have to Fall on their Sword or Take Dives for Bad Leadership
Educators are sometimes offered as victims by administrator to politicians and bigwigs in any community in America and around the world. Times of war make it particularly hard on educators. The author looks first at the Almontaser case at the Khalhil gibran school in NYC in 2007-2008 and contrasts it to his own experience in Kansas teaching during the first Gulf War, 1990-1991. See role this plays inUSAforeign language
SHARE Monday, September 17, 2007 SETTING UP A BASE FOR ALLIED TROOPS ON THE IRAN-IRAQ BORDER!!!!! Why We shouldn't trust the spin of Patraeus and Neo-Con
Even before the recent French leadership's warning today that the world needs to prepare for a war with Iran, the Bush-Petreaus team were busy last week white washing the facts--facts which only independent media and national media outside the USA seem to be aware of. The following is a quick summary or round-up of the facts and editorials most of the world are aware from news this past week.
SHARE Monday, January 21, 2008 KUWAITI NEWS ROUND-UP or SMORGASBOARD: JANUARY 2008
By reviewing the local Middle Eastern news broadly this January 2008, one discovers that bin Laden's and George W. Bush are seen as connected. For example, just days after Bush left Egypt, we find that a new sort of Bin Laden political actor hs arisen on the Middle Eastern radar. This bin Laden looks like his father but claims to be a piecenik. Meanwhile George W. Bush has a lackluster reception in Kuwait and elsewhere.
SHARE Wednesday, May 30, 2007 KUWAITI HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVIST HOUNDS BRITISH DIPLOMAT AND TRIES TO FOCUS MORE ATTENTION ON RIGHTS ISSUES IN KUWAIT
The Kuwaiti government and ruling family should learn from Human Rights advocates and NGOs in order to compliment efforts and give a platform for the neglected and provide public space for more interaction by providing the non-Kuwaitis to organize more readily in order to promote human rights and dignity for all. Moreover the government and society ought to try to become a country with a government that more thorou
SHARE Wednesday, May 12, 2010 EURO LEADERS SPEND BILLIONS; GERMAN GOVERNMENT SHAKIER THAN EVER; STUDENTS IN THE STREETS BY THE THOUSANDS
This was the worst election result in the history of the conservative party (CDU/CSU) in Germany since WWII. It was obviously a sign that the German citizenry are becoming tired, too, of the status quo and this rise in youthful (and voter) protests is likely to be a sign of a long hot summer in German politics.
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, July 11, 2009 3 BIG PARADIGMS (HOLDOVERS from Cheney-Bush, et. al.) that OBAMA NEEDS to THROW OUT
At a HAW round table in January many famous historians spoke on their overall evaluation of Bush-Cheney era. Among them was the foreign affairs historian Vijay Prashad, who noted that since Carter, every single U.S. president has continued to follow a flawed-but-similar foreign policy approach to other lands.
SHARE Saturday, December 8, 2007 DEAR REPUBLICANS AND PROGRESSIVE EVANGELICALS: A NOTE ON A WAY OUT OF THE QUAGMIRE
This is part of a series of articles focusing on the Iowa Caucus, the need for progresives to shift all debates to the left of the status quo, and the need to rethink business as usual in terms of presidential campaigns and the electoral system currenlty in play. The genre used to do this is through a letter to the voters of Iowa.
SHARE Wednesday, November 7, 2007 Clean Ports and Waterways
Community for Clean Ports claims that nearly 20 billion dollars in health related costs stem from port pollution and contamination so for in 2007! Instead of sending soldiers off to get in trouble and die needlessly in foreign wars, America should be paying for a large Conservation Corp. Pay these citizens in the corps at least as well as those in the military are paid-and demand improve military benefits' levels to boot!
(2 comments) SHARE Saturday, March 29, 2008 OBVIOUS REASONS that Kansans Need to Sack Republican Senator Pat Roberts in 2008
This article is a summary of why Kansas could set the tone by changing its longterm support for Republican Senators, like Pat Roberts, who supported the War in Iraq blindly and with a big wink to the facts. They have also helped cover up investigations of the administration in Ethics committees. The article is an appeal by the online candidate to throw the bums out in 2008--starting in Kansas
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, May 8, 2008 "Kuwaitis, US Troops in Road Rage" Reports Arab Times' Front Page
alienation? shellshocked? What are the excuses for violent behaviors in the Gulf?
This editorial contrasts the jusxtapositioning of two articles in a Kuwaiti newspaper. The first talks about a Kuwaiti who became a suicide bomber in Iraq. The other looks at arrogance on the highways and the legal system in Kuwait but focuses more on US soldier arrogance in the gulf
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, May 14, 2008 A LONG-TERM APPROACH TO BEING A COUNTER-CULTURAL WITNESS, i.e. NOT CONSTANTLY IN A CULTURE WAR
In her article, "Loving the Storm-Drenched", Mathewes-Green writes to a largely Christian audience who is not enamored with the era of culture warring that we witness around today. has to do with good common sense for progressive audiences of all shapes and backgrounds, too. She states that the tone which "we adopt from the culture: sarcastic, smart-alecky, jabbing, and self-righteous."
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, September 7, 2007 WHAT ABOUT A "REALITY PROGRESSIVE CANDIDATE" SHOW?-COVERTLY LEADING TO PROGRESSIVE CAMPAIGNS IN 50 STATES ALL OF 2008!
Well, it's time to run a virtual alternative campaign on-line!
Let's call it PROGRESSIVE CAUCUS CAMPAIGN 2008 or THE REALITY PROGRESSIVE CANDIDATE SHOW! In this campaign and reality show, the voting system in one of the later stages would or should be carried out in a fashion similar to the wonderful: Peace Primary That voting system is quite similar in some ways to the one used to rank national college teams.
SHARE Wednesday, November 28, 2007 Dear Arab World: Take Sudan and other Neighbors to Task for Distorting both Islam and democracy today!?
A lot of people in the Middle East and in the West are upset about the (1) 200 lashes asigned by judges to a rape victim in Saudi last week and (2) the subsequent arrest of a teacher in Sudan for educating her students to discuss and vote democratically. This article ties this shut-up and block-out truths in Arab lands to the anti-democratic charges in the M.E. and in the West.
(3 comments) SHARE Friday, April 25, 2008 DEAR PROGRESSIVES, Should I Change my Name to "GENERAL" in Order to Be Elected President???
That is, I am running for President of the United States (and several other offices, like Senator from Kansas) on-line. The experiment is to see how many votes I can receive without spending a dime (or penny). I will simply push the envelope.
Should I change my first name to GENERAL so I can get hired by CNN or Fox news in order to give the progressive view?
SHARE Tuesday, October 20, 2009 Ok, if we aren't going to move Guantanamo Prisoners Camp to the SOA, why not move it in 2009 to Bush's Western White?
It is 2009 and the horrors of Guantanamo Prisoners and lack of prisoner rights barring torture and rights to lawyers and US courts definitely need to come to an end this year.Ask the FBI and federal courts to immediately investigate and undertake the procedures to seize as eminent domain this property and its owner: 43 Prairie Chapel Ranch, Crawford, TX 76638. I believe the owner to the property is still George W. Bush.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, July 2, 2008 Mugabe or Bush? Who should leave rather than lead?
When a main stream writer like Thomas L. Freedman begins to call for the immediate end of the Bush administration in June 2008, the world's press picks it up. It is time for all Americans to really see that Bush goes into exile soon.
SHARE Wednesday, January 30, 2008 SEVEN DAYS MOURNING FOR SUHARTO: GEORGE W. BUSH WOULD LIKE THIS SORT OF ENDING
This article is written from the iconic progressive evangelical christian perspective. it compares sin, corruption, & malfeascence in government with concepts of forgiveness and atonement practices of traditional religions--Islam, Christianity, Hinduism and other faiths such as Shinto. It looks at the demise of both Suharto and George W. Bush and Dick Cheney and how America should approach it.
SHARE Saturday, September 8, 2007 A CLEAR CONCISE PLAN FOR U.S. WITHDRAWAL is NOW AVAILABLE, please get your congressmen to follow up on it starting TODAY
On September 4, 2007, "The Declaration for Peace" presented to the world, and especially to U.S. citizens and congressmen a 9-Point plan[1] for getting out of Iraq and finally leaving the world and a region with a more peaceful and progressive future than the country Iraq or the region around it has experienced in a long time.The 9-Point plan [2] focuses on stopping the funding for the war and creating a permanent peace.
SHARE Wednesday, January 30, 2008 SEVEN DAYS MOURNING FOR SUHARTO: GEORGE W. BUSH WOULD LIKE THIS SORT OF ENDING
This article written in Indonesia on the date of Suharto's funeral compares concepts of atonement and justice between Eastern and Western Faiths as they function or should be functioning in 2008. There is a focus on justice and forgivenss.
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, May 17, 2008 BLAMING IT ALL ON PARLIAMENT or DEMOCRACY
Recently, the International Herald Tribune (May 6, 2008), published on its front page a story by Robert F. Worth entitled, "Democracy Becomes the Fall Guy in Kuwait". Since on 17th of May, Kuwaiti voters are participating in national parliamentary elections, it is certainly an appropriate time to analyze Kuwait Democracy and how it is performing at this junction in history.
SHARE Tuesday, January 12, 2010 USA's Assasination Rings in Germany--Why is German News so Silent?
While the USA is well aware of a major BLACKWATERGATE scandal worldwide in January 2010, in which Blackwater and it's newly named shadow firm has been involved in crises and crimes in Germany, Iraq, and Afghanistan in recent years, the overall silence of German popular media to a USA sponsored assassination ring operating within its borders is astounding.
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, May 11, 2008 FRANCE IS ASKING THE RIGHT QUESTION: IT IS UP TO THE WORLD TO PUT PRESSURE ON CHINA TO GET IN LINE TO SUPPORT BURMESE VI
This is a piece which begs the question--how does the world want to define important terms, like "sovereignty in intra-state relations" in a century that has already witnessed many attacks on formerly cherished ideas, like "just war theory", i.e. concept of preemptive war, human rights, and torture.
The case of whether to send aid into Burma despite the bad military regime there provides the starting point for the desired dis
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, February 1, 2008 WHY WON'T THE WEST TAKE JORDAN UP ON ITS OFFERS TO PROVIDE ALTERNATIVE ENERGY IN PARTNERSHIP?
Last November and December 2007, the King of Jordan and Jordanian officials met and spoke several days with the European Union about creating solar and other alternative energy sources in a partnership in coming years in the Jordanian deserts. Since the Bali conference on global warming in December 2007 no American or European companies have followed Jordan up on these offers. Why is the West not taking the offer seriously
SHARE Tuesday, September 18, 2007 Swanson's Article--Is Peace or Impeachment Possible?--Makes Clear that Pelosi' Appeasement with Bush -Cheney is a Loser
This is a review of a popular speech and article,David Swanson's Article, "Is Peace or Impeachment Possible?. The article makes clear that Pelosi' appeasement with Bush and Cheney is a NO-GO Zone for Americans and True Democrats. The reviewer attempts to summarize and extrapolate on the speech/article so that it can be used to create speaking points for citizens and congressmen.
SHARE Thursday, March 20, 2008 WHO can be AGAINST SUCH a WITHDRAWAL PLAN for IRAQ?
Here is a plan that could be implemented tomorrow. Call your congressmen, send them e-mails--and impeach them if they let the President or Vice-President stop America from getting out of the war. Such a move could only help the U.S. economy anyways--along with saving a lot of lives, eh?