In Basra, a new library-on-wheels program has attracted many first time visitors, and old timers are making lists of recommended reading for the children and teenagers, free for the asking. This city has the largest percentage of students planning on higher education, and the superintendent of schools claims this percentage will be even higher next year, due to a new career awareness program, which has been supported by the United Nations and the United States of America.
All these activities were sponsored by proceeds from the country's oil sales, which have been earmarked to usher in sustainable living, free kindergarten through college education, and population awareness programs in Iraq within the next five to ten years. [Article end]
Sure, I've produced a fairytale, one might even say a fantasy for mental weaklings. But it is a possible fairytale, with emphasis on the word possible. Humans are planning, imagining, and bringing to life events remarkably similar to this all over the world. I doubt you could catalog them all, even with the greatest staff and effort. The idea of a Race for Hope is actually based on a similar event I plan to be at in early August, in Sugarhouse, Utah, called the LDS Hospital Annual 5K Cardiovascular Walk/Run. I invite you to be there. And it was just three days ago that I struck up a conversation with a man who lost both legs to infection, from the knees down, but who had just finished rolling five miles around Liberty Park at a very good clip, in an arm-powered wheelchair (with handles like bicycle pedals).
So I ask that you consider the preceding paragraphs in light of two simple questions: "Could such things physically happen? Is there anything in reality, besides our own self-imposed mindsets, which prevent humans from creating such a scene?"
Clearly, we COULD create these scenes. I'm confident you've experienced something like most of them yourself. Yes? So it is conceivable that we humans could be doing something besides hating, maiming and killing each other, at least in our imaginations, and at least some of the time in reality.
Imagination is the key to our future, and it is the major source of any hope that I can see for our species. We all have imagination, we use it every day to varying degrees; we all have seen its results and know they're real. Look around you, and there isn't much that is not the result of someone's imagination. We live in a world that has been imagined and built, bit by bit, idea by idea, from generations past. But I'm not telling you anything new, I'm merely trying to establish that our future lies in our imaginations, and in our collective imagination, and that much hope""indeed, infinite hope""can be found if we properly activate our imaginations. Didn't John Lennon even sing about the concept?
Permit me to run through one more example. I wrote it to prove to myself that a more positive scenario was not that hard to create, and to suggest that we need to gently blow on the glowing embers of our better ideas, if we are to keep ourselves from the depths of despair. Brace first for a short trip into that dark cellar of depression, with a news item we all just witnessed, and then hopefully back out of the cellar, with a vision that I will argue is completely within our grasp.
[Article] Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, whose bloody campaign of beheadings and suicide bombings made him the most-wanted terrorist in Iraq, was killed when U.S. warplanes dropped 500-pound bombs on his isolated safe house, officials said Thursday. His death was a long-sought victory in the war in Iraq.
The targeted airstrike Wednesday evening was the culmination of a two-week-long hunt for al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq.
Tips from senior militants led U.S. forces to follow al-Zarqawi's spiritual adviser to the safe house, 30 miles outside Baghdad, for a meeting with the terror leader. The adviser, Sheik Abdul Rahman, was among those killed.
Fingerprints, tattoos and scars helped U.S. troops identify al-Zarqawi's body, White House spokesman Tony Snow said. The U.S. military released a picture of al-Zarqawi's face after the airstrike, with his eyes closed and spots of blood behind him, an image reminiscent of photos of Saddam Hussein's slain sons from the early days of the war. [Article end]
Let use never mind, for a moment, that the Howling Monkeys of America and George the King Howler had multiple orgasms (forgive them""as Howling Ann has explained, they were never taught about masturbation), while the non-barbarians and halfway sane amongst us wanted to puke a little harder. We must assume that the Howlers' dominant role in our society, with proper assistance, will soon pass, and that within our lifetimes these slow learners will at least try to mimic the brighter ones. With encouragement, such things happen in classrooms every day.
But on with the rewrite. If you are a fan of the Utne Reader you may recognize that I've plagerized and slightly modified some of the following, but attempted to retain the essence of an actual interview with a living Muslim leader. And if you were amongst the visionaries in the last primaries, you will recognize that I've leaned on the work of perhaps our brightest politician, to echo a concept whose time has come.
[Article] Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, whose campaign of terror made him the most-wanted terrorist in Iraq, announced this morning that he was changing direction, one-hundred eighty degrees. This unexpected event was based on input from his new spiritual adviser, according to Zarqawi, when he announced this morning: "We can no longer continue with terror and violence as a means to our ends. These are the same methods which the United States has been unleashing on us, and it has become self-evident, after far too many deaths and untold misery, that this vicious, non-productive cycle must stop. Enough lives have been shattered and lost."
Zarqawi further proclaimed, "A deeper reading of the Koran leads us to conclude what many have been saying for several years""Muslims are a people of peace, and the people of the world are our brothers and sisters. We intend henceforth to cease all violence, except in cases of extreme self-defense, and to come to terms with the United States of America and resolve through discussion and global awareness our considerable differences.
"This is not a softening of our beliefs, but rather a strengthening and confirmation of them. We will not stop until we achieve independence for the country of Iraq. Our calls for justice will increase in volume and intensity until positive, working solutions have been found. Our resources will not be given away for free, and our government will have fair and equal representation of the Iraqi population, and not be based on favors to existing fiefdoms."
All these activities were sponsored by proceeds from the country's oil sales, which have been earmarked to usher in sustainable living, free kindergarten through college education, and population awareness programs in Iraq within the next five to ten years. [Article end]
Sure, I've produced a fairytale, one might even say a fantasy for mental weaklings. But it is a possible fairytale, with emphasis on the word possible. Humans are planning, imagining, and bringing to life events remarkably similar to this all over the world. I doubt you could catalog them all, even with the greatest staff and effort. The idea of a Race for Hope is actually based on a similar event I plan to be at in early August, in Sugarhouse, Utah, called the LDS Hospital Annual 5K Cardiovascular Walk/Run. I invite you to be there. And it was just three days ago that I struck up a conversation with a man who lost both legs to infection, from the knees down, but who had just finished rolling five miles around Liberty Park at a very good clip, in an arm-powered wheelchair (with handles like bicycle pedals).
So I ask that you consider the preceding paragraphs in light of two simple questions: "Could such things physically happen? Is there anything in reality, besides our own self-imposed mindsets, which prevent humans from creating such a scene?"
Imagination is the key to our future, and it is the major source of any hope that I can see for our species. We all have imagination, we use it every day to varying degrees; we all have seen its results and know they're real. Look around you, and there isn't much that is not the result of someone's imagination. We live in a world that has been imagined and built, bit by bit, idea by idea, from generations past. But I'm not telling you anything new, I'm merely trying to establish that our future lies in our imaginations, and in our collective imagination, and that much hope""indeed, infinite hope""can be found if we properly activate our imaginations. Didn't John Lennon even sing about the concept?
Permit me to run through one more example. I wrote it to prove to myself that a more positive scenario was not that hard to create, and to suggest that we need to gently blow on the glowing embers of our better ideas, if we are to keep ourselves from the depths of despair. Brace first for a short trip into that dark cellar of depression, with a news item we all just witnessed, and then hopefully back out of the cellar, with a vision that I will argue is completely within our grasp.
[Article] Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, whose bloody campaign of beheadings and suicide bombings made him the most-wanted terrorist in Iraq, was killed when U.S. warplanes dropped 500-pound bombs on his isolated safe house, officials said Thursday. His death was a long-sought victory in the war in Iraq.
The targeted airstrike Wednesday evening was the culmination of a two-week-long hunt for al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq.
Tips from senior militants led U.S. forces to follow al-Zarqawi's spiritual adviser to the safe house, 30 miles outside Baghdad, for a meeting with the terror leader. The adviser, Sheik Abdul Rahman, was among those killed.
Fingerprints, tattoos and scars helped U.S. troops identify al-Zarqawi's body, White House spokesman Tony Snow said. The U.S. military released a picture of al-Zarqawi's face after the airstrike, with his eyes closed and spots of blood behind him, an image reminiscent of photos of Saddam Hussein's slain sons from the early days of the war. [Article end]
Let use never mind, for a moment, that the Howling Monkeys of America and George the King Howler had multiple orgasms (forgive them""as Howling Ann has explained, they were never taught about masturbation), while the non-barbarians and halfway sane amongst us wanted to puke a little harder. We must assume that the Howlers' dominant role in our society, with proper assistance, will soon pass, and that within our lifetimes these slow learners will at least try to mimic the brighter ones. With encouragement, such things happen in classrooms every day.
But on with the rewrite. If you are a fan of the Utne Reader you may recognize that I've plagerized and slightly modified some of the following, but attempted to retain the essence of an actual interview with a living Muslim leader. And if you were amongst the visionaries in the last primaries, you will recognize that I've leaned on the work of perhaps our brightest politician, to echo a concept whose time has come.
[Article] Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, whose campaign of terror made him the most-wanted terrorist in Iraq, announced this morning that he was changing direction, one-hundred eighty degrees. This unexpected event was based on input from his new spiritual adviser, according to Zarqawi, when he announced this morning: "We can no longer continue with terror and violence as a means to our ends. These are the same methods which the United States has been unleashing on us, and it has become self-evident, after far too many deaths and untold misery, that this vicious, non-productive cycle must stop. Enough lives have been shattered and lost."
Zarqawi further proclaimed, "A deeper reading of the Koran leads us to conclude what many have been saying for several years""Muslims are a people of peace, and the people of the world are our brothers and sisters. We intend henceforth to cease all violence, except in cases of extreme self-defense, and to come to terms with the United States of America and resolve through discussion and global awareness our considerable differences.
"This is not a softening of our beliefs, but rather a strengthening and confirmation of them. We will not stop until we achieve independence for the country of Iraq. Our calls for justice will increase in volume and intensity until positive, working solutions have been found. Our resources will not be given away for free, and our government will have fair and equal representation of the Iraqi population, and not be based on favors to existing fiefdoms."
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