Frank's Plunge

All In This Together

Many of us have heard of and understand Ponzi schemes but in case some of us haven't and don't:       

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponzi_scheme

Recently Bernie Madoff ran such a scheme for about 15 years without any government auditors or regulators catching him and his staff. This occurred because of loose oversight up and down the line. And that same looseness permitted the entire financial services industry to do what it did to bring down the global and our economy, from mortgage brokers, real estate agents, Wall Street banks, along with pseudo-insurance companies: unregulated, or so loosely regulated as to be impotent. Crisis, starting with the housing market over to hedge funds and investment banks, many now insolvent. Thus the huge amounts of tax-payer money used to avoid total disaster, likely worse than the '29 stock market failure and following Great Depression.

What we have here is a giant Ponzi that no one recognized, but we do now. Our politicians looked the other way until it was too late. When we come to consider that there are eight lobbyists for everyone of our elected officials we come to understand that "special interests" run this country and not us. Our elected officials are dumbed-down by the influence of lobbyists. The voters' influence doesn't compare to the lobbyists of oil and gas, banking, communications, transportation industries. "What's good for General Motors is good for the rest of the country." Remember that!

What's happening now, and it is going on world-wide, because of the Internet and YouTube, is a total understanding of what it means to have a fair playing field at the economic, social, and environmental level. For me, it's a time to re-think what education means and who is it that is doing the teaching. When we look at TV we can easily see it is a marketing platform for the products of the same companies that fund the lobbyists. So where does that leave us? The newspapers, hardly. The Internet and Wikipedia are places to gather in as much as we can of news of all shades of bias, and then use our intelligence to know what the truth of the matter is. We have to re-educate ourselves outside of conventional avenues.

If we are not happy with the way things are going, have been going, then it's time to rise up and help change things for the better. And not for the better for a small group of people, but for all Americans and all peoples of the world. We are all in this together... empathy and compassion is being called for up and down the planet. People are hurting and need our help, one way or the other. May God help us with further blessings!

Okay, off the soap box!

Life And Beyond

Sometimes at night when dreaming we are awakened and never get to know the ending of the dream. We wish to continue on dreaming. You know, life is much like that. The role we sometimes play in life soon becomes an intoxication, an addiction, a series of habits, of which we cling, the illusion of it all. So we defend our positions, many times to the death, even knowing we are victims of our little egos that give a false image of life.
           As soon as we discover that nothing is absolute, morals, values, and all the rest, we realize that life is a game and that it lasts but a short time, all things considered. Values only have worth in comparison to other values, a wonderful duality that has caused all the fights and wars throughout history. But sooner or later we realize that there is an absolute but it is beyond our thinking mind, beyond all earthly consideration. At that point we are free.

Classic Virtues

In the West we have temperance, prudence, fortitude, and justice as our classic virtues. In the East we find honesty, humility, loyalty, respect, integrity as basic to happy living.
       As we look over the landscape, West and East, we find that many of us have lost our way, near-completely, through the attraction of materialism, the “ism” that provides only short-term rewards in terms of happiness and a full-life.
       Our lists of virtues can be contrasted with the classic seven deadly sins: pride, envy, gluttony, lust, wrath, greed, and sloth.
       Let’s be honest: As we look in our mirrors, how can we have respect for ourselves and others without first having empathy and compassion. May the blessing be.

frank

Yes, Virginia

You know, maybe it's time to read, re-read this piece:

The Sun - New York, 1897

In duality there is always ups and downs, judgments and non-judgments; 
whenever words come together we are in duality. But in "silence" we find 
whence comes duality, where non-duality lives.

Merry Christmas to one and all, here and there!

frank

The Call

"In any weather, at any hour of the day or night, I have been anxious to improve the nick of time, and notch it on my stick too; to stand on the meeting of two eternities, the past and future, which is precisely the present moment; to toe that line. You will pardon some obscurities, for there are more secrets in my trade than in most men's and yet not voluntarily kept, but inseparable from its very nature. I would gladly tell all that I know about it, and never paint no admittance on my gate.

"I long ago lost a hound, a bay horse, and a turtledove, and am still on their trail. Many are the travelers I have spoken concerning them, describing their tracks and what calls they answered to. I have met one or two who had heard the hound, and the tramp of the horse, and even seen the dove disappear behind a cloud, and they seemed as anxious to recover them as if they had lost them themselves."

                              --Henry David Thoreau, WALDEN, "Economy"

Double-edged Sword

Unconditional love sees all things and cultures as the way they are, without making judgments regarding which might be better than the other, which might be right or wrong.
       Many see the USA as a bold and daring adventure in the democratic, separation of church and state process, but also as a demonstration of domination by forces of greed and power. One might say that the ruling majority of citizens are self-occupied with their way of life. Seems we have a double-edged sword here. What do you think?

Energy

Here's something to think about and ask questions: Why is USA so dependant on foreign oil?

Link to Energy Article

The Washington oil lobbists have near complete control over most of the US Congress, yes!

frank

How Did Life Begin

How indeed? Starting with nothing and seemly now with much, with many things, big and small, animate and inanimate. Science has shown in the last decade or two that life can start in at least three places: deep in the sea, in deep caves without light, and on the surface of Earth with the Sun shinning. All that’s necessary is energy and molecules to assimilate, digest, metabolize, and we have things that can reproduce their own kind almost identically, but not exactly. And thus we find the source of evolution and diversity, from single-cell amoeba to minerals, to plants, animals, and finally, humans. It’s the same energy that makes suns and galaxies and the whole universe, seen and unseen. Natural selection insures the fit survive. Going from inanimate to animate might seem too much of a leap but really it isn’t. As complexity of cells occurs there comes a time when movement starts and from there we sooner or later get consciousness, beings who know they are separate and unique. Then the questions start: who am I, from where did I come, why am I here? All this, as we measure time, has taken several billion years to come to where we are now, said to be in the “twinkle of an eye.” And this energy that started it all points to what we know as “creator”, or the Absolute, of which there can be nothing else... so all is contained within our creator, we being it, our consciousness, knowing that Such, our creator, exists.

frank

The Sky Is Turning

Wherever we go we see a turning, here, there! People the world over are looking, feeling change is in the air, economic, political, religious, spiritual. All the forces having their way with what has been happening, will happen, is now. We feel the results of love, fear, greed, avarice, slothfulness, self-absorption all around. Many are unhappy with it all, and are being prompted to do something about it.
    But we have learned from the past that activism doesn’t really change anything unless our actions come from the heart. Now what does this mean? Before we individually make a move to fix things we have to come to a place where we feel, know respect and love for all beings including our adversaries, else we do just as much harm as good. The Message of Love, Harmony, Beauty points toward moving humanity, in its own time, to a more peaceful place, a place with more justice, more tolerance, more wisdom, more love.

frank

History Made

From Associated Press (AP) News Service:

Obama's accomplishment in becoming the first black ever to win a major party presidential nomination drew Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's attention.

"The United States of America is an extraordinary country. It is a country that has overcome many, many, now years, decades, actually a couple of centuries of trying to make good on its principles," said Rice, the first female black secretary of state in history, serving in a Republican administration.

"And I think what we are seeing is an extraordinary expression of the fact that 'We the people' is beginning to mean to all of us."