...only at being myself!

To be fearless is to be our divine selves in moments when we know and believe in our hearts that nothing is impossible, that there is nothing to be afraid of, that nothing can stop us from following our bliss and making a difference.

Spoke with my son Milind just before he went to bed. We talked about his homework over his one month vacation. I asked whether it was like last year in terms of load. He nodded with a grimace on his face. Then I asked whether he would do it by himself, unlike last year during our trip to USA when Mom had to nudge and guide him to do them. He just said emphatically "NO!"

He has argued over and over that the word vacation should be taken out of the dictionary by his school as it is not living up to the word's meaning. Well, Megh and I are in for another tough time, it seems - ha, ha, ha!

Whenever I am in the now, that means am connected, in the know and am home!

from grinningplanet.com



Environmental Doublespeak — Environmental Ethics, Anti-Environmental Propaganda, and Greenwashing Language

In George Orwell's amazing (and scary) novel 1984, people used "newspeak" and "doublethink." It was soon after that the term "doublespeak" started being used to describe the words of politicians who were trying to sound like they were saying something without really having said anything tangible they could be pinned down on. More recently, doublespeak has been increasingly used as a clever way to cover up lies.

LIES, DAMN LIES, AND STATISTICS

Twisting statistics is an old game, and foes of a clean environment and public health are old pros at it. More and more, though, they just outright lie. For instance, proponents of genetically modified crops constantly say that GM crops reduce pesticide use and are needed to feed a hungry world. Both assertions are false.

So, how does one know when an industry rep is exaggerating, twisting statistics, or lying? There's no easy answer to that, but an old joke comes to mind: How do you tell when a PR flack is lying? His lips are moving.

In this decade, a new brand of this twisty-turny language emerged: Environmental Doublespeak. Here are a few of the dubious phrases:

* "using common sense"
* "modernizing regulations" or "updating laws"
* "simplifying and streamlining regulations" or "eliminating red tape"
* "clarifying regulatory language"
* "improving the way we protect the environment"

picture of politician with microphone to his mouth On the surface, these concepts are hard to argue with. Who wouldn't be in favor of reforming laws that are so outdated that they have become useless? What right-minded environmentalist wouldn't want to improve the way we protect the environment?

“IT'S CODE LANGUAGE, .007”

The problem is that environmental-doublespeak phrases are usually code language designed to obscure the fact that the speaker really intends to weaken environmental protection. Here are some common statements you hear from the sham environmentalists:

* "We're taking another look at the science associated with the problem."
* "We plan to invest in more study of the problem."
* "We want to make decisions based on sound science."

Again, such statements seem reasonable enough; but in practical terms, one can usually substitute the following phrase with perfect accuracy: "We plan to do whatever we can, including funding more studies on topics that are already well understood scientifically, to delay any strengthening of regulations in this area."

Much of environmental doublespeak is about "framing"—a political technique for using language that implies something positive rather than language that implies something negative. The most famous frame is probably "pro-life" (instead of anti-abortion). Our brains are more receptive to positive phrases, especially those that imply a broader positive meaning when taken outside the debate topic. In the case of "pro-life," if you take the phrase beyond the abortion debate, well, who isn't "pro-life"?

THE DOUBLESPEAK OF “SOUND SCIENCE” AND “BALANCE”

The phrase "we need sound science" has been used a lot during this decade to cast doubt on scientific evidence that is already solid, make the anti-environment speaker sound prudent, and make his opponents sound like reactionary Chicken Littles. But don't blame the phrase—the concept of sound science is a fine one; it's just been co-opted for use as cover by plutocratic, polluter-friendly politicians.

Environmental doublespeakers are also fond of stressing the need for "balance" when crafting environmental laws. Again, this is reasonable on the surface, but the devil is in the details. Today, the result desired by those preaching a need for "balance" is usually environmental regulation that is more acceptable to corporate polluters.

MISCELLANEOUS ENVIRONMENTAL DOUBLESPEAK

There's another type of environmental doublespeak: statistical manipulation. Consider, for instance, the statement, "The environment has gotten much cleaner in the last 30 years." That is a fact, at least in developed nations, but the implication is that there is a constant positive trend and that things are just about to the point where they're "clean enough"—so forget about toughening up any more.

But much of the environmental progress of the last 30 years occurred in the 1970s and early 1980s. We should be asking about RECENT trends and actions—i.e. what have you done for me lately? Half of US residents live in counties with unhealthful air and 40% of our surface waterways are not safe for swimming or fishing (with nearly all states having issued health warnings about mercury contamination in locally caught fish). Does that sound "clean enough" to you?

As energy issues have become prominent, doublespeak is creeping in there too:

* When they say "gas-price relief," they often are referring to their plan to ease regulation of refinery emissions or pollution-reducing gasoline blends.
* Politicians have become fond of saying that we can drill for oil in an "environmentally sensitive" manner—while simultaneously subverting efforts to regulate or ban environmentally damaging drilling techniques like fracking.
* When politicians speak of "energy independence," they use it as an umbrella term that excuses the limitations and negative consequences of many of their "solutions" like drilling in coastal areas, biofuels, and nuclear energy.

There is also something that might be called "insult doublespeak." This type of environmental doublespeak is intended to not only assert the speaker's enthusiasm for making progress on environmental problems but also to cast doubt on the motives or mental capacity of anyone who would criticize or oppose their views:

* "Those opposed to this plan are guilty of 'old thinking'; we need 'new thinking' on environmental problems."
* "Criticism often comes from those who seek to protect the status quo."
* "We should regulate based on science, not emotion."

Euphemisms are another problem; for instance, program cuts and layoffs at the US Park Service were at one point described as "service level adjustments."

The overall strategy of practitioners of environmental doublespeak is to soothe the public's concern about environmental problems while they quietly act to implement changes that please political patrons and weaken environmental protection. Here are a few additional phrases to beware of, either because they are meaningless without positive action to back them up or because they are code language designed to disguise true intent:

* "we're committed to the environment"
* "better ways to protect the environment"
* "reduce regulatory uncertainty"

WRAP-UP

This article is not meant to provide a definitive list of environmental doublespeak phrases. That would be impossible—the phrases themselves are relatively innocent; it's the duplicity behind their use that is the problem. Additionally, political spinmeisters are constantly coming up with new strategies for doublespeak. We simply urge a general attitude of suspicion towards language used to describe positions on the environment.

In fact, environmental doublespeak is a minor subset of a much broader suite of propagandistic tools covering the entire range of political topics. The oratorical tool kit includes...

* framing,
* phony research outfits and their junk science,
* mysteriously funded think tanks whose sole purpose is to craft propaganda and political strategies to advance agendas that serve to maximize corporate profits and serve the interests of wealthy elites,
* the general suppression of meaningful news on corporate-media outlets,
* video news releases ("fake news"),
* total saturation of our "thought space" with marketing and spin,
* cooption of university research programs and suppression of research results that don't conform to the desired outcome,
* "rewriting history" and controlling what is allowed in school text books.

We are constantly exposed to very carefully crafted programming designed to make us think the way The Powers That Be want us to think. A brief but fascinating history of such persuasion techniques is presented in this article by Dr. Tim O'Shea: The Doors Of Perception: Why Americans Will Believe Almost Anything.

So, the next time you hear a politician talking about the environment say something like "We have different solutions, better solutions," you might want to say, "Could you be a little more specific, Senator Smogg?"

Keep thinking, keep questioning!

Know someone who might like this Environmental Doublespeak article? Please forward it to them.

Resources:

* See books related to Environmental Doublespeak (on Grinning Planet)
* Article on general doublespeak (at SourceWatch/Disinfopedia web site)
* Scientific Integrity (at Union of Concerned Scientists web site)
* See Scientific Integrity Cartoon (on Grinning Planet)

Updated: 20-SEP-2008
(Originally published: 19-OCT-2004)

There's none.  I know only persons who have traces of both sanity and insanity in them, including myself.

What makes us human is the capacity to commune with our divine self,  to love and empower oneself and one another!

...that it's a wonderful world filled with with love, joy, beauty, laughter...

Lately I've been working at expressing my emotions outwardly with compassion using the language of the heart, not an easy thing to do when it comes to expressing anger, being upset or irritated.  Am continuing to apply daily the learnings at my husband's non-violent communication workshops.  The basic concept is to express to the other person one's emotion by expressing the feeling(s) not colored by judgment, the need(s) behind the feeling, and the action requested from the other party.

And what is non-violent communication? According to www.cnvc.org

Nonviolent Communication (NVC) helps connect us with what is alive in ourselves and in others moment-to-moment, with what we or others could do to make life more wonderful, and with an awareness of what gets in the way of natural giving and receiving.

NVC language strengthens our ability to inspire compassion from others and respond compassionately to others and ourselves. NVC guides us to reframe how we express ourselves, how we hear others and resolve conflicts by focusing our consciousness on what we are observing, feeling, needing, and requesting.

Nonviolent Communication Language: It awakens empathy and honesty, and is sometimes described as "the language of the heart."

This question simply opens up another question "Is there really a beginning or an end in one's sprituality?" I read this QaR and read it again and again and didn't quite catch an answer as I listened within, until this very moment.

GATHERING THE MIND
Sun Buer

Before our body existed,
One energy was already there.
Like jade, more lustrous as it's polished,
Like gold, brighter as it's refined.
Sweep clear the ocean of birth and death,
Stay firm by the door of total mastery.
A particle at the point of open awareness,
The gentle firing is warm.

I feel it's a blessing to have family and close friends with whom I can share my sorrows, pains and tribulations (and I theirs), and who respond with empathy because they know where I'm coming from.  Such feelings are special and personal, not for mass sharing.  And often, I share my sorrows with myself initially then my heart guides me as to whom I could share them with.

Photo source: worldproutassembly.org

On the 100th anniversary of his birth, the late, great economist's warnings resonate more than ever

by Stephen Dunn, 15 October 2008 in The Guardian

One hundred years ago today, one of the intellectual titans of the 20th century was born. Had the warnings issued by JK Galbraith up until his death two years ago been better heeded by the policymakers of today, it seems unlikely we would find ourselves so deep in the economic mire.

A lifelong liberal who advised successive Democratic presidents and presidential candidates, Galbraith ceaselessly warned of the dangers of financial excess. In his extensive writings - most famously The Great Crash 1929 - Galbraith described the common events that precede and accompany particular financial crises, events that are conveniently forgotten by politicians, regulators and their advisers in the good times, when financial deregulation takes grip.

Galbraith, like Keynes before him, identified the instability of modern capitalism in terms of the drive to accumulate excessive wealth and the fragile nature of the financial system. As Galbraith remarked, all stock market bubbles exhibit "seemingly imaginative, currently lucrative, and eventually disastrous innovation in financial structures". Galbraith argued that an unfettered, competitive capitalist system, operating on pure free-market principles, was inherently cyclical and unstable, requiring robust regulation and active government.

Starting with the tulip bulb mania in the 1630s, bubble after speculative bubble has been erased from the popular memory: the South Sea bubble in the early 1700s; the Mississippi bubble, which caused a stockmarket crash in 18th-century France; the Florida real-estate bubble in the 1920s; the stockmarket crash of 1929; the stockmarket crash of 1987; the Nikkei bubble, which began in 1991; and the Nasdaq bubble of 2000.

These episodes share a theme: a perceived fundamental change in the economy arouses euphoria and heightened expectations of return, leading to excess, fraud and collapse.

This pattern underpinned the folly of sub-prime lending. The expansion in business activity feeds entrepreneurial and speculative behaviour in the financial sectors. It drives monetary innovation and the new forms of financing structures that are contrived to allow firms to participate in the boom.

Heightened expectations stimulate a credit boom, with the banking system keen to cash in on the new situation. As Galbraith remarked in his book, Money: "The banks, needless to say, provided the money that financed the speculation that in each case preceded the crash."

As Galbraith and Keynes before him warned, such speculation inevitably leads to euphoria or overtrading in which rising asset prices encourage speculative excess. As debt accumulates, soon it can only be serviced by the issue of new liabilities. As long as the financial markets are booming, it is possible to sustain low levels of cash inflow by issuing new stocks and securities to finance current liabilities. But when the hangover comes it hits hard.

When the financial markets slow their expansion, organisations that have covered their future liabilities through issuing more debt are forced to sell assets to meet their liabilities. These "distress" sales cause asset prices to fall, at which point the financial markets, and businesses with exposure to those markets, collapse. The next phase, in which investors try to get their money back out of the markets, naturally gives way to one of "panic". This is the essence of The Great Crash.

At this stage, prices freefall and asset markets break down. As Galbraith highlighted, both bank failures and the fear of bank failures have the same effect. Both are "forces of compelling power to induce deflation - to contract consumer spending, investment spending and therewith sales, output, employment and prices".

The flurry of action by governments and central banks around the world in recent days suggests that Galbraith's works have finally been pored over by politicians. The experience of the 1930s must be avoided. This financial crisis must be met with programmes designed to maintain demand and avoid another Great Depression. On the 100th anniversary of Galbraith's birth, his words matter more than ever.

• Stephen Dunn's The Economics of John Kenneth Galbraith will be published by Cambridge University Press next year

Sharing a treasure find while I was surfing a while ago...

http://www.theinterviewwithgod.com/popup-frame.html

Privacy is my twin sister whom I am looking at in moments of self-reflection.

Though I accept that everything happens for a purpose, sometimes it could be quite confusing and difficult to comprehend.  But I let it be and don't try hard to understand.  What matters most is to keep going, dreaming and creating, believing in the power of love.

 

I have a number of families related by blood and affinity and otherwise.

* My threesome family Megh, Milind and myself which I refer to as the 3 M's is a union of three strong personalities - Megh is Scorpio, Milind is Piesces and I am Aries.  You can just imagine the powerful energies interacting, colliding and struggling to be in harmony daily, but we're managing as we believe we are soulmates.  While 3 is a small number, our combined energies is certainly beyond small.

* My extended family on my husband's side has about 30 members, excluding us, distributed in five different dwellings.  Our grand annual reunion is approaching in the next 10 days of the Tihar (or Deepawali) festival, when we would all be gathering for self-worship and fellowship and when sisters and brothers will be exchanging blessings. Of course there are also the smaller family gatherings in between.

* My original family (my Mom, Dad, 3 brothers and a sister) are spread out in Metro Manila, Renton/Seattle, Antelope CA. We remain deeply connected despite the physical distance.

* I have my gaia family, most unique and special for wanting to change the world one gaian at a time and all together, is doing so wonderfully in great numbers all across the globe and the universe, in pulsating unified energy.

* I belong to the earth family. ONE FAMILY ONE EARTH.

* And there is this one universal most amazing family (divine energy force) that is evolving and with whom I am evolving and would soon be merging with.

Rather than focusing on the what, I wish people spend more time talking with and listening to one another from the heart, with honesty and empathy, and thereby bridging the gap of misunderstanding and non-cooperation.

Am drawn to aboriginal cultures in general, be it the Native American Indian, Hawaaian, Celtic, Mayan, Carribean, other South American, African, Japanese, Burmese, Egyptian, Chinese, Indian, and all the others.  These cultures were very much closer to nature and am sure we have much to learn, unlearn or re-learn from them.

When I'm relaxed, am alive, alert, floating, at ease, smiling, glowing! When I'm stressed, I feel slouchy, in the dumps, foot-dragging, uneasy, grumpy, and gives me the signal to close my eyes, take a deep breath, drink a glass of water...