Grimoire of the Magus

Why the U.S. Senate needs to oppose S.968, the Protect IP Act

2011-11-29T17:27:00.000-08:00

This is my note to my representatives based on the Daily Kos Campaign.

Please oppose S.968, the Protect IP Act. This bill could destroy the Internet as we know it.

The U.S. State Department working with USAID
has provided over $5 million USD over 3 fiscal years in the form of grants for the Internet Freedom Initiative and reconfirmed the U.S. commitment to Global Internet freedom in an address at George Washington University in Washington, DC. In last year's speech, the Secretary identified the defense of a free, open, and interconnected Internet as a U.S. foreign policy priority. The State Department works to advance Internet freedom as an aspect of the universal rights of freedom of expression and the free flow of information.

If S.968 passes, then the government could order Internet providers to block the very sites funded by USAID and the U.S. State Dept. This legislaton would also impact well known sites like Red State, Daily Kos, YouTube or even Facebook if even one member of those communities posted material a copyright holder considered infringing.

Just as bad, all website owners would be forced to enact massive new private security measures, which means no one would bother creating new Internet companies anymore because of the cost and risk involved.

That's why tech giants like Facebook, Google, Twitter, eBay, Yahoo, AOL and Mozilla are opposed to this legislation, and why Microsoft has withdrawn its support and is now opposing the bills. It's why more than 100 of the nation's leading Intellectual Property law professors are opposed to the bill. It's why the Consumer Electronics Association, which comprises over 2,000 American technology companies is opposed to the legislation as currently written.

Protect IP, as currently written, is dangerous to the very actions we are taking to support our national security. Please oppose this legislation.

Providing Internet Anonymity - The MagusNet Anonymous Public Proxy

2011-05-05T09:45:00.000-07:00

There is a silent conflict going on where users of the Internet that want to reach certain types of content are faced with other online entities that are interested in knowing what content is being accessed and using that information for tracking or blocking/filtering. On May 1, 2011 I decided to re-launch The MagusNet Anonymous Public Proxy to continue providing anonymity and a deliver a way around Internet filtering for free.

From September 1997 to September 12, 2001 I operated The MagusNet Anonymous Public Proxy for web browsing while at the same time running an Anonymous Remailer ( Mixmaster ) for anonymizing email. The personal satisfaction I got from running both services came in the form of email from various countries where users were thankful that I was able to help them get around Internet filtering at no cost. Professionally, I was able to use my demonstrated knowledge of deploying an open proxy that was popular, secure, and easily usable the entire time it was in service.

My family was not pleased with phone calls and “unofficial” visits from the agencies like the FBI and the RCMP, along with the use of barratry to try to limit, monitor, harass, and shutdown a perfectly legal service. It amazes me to see the disconnect when the U.S. State Department can have a fund set aside to support the creation of services like I provide, while the U.S. Congress works at legislation to try to make operation of the same types of services a criminally punishable offense.

At the time I was using a known set of IP address ranges and ports and many filtering services went to great lengths to make my service and web pages unreachable. In fact, after 10 years of being offline, there are still vendors selling Internet filtering software that have my original URL listed. In order to bring back the MagusNet Anonymous Public Proxy I needed to decide on how to protect my users while giving myself greater flexibility in preventing the service from being filtered into obscurity.

The challenges to overcome were many and here are just a few:
* IP Address flexibility to defeat filtering
* Domain name decoupled from service
* End User Data security ( No Logging, No Data Capture )
* My Security ( Secure System, Location Independent )
* Manage Costs for Delivering a Free Service

I have found a way to deal with all of the issues mentioned, and a few others I discovered along the way, in order to re-launch what I consider a much needed service for Internet users.
By moving certain portions of the service into a “cloud” server, I no longer have to be concerned with the filtering of IP addresses since the Internet facing server is using a dynamically assigned IP address than I can change as needed to defeat most filtering.

Behind that server is a set of servers that run diskless as virtual machines to ensure that no data is stored on any physical media and as a side effect I get a benefit of efficiency by running everything in memory. I did this not only as a way to resolve data retention and data security workarounds, but also in case a server is ever compromised or has any non-security related issues, I can reboot from read-only media and be up quickly while analyzing the problem. My current configuration allows me to perform an hourly reload for each node and boot from read-only media with the capability of handling ~10,000 users per server, load balanced as needed.

The last hurdle was to make sure that my “core” servers were not visible for inbound and outbound traffic. By having OpenVPN used to encrypt and manage inbound traffic and requiring the use of The Onion Router ( Tor ) for traffic exiting into the Internet, I found I could not only deploy the “core” servers anywhere, I can replicate from a single read-only image to expand the number of nodes for improving loading and availability. Once I figure out how to transparently merge in and load balance multiple Tor exit nodes, going global will be complete.

I realize there are many global users of the Internet that do not have a need for this kind of service but for those individuals that are Human Rights Workers, live in a location that filters Internet content, or just everyday people that aren’t interested in having the most mundane of personal information looked at for any reason, I’ll be here and I’ll keep doing what I can to help out.

If you are a fellow citizen of the United States of America,
and feel this service is not needed since you have nothing to hide,
start sending all of your letters on post cards ( no envelopes! ) ,and
here is some reading material:
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=998565

-- Jean Francois - MagusNet, LLC
Owner and Operator of The MagusNet Anonymous Public Proxy ( Torduckin )*
http://www.magusnet.com/proxy.html

* The name comes from how this is set up:
It uses an OpenVPN Tunnel stuffed into an SSH Tunnel stuffed into Tor.

The MagusNet Anonymous Public Proxy Is Up

2011-05-01T09:04:00.000-07:00

The MagusNet Anonymous Public Proxy Is Up and Running.
So far there have been 341 Visitors from 53 Countries for the May 1 relaunch!
http://tinyurl.com/3tyjz48

The MagusNet Anonymous Public Proxy a.k.a ( Torduckin )

2011-04-07T08:25:00.000-07:00

=====-
Fri Mar 4, 2011
Actively seeking Grants and other Philanthropic sources to pay for bandwidth and to build this out globally.

Thursday Apr 7, 2011
The MagusNet Anonymous Public Proxy ( Torduckin ) is currently set to go live for unlimited free use on Sun May 1, 2011.
The MagusNet Anonymous Public Proxy
-=====-

Why do I do it?

I created and ran the original MagusNet Anonymous Public Proxy (DeleGate) in 1997 and decided to come back with a new
MagusNet Anonymous Public Proxy ( Torduckin ) in 2011 to do something good based on my experience in Information Security and development of innovative ways of deploying Information and Communications Technology (ICT).
I want to be able to give globally by promoting the following:

- Freedom of Opinion and Expression beyond National Borders
- Anonymity and Privacy to Communicate Freely

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights

The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights:

-- JLF

Third Annual Religion Conflict and Peace Conference

2011-02-24T11:26:00.000-08:00

Walking The Talk To Compassion And Harmony

April 8-10, 2011 ~ Dearborn, Michigan USA

Site: Henry Ford Community College

Official Partner and Event of:
The Charter for Compassion and the Parliament of World Religions

Website:
http://www.cbiworld.org/Pages/Conferences_RCP_Schedule-Overview11.htm

The RCP Conference strives to promote an inclusive, compassionate dialogue that honors different personal experiences, perspectives, and narratives, while allowing for better expressing and listening to each other as we work together toward understanding and harmony. Our intention is to create an open venue where we can engage meaningfully and invite in a public dialogue that brings our joint wisdom to bear in exploring sometimes difficult issues that effect us all. This is based on the premise that it does not require that we be the same to be appreciate of, at peace with, and secure in our relationships with each other; only that we be familiar enough with each others story to share the humanity and trustworthiness that resides in each of us.
We ask all participants to assist us by carrying and expressing this intent throughout the conference.

Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence

2010-03-11T08:54:00.000-08:00

Date: Tue, 4 May 1999 22:10:01 -0700 (PDT)
From: Art McGee
Message-ID:
Sender: owner-brc-news@igc.org
Subject: [BRC-NEWS] Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence
To: brc-news@igc.org
Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence

By Rev. Martin Luther King
4 April 1967

Speech delivered by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., on April 4, 1967, at a meeting of Clergy and Laity Concerned at Riverside Church in New York City

[Please put links to this speech on your respective web sites and if possible, place the text itself there. This is the least well known of Dr. King's speeches among the masses, and it needs to be read by all]

http://www.ssc.msu.edu/~sw/mlk/brkslnc.htm

I come to this magnificent house of worship tonight because my conscience leaves me no other choice. I join with you in this meeting because I am in deepest agreement with the aims and work of the organization which has brought us together: Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam. The recent statement of your executive committee are the sentiments of my own heart and I found myself in full accord when I read its opening lines: "A time comes when silence is betrayal." That time has come for us in relation to Vietnam.

The truth of these words is beyond doubt but the mission to which they call us is a most difficult one. Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government's policy, especially in time of war. Nor does the human spirit 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 perplexed as they often do in the case of this dreadful conflict we are always on the verge of being mesmerized by uncertainty; but we must move on.

Some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak. We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak. And we must rejoice as well, for surely this is the first time in our nation's history that a significant number of its religious leaders have chosen to move beyond the prophesying of smooth patriotism to the high grounds of a firm dissent based upon the mandates of conscience and the reading of history. Perhaps a new spirit is rising among us. If it is, let us trace its movement well and pray that our own inner being may be sensitive to its guidance, for we are deeply in need of a new way beyond the darkness that seems so close around us.

Over the past two years, as I have moved to break the betrayal of my own silences and to speak from the burnings of my own heart, as I have called for radical departures from the destruction of Vietnam, many persons have questioned me about the wisdom of my path. At the heart of their concerns this query has often loomed large and loud: Why are you speaking about war, Dr. King? Why are you joining the voices of dissent? Peace and civil rights don't mix, they say. Aren't you hurting the cause of your people, they ask? And when I hear them, though I often understand the source of their concern, I am nevertheless greatly saddened, for such questions mean that the inquirers have not really known me, my commitment or my calling. Indeed, their questions suggest that they do not know the world in which they live.

In the light of such tragic misunderstandings, I deem it of signal importance to try to state clearly, and I trust concisely, why I believe that the path from Dexter Avenue Baptist Church -- the church in Montgomery, Alabama, where I began my pastorate -- leads clearly to this sanctuary tonight.

I come to this platform tonight to make a passionate plea to my beloved nation. This speech is not addressed to Hanoi or to the National Liberation Front. It is not addressed to China or to Russia.

Nor is it an attempt to overlook the ambiguity of the total situation and the need for a collective solution to the tragedy of Vietnam. Neither is it an attempt to make North Vietnam or the National Liberation Front paragons of virtue, nor to overlook the role they can play in a successful resolution of the problem. While they both may have justifiable reason to be suspicious of the good faith of the United States, life and history give eloquent testimony to the fact that conflicts are never resolved without trustful give and take on both sides.

Tonight, however, I wish not to speak with Hanoi and the NLF, but rather to my fellow Americans, who, with me, bear the greatest responsibility in ending a conflict that has exacted a heavy price on both continents.

The Importance of Vietnam

Since I am a preacher by trade, I suppose it is not surprising that I have seven major reasons for bringing Vietnam into the field of my moral vision. There is at the outset a very obvious and almost facile connection between the war in Vietnam and the struggle I, and others, have been waging in America. A few years ago there was a shining moment in that struggle. It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor -- both black and white -- through the poverty program. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. Then came the buildup in Vietnam and I watched the program broken and eviscerated as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war, and I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube. So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such.

Perhaps the more tragic recognition of reality took place when it became clear to me that the war was doing far more than devastating the hopes of the poor at home. It was sending their sons and their brothers and their husbands to fight and to die in extraordinarily high proportions relative to the rest of the population. We were taking the black young men who had been crippled by our society and sending them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia and East Harlem. So we have been repeatedly faced with the cruel irony of watching Negro and white boys on TV screens as they kill and die together for a nation that has been unable to seat them together in the same schools. So we watch them in brutal solidarity burning the huts of a poor village, but we realize that they would never live on the same block in Detroit. I could not be silent in the face of such cruel manipulation of the poor.

My third reason moves to an even deeper level of awareness, for it grows out of my experience in the ghettoes of the North over the last three years -- especially the last three summers. As I have walked among the desperate, rejected and angry young men I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action. But they asked -- and rightly so -- what about Vietnam? They asked if our own nation wasn't using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today -- my own government. For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent.

For those who ask the question, "Aren't you a civil rights leader?" and thereby mean to exclude me from the movement for peace, I have this further answer. In 1957 when a group of us formed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, we chose as our motto: "To save the soul of America." We were convinced that we could not limit our vision to certain rights for black people, but instead affirmed the conviction that America would never be free or saved from itself unless the descendants of its slaves were loosed completely from the shackles they still wear. In a way we were agreeing with Langston Hughes, that black bard of Harlem, who had written earlier:

O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath--
America will be!
Now, it should be incandescently clear that no one who has any concern for the integrity and life of America today can ignore the present war. If America's soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read Vietnam. It can never be saved so long as it destroys the deepest hopes of men the world over. So it is that those of us who are yet determined that America will be are led down the path of protest and dissent, working for the health of our land.

As if the weight of such a commitment to the life and health of America were not enough, another burden of responsibility was placed upon me in 1964; and I cannot forget that the Nobel Prize for Peace was also a commission -- a commission to work harder than I had ever worked before for "the brotherhood of man." This is a calling that takes me beyond national allegiances, but even if it were not present I would yet have to live with the meaning of my commitment to the ministry of Jesus Christ. To me the relationship of this ministry to the making of peace is so obvious that I sometimes marvel at those who ask me why I am speaking against the war. Could it be that they do not know that the good news was meant for all men -- for Communist and capitalist, for their children and ours, for black and for white, for revolutionary and conservative? Have they forgotten that my ministry is in obedience to the one who loved his enemies so fully that he died for them? What then can I say to the "Vietcong" or to Castro or to Mao as a faithful minister of this one? Can I threaten them with death or must I not share with them my life?

Finally, as I try to delineate for you and for myself the road that leads from Montgomery to this place I would have offered all that was most valid if I simply said that I must be true to my conviction that I share with all men the calling to be a son of the living God. Beyond the calling of race or nation or creed is this vocation of sonship and brotherhood, and because I believe that the Father is deeply concerned especially for his suffering and helpless and outcast children, I come tonight to speak for them.

This I believe to be the privilege and the burden of all of us who deem ourselves bound by allegiances and loyalties which are broader and deeper than nationalism and which go beyond our nation's self-defined goals and positions. We are called to speak for the weak, for the voiceless, for victims of our nation and for those it calls enemy, for no document from human hands can make these humans any less our brothers.

Strange Liberators

And as I ponder the madness of Vietnam and search within myself for ways to understand and respond to compassion my mind goes constantly to the people of that peninsula. I speak now not of the soldiers of each side, not of the junta in Saigon, but simply of the people who have been living under the curse of war for almost three continuous decades now. I think of them too because it is clear to me that there will be no meaningful solution there until some attempt is made to know them and hear their broken cries.

They must see Americans as strange liberators. The Vietnamese people proclaimed their own independence in 1945 after a combined French and Japanese occupation, and before the Communist revolution in China. They were led by Ho Chi Minh. Even though they quoted the American Declaration of Independence in their own document of freedom, we refused to recognize them. Instead, we decided to support France in its reconquest of her former colony.

Our government felt then that the Vietnamese people were not "ready" for independence, and we again fell victim to the deadly Western arrogance that has poisoned the international atmosphere for so long. With that tragic decision we rejected a revolutionary government seeking self-determination, and a government that had been established not by China (for whom the Vietnamese have no great love) but by clearly indigenous forces that included some Communists. For the peasants this new government meant real land reform, one of the most important needs in their lives.

For nine years following 1945 we denied the people of Vietnam the right of independence. For nine years we vigorously supported the French in their abortive effort to recolonize Vietnam.

Before the end of the war we were meeting eighty percent of the French war costs. Even before the French were defeated at Dien Bien Phu, they began to despair of the reckless action, but we did not. We encouraged them with our huge financial and military supplies to continue the war even after they had lost the will. Soon we would be paying almost the full costs of this tragic attempt at recolonization.

After the French were defeated it looked as if independence and land reform would come again through the Geneva agreements. But instead there came the United States, determined that Ho should not unify the temporarily divided nation, and the peasants watched again as we supported one of the most vicious modern dictators -- our chosen man, Premier Diem. The peasants watched and cringed as Diem ruthlessly routed out all opposition, supported their extortionist landlords and refused even to discuss reunification with the north. The peasants watched as all this was presided over by U.S. influence and then by increasing numbers of U.S. troops who came to help quell the insurgency that Diem's methods had aroused. When Diem was overthrown they may have been happy, but the long line of military dictatorships seemed to offer no real change -- especially in terms of their need for land and peace.

The only change came from America as we increased our troop commitments in support of governments which were singularly corrupt, inept and without popular support. All the while the people read our leaflets and received regular promises of peace and democracy -- and land reform. Now they languish under our bombs and consider us -- not their fellow Vietnamese --the real enemy. They move sadly and apathetically as we herd them off the land of their fathers into concentration camps where minimal social needs are rarely met. They know they must move or be destroyed by our bombs. So they go -- primarily women and children and the aged.

They watch as we poison their water, as we kill a million acres of their crops. They must weep as the bulldozers roar through their areas preparing to destroy the precious trees. They wander into the hospitals, with at least twenty casualties from American firepower for one "Vietcong"-inflicted injury. So far we may have killed a million of them -- mostly children. They wander into the towns and see thousands of the children, homeless, without clothes, running in packs on the streets like animals. They see the children, degraded by our soldiers as they beg for food. They see the children selling their sisters to our soldiers, soliciting for their mothers.

What do the peasants think as we ally ourselves with the landlords and as we refuse to put any action into our many words concerning land reform? What do they think as we test our latest weapons on them, just as the Germans tested out new medicine and new tortures in the concentration camps of Europe? Where are the roots of the independent Vietnam we claim to be building? Is it among these voiceless ones?

We have destroyed their two most cherished institutions: the family and the village. We have destroyed their land and their crops. We have cooperated in the crushing of the nation's only non-Communist revolutionary political force -- the unified Buddhist church. We have supported the enemies of the peasants of Saigon. We have corrupted their women and children and killed their men. What liberators?

Now there is little left to build on -- save bitterness. Soon the only solid physical foundations remaining will be found at our military bases and in the concrete of the concentration camps we call fortified hamlets. The peasants may well wonder if we plan to build our new Vietnam on such grounds as these? Could we blame them for such thoughts? We must speak for them and raise the questions they cannot raise. These too are our brothers.

Perhaps the more difficult but no less necessary task is to speak for those who have been designated as our enemies. What of the National Liberation Front -- that strangely anonymous group we call VC or Communists? What must they think of us in America when they realize that we permitted the repression and cruelty of Diem which helped to bring them into being as a resistance group in the south? What do they think of our condoning the violence which led to their own taking up of arms? How can they believe in our integrity when now we speak of "aggression from the north" as if there were nothing more essential to the war? How can they trust us when now we charge them with violence after the murderous reign of Diem and charge them with violence while we pour every new weapon of death into their land? Surely we must understand their feelings even if we do not condone their actions. Surely we must see that the men we supported pressed them to their violence. Surely we must see that our own computerized plans of destruction simply dwarf their greatest acts.

How do they judge us when our officials know that their membership is less than twenty-five percent Communist and yet insist on giving them the blanket name? What must they be thinking when they know that we are aware of their control of major sections of Vietnam and yet we appear ready to allow national elections in which this highly organized political parallel government will have no part? They ask how we can speak of free elections when the Saigon press is censored and controlled by the military junta. And they are surely right to wonder what kind of new government we plan to help form without them -- the only party in real touch with the peasants. They question our political goals and they deny the reality of a peace settlement from which they will be excluded. Their questions are frighteningly relevant. Is our nation planning to build on political myth again and then shore it up with the power of new violence?

Here is the true meaning and value of compassion and nonviolence when it helps us to see the enemy's point of view, to hear his questions, to know his assessment of ourselves. For from his view we may indeed see the basic weaknesses of our own condition, and if we are mature, we may learn and grow and profit from the wisdom of the brothers who are called the opposition.

So, too, with Hanoi. In the north, where our bombs now pummel the land, and our mines endanger the waterways, we are met by a deep but understandable mistrust. To speak for them is to explain this lack of confidence in Western words, and especially their distrust of American intentions now. In Hanoi are the men who led the nation to independence against the Japanese and the French, the men who sought membership in the French commonwealth and were betrayed by the weakness of Paris and the willfulness of the colonial armies. It was they who led a second struggle against French domination at tremendous costs, and then were persuaded to give up the land they controlled between the thirteenth and seventeenth parallel as a temporary measure at Geneva. After 1954 they watched us conspire with Diem to prevent elections which would have surely brought Ho Chi Minh to power over a united Vietnam, and they realized they had been betrayed again.

When we ask why they do not leap to negotiate, these things must be remembered. Also it must be clear that the leaders of Hanoi considered the presence of American troops in support of the Diem regime to have been the initial military breach of the Geneva agreements concerning foreign troops, and they remind us that they did not begin to send in any large number of supplies or men until American forces had moved into the tens of thousands.

Hanoi remembers how our leaders refused to tell us the truth about the earlier North Vietnamese overtures for peace, how the president claimed that none existed when they had clearly been made. Ho Chi Minh has watched as America has spoken of peace and built up its forces, and now he has surely heard of the increasing international rumors of American plans for an invasion of the north. He knows the bombing and shelling and mining we are doing are part of traditional pre-invasion strategy. Perhaps only his sense of humor and of irony can save him when he hears the most powerful nation of the world speaking of aggression as it drops thousands of bombs on a poor weak nation more than eight thousand miles away from its shores.

At this point I should make it clear that while I have tried in these last few minutes to give a voice to the voiceless on Vietnam and to understand the arguments of those who are called enemy, I am as deeply concerned about our troops there as anything else. For it occurs to me that what we are submitting them to in Vietnam is not simply the brutalizing process that goes on in any war where armies face each other and seek to destroy. We are adding cynicism to the process of death, for they must know after a short period there that none of the things we claim to be fighting for are really involved. Before long they must know that their government has sent them into a struggle among Vietnamese, and the more sophisticated surely realize that we are on the side of the wealthy and the secure while we create hell for the poor.

This Madness Must Cease

Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. I speak for the poor of America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home and death and corruption in Vietnam. I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as an American to the leaders of my own nation. The great initiative in this war is ours. The initiative to stop it must be ours.

This is the message of the great Buddhist leaders of Vietnam. Recently one of them wrote these words:

"Each day the war goes on the hatred increases in the heart of the Vietnamese and in the hearts of those of humanitarian instinct. The Americans are forcing even their friends into becoming their enemies. It is curious that the Americans, who calculate so carefully on the possibilities of military victory, do not realize that in the process they are incurring deep psychological and political defeat. The image of America will never again be the image of revolution, freedom and democracy, but the image of violence and militarism."

If we continue, there will be no doubt in my mind and in the mind of the world that we have no honorable intentions in Vietnam. It will become clear that our minimal expectation is to occupy it as an American colony and men will not refrain from thinking that our maximum hope is to goad China into a war so that we may bomb her nuclear installations. If we do not stop our war against the people of Vietnam immediately the world will be left with no other alternative than to see this as some horribly clumsy and deadly game we have decided to play.

The world now demands a maturity of America that we may not be able to achieve. It demands that we admit that we have been wrong from the beginning of our adventure in Vietnam, that we have been detrimental to the life of the Vietnamese people. The situation is one in which we must be ready to turn sharply from our present ways.

In order to atone for our sins and errors in Vietnam, we should take the initiative in bringing a halt to this tragic war. I would like to suggest five concrete things that our government should do immediately to begin the long and difficult process of extricating ourselves from this nightmarish conflict:

End all bombing in North and South Vietnam.
Declare a unilateral cease-fire in the hope that such action will create the atmosphere for negotiation.
Take immediate steps to prevent other battlegrounds in Southeast Asia by curtailing our military buildup in Thailand and our interference in Laos.
Realistically accept the fact that the National Liberation Front has substantial support in South Vietnam and must thereby play a role in any meaningful negotiations and in any future Vietnam government.
Set a date that we will remove all foreign troops from Vietnam in accordance with the 1954 Geneva agreement.
Part of our ongoing commitment might well express itself in an offer to grant asylum to any Vietnamese who fears for his life under a new regime which included the Liberation Front. Then we must make what reparations we can for the damage we have done. We most provide the medical aid that is badly needed, making it available in this country if necessary.

Protesting The War

Meanwhile we in the churches and synagogues have a continuing task while we urge our government to disengage itself from a disgraceful commitment. We must continue to raise our voices if our nation persists in its perverse ways in Vietnam. We must be prepared to match actions with words by seeking out every creative means of protest possible.

As we counsel young men concerning military service we must clarify for them our nation's role in Vietnam and challenge them with the alternative of conscientious objection. I am pleased to say that this is the path now being chosen by more than seventy students at my own alma mater, Morehouse College, and I recommend it to all who find the American course in Vietnam a dishonorable and unjust one. Moreover I would encourage all ministers of draft age to give up their ministerial exemptions and seek status as conscientious objectors. These are the times for real choices and not false ones. We are at the moment when our lives must be placed on the line if our nation is to survive its own folly. Every man of humane convictions must decide on the protest that best suits his convictions, but we must all protest.

There is something seductively tempting about stopping there and sending us all off on what in some circles has become a popular crusade against the war in Vietnam. I say we must enter the struggle, but I wish to go on now to say something even more disturbing. The war in Vietnam is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit, and if we ignore this sobering reality we will find ourselves organizing clergy- and laymen-concerned committees for the next generation. They will be concerned about Guatemala and Peru. They will be concerned about Thailand and Cambodia. They will be concerned about Mozambique and South Africa. We will be marching for these and a dozen other names and attending rallies without end unless there is a significant and profound change in American life and policy. Such thoughts take us beyond Vietnam, but not beyond our calling as sons of the living God.

In 1957 a sensitive American official overseas said that it seemed to him that our nation was on the wrong side of a world revolution. During the past ten years we have seen emerge a pattern of suppression which now has justified the presence of U.S. military "advisors" in Venezuela. This need to maintain social stability for our investments accounts for the counter-revolutionary action of American forces in Guatemala. It tells why American helicopters are being used against guerrillas in Colombia and why American napalm and green beret forces have already been active against rebels in Peru. It is with such activity in mind that the words of the late John F. Kennedy come back to haunt us. Five years ago he said, "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."

Increasingly, by choice or by accident, this is the role our nation has taken -- the role of those who make peaceful revolution impossible by refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investment.

I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a "thing-oriented" society to a "person-oriented" society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.

A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. n the one hand we are called to play the good Samaritan on life's roadside; but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say: "This is not just." It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of Latin America and say: "This is not just." The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just. A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and say of war: "This way of settling differences is not just." This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into veins of people normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values. There is nothing, except a tragic death wish, to prevent us from reordering our priorities, so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war. There is nothing to keep us from molding a recalcitrant status quo with bruised hands until we have fashioned it into a brotherhood.

This kind of positive revolution of values is our best defense against communism. War is not the answer. Communism will never be defeated by the use of atomic bombs or nuclear weapons. Let us not join those who shout war and through their misguided passions urge the United States to relinquish its participation in the United Nations. These are days which demand wise restraint and calm reasonableness. We must not call everyone a Communist or an appeaser who advocates the seating of Red China in the United Nations and who recognizes that hate and hysteria are not the final answers to the problem of these turbulent days. We must not engage in a negative anti-communism, but rather in a positive thrust for democracy, realizing that our greatest defense against communism is to take offensive action in behalf of justice. We must with positive action seek to remove thosse conditions of poverty, insecurity and injustice which are the fertile soil in which the seed of communism grows and develops.

The People Are Important

These are revolutionary times. All over the globe men are revolting against old systems of exploitation and oppression and out of the wombs of a frail world new systems of justice and equality are being born. The shirtless and barefoot people of the land are rising up as never before. "The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light." We in the West must support these revolutions. It is a sad fact that, because of comfort, complacency, a morbid fear of communism, and our proneness to adjust to injustice, the Western nations that initiated so much of the revolutionary spirit of the modern world have now become the arch anti-revolutionaries. This has driven many to feel that only Marxism has the revolutionary spirit. Therefore, communism is a judgement against our failure to make democracy real and follow through on the revolutions we initiated. Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism. With this powerful commitment we shall boldly challenge the status quo and unjust mores and thereby speed the day when "every valley shall be exalted, and every moutain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight and the rough places plain."

A genuine revolution of values means in the final analysis that our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Every nation must now develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in their individual societies.

This call for a world-wide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one's tribe, race, class and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing and unconditional love for all men. This oft misunderstood and misinterpreted concept -- so readily dismissed by the Nietzsches of the world as a weak and cowardly force -- has now become an absolute necessity for the survival of man. When I speak of love I am not speaking of some sentimental and weak response. I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality. This Hindu-Moslem-Christian-Jewish-Buddhist belief about ultimate reality is beautifully summed up in the first epistle of Saint John:

Let us love one another; for love is God and everyone that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. If we love one another God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us.

Let us hope that this spirit will become the order of the day. We can no longer afford to worship the god of hate or bow before the altar of retaliation. The oceans of history are made turbulent by the ever-rising tides of hate. History is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path of hate. As Arnold Toynbee says : "Love is the ultimate force that makes for the saving choice of life and good against the damning choice of death and evil. Therefore the first hope in our inventory must be the hope that love is going to have the last word."

We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked and dejected with a lost opportunity. The "tide in the affairs of men" does not remain at the flood; it ebbs. We may cry out deperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is deaf to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residue of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words: "Too late." There is an invisible book of life that faithfully records our vigilance or our neglect. "The moving finger writes, and having writ moves on..." We still have a choice today; nonviolent coexistence or violent co-annihilation.

We must move past indecision to action. We must find new ways to speak for peace in Vietnam and justice throughout the developing world -- a world that borders on our doors. If we do not act we shall surely be dragged down the long dark and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight.

Now let us begin. Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter -- but beautiful -- struggle for a new world. This is the callling of the sons of God, and our brothers wait eagerly for our response. Shall we say the odds are too great? Shall we tell them the struggle is too hard? Will our message be that the forces of American life militate against their arrival as full men, and we send our deepest regrets? Or will there be another message, of longing, of hope, of solidarity with their yearnings, of commitment to their cause, whatever the cost? The choice is ours, and though we might prefer it otherwise we must choose in this crucial moment of human history.

As that noble bard of yesterday, James Russell Lowell, eloquently stated:

Once to every man and nation
Comes the moment to decide,
In the strife of truth and falsehood,
For the good or evil side;
Some great cause, God's new Messiah,
Off'ring each the bloom or blight,
And the choice goes by forever
Twixt that darkness and that light.

Though the cause of evil prosper,
Yet 'tis truth alone is strong;
Though her portion be the scaffold,
And upon the throne be wrong:
Yet that scaffold sways the future,
And behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow
Keeping watch above his own.

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Triathlon 2010

2010-01-20T05:46:00.001-08:00

I planned on doing my first Triathlon in 2009
both for myself and to demonstrate to my son
that I can be eat a vegan diet and be an athlete.
Due to my injury in 2009, 2010 is the new target year.

Countdown Clock:
http://timeanddate.com/s/1jbg

Troy Interfaith Group’s 5th Annual Thanksgiving Celebration

2009-11-12T11:32:00.000-08:00

All Faiths, All People, One Community All Persons in the Greater Troy area are invited to

Troy Interfaith Group’s 5th Annual Thanksgiving Celebration

This year’s Food, Fellowship, Program and Prayers of Thanksgivingwill be lifted up by 10 different yet united Faith groups at the:

Ahmadiyya Mosque and Community Center
1730 W. Auburn Rd., Rochester Hills, MI. 48309
(located West of Livernois and just East of Crooks Rd.)

Sunday, November 22, 2009 at 7:00pm

Please bring:

Your Children and your Child’s Artwork
(to display for the evening as our decorations and returned when you leave)

A “finger food” to share (no nuts, pork products or alcohol) -Any snack that
Graces Your Families Thanksgiving Holiday Celebrations is very appropriate

Dress is Casual or your usual Sunday attire.
Come in Peace with a Prayerful Heart and Open Mind

The TROY INTERFAITH GROUP exists to invite all faith communities to gather, grow, and give for the sake of promoting the common values of love, peace, and justice among all religions locally and globally. We believe that peace among peoples and nations requires peace among the religions.

Questions? Email info@troyinterfaith.org or www.troyinterfaithgroup.org

WE ARE LOOKING FORWARD TO MEETING ALL OUR TROY COMMUNITY NEIGHBORS AS YOU JOIN US

VegMichigan's 7th Annual Veg Getaway/Retreat

2009-07-15T06:10:00.000-07:00

I will be doing a presentation on Saturday August 29 from 7pm to 8pm the health qualities of food at the VegMichigan's 7th Annual Veg Getaway on August 29th. The event runs from August 29th and 30th and it is well worth the cost of becoming a member of VegMichigan to participate.

Please look at the event site information here:
http://vegmichigan.org/activities/retreat/retreat.html

I am looking forward to the event and seeing you there!

Starting a New Day

2009-06-23T10:48:00.000-07:00

"When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly. They are like this because they can't tell good from evil. But I have seen the beauty of good, and the ugliness of evil, and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own - not of the same blood or birth, but the same mind, and possessing a share of the divine."

Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus (121-180)

Film Review - The Stoning of Soraya M.

2009-05-29T04:25:00.000-07:00

I was invited to see an early screening of "The Stoning of Soraya M." on Thursday May 28.
This is a very powerful movie and based on the comments and tears of people in the theater it is also a very emotionally moving story. Be advised, there are some very graphic scenes of spousal abuse and the stoning sequence is disturbing but necessary to the story.

The film opens by showing the town where the story takes place and a journalist whose car breaks down nearby. The journalist meets the aunt of Soraya named Zahra and she tells the story of what happened the day before. Soraya is an honorable woman whose unfaithful husband conspires against her for a divorce she will not grant. He finally finds a way to use carefully crafted lies to create charges of infidelity, which carry a death penalty. In the end, Zahra fulfills her promise to let the world know what happened on that day.

I was disappointed in how the movie, being set in Iran, uses the backdrop of Islam. I am an Essene Minister and I understand that any faith can be misused by corrupt people. The reaction to this film by some of the Christians in the theater was one of negativity to Islam. It is clear that the practice of honor killing by stoning & misusing faith for injustice is not limited to any one faith. I was saddened to hear comments from the audience about Muslims being bad people. I want to make it clear to anyone watching the film that this film is not about Islam but about mans inhumanity to man and for people of faith it is a film that should make you ask yourself, "How can God forgive us for what we do to each other in the name of faith."
Please take the time to see this film and let us all work together to let the world know about this woman's story so we can shed light on injustices done to men and women like Soraya whose deaths we never hear about. We must be willing to act without cowardice to reveal and prevent injustice by being the voice for those who are not heard.

This film is scheduled for general release in Mid June 2009.

See more here:http://stoningparable.com/

Do not fear failing.....ever!

2009-05-20T08:15:00.000-07:00

Every job I have ever taken, and any task I have ever confronted, involved me evaluating my abilities and asking myself the same question,
"Am I qualified to do this?".

Whenever the answer was no the next question was,
"Can I learn it fast enough that I won't screw up, won't kill myself or anyone else, and will no one notice?".

From the book

"Why Don't Students Like School? A Cognitive Scientist Answers Questions About How the Mind Works and What It Means for the Classroom" ,Dan Willingham points out, on p. 143,

If you want to increase your intelligence, you have to challenge yourself. That means taking on tasks that are a bit beyond your reach, and that means you may very well fail, at least the first time around. Fear of failure can therefore be a significant obstacle to tackling this sort of challenging work, but failure should not be a big deal."

Always be ready to make mistakes, learn from them, and make yourself more than what you are today.

Be fearless!

2009 National Day of Prayer

2009-05-05T04:32:00.000-07:00

Please join us at the Ford Interfaith Network National Day of Prayer Program:
May 7th @ 11:30am at Ford Headquarters ( Click on image for full size poster ). Remote access to the event is being provided.

Please join us at the Troy Interfaith Group 5th Annual National Day of Prayer Program - May 7th @ 7pm:
http://www.troyinterfaithgroup.org/NDP2009.pdf
A community-wide interfaith observance of the National Day of Prayer, sponsored by The Troy Interfaith Group, to promote the idea that through learning about one another and communal prayer, we will all be interconnected enough to watch out for and respect each other.

VEGFEST 2009

2009-04-23T08:57:00.000-07:00

I am cooking again this year and I am looking forward to a another great turnout!

-=====-
VegMichigan's 2009 VegFest will be from noon until 5:00 p.m. on Sunday, April 26, 2009 at Ferndale High School!
Last year we had over 1,000 people through the doors, and this year promises to be the biggest and best VegFest yet!
-=====-

Here is a link too the VegMichigan Info:
http://vegmichigan.org/activities/vegfest/index.php

Speaking at the Mind Body Spirit Festival

2009-03-19T09:45:00.001-07:00

Join Us April 4-5 ** FREE ADMISSION **

Event: Toledo Body, Mind, Spirit Festival
Dates : Saturday April 4th 10am - 6pm & Sunday April 5th 10am - 6pm
ONLY 10 Mins. West of the Toledo Airport on Airport Highway
Location: Delta Banquet Hall6800 Industrial DriveDelta, OH
FREE Admission FREE Parking FREE Lectures & Classes Both Days & over 9,000 sq ft of vendors.Aura Photography ~ Jewelry ~ Artwork ~ Tarot Readers ~ Astrologers ~ Massage ~ Aromatherapy and Much More...

For Information:

Phone: (734) 274 - 2840
Internet: http://www.toledobodymindspiritfestival.com/

Sponsored by: Healing Garden World, Lite The Way Midnightmoon Metaphysical Shoppe, & SomaEnergetics
We will be doing a raffle of over $200 in prizes to raise money for our center.

My Wife will be speaking here:
Saturday April 4, 2009
4:30 p.m. – 5:30 p.m. “Seeing and Perceiving Energy” with Cathleen Francois, President of Spiritual Endeavors of Michigan. This lecture will clarifies what is seen and take away any doubts.

I will be speaking here:
Sunday April 5, 2009
10:00 a.m. – 10:30 a.m. “Eating To Heal & Manage Weight” with Mr. Jean Francois of Spiritual Endeavors of Michigan. Learn how what you eat affects your body.

MRDI Interfaith Retreat - Save The Date

2009-02-10T05:11:00.001-08:00

The Michigan Roundtable for Diversity and Inclusion is doing their annual Interfaith Retreat. Here is a note to pass around for anyone and everyone thay is interested. See you there!

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT . . .

For All Who Seek Understanding and Interaction with People of Other Faiths:

The 2009 Michigan Roundtable
Interfaith Partners Retreat has moved … .
From FEBRUARY to MAY
Join us on:
Sunday, May 3 and
Monday, May 4, 2009
(Day and overnight options available)

Location: St. Paul of the Cross Passionist Retreat Center
23333 Schoolcraft
Detroit, MI 48226
(Same location as previous years)

“WEAVINGS”
Explore ideas and inspirations to discover our connectedness

Learn about Prayer and Pilgrimage in different faith traditions

Experience kinship in community activities

Find shared views and values

MORE DETAILS at: www.MiRoundtable.org

Closing out 2008

2008-12-31T14:31:00.000-08:00

AllaAbho, Namaste, Salaam o Alaikum, Shalom Alechum, Jai Jinendra, Jai Swami Narayan,Yali Madad, SatsriAkaal, Hare Krishna, Hamazor Hama Ashobed, God Bless You, and Peace Be With You.

With only a few hours left until the end of 2008 I am looking forward to riding the roller coaster that 2009 will be. Even though I had planned to post something of interest once a month, too many things got in my way to really focus. I don't want this to be a diary, spiritual blog, or activist pulpit. I just want to be able to make people think. I realize it is dangerous to the status quo for people to be thinking and reasoning for themselves. It is even more dangerous if verifiable facts are thrown in. I am willing to make the attempt to create content that can wake up the sleeping masses.

Politics - The election of Barack Obama as President of the United States of America brought me to a new perspective. I grew up always believing that anyone could be president, as long as they were old and white. I sat with the world and looked on with astonishment as the promise of the USA was delivered to everyone with a new way of viewing USA politics, and the specter of racism was handed a defeat in the election. On January 20, 2008 a true historic moment will take place and I count this a blessing that my mother was alive to see it and my children will benefit from it.

Movies - Earthlings: This was a stark portrayal of the denial we live in about what happens to animals. We are always told that you can tell if a person will be a serial killer or murderer or abuser of people by how they treat animals. What does this say about a society that heaps horror upon horror in a way that in the end destroys our own health. We should be ashamed of ourselves for letting this happen and for the way we allow this apathy to destroy our own health in the process.

Economy - I think that I can wait until 2011 and post something in hindsight. Every single economist that predicted this event was ridiculed and ostracized for even mentioning economic meltdown. Are the people so afraid of being told bad news when it is the truth that they will force the truth tellers to lie to make them feel better?

Music - Buddha Bar 1 thru 10, Kundalini Yoga Chakra Dhyana Meditation, NAS, Audiobytes for Autobots, Yoga Om, Tantra Lounge, house mixes, and many others that got me through riding my bicycle ~70 miles per week over the summer.

Hobbies - More virtualization and Linux projects at home kept me busy. Reflashed all five of my access points with Tomato firmware, and added another terabyte of storage. The Organic garden is doing well and I will be working with Big Red Orchard and Cider Mill to assist them with their Organic projects as a volunteer consultant. I didn't do enough public speaking this year but I will fix that. The nutritional and interfaith outreach is going well but I want to get out and meet even more people in 2009. I have started working out with a 15kg kettlebell and I love it. Of course, it scares everyone when I am swinging it around but the results have been great. Now that I have all of my Linux based video and audio editing software working right I am going to add another terabyte of storage and start doing some animation rendering again. I didn't have much time in 2007 but in 2008 I started focusing on my Idealist Group: http://www.idealist.org/if/i/en/av/Org/170633-209 and my Store: http://base.google.com/base/s2?authorid=1059563 and I expect to do more with them in 2009.

Family - Everyone is still alive and that is a blessing in itself. The kids are doing well and watching them maturing is an adventure in itself. My wife is doing well with her business and taking advantage of the opportunities that brings for her. Alexis has started a business and is starting to take on greater responsibility. William has taken to making videos and posted his first of many to come productions to YouTube on Dec 31. My mother is still in NYC and looking for new opportunities as things change. The in-laws are still with us which is a good thing.

Resolutions - Spend more time just going out and meeting more people. Inspiring one person to do something extraordinary and at the same time finding someone to inspire me to do the same. Teach my children something new and learn something new from them. Travel someplace I have never been before.

I know that there are events I have forgotten to mention and people that have had a profound way of inspiring me and others through 2008 and one day I will make sure you get your mention on one of these pages.

Happy New Year!

Let us be united; Let us speak in harmony; Let our minds apprehend alike. Common be our prayer, Common be the end of our assembly; Common be our resolution; Common be our deliberations. Alike be our feelings; unified be our hearts; Common be our intentions; Perfect be our unity. - Rig Veda

At The Feet Of A Master

2008-04-21T19:01:00.000-07:00

My family and I were blessed to be able to be able to go to
Ann Arbor and see His Holiness the Dalai Lama (HHDL) over the
weekend.

It did not go unnoticed in my home that April 2008 is historic
in that we had HHDL and the Catholic Pope in the United States
at the same time visiting similar locations to talk to thousands
at every stop.

This leads me to contemplate the messages from both religious leaders
in the context of the sate of the religious and secular world today.

In Haiti, they are eating cookies made of mud for lack of food while
tons of food will be diverted this year as biofuel to feed cars and
industry, that food will be kept away from humans to feed animals unfit
for human consumption, and all this redirected food would feed the
world over 10 times over.
Nations are killing their own citizens in order to "rule" them.
People are being murdered because educating girls is a crime.
Wars are being fought over natural resources like oil, water, and
metals with motivations hidden behind false agendas while we send
our sons and daughters to fight, die, and kill over lies.
It is easier to get a Coca Cola in the poorest and remotest parts of
the world than a vaccination, a doctor, shoes, or a daily meal.
Our food and water supplies are heavily tainted with hormones,
pesticides, chemical residues of manufacturing, and other wastes
that are killing us right now.
The few are trying to stifle the voices of the many by denying access
to communications like TV, Radio, Internet, and newspaper's to hide
their indiscretions heaped on the poor and disenfranchised or
just to hide the truth.
More people vote on American Idol than take part in their civic duty
and vote in elections.

So, you may be wondering why I mention all of this?

Two great leaders of two great faiths historically entered the United States
at the same time to speak on weighty mattes from the perspective of their
faiths. I am disappointed to see that their visits did nothing to motivate
the faithful of any and all faiths to take collective action and make a
unified call on each other to make these outrages right.

HHDL used one word to sum up the the solution to the failure of all of us,
myself included, to do more.

Altruism

We are so busy thinking about ourselves that we have forgotten that the
core of every faith and of every philosophy revolves around altruism.
These compel us to do what is right for each other without thought of
reciprocal action or reward. We have forgotten our responsibility to each
other do what is right because it is right.
I lay the blame on my failure to act right where it belongs, on myself.
But in that moment of insight I realize, there is no good reason for me
not to do what is right for my brothers and sisters on this lonely planet
we share and pass on to our children.

I will pray that we all come to the realization that despite all our
differences and our struggles we all will one day look in the mirror
and think to ourselves how simple it is to make the world the paradise
it could be by the simplest of altruistic acts.

- Be kind to each other.
- Love each other.
- Respect each other.

Eight Verses on Transforming the Mind - HHDL
With a wish to free all beings
I shall always go for refuge
to the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha
until I reach full enlightenment.

Enthused by wisdom and compassion,
today in Buddha's presence
I generate the Mind of Full Awakening
for the benefit of all sentient beings.

As long as space endures,
as long as sentient beings remain,
until then, may I too remain
and dispel the miseries of the world.

Peace be with you.

Planned Neglect?

2008-03-28T12:47:00.000-07:00

I really had plans to spend more time thinking about interesting subjects and putting my own assessments of the nature of things on this blog. I am happy to say that life has had more interesting things to throw at me and I haven't been able to stop until now.

I planned to start my own Interfaith group but that intent seemed to find a way to make things easier for me than starting my own group from scratch. I am now a member of the Ford Interfaith Network (FIN) and have become the new monthly discussion group coordinator.I am now a member of the Troy Interfaith Group (TIG) and still have not found my purpose with them since I have only been to one meeting so far. I am sure over time I will find out.

I did make it to the Michigan Diversity Summit in Lansing. The Governor gave a great speech and I met many people doing great things in and out of Michigan. I also met a few people that are connected to both FIN and TIG so I know something good has to come of what I am doing in this phase of my life.

I joined VegMichigan and have put together a presentation on Vegetarianism and Religion that speaks to our being caretakers of the earth and how various scriptures for many faiths reinforce the caretaker role which includes a vegan diet and caring for living things of all types. It really is strange to watch a show like Bizarre Foods and notice that 99% of strange cuisine is animal based. It is a good thing that only 1% of the plants on the planet are toxic and from those the majority are used to make the medicines that pharmaceutical companies search for.

I took the VMware VI3 exam and passed with 80% to get VCP3 certified so all that studying really paid off.

Ok...with the catchup being done, here is what I am doing now.

I just finished reading "James, The Brother of Jesus" and it gave me the kind of historical view of how Christianity has evolved away from Judaism into what it is today. It is also interesting to see how the message of Jesus has been morphed by translations from Aramaic and Hebrew into many languages and finally English. The most striking and disappointing to me is the loss of the Feminine aspect of God (Shekinah) that has been purged from modern Christianity. Make no mistake, I am a married heterosexual man with two children and I observed many instances of what can only be described as bad behaviour towards women both by myself and by others in the past and in the present.

I have experienced firsthand what women deal with on the Internet since my name Jean" got translated from the French "John" into "hot french babe" on FidoNet, WorldNet, and Usenet. My actions have gotten better by being more aware of what I say and do, my motivations, and my intent. This awareness has made me sensitive to injustices toward women and others I observe around me. It would be a blessing to have theologians revisit the modifications made to Christianity and all the other faiths that oppress for any reason to bring back the Gnostic and open thinking aspects of all faiths.

I am reading the Mahabharata and writing a commentary in the Essene Church discussion group. I figure this will help me focus on what I am reading and get insights from other peoples perspectives that may have read the epic or may be inspired to read it due to what I write. I have finally realized that every story from the Mahabharata, Holy Bible, to the Holy Quran, and Upanishads are designed to be read, discussed, and experienced as living texts to get the most understanding. We cannot be afraid to question our way to understanding the divine that lives in all of us and in the process understanding that what we are experiencing now in the physical is a distraction from our divine nature.

I will be doing presentations for VegMichigan so that I can get more insight into what drives us to want to eat meat. This is a case where my curiosity is driving me to know what motivates people to do things that are bad for them when they know about the hormones, antibiotics, and other chemicals placed into animals that are impacting our health negatively.

So far I have managed to bring my personal notes on Interfaith Discussion and Nutrition Discussion to 28 typed pages of 10pt text. I hope to have a book come from my experiences in the next few years that is worthy to be read along with the books of those writers that have covered how if you have no belief in God we are still all one people,if you have a religion God is God and unites us by being part of us, and how we can achieve peace by recognizing the illusion of our desires and wake up once and for all.

My family and I are going to see the Dalai Lama here in Michigan. Personally I would love to see everyone that lands in China for the Olympics, athletes and guests, to show up wearing "Free Tibet" t-shirts for the entire event. Since most people are cowards I doubt that will happen but it would be good to see the superpower of China be baffled by what response to take against millions of "guests" arriving in the Peoples Republic all wearing "Free Tibet" and being broadcast on TV for the entire Olympic games. Thre is no excuse for telling people that they cannot practice a faith that is thousands of years old and has such peace at its core.

Moving away from the spiritual to more mundane things, I built a Dual CPU, 2GB RAM VMware Server so that I could create VMs with SolarisX86, MS-Windows, FreeBSD, and Debian Linux for my son to play with. He is only 9 and has already asked to look at the Google Android SDK. I guess I'll have to teach him Java so he can get started. I added another TB of disk space to my File Server for a total of 2.6 TB of disk to handle all the backups and virtual machines.

What has been really irritating me the most right now is politics. I live in Troy, MI so the Detroit politics are at the forefront.I can't understand why no one is paying attention to the details of this whole set of events. I think we all know that you are not supposed to use work equipment like cell phones for personal use. Also, there is no expectation of privacy when using equipment owned by the city, or coporation, where you work since all of your communications are public record. The mayor had an affair, that is personal. The mayor fired people and their reputations, livelihood, and careers were destroyed by using the power of the office to cover up the affair, that is public. Millions of public dollars were used to cover up evidence of wrongdoing, that is public. People lied under oath and denied justice to others, that is public. Then the pastor of Barak Obamas church was quoting a conservative white and well known personality and guess who is portrayed as unamerican? Is it the American public, via the mass media, that has become myopic and incapable of delving into what the truth of any matter really is? Have we become sheep content to listen to whatever tribal opinion seems to sound right or make us feel good without any desire for what the truth really is? Are we afraid to do what is right?

Have we become so afraid of the truth damaging our pleasant relity that we will act as Orwell described and steer away from truth as a form of crimethink? When did we forget that for someone to be right does NOT mean that someone else must be wrong? When did we abdicate the government to liars that piss on the grave of Abraham Lincoln when they make our government that does things to the people for corporate need and not a government of the people, by the people, for the people. The government for the people is well on its way to perish from the earth if we allow our apathy toward our two party power sharing arrangement to lead us to a point where we are nothing more than voiceless citizen slaves to a corporate Democratic Republic that gives us the illusion of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Has it really come down to nothing more than spectacle of everything for the masses in order to "give them bread and circuses"? When did we decide that the truth about what the people want was no longer relevant? Will we wait until the polar regions are ice free and the vast plastic debris field in the Pacific Ocean starts to kill every living thing before we collectively ask, when it is too late, "Is it time to do something?"

When will we step away from the artificial divisions of things like language, race, class, tribe, religion, and geographical boundaries and start acting like responsible people that care about each other?

We are all together on this life raft called Earth. We are running out of safe food, clean water, breathable air,usable space, and the waste is piling up.

- I am not overwhelmed by the task
- I am not afraid to be taunted or shunned for caring about people
- I am not afraid to be taunted or shunned for caring about animals
- I am not afraid to be taunted or shunned for caring about the planet
- I am not afraid to be taunted or shunned for what I believe in
- I will pass on what I have learned

Famous writers have always said, never end a story without a happy ending. I will take my chances. I am done rambling and I can't promise when I will do my next update but I will try to keep up the best I can.

Peace be with you.
Namaste.

Wrapping up 2007

2007-12-31T07:25:00.000-08:00

It has been a whirlwind year. I started this blog, I finished by BS in Information Tech, got Ordained, engineered the global loads to go from VMware 2.5 and SLES8/9 to VMware VI3 and SLES10 inside of Ford, and still had time to be a husband and father :)

I was trying to decide just how to describe 2007 and came across an email from my wife. What follows is her note ( with some minor changes for context ) since her words capture the summary of 2007 so well.

Mom - My Mother In Law
Father - My Father in Law
William - Our Son
Lexi - Our Daughter
Cathy - My Wife
Jean - Me

-====== End of Year Email from my Wife =======-

First of all, thank you for all the gifts, healing energy, and love that poured through as my mom went through her second back surgery in two years!

For those of you who didn't know, and don't know what we've been up to, I thought I would send a recap, since holiday cards didn't make it out this year, with mom in the hospital, I was put behind on many scheduled activities!

To make things easier, I'll try to recap in bullets this year, as I am working with teachers, they use these things often ;)

* - Mom is doing better, but it has been determined that many things have yet to be rectified. No surprise there, as she is a wonderful teacher of love, patience, compassion, and has chosen lack of health as a hobby! She teaches us much as we continue to work on her, both energetically and emotionally.

* - My father has been a sheer force of nature as he finds renewed love and determination through my mothers challenges. To see him walk so far to her room in the hospital each day was a tribute to his love and devotion to his wife of 56 years. He finally found hearing aids that work for him and has delighted in getting back 85% of his hearing! He has also returned to reading, a love that he had for many years, but has only this Christmas been inspired to pick up again with the book that Lexi gave him for Christmas, "When Ghosts Speak" by the woman who is the model of the TV series, The Ghost Whisperer. Absolutely fabulous stuff!

* - William is eight years old and is following his father's passion for a proper diet, meditates often with his dad, and continues to be an active growing boy.
He loves math and school, video games, helping people, feeding his new pet beta ( fish ), and continues to amaze his teachers. He still possesses a warm and caring attitude towards others, though he loves to get under his sister's skin, as any good sibling does.

* - Lexi continues to amaze us with her skills of writing and creative side. She is constantly into music with others, writing, banding together, taking lessons, and just recorded her first demo song with a friend of ours who has a studio in his house. She and Marty will return there in a few months with three or four other songs while Dan works on the ideas for their arrangement.
I see such a wonderful future full of art for her, though at 16, she is very tough on herself as all good teens are. She becomes more beautiful each day and is the first of the 10th graders at Athens to have a job. A dream job no less of seasonal working at Hot Topic with a killer employee discount that has cost me about as much as she has earned! :)

* - Jean has been ordained with the Essene Nazarean Church of Mount Carmel and has been researching foods and healing for a few years. His quest started a few years back when he was diagnosed with Diabetes and has since cured himself completely with food and diet changes. He is a devoted follower of Gabriel Cousens and David Wolfe, whom he met this year at a 5 day retreat that I pulled him to on the other side of the state, (David will be on E! TV on January 5th, so if you catch it, it should be worth it). To watch him go from carnivore to vegan and the depth of his historical religious research has been a wondrous and rewarding experience. We have always had things in common, so this has drawn us closer still. He plans on teaching and preaching on the subject of health in various arenas and has so many notes as to be
carrying along a binder stuffed with information. Ford has promised a trip to India in the near future which has been a goal and dream for both of us, so while he will go for the first time, I look forward to the day I will be free to travel there with him.

* I ( Cathy ) was ordained last year and performed various different weddings this year, which has been a true internal joy. I have also this month been elected onto the Ethnic Issues Advisory Board here in Troy, which is an honor. Though my business partner has had to move to Lansing to be an Assistant Superintendent there, our Quantum Touch classes continue to go on, though I also love my meditation classes each week with the Adult Education System through the Warren Consolidated School System. I am truly blessed to be of good health and peaceful being despite the turmoil of half a dozen individual personalities sharing one home and the duties that spread me at times quite thin. All of the health issues that were raised this year are gone. My spiritual life and love continues to grow as I read Autobiography Of A Yogi by Paramhansa Yogananda. I have come across this book year after year for thirty years, and each time I held it there was a district voice that said, "Not yet." This Christmas one of my clients gifted me with her own copy stating that she was told to give it to me! it is the Original Unedited Edition, and from the first page I have recognized why I was to wait for it. Miracles never cease!! I of course went back to being a vegetarian, something I gave up when I got pregnant with my daughter to assure that I was eating proper proteins and have wanted to regain since then. I am full of energy for my
full time job of working in the Library and tutoring kids at the middle school level in Mt. Clemens. I have been blessed with the most supportive friends from all over the country, best business partner, neighbor friends, and all around support system ever. Even my friend Kandi came and stayed for two days during the holidays to help us paint and redo my parents bedroom, hang out, and bring such joy to the house that it felt physically lighter by the time
she went back home. Such blessings each of you are, though I don't often get to see most of you!

* 2008 is a numerical "1" year; a year of New Beginnings. I wish you all the best of New Beginnings and will see many of you soon. For those of you out of state, you are never far from my state of mind. I think and pray for you all often and wish you only the best. You are the best of my days, my life, and indeed, blessings from the One Almighty Divine. Continue creating such a beautiful place of love, forgiveness, joy and delight!!!

Cathy

-===============-

There is not much more that I can add except to say Peace to you and may 2008 find you and yours healthy, happy, and blessed!

A Few Resolutions for 2008

- Finish one Sprint Triathlon
- Finish one Regular Triathlon
- Lose at least 10 more pounds and float between 180# and 200#
- Teach my kids at least one new thing each month
- Teach at least one Nutrition Class
- Teach at least one Virtualization with VMware/Linux class
- Teach at least one Interfaith Class

Walking a New Path

2007-11-15T09:19:00.000-08:00

Peace be with you.

When I started this blog, my plan was to spend a month writing about areas of interest and publishing the results of my research to share.I have time to do that again. What kept me away for all this time was that I was studying for Ordination with The Essene Nasorean Church of Mount Carmel B'nai-Amen Temple of the Guardians of Grace.

I have completed the course and have been welcomed into the ministry and now I want to share just a few of my thoughts on how I got here and where I feel I am going next.

Prior to taking this step I have spent 30 of my 42 years traveling and meeting people to learn more about them and in various libraries where I have studied quite a bit of material related to religion and history. A quick summary of books includes The Egyptian Book of the Dead, The Dead Sea Scrolls, The Tertragrammaton, Roiscrucian ( AMORC ) Teachings, Old and New Testament, and others.

It was through my great wife and her passion for teaching Reiki, Quantum Touch, and meditation, that I met more people involved in alternative healing with various beliefs. This gave me the opportunity to spend time exchanging ideas with them and learning. I learned many new things and re-discovered my desire and capacity to teach. Knowing I wanted to teach led me to study even more material relating to medicine, anatomy, chemistry, nutrition, spirituality, religion, philosophy, science, and nature.

Recent events in my life and studies about the relationships of various belief systems to each other led me to start reading texts that were more Gnostic in nature and that eventually led to reading teachings from the Essenes.

Once thing led to another and when I discovered I could become ordained as an Essene minister I knew I had found what I was looking for. I found a church that matches my passion for the study of ancient texts. After seeing Fast Food Nation, Super Size Me, and how inhumanly cows, pigs, and chickens go from farm to table with extra antibiotics, feces, bacteria, and hormones included, I was ready for vegetarianism. The life of Jesus was put into a perspective based on many more Gospels than were available in just the New Testament and his teachings remind of of the way to divinity. Although I had read some of the texts the church uses in the past, reading them again brought new insight. Texts I had never read like the Dhammapada, and The Gospel of the Holy Twelve, were read along side texts I had read many years ago like the Tao Te Ching and brought me a new view of what it means to live a peaceful life, be in the now with awareness, and appreciate the blessings of this existence from God.

Even though I mention this last it is not insignificant that my desire to be of service was rekindled and I am ready to do more educational and outreach service to those in need.

I still have a lot to learn and a long way to go.

Ronora - Summer Rejuvenation Retreat

2007-07-29T08:48:00.000-07:00

The Ronora Lodge is located in Watervliet Michigan.

From July 11th through July 15th I was able to attend a Summer Rejuvenation retreat, eat raw foods, and meet
Mr. David "Avocado" Wolfe. This all happened because my wife was in Lake Tahoe for a Quantum Touch conference
( she is a practitioner and teacher ) and was so impressed she wanted to make sure I met him too. The raw food diet is nothing new. If you think about it until humans had controllable fire everything we ate was raw. If you get the opportunity don't hesitate to take advantage of experiencing this kind of retreat.

Day 1: Relaxation
So we arrive after a 3 hour drive and the location is perfect. We get checked in and unpack in a room that may be spartan for some, but perfect for our needs. We wandered around to see the lake and get a feel for what we would be able to do over the next 4 days.

Along the way we met with the volunteers and new arrivals and introduced ourselves. There are wonderful stories of health by a simple change is what is eaten. I will go into more on that later.

The evening ended with Mr. Wolfe discussing the Raw Food lifestyle. His style is charismatic, his presentation is energetic and his message is on target. His discussion of eating raw food as a way to add to the variety of what you eat as opposed to a way to exclude food from your diet was refreshing. I am tired of hearing militant vegans, vegetarians, and others tell people what they shouldn't eat in a
"holier than thou" tone. People are people and will eat what they want. As David mentioned, eating more organic raw foods leaves less time and room for foods that are not the best for health so even if you don't stop eating them, their impact on health is reduced.
While mingling with the other attendees I learned that my own barley grass growing at home was a better decision than I knew.
I also found out about the Spartans practice of feeding their warriors barley grouts during training. I learned that cereal grasses are some of the most nutritious foods on the planet.

Day 2: Gratitude
We got up at 0630 and headed over to the main building for an hour and a half of Yoga. I have to admit I haven't done yoga for way too many years and I felt it. I have never sweat that hard doing yoga and I still had a good time. Amy and Miguel were fantastic at both guidance and pace for all levels.. After a wonderful breakfast with choices of fruit, juices and smoothies we changed clothes and came back
for the first of the days presentations. Ms. Kerry Dancing Butterfly gave us an insightful and interactive session called Shamanic
"Tools to Reclaim Your Power". This was a very emotionally charged and shared experience that really makes you look at your motives and perspectives on incidents that have occurred in your life. For me it dovetails with my ongoing practice of trying to remain in the "now" and helped me quite a bit.

Lunch was followed up by Lisa of the Amazing Starr Barr showing us how to make better smoothies. Lisa has found a way to add ingredients in a smoothie to both increase their nutritional punch and add variety to what usually becomes a boring, routine activity. Fresh coconut, durian, aloe vera, and a host of other ingredients meet in combinations that may sound strange but have a taste that can't be described any other way than mmmmmm.....mmmmmmm!

I skipped out for a Hot Stone Massage from Loronna Barnes that was the best.

After another exceptional dinner we were once again given information from Mr. Wolfe. This time we reviewed the previous discussions before delving into subject as diverse as ormus and how to gather it, zapping, the function of sulfur in health, enzymes and how to get the most enzymes from raw foods. The best part for me was hearing about nanobacter. I have always believed that parasites carry viruses deep into tissues where the immune system has trouble finding them. This piggybacking on parasites is, in my opinion only, a vector of infiltration of the body for many of the diseases that seem to be epidemic all of a sudden. Nanobacter is another perfect candidate because of its small size. It can ride in a parasite just like a virus and cause calcification damage. I was happy to see we did not talk about curing diseases. The focus was on maintaining health. We talked about the methods for healing the body already has within it. The topics were always on what to eat to help prevent getting sick in the first place. In the context of this, I always wondered, if I told someone to eat an Orange so they would not get scurvy, would that be illegal? Would Vitamin C be considered a drug that cured that disease? Could the Orange be considered a drug carrier and regulated? In my own research I found out that EDTA is approved by the FDA for chelating heavy metals like lead, but isn't being used for other health care purposes where it might show some promise. I am not sure what direction the country is going in when it comes to health care and treatments.

Day 3: Surrender
This was sweat lodge day.
I have done Native American ceremonies in the past and have a feather to show for at least one of them. This was my first opportunity to take part in a seat lodge. Earlier in the day we walked the grounds of Ronora and tasted the leaves and berries of plants like sassafras, blueberry, nettles ( without getting stung ), red clover, and grape. If I ever get lost in the woods I will have no excuse for not eating since no matter what there is always grass growing somewhere.

I skipped out for a Mayan Card Reading frrom Miguel that was insightful.

If you have never done a sweat lodge, I recommend trying it just once. Sitting an a small space, in complete darkness, with no exit, bathed in hot steam and mud, will let give you the perfect opportunity to test your inner mettle in a safe environment. I did get to sit up front and I think the combination of the nature walk earlier in the day and inhaling smoke prior to entering the sweat lodge screwed up my breathing. After one round I had to leave but I am sure I will do this again and be able to go start to finish.

Day 4: Radiance
I slept in today and spent some time hanging out and wandering around. After lunch and hanging out with our new friends, Mr. Wolfe presented a summary of material covered and some new discussions took place. Again all related to paying attention to what you put into your body to stay well. The night culminated with hours of Kirtan Music, dancing and socializing. Everyone participated and Miguel showed amazing stamina playing music and singing for as long as he did. It was well appreciated.

Day 5: Integration
A light breakfast and lots of socializing started the day. There was a parting presentation by Mr. Wolfe which was followed by lots of hugs, picture taking, and sharing of thoughts to take home. On the way home we went out to Warren Dunes with Bernd and Michelle and climbed up to get a good view of Chicago.

So what food do I remember most?:

- A terrific Avocado/Kombucha Salad dressing
- Raw baklava that was incredible
- The raw pies

Special thanks to:

Everyone that worked in the kitchen especially David
Dorothea
Bernd & Michelle
Super Goji Girl
Amy and Miguel
Deej Leggitt
Kerrie Dancing Butterfly
Singing Man
Loronna Barnes
and last but not least, of course, David Wolfe

for making this the best retreat ever.

I did take Davids advice and start a "chaos" garden by just throwing fruit and vegetable seeds randomly in my garden.
It looks and tastes fabulous.I will be adding rock dust for mineralization next year.

I know that others that where there may disagree with my summary or feel I unfairly left something out.
Please feel free to add comments and fill in the blanks for me.

Marta was there and wrote about it here:
http://rawvolta.wordpress.com/

Ronora Lodge:
http://www.ronoralodge.com/

Resources:
http://www.journeysforthesoul.com/

David Wolfe:
http://thebestdayever.com/
http://www.rawfood.com/

In the interest of disclosure, this is not meant to be an advertisement.
I am not an employee of any of the people, companies, or organizations mentioned above.
I am, through my web sites, an online affiliate of rawfood.com.

In the beginning...

2007-06-13T06:13:00.000-07:00

Every journey starts wih the first step.
Here is my first step.
What remains to be seen is how the journey progresses.....