Giants are real: spotted in North Korea

Wisdom Quarterly

This handout photo taken by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on Dec. 28, 2011 shows the giant at a funeral procession for leader Kim Jong-Il at the square of the Kumsusan Memorial Palace in capital Pyongyang (KCNA/AFP/Getty Images).

Literal giants (titans, asuras) are real. They existed in the past. They exist today. They are found all over the world, and many mainstream news sources regularly reported on them before the news black out. Now it is a forbidden topic and reports are rare, particularly with tangible evidence.

The giant was spotted in multiple photos from different sources (huffingtonpost.com).

The Smithsonian conceals physical specimens. Nevertheless, museums in the US and South America exhibit gear and retain lore of giant red haired, six digit rulers. Native American and Chinese giants may have only been 8 feet when the average height of homo sapiens was closer to 5 feet.

• Hidden proofs of a giant race
• Greek and Egyptian giants called "gods"
  

But heights have ranged from 12 to 18 to an unimaginable 36 feet. Egyptian depictions give an idea, where full grown humans are assumed to be children. These are literal subspecies or hybrid not anomalies. Why their DNA is being brought back has to do with global plans too difficult to fathom. More information is available from author, researcher, and expert Stephen Quayle.



Giant soldier spotted in North Korea
One of several oddities that emerged from North Korea Thursday [12-30-11] was an image of a huge soldier in the crowd watching Kim Jong-il’s funeral procession.

Scientists can now read minds, says UCLA

Text: Jennifer Marcus (UCLA Newsroom, Dec. 20, 2011)

UCLA neuroscientists demonstrate advances in "brain reading"

Innovative machine learning method anticipates neurocognitive changes, similar to predictive text-entry for cell phones and Internet search engines.

At UCLA's Laboratory of Integrative Neuroimaging Technology, researchers use functional MRI brain scans to observe brain signal changes that take place during mental activity. They then employ computerized machine learning (ML) methods to study these patterns and identify the cognitive state -- or sometimes the thought process -- of human subjects. The technique is called "brain reading" or "brain decoding."

• Scientists can now read minds: UCLA
  

In a new study, the UCLA research team describes several crucial advances in this field, using fMRI and machine learning methods to perform "brain reading" on smokers experiencing nicotine cravings.

The research, presented last week at the Neural Information Processing Systems' Machine Learning and Interpretation in Neuroimaging workshop in Spain, was funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, which is interested in using these to help people control drug cravings. More

Republican Nixon: abusive, alcoholic gay

Pat Macpherson, PFC Sandoval, Seven, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly (OPINION)

*Ha ha ha, sob sob sob* To laugh or cry? It is too much hypocrisy to countenance! Republican Dick Nixon was the second worst president in American history, just behind Pres. George Bush and just a hair ahead of the current leader of the corporation, B.S. Obama.

Nixon was a hypocrite who sold out the country, keeping the nation in a protracted war in Southeast Asia, and possibly conspiring in the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and John F. Kennedy, who bested him in the first TV-influenced election in American history.

"Nixon president, you are not my friend."

Dick Nixon to keep from being impeached, famously said to the TV camera, "I am not a crook!" He later angrily told the country that it would be sorry to lose him and not have him to "kick around." All was forgiven when he passed away, after having done some great things in office such as establishing the Environmental Protection Agency and other progressive moves people assume the centrist to slightly right wing Democratic party must have been responsible for.

He was hailed as a Christian conservative hero. New revelations document that he was a homosexual involved in a long term gay relationship with a Florida businessman. The author also states that he was a drunk who beat the First Lady, Kitty Nixon. So much for Christian conservatism from the right wing Republican party, which speaks of conservative "family values" while exhibiting flagrantly hypocritical behavior.

• President Nixon was gay (LA Weekly)
  

Pres. George Bush (and his ventriloquist Dick Cheney) orchestrated the 9/11 tragedy, a shadow government plot. Bush paid for an abortion and was responsible for killing more people as governor of Texas than any before him; his president father was responsible for uncounted deaths as a war pilot then as head of the CIA; and his grandfather, Prescott Bush, was literally a sponsor of Nazis (not Neo Nazis, actual Nazis). The Patriot Act, ruining the economy, a series of illegal pre-emptive wars, the nation will never forget this unprecedented president.

The Republican party, which might take principled stands from time to time actually now only represents corporate interests while co-opting fundamentalist Christians.

Presidential hopeful and former Republican Speaker Newton "Newt" Gingrich recently admitted to massive voter fraud in Virginia, submitting 1,500 fake signatures. Claiming his wife wanted a divorce, it was revealed that she had no such wishes. Catholic-convert, serial cheater, and all around Washington insider, Gingrich is plummeting in the polls faster than Herman "Koch" Cain crashed and burned. And he's crying to curry sympathy before Iowa voters about to sink his hopes to sit on the petty throne of the White House. Rick Santorum has a better chance.

Gynecologist Ron Paul is the best hope the country has if a Republican is again (s)elected to run the country into the ground for the MIC (military-industrial complex or secret government). But he has been severely tainted by a racism and homophobic scandal, which should quietly please many Republican voters. His "anti-Semitic" stance in a decade of the same newsletters may be harder to explain to ultra-conservative Christian conservative, who also hate Jews but at least have the decency to fear biblical injunctions against being mean to God's chosen people. Sadly, Paul has vowed to cut regulatory agencies in a move that could only please Libertarians and pro-business "trickle down" theorists also known as One Percenters. So much for his Libertarian ideals.

Still a racist president, of which we have had many, sounds better than a sell out like B.S. Obama, who fooled us into believing he stood for "change," "hope," and "peace." Becoming an undeserved Nobel Peace Laureate, he now brags about his extrajudicial execution of boogieman Osama bin Laden, his surges in Afghanistan, his privatization of the US war on Iraq profits (going from public soldiers to private contractors doing the soldiering at a much higher cost benefiting not the US but multinational corporations), his secret incursions into Pakistan, Tajikistan, Iran, the Middle East with its blossoming "Arab Spring" (a CIA plot to depose no longer useful leaders while pretending democratic processes and the will of the people are bringing them down), and Africa (Libya, Sudan, Somalia, particularly Mogadishu, and the Horn in general).

The fix seems to be in. It is Romney all the way for Iowa, no matter what the voters say: Ron Paul has no chance to be certified the winner with the Republicans doing the counting. Nothing Republicans insist future elections have to avoid voter "fraud" applies to their own caucuses.

• 9th Circuit Court of Appeal backs Bush-Cheney's FISA spying on US citizens
• Scientists Can Now Officially Read Your Mind, UCLA Declares
• Sex Action Peaks During Winter Holidays, (September Babies Don't Lie)
• iPad Reveals Its Location for Police, L.A. Sheriff's Officials Say

Physics and Psychology of Meditation (Pt. 1)

Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly

I was meditating. Then I wasn't. I was still meditating. But who was it? Where was it? What was it?

Observation alters the experiment. I stared at the altar, closed my eyes, and watched my breath. I wasn't watching. But watching was going on. The breath was; "I" wasn't.

It got me to thinking about science -- wondering and wondering if there were a way to explain it or recreate it in a lab.

The scattered question searching for a single answer

I probably spend too much time in the lab. "Psychology" is funny. It aims at the Big Questions. Social psychology looks at the biggest (meta) picture, and cognitive at the smallest useful chunks, personality at the person, and organizational at economics and work. All of these schools have "physics envy."



Thought experiments are easy enough. The philosophers in the lab love to talk about that. The math is easier, if questions can be framed as math. Quadratic equations never helped no one.

Algebraic functions, coefficients, calculus and, worst of all, statistics can do anything, except think. We can model reality, we can crunch numbers, but without sitting on cushions like the Buddha sat, the real questions never occur to us.

It would be nice if numbers and their relations said something by themselves. But numbers like words are just symbols. They don't write themselves, solve themselves, or say anything about themselves. That day in the temple I was in another "dimension." What was it?

I retreated to science for an answer. My best friend, Seven, suggested these videos. Here was the answer we found, which somehow made sense when my mind was in that space. Zero point.

Physics and Psychology of Meditation (Pt. 2)

Seven and Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly

A well formed question just about answers itself. The more diffuse, scattered, or uncertain the question, the more fluffy, fuzzy, and fruitless the answer.

We already "know" the answers. We have to make them real. There is no use in truth. Read theories, read explanations, see charts and wonderful lists, all of them true, but of what use? Until we breathe, until we sit, until we act, and put them into practice, this is our practice, one may as well not know.

A singular answer brought out of the question

The purpose of Right View in the Noble Eightfold Path is to know which way to go, how to interpret, how to conduct ourselves optimally. It's not rules. It's orienting. It's a standard by which to judge. In this way we might meet novel situations and with ease behave well for the profit of everyone.

Science is a wonderful tool. It's only a tool. It doesn't form big questions, and it doesn't answer them. We do.

The biggest moment one has in a logic (philosophy) course is that logical reasoning does not lead to truth. All it does, and all it claims to do, is help us determine whether or not a statement (syllogism) is correct or consistent. Test it. It's easy.

All meditators are cute.
There are no cute people here.
Therefore, no one is meditating.

If A and B are true, and who knows if they are(?), then C will be true. Logic has no way of telling us whether or not premises are true. What it does, which is useful, is tell us IF they are THEN this follows. Math is the same way.

The truth is amazing and not what we "think." It's counter-intuitive in that it goes against our assumptions. Truth is intuitive, but "intuition" has been turned upside down: Originally it meant directly knowable (a priori). It still does in science. But in psychology we use intuitive to mean "what one would guess or assume."

Dr. Quantum explains counter-intuitive findings in physics ("What the Bleep Do We Know").

Like psychology Newtonian physics was intuitive. Like science quantum physics turns our world upside down. Both are true in their own domains. An easy way to picture it is staring at the TV. We see pictures. But look more closely: there are no pictures, just pixels. Both are true. There both, and there is not one without the other.

In just the same way the Buddha talks about conventional truth (what happens in the world of sense experience) and ultimate truth, what really happens and to whom.

Who am I, who is experiencing meditation, who is doing the watching? Is the answer "Christy Turlington"? No, the Five Aggregates are.

That's unbelievable. But it can be checked directly, that is, you can check. "You" is just a convenient way of referring to the Aggregates. Meditating (watching, observing, knowing) changes everything.

If we begin to sense the truth -- non-duality, interdependence, oneness, the unity of all things -- it can feel like all that came before was not real. But it was real in its own domain. Both things are true. But it is the ultimate truth that holds more significance.

So when the Buddha and teachers say things from that point of view, they have to be considered from that point of view to avoid confusion.

Explaining Everything (audio)

Talk by Stephen Bezruchka on "Alternative Radio" on the final hour of Roy of Hollywood's all night "Something's Happening (B)" on KPFK.org, 12:00 am-6:00 am, Dec. 29, 2011

Rarely have we heard such a brief yet complete analysis of the "big picture." Bezruchka lays bare what is happening in America today and why. He goes far beyond the headlines to tie it all together.

• PLAY AUDIO
  

It is no secret. The 99% get the short end of the stick in many ways. The poor (relatively speaking) live shorter lives and suffer from almost every social problem -- from lack of decent housing, to lousy food, to no healthcare, to being isolated and reviled. Poverty results in toxic levels of stress (dukkha).

Among all the countries in the world, the US ranks in the top five in stress, according to an ongoing Gallup survey. Consumerism and the "good life" are elevated to an idyllic plane. But selfishness leads us to an emotional dead end.

It is time to move beyond empty slogans like "I'm just looking out for Number One." Cooperation and collaboration are healthy. Why does it make medical and moral sense to have a healthy society? Source

• Stephen Bezruchka is Senior Lecturer in the Dept. of Global Health at the Univ. of Washington. For many years he worked as an emergency physician in Seattle, researching population health and societal hierarchy. He spent over 10 years in Nepal promoting health programs and teaching in remote regions. He is an author of articles, essays, and a contributor to the book Sickness and Wealth.
• Program #BEZS007, recorded in Federal Way, WA on Oct. 29, 2011.

Winter Solstice 2011 (video)

(LINK)

Clergy attack in Bethlehem church (video)

(TelegraphTV) Dec. 28, 2011 - Palestinian police had to break up a fight at the Church of the Nativity -- which Christians consider the birthplace of Jesus -- after scuffles erupted between Armenian and Greek Orthodox clergymen. Before police began beating them, clergy had come to fisticuffs accusing each other of encroaching on the other's portion of the church. Oh, you men!

"Turn Back, Oh Man" (Godspell)

Sharp's Dictionary of Power and Struggle

Wisdom Quarterly; Gene Sharp and Adam Roberts, Oxford University Press, 2011

Police violence during their brutal Battle of Seattle (fromthevaultradio.org); Occupy Movement activists arrested without strategy for nonviolent success (junglemagazine.com)

One would not guess that useful instructions on how to wage nonviolent struggle are coming from an American academic.

But Sharp's books have been spotted throughout Burma during the Saffron Revolution led by Buddhist monks against an Orwellian military dictatorship, Tibet for indigenous Himalayan Buddhists resisting Chinese invasions, the Middle East during the Arab Spring, and on Wall Street at the nascent Occupy Movement.

The Saffron Revolution, Theravada Buddhist monastics and citizens rise up against General Than Shwe's totalitarian government in 2007.

Now comes Sharp's Dictionary of Power and Struggle: Language of Civil Resistance in Conflicts, a reference book for nonviolent activists.

From the 494 BC plebeians' march out of [patrician-ruled] Rome to gain improved status, to Gandhi's nonviolent campaigns in India [to oust British colonizers], to the liberation of Poland and the Baltic nations, and the revolutions in North Africa, nonviolent struggles have played pivotal roles in world events for centuries.

Sharp's Dictionary of Power and Struggle is a groundbreaking reference work by the "godfather of nonviolent resistance." In nearly 1,000 entries, Sharp's dictionary defines those ideologies, political systems, strategies, methods, and concepts that form the core of nonviolent action as it has occurred throughout history across the globe.

It provides much-needed clarification of language that is often mired in confusion. Entries discuss everything from militarization to censorship, guerrilla theater, pacifism, secret agents [planted provocateurs], and protest songs.

In addition, the dictionary features... case studies of conflicts in Serbia and Tunisia; and a guide for further reading. It is an invaluable resource for activists, educators, and anyone else curious about nonviolent alternatives to both passivity and violent conflict. More

Agitation and ahimsa (nonharming or nonviolence) in India still works long after Gandhi used it to win (timesofindia.indiatimes.com).

• "Gene Sharp is perhaps the most influential proponent of nonviolent action alive." - The Progressive
• "Sharp has had broad influence on international events over the past two decades, helping to advance a global democratic awakening." - Wall Street Journal
• "[Sharp's] work has served as the template for taking on authoritarian regimes from Burma to Belgrade." - Christian Science Monitor
• Resistance may take very undramatic forms, micro resistance, defiance, and noncooperation... - Tibet Space

Wall Street bankers don't want you to read this book.

Should police conduct "virginity tests"? (video)

Wisdom Quarterly (TABOO); Angelina Jolie; CNN; AL Jazeera English; Karen Stuhldreher

CNN's Ivan Watson reports on how some young Egyptians suffer for raising their voices.

Some people call checking a girl or woman's virginity status "rape." But police and military forces throughout the world prefer to call it a purity "test."

This is particularly important in societies that value purity, such as the puritanical United States, Christian crusading Europe, and former Western empires (British, Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese, Scandinavian/Viking, Roman, Greek). Of course, we are told it never happens here, except maybe by some aberrant rogue element. It is what others do because they are "barbarians." And we are virtuous, upholders of the good, never hypocritical... "in God we trust," yada yada yada.

Our soldiers and police prefer to conduct these tests on countries we as a nation invade and colonize -- from theaters of war to ghettos, jails, and barracks. Virginity testing has long been an instrument of "genocide-lite." US soldiers -- for example in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Afghanistan, Iraq, and South America -- could kill the women like they do the men who resist being invaded.

(ClevverMovies) "In The Land Of Blood & Honey" (in theaters Dec. 23, 2011) is a love story set during the Bosnian war of 1992-1995, focusing on a couple who meet on the eve of the war and the effect the war has on their relationship.

But sometimes they let them off lightly with rape. Of course, some of our soldiers are tricky and kill the victims they sexually violate. But we prosecute them, particularly if they are quoted as saying "It was awesome."

• "I didn't think of Iraqis as humans," says U.S. soldier who raped 14-year-old girl before killing her and her family
• Victory for Egyptians: Military's "virginity tests" banned
• US crimes you've never heard of (History News Network)
• VIDEO: Police strip innocent woman naked
  

(AlJazeeraEnglish) Egyptian military official denies that
military conducted forced "virginity tests" on protesters.

Goodness knows it happens in our jail, to both male and female detainees. But our forces prefer to inflict this examination on the powerless and voiceless. It has even caught on in the Islamic world. Testing was recently highlighted in Egypt's Tahrir Square misunderstandings.

A few valiant soldiers in the police and "security" forces may have gotten carried away with female prisoners they beat, publicly stripped, brutalized, and tested. Now Egypt has officially banned the practice.

(Did it previously allow it? No, but now it's really banned...unless it is done in private and kept secret like before.) It even went on in the Land of Blood and Honey. And in a film of the same name, director Angelina Jolie aims to shine a light on the practice.

Amnesty International
Survivors of [Rape] Anonymous
Rape and Abuse National Network
The sexual assault of males
VIDEO: Kimberly speaks out

State Rape?
Karen Stuhldreher, University of Washington, Seattle
The act of raping women is largely understood to be an inevitable consequence of war. As General George S. Patton predicted during World War II, "there would unquestionably be some raping."¹

Rape and the mutilation of women's bodies are evidently part of the usual military fare in war. During the Vietnam war, rape was in fact an all too common occurrence, often described by GIs as SOP -- standard operating procedure.²

"That's an everyday affair... you can nail just about everybody on that -- at least once," offered a squad leader in the 34d Platoon of Charlie Company when questioned by a reporter about the rape that occurred at My Lai.³

Another GI, Joe Galbally, when testifying for the Winter Soldier Investigation, concluded his report about a specific incident of gang rape by American soldiers by saying... More

There's nothing else to do here with all this testosterone but kill and...

Recommended: 2012 Yoga Teacher Training

Yogini Ami Fox (Fox Power Yoga); Wisdom Quarterly

"The hardest yoga posture anyone will ever do is simply walking in a yoga studio door."

Yoga teacher training will commence on Feb. 21, 2012 and continue until June 28. This is for future yoga teachers and practitioners who want to deepen their practice.

Fox Power Yoga’s emphasis is teaching students how to teach yoga. The objective is for students to walk out with the ability and confidence to teach Level 1-2 and Level 2-3 formats.

There is an emphasis on safely working with mixed levels, awareness of meaningful modifications, breath (pranayama), use of props, posture assists, sequencing, and cadence.

Fox Power Yoga’s emphasis is to teach a class weaving the physical, mental, and spiritual (yogic trinity) into a dialog.

Homework will emphasize weaving spiritual life lessons into classes so that a beginning teacher can do more than simply correct alignment. Alter students' life perspectives and give them meaningful insights to chew on. The result is being prepared to teach various styles to any group in a way that leaves them feeling great and ready for more!

Even the stiffest most conservative men can learn to yoga since they need it the most.

• Tuesday and Thursday from 7:00-10:00 pm
• Every other Sunday 10:00 am-7:00 pm
  

The course will also explore the unifying themes of various yoga styles as well as fundamental differences. Discussions will include: how to lead a yogic lifestyle, the evolution of yoga, the Eight Limbs of Yoga (Ashtanga), exploring Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, as well as a brief look at the science of Ayurveda, diet, and the chakras.

Full attendance qualifies one for a Yoga Alliance 200 certificate. Adjunct faculty will include:

• Clinical psychologist Dr. Jenny Lance (RYT 500) to explore the role of yoga as therapy for depression, anxiety, and trauma
• Dr. Baba Singh and Nimrita, Kundalini Yoga
  
• Marta Jaspberg, Iyengar and Restorative Yoga
• Matthew Moyer, Mysore Ashtanga Yoga
  
• Roger Nolan, whose background includes Buddhist Vipassana (Insight) Meditation to teach Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for depression
• Tracy Krosnoff, Shadow Yoga...
  

Disfigured man explains his afterlife (video)

Mickey Robinson; Wisdom Quarterly; Monty Python's "Life of Brian"; Christopher Moore

(TheLeegoodall) A man in an accident dies, goes to the fine-material world, and experiences a brahma (divine light being), intense emotions, hellish darkness, and is brought back because his karma was not to die -- the life force not being exhausted in human form. He gives an account of what it was like. For those dogmatists, materialists, and annihilationists who believe death marks the end of the stream of conscious experience, this is a wake up call. For those who cling to notions and assumptions of a great creator and His creation, this is also a wake up call.

We may call this experience a hallucination or a vivid dream, one among thousands of NDEs (near-death experiences) saying more or less the same thing but each interpreting the meaning based on their socialization and religious affiliation. No religion is true, all religions are right, interpretations are interpretations, and simply writing them off as nonsense does not make sense. The Truth is still true, whatever it is. And there are many ways to understand and map it. Buddhism provides a great map but other traditions may as well. One need not be confused or accept the assumptions that lead to confusion. It does make sense. The truth is still true. We are called to come and see, to practice, to directly experience. When we die, and we will die, it will be a little late to begin that investigation. Our mind is like a parachute; it only works when it is open.

And as for the nonbelievers...

• "Ethics for Our Times" (by a Gandhian economist)

Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal

Are you "happy"? Changing the meaning of...

Wisdom Quarterly; Cassie Mogilner, Wharton Business School, U Penn; SPPS Journal

(ExplosmEntertainment, "Cyanide and Happiness") At any age, happiness is a good friend. Live well because getting older has been known to make some people grumpy.

Meaning of "happiness" changes as we get older

Times of India; Social Psychological and Personality Science Journal
The definition of "happiness" changes with age.

Whereas for youth it is "excitement" that counts, as we mature "contentment" matters more, study reveals.

According to the scientists, for young people, 60 per cent of happiness is about excitement.

On the other hand, as a person gets older, s/he associates 80 percent of happiness with contentment.

Researcher Professor Cassie Mogilner of U Penn conducted five studies involving different groups of people -- teens, people in their 20s, and others in their 30s, 40s, and 50s.

"We are talking about two distinct types of happiness -- one associated with peacefulness and one associated with being excited," Mogilner was quoted in the Daily Mail.

"Whereas younger people are more likely to associate happiness with excitement, as they get older, they become more likely to associate happiness with peacefulness."

The difference apparently comes from the varying degrees of importance placed on the future compared to the present. Younger people, usually more interested in... More

The Way to Happiness
The best source of lasting happiness was suggested by the Buddha: Ananda had deduced that noble friendship (kalyana mittata) was 50% of the path to enlightenment. The Buddha disagreed and famously pointed out that the real number was 100%. For it is a good friend, not Lamebook "friends," that model the practice of the Noble Eightfold Path and inspire one in the direction of realizing the goal in this very life. (See Upaddha Sutra, SN 45).

"Far away across the field, the tolling of the iron bell calls the faithful to their knees to hear the softly spoken magic spells" ("Breathe," Pink Floyd). Somehow finding happiness is simpler in ancient traditions (Dnl75/Flickr.com).

• Cheerleaders lead to unhappiness (and losing)
• PHOTOS: BizTalks2011 (The Wharton School)
  
• Geller, architect of happiness (1924-2011)
  

The Shifting Meaning of "Happiness" (video)

Cassie Mogilner (U Penn); Sepandar D. Kamvar and Jennifer Aaker (Stanford)

(Wharton) Prof. Mogilner research shows that happiness is tied to temporal (time) focus as part of the 2011 BizTalks: "Five Wharton Professors - Five Game-Changing Ideas."

An examination of emotions reported on 12 million personal [and Buddhist] blogs along with a series of surveys and laboratory experiments shows that the meaning of happiness is not fixed; instead, it systematically shifts over the course of one’s lifetime. Whereas younger people are more likely to associate happiness with excitement, as they get older, they become more likely to associate happiness with peacefulness. This change appears to be driven by a redirection of attention from the future to the present as people age. The dynamic of what happiness means has broad implications, from purchasing behavior to ways to increase one’s happiness.

Prof. Cassie Mogilner, Department of Marketing, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA (mogilner@wharton.upenn.edu)

The Science of Happiness

• Why We Strive for Money Over Time -- and Why It's a Mistake (TIME)
  
• Thinking about Time or Money Impacts How We Spend Our Days (Scientific American)
• Buying Time: The Pursuit of Happiness (Huffington Post)
• Strawberry Shortcake's Trendy New Look (NPR Marketplace)
• The Pursuit of Happiness: Buying Time (APS)
• Marketing Lessons from the Lemonade Stand (Inc.)
• Does Happiness Have a Price Tag? (CBS Moneywatch)
• Why to Tie Marketing to Time, Not Money (WSJ)
• The Way the Brain Buys (The Economist)
• Categories Help Us Make Happier Choices (Science Daily)
• Care to Know the Motivation Behind that Gift, Love? (Washington Post)
  

War at Home: Local police go military (video)

Democracy Now; Wisdom Quarterly; Cyanide & Happiness

Even women and children are not safe from police at Occupy demonstrations.

The War at Home: Combat-Ready Militarized Local Police

A new report by the Center for Investigative Reporting reveals that since 9/11, local law enforcement agencies have used $34 billion in federal grants to acquire military equipment to use on citizens.

They have splurged on such MIC (military-industrial complex) items as bomb-detection robots, digital communications equipment, Kevlar helmets, torture equipment, crowd suppression technology, spying devices, and have even employed predator drones to use on citizens within the US.

"A lot of this technology and the devices have been around for a long time. But as soon as they have, for instance, a law enforcement capability, that’s a game changer," says George Schulz, with the Center for Investigative Reporting.

"The courts and the public have to ask, how is the technology being used by a community of people -- police -- who are endowed with more power than the rest of us?’" Local police departments have also added drones to their toolkit.

In June, a drone helped local police in North Dakota with surveillance leading to what may be the first domestic arrests with help from a drone. The ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) has issued a new report that calls on the government to establish privacy protections for surveillance by unmanned aerial armed spy-drones, especially of people engaged in exercise of free speech rights such as protesting.

"We believe that people should not be targeted for surveillance via drones just because they’re they are engaged in First Amendment-protected activity," says Catherine Crump, a staff attorney with the ACLU. Source

• Occupy LA to cost City 2.3 million (in police state excesses)
• [Getting rid of] Occupy LA to cost City 1.7 million
• Blame the victim: Occupy LA to cost LA (BusinessWeek)
• Report: Occupy protests have cost cities $13 million
• Police exaggerate overtime, blame Occupy Movement
  

Jewish Sex discrimination turns Violent (video)

Wisdom Quarterly (ANALYSIS); AFP; Cindy E. Rodriguez; Democracy Now; Josh Mintz

Innocent ultra-Orthodox Jewish children light cigarettes during celebrations for Purim in Jerusalem. Purim is a celebration of the Jews' salvation from genocide in ancient Persia, as recounted in the Book of Esther (Ronen Zvulun/Reuters).

Israel's dictatorial Prime Minister Netanyahu has pledged to curb harassment and discrimination after complaints over the sexist behavior of ultra-Orthodox Jews.

Rosa Louise McCauley Parks (1913-2005) was an African American civil rights activist whom the U.S. Congress later called the "Mother of the Modern-Day Civil Rights Movement" because on Dec. 1, 1955 she refused to obey white bus driver James Blake's order that she give up her seat to make room for a white passenger.

Things have not changed universally. A woman in Israel recently caused a great scandal (or empowered a new movement) when she refused to give up her seat to an Orthodox Jewish man.

For refusing to give up her bus seat, she is being compared to US civil rights activist Rosa Parks, who was also told: "Get to the back of the bus!"

Rosenblit was refusing to bow to ultra-Orthodox Jewish customs that require females to be "modest" by, among other things, relinquishing their seat on public buses to men.

(WATCH) Israeli ultra-Orthodox Jewish gender segregation campaign turns violent

• Ultra-Orthodox Jewish sex crimes (theworld.org)
• Israelis rally against Jewish extremism (BBC)
• Does sexism lead Orthodox men to homosexuality?
  

Rosa Parks?

(ThePatriotsMaxims)

Desegregating ultra-Orthodox Jews in Jerusalem
Josh Mintz (Haaretz)
Tanya Rosenblit is like Rosa Parks, who -- together with Clifford Durr, Edgar Nixon, and Jackie Robinson -- led to the eventual racial desegregation of the United States.

There is a bar in Tel Aviv called Rosa Parks. It's a nice place, one renowned for its clientele of intellectually engaging young women.

I went there not long ago with a friend of mine who was visiting Tel Aviv from London, who happens to be black. When he saw the name of the bar he jokingly asked the barman,

"So, do I have to sit at the back of the room then?"

He got nothing but a blank look in response: The barman had no idea who the bar was named after, nor did he know her story. That's changed now.

The sexual segregation of buses has become one of the hottest topics in Israeli domestic politics, coming to a head last week with the story of Tanya Rosenblit who refused to move to the back of a bus on the order of a religious Jewish man. Now she's being called "The Israeli Rosa Parks." More

• Parks was not acting alone but in a coordinated action willing to be arrested and to go to court. And her action was not the first of its kind: Irene Morgan, in 1946, and Sarah Louise Keys, in 1955, had won rulings before the Supreme Court and the Interstate Commerce Commission respectively in the area of interstate bus travel. But unlike these previous individual actions of civil disobedience, Parks' action sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
  

Her act of defiance became an important symbol of the modern Civil Rights Movement making her an international icon of resistance to racial segregation. She organized and collaborated with civil rights leaders, including boycott leader Martin Luther King, Jr., helping to launch King to national prominence in the civil rights movement.

Even schoolgirls are threatened

BEIT SHEMESH, Israel - Schoolgirls are being harassed by ultra-Orthodox men for "immodesty" on their way to elementary school. One shy 8-year-old found herself on the front line of Israel’s latest religious war.

Naama Margolese (pictured at left) is a ponytailed, bespectacled second-grader who is afraid of walking to her religious Jewish girls school for fear of ultra-Orthodox extremists who have spat on her and called her a whore for dressing “immodestly.” So Rosenblit's action took all the more courage.

She was taking a Jerusalem-bound bus from her native Ashdod recently when an ultra-Orthodox Jewish man demanded she move to the back of the bus.

In ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities, mingling between sexes is forbidden, and women are relegated to the back of buses when men are present.

Rosenblit refused the order, which led to an argument. The bus driver then pulled the bus over, and the police were called. But Rosenblit maintained her position. The bus carried on to its final destination. The act of defiance has sparked a national discussion in Israel on the issue of gender segregation.

On Monday, the disagreement turned violent when ultra-Orthodox Jews in the Israeli town of Beit Shemesh clashed with police. Hundreds of men in the ultra-Orthodox community took part in the unrest. Members of local news crews were reportedly hurt in the clashes, and at least six Beit Shemesh residents were arrested.

An estimated 10,000 people are expected to turn out in the community today to protest the exclusion of women, as well as violence against girls and women by Haredi extremists.