AT FIFTY
I am astounded, perplexed, overwhelmed, delighted and dismayed by the many physiological, emotional, cognitive and social changes that are taking place within me in so short a period of time.
Not since I married and became a mother to my first child have I undergone such extreme and rapid changes.
But my reaction to them is much more like my reactions were to the changes I was experiencing when I was an adolescent. With some of the changes, I find myself asking: Is this normal? When I was an adolescent the changes I didn't understand made me wonder if I was deformed. Now they make me wonder if some pathology is present. Yet, now, as then, it is all so very wonderful. I've embarked on a journey. I have arrived at maturity. From here the path leads to the glory of a ripe and beautiful old age.
True to my INTJ personality, there are few people I feel comfortable enough asking directly about all this. I prefer to do research. So, I scoured the net for information about women in the 50-60 year age range.
I found a good deal of sites about the pros and cons of hormone replacement therapy (that is out of the question for me).
I found a number of very good sites relating to nutrition appropriate at this time.
I found some sites discussing plastic surgery (Yikes! Heaven forfend!).
A few sites speak about dating once again at age 50+. A goodly percentage of women at this age find themselves back on the dating circuit and they are trying to cope with that. Hey; if I wanted to "cope" with that, I'd just revert to my Polyamorous ways, which somehow seems far less exciting as I've moved away from the time during which sex was largely a showcase for the body beautiful and death-defying acrobatics.
One site that I found is a compendium of the personal reports of women in the 50 to 60 year old bracket about their experiencing "aging". This was the most disappointing of all.
I'll offer some excerpts here:
"Sarah is 55, married, a marketing executive and thinking about making a change in her career. She does not fear her own aging process and tries each day to count her blessings. But in the next breath she says: “I just hate my sagging buttocks, and that pants are defining me at this age. No stretch pants for me.”
God! Is this what a woman comes away from 55 years of life experience with - defining herself by how her butt looks in pants?!
"Ruth is dreading turning 51 on her next birthday. Her biggest worry is becoming “invisible” to her coworkers. As a professional stockbroker, her job requires her to look good, perform well and compete with other money managers rising through the ranks, both male and female, many of whom are much younger than she...Most of the time, though, she keeps busy working and draws tremendous satisfaction from being able to bring home plenty of the green stuff."
I suppose if you can't be much of anything else, having money can be a comfort – and a distraction. But, having money is no excuse for being a nothing otherwise. Finding comfort in one's income is a cop-out.
"Ruth wishes she didn’t feel invisible. “In my 30s, I could turn heads with no trouble. I enjoyed seeing those necks twist.” It’s been a long time since that happened though, and she’s beginning to let that go."
I believe, and it is my experience, that an *interesting*-looking woman continues to turn heads, perhaps not for her youthful beauty, but because she radiates something (of course having a meter of silver hair and dressing in caftans in a country that has solidly adopted Western dress, as I do, may help in this).
Jane's way of dealing with aging involves embracing narcissism. Behind her are the days of living for others. Jane is one of those women who never got the balance between being for others and being oneself quite right.
None of these women can serve as a fitting role model for me, neither do I relate to any of them profoundly.
I'd be a liar if I said that some of those concerns don't cross my mind. They do, but fleetingly. Those are not my main concerns.
None of the sites I've searched for, read and reread over the last few days gave me the profound answers I seek.
The Talmud says: "...an old woman is a treasure."
*That* is what I am looking for: how to grow into being a treasure.
In a culture that does not revere the aged; that does not use the term "elder" with deep-abiding respect; in fact, one of the commonest uses of the term 'elder' is in the phrase 'elder abuse', which is all too common; in a culture in which the word 'aging' is derogatory; in which the wisdom of elders is not sought out, indeed is not so much as acknowledged, or, for that matter, cultivated and in which the elders are shunted aside, even institutionalized; it is no wonder, but so terribly, abysmally sad, that the advice offered to women over the age of 50 is to have plastic surgery, take synthetic drugs that can cause terminal illnesses and try, desperately, to look and act young for as long as possible.
The elders, for their part, are guilty too: How can youth respect a mature woman whose foremost concern is her sagging butt and who grieves that she can no longer wear stretch pants?
The only guides I seem to have are the teachings, memories and the Spirit that my Grandmother and her Sisters left entrusted within me. They were true treasures and my Grand-Aunt Bea, now well over 90 years old remains so.
Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel
DoreenDotan@gmail.com
Friday, August 24, 2007
COLOR COORDINATED CLOTHING AND OTHER COPING STRATEGIES
http://tinyurl.com/39wz4k
Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel
DoreenDotan@gmail.com
http://tinyurl.com/39wz4k
Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel
DoreenDotan@gmail.com
Thursday, August 16, 2007
IT USED TO BE: COVER YOUR ASS
Now it's: Cover your face.
"New airport agents check for danger in fliers' facial expressions By Kaitlin Dirrig McClatchy Newspapers WASHINGTON — Next time you go to the airport, there may be more eyes on you than you notice. Specially trained security personnel are watching body language and facial cues of passengers for signs of bad intentions. The watcher could be the attendant who hands you the tray for your laptop or the one standing behind the ticket-checker. Or the one next to the curbside baggage attendant. They're called Behavior Detection Officers, and they're part of several recent security upgrades, Transportation Security Administrator Kip Hawley told an aviation industry group in Washington last month. He described them as "a wonderful tool to be able to identify and do risk management prior to somebody coming into the airport or approaching the crowded checkpoint." The officers are working in more than a dozen airports already, according to Paul Ekman, a former professor at the University of California at San Francisco who has advised Hawley's agency on the program. Amy Kudwa, a TSA public affairs specialist, said the agency hopes to have 500 behavior detection officers in place by the end of 2008. Kudwa described the effort, which began as a pilot program in 2006, as "very successful" at identifying suspicious airline passengers. She said it had netted drug carriers, illegal immigrants and terrorism suspects. She wouldn't say more. At the heart of the new screening system is a theory that when people try to conceal their emotions, they reveal their feelings in flashes that Ekman, a pioneer in the field, calls "micro-expressions." Fear and disgust are the key ones, he said, because they're associated with deception. Behavior detection officers work in pairs. Typically, one officer sizes up passengers openly while the other seems to be performing a routine security duty. A passenger who arouses suspicion, whether by micro-expressions, social interaction or body language gets subtle but more serious scrutiny. A behavior specialist may decide to move in to help the suspicious passenger recover belongings that have passed through the baggage X-ray. Or he may ask where the traveler's going. If more alarms go off, officers will "refer" the person to law enforcement officials for further questioning. The strategy is based on a time-tested and successful Israeli model, but in the United States, the scrutiny is much less invasive, Ekman said. American officers receive 16 hours of training — far less than their Israeli counterparts_ because U.S. officials want to be less intrusive. The use of "micro-expressions" to identify hidden emotions began nearly 30 years ago when Ekman and colleague Maureen O'Sullivan began studying videotapes of people telling lies. When they slowed down the videotapes, they noticed distinct facial movements and began to catalogue them. They were flickers of expression that lasted no more than a fraction of a second. The Department of Homeland Security hopes to dramatically enhance such security practices. Jay M. Cohen, undersecretary of Homeland Security for Science and Technology, said in May that he wants to automate passenger screening by using videocams and computers to measure and analyze heart rate, respiration, body temperature and verbal responses as well as facial micro-expressions. Homeland Security is seeking proposals from scientists to develop such technology. The deadline for submissions is Aug. 31. The system also would be used for port security, special-event screening and other security screening tasks. It faces high hurdles, however. Different cultures express themselves differently. Expressions and body language are easy to misread, and no one's catalogued them all. Ekman notes that each culture has its own specific body language, but that little has been done to study each individually in order to incorporate them in a surveillance program. In addition, automation won't be easy, especially for the multiple variables a computer needs to size up people. Ekman thinks people can do it better. "And it's going to be hard to get machines that are as accurate as trained human beings," Ekman said. Finally, the extensive data-gathering of passengers' personal information will raise civil-liberties concerns. "If you discover that someone is at risk for heart disease, what happens to that information?" Ekman asked. "How can we be certain that it's not sold to third parties?" Whether mass-automated security screening will ever be effective is unclear. In Cohen's PowerPoint slide accompanying his aviation industry presentation was this slogan: "Every truly great accomplishment is at first impossible."
This is pseudo-science. Determining people's intentions based on "micro-expressions" is no different, or scientific, than phrenology. It serves the self-same nefarious intentions. Unscientific as phrenology as a "method" of determining people's character was, at least the shape of one's cranium does not change appreciably enough to be noticed by the human eye. Any slight fluctuations in shape that may be due to affective states couldn't be taken into account. Our facial expressions and body language do change appreciably - especially when we are self-conscious or stressed. If people feel that they are being surveilled for potentially suspicious behavior, they are going to start to act differently and may, wholly inadvertinently, send out one of those bogus "micro signals" that they are someone with a guilty conscience.
America is a dangerous place. It was already a dangerous place when I left near the beginning of the Reagan administration. Things have gone from bad to worse, far worse, in the intervening generation.
I'll express myself plainly.
You are being forewarned of future events, terrible events. You see from day to day that US society becomes increasingly unfit for human habitation. You see your rights not being whittled away, not being chipped away - but being cast away in blocks, at a fast and furious pace. You know that the President of the USA is the grandson of the man who bankrolled Xyclon B gas and the erection of death camps in partnership with I.G. Farben. You know that on October 20, 1942, under authority of the Trading with the Enemy Act, the U.S. Congress seized Prescott Sheldon Bush's holdings and liquidated them after the war. The seizure was confirmed by Vesting Order No. 248 in the U.S. Office of the Alien Property Custodian and signed by U.S. Alien Property Custodian Leo T. Crowley. You can find it in the Library of Congress if any doubts linger in your mind that this may be an urban legend. Also check the texts of Vesting Orders No. 126, 261 and 259, also signed by Crowley. They demonstrate that Prescott Sheldon Bush, et.al., had interests in Silesian-American Corporation, which profited from slave labor at Auschwitz. While it is most certainly true that the sons, and in this case grandsons as well, are not responsible for the acts of their fathers (and grandfathers) *so long as they do not walk in those same footsteps and foreswear any identification with them*, their guilt is compounded if they do follow in their forebears' footsteps. The flouting of rights held dear in the US since her birth on the part of GWB would indicate that he has been inculcated with the execrable tradition of that branch of the Bush family.
As a Jew, whose People refused to see the writing on the wall because they believed in modernity and that civilization would out because it was so entrenched that it could not betray them; I tell with with utmost certainty - you are being forewarned of dark and terrible days to come, and not in the distant future. The wise among you will get out while the getting's still good - or at least permissible.
Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel
DoreenDotan@gmail.com
Now it's: Cover your face.
"New airport agents check for danger in fliers' facial expressions By Kaitlin Dirrig McClatchy Newspapers WASHINGTON — Next time you go to the airport, there may be more eyes on you than you notice. Specially trained security personnel are watching body language and facial cues of passengers for signs of bad intentions. The watcher could be the attendant who hands you the tray for your laptop or the one standing behind the ticket-checker. Or the one next to the curbside baggage attendant. They're called Behavior Detection Officers, and they're part of several recent security upgrades, Transportation Security Administrator Kip Hawley told an aviation industry group in Washington last month. He described them as "a wonderful tool to be able to identify and do risk management prior to somebody coming into the airport or approaching the crowded checkpoint." The officers are working in more than a dozen airports already, according to Paul Ekman, a former professor at the University of California at San Francisco who has advised Hawley's agency on the program. Amy Kudwa, a TSA public affairs specialist, said the agency hopes to have 500 behavior detection officers in place by the end of 2008. Kudwa described the effort, which began as a pilot program in 2006, as "very successful" at identifying suspicious airline passengers. She said it had netted drug carriers, illegal immigrants and terrorism suspects. She wouldn't say more. At the heart of the new screening system is a theory that when people try to conceal their emotions, they reveal their feelings in flashes that Ekman, a pioneer in the field, calls "micro-expressions." Fear and disgust are the key ones, he said, because they're associated with deception. Behavior detection officers work in pairs. Typically, one officer sizes up passengers openly while the other seems to be performing a routine security duty. A passenger who arouses suspicion, whether by micro-expressions, social interaction or body language gets subtle but more serious scrutiny. A behavior specialist may decide to move in to help the suspicious passenger recover belongings that have passed through the baggage X-ray. Or he may ask where the traveler's going. If more alarms go off, officers will "refer" the person to law enforcement officials for further questioning. The strategy is based on a time-tested and successful Israeli model, but in the United States, the scrutiny is much less invasive, Ekman said. American officers receive 16 hours of training — far less than their Israeli counterparts_ because U.S. officials want to be less intrusive. The use of "micro-expressions" to identify hidden emotions began nearly 30 years ago when Ekman and colleague Maureen O'Sullivan began studying videotapes of people telling lies. When they slowed down the videotapes, they noticed distinct facial movements and began to catalogue them. They were flickers of expression that lasted no more than a fraction of a second. The Department of Homeland Security hopes to dramatically enhance such security practices. Jay M. Cohen, undersecretary of Homeland Security for Science and Technology, said in May that he wants to automate passenger screening by using videocams and computers to measure and analyze heart rate, respiration, body temperature and verbal responses as well as facial micro-expressions. Homeland Security is seeking proposals from scientists to develop such technology. The deadline for submissions is Aug. 31. The system also would be used for port security, special-event screening and other security screening tasks. It faces high hurdles, however. Different cultures express themselves differently. Expressions and body language are easy to misread, and no one's catalogued them all. Ekman notes that each culture has its own specific body language, but that little has been done to study each individually in order to incorporate them in a surveillance program. In addition, automation won't be easy, especially for the multiple variables a computer needs to size up people. Ekman thinks people can do it better. "And it's going to be hard to get machines that are as accurate as trained human beings," Ekman said. Finally, the extensive data-gathering of passengers' personal information will raise civil-liberties concerns. "If you discover that someone is at risk for heart disease, what happens to that information?" Ekman asked. "How can we be certain that it's not sold to third parties?" Whether mass-automated security screening will ever be effective is unclear. In Cohen's PowerPoint slide accompanying his aviation industry presentation was this slogan: "Every truly great accomplishment is at first impossible."
This is pseudo-science. Determining people's intentions based on "micro-expressions" is no different, or scientific, than phrenology. It serves the self-same nefarious intentions. Unscientific as phrenology as a "method" of determining people's character was, at least the shape of one's cranium does not change appreciably enough to be noticed by the human eye. Any slight fluctuations in shape that may be due to affective states couldn't be taken into account. Our facial expressions and body language do change appreciably - especially when we are self-conscious or stressed. If people feel that they are being surveilled for potentially suspicious behavior, they are going to start to act differently and may, wholly inadvertinently, send out one of those bogus "micro signals" that they are someone with a guilty conscience.
America is a dangerous place. It was already a dangerous place when I left near the beginning of the Reagan administration. Things have gone from bad to worse, far worse, in the intervening generation.
I'll express myself plainly.
You are being forewarned of future events, terrible events. You see from day to day that US society becomes increasingly unfit for human habitation. You see your rights not being whittled away, not being chipped away - but being cast away in blocks, at a fast and furious pace. You know that the President of the USA is the grandson of the man who bankrolled Xyclon B gas and the erection of death camps in partnership with I.G. Farben. You know that on October 20, 1942, under authority of the Trading with the Enemy Act, the U.S. Congress seized Prescott Sheldon Bush's holdings and liquidated them after the war. The seizure was confirmed by Vesting Order No. 248 in the U.S. Office of the Alien Property Custodian and signed by U.S. Alien Property Custodian Leo T. Crowley. You can find it in the Library of Congress if any doubts linger in your mind that this may be an urban legend. Also check the texts of Vesting Orders No. 126, 261 and 259, also signed by Crowley. They demonstrate that Prescott Sheldon Bush, et.al., had interests in Silesian-American Corporation, which profited from slave labor at Auschwitz. While it is most certainly true that the sons, and in this case grandsons as well, are not responsible for the acts of their fathers (and grandfathers) *so long as they do not walk in those same footsteps and foreswear any identification with them*, their guilt is compounded if they do follow in their forebears' footsteps. The flouting of rights held dear in the US since her birth on the part of GWB would indicate that he has been inculcated with the execrable tradition of that branch of the Bush family.
As a Jew, whose People refused to see the writing on the wall because they believed in modernity and that civilization would out because it was so entrenched that it could not betray them; I tell with with utmost certainty - you are being forewarned of dark and terrible days to come, and not in the distant future. The wise among you will get out while the getting's still good - or at least permissible.
Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel
DoreenDotan@gmail.com
Thursday, August 09, 2007
PRINCE PETER KROPOTKIN
He was not only born into the royal family of Czarist Russia, he was a prince among men.
Every time I encounter his life's dedication and work, I am overcome with admiration and awe of him anew. Though I have tried time and time again to pour out the admiration I feel for him and others like him, "if all the seas were ink and all the pine trees quills", still there would not be resource enough to praise them sufficiently.
He was a scion of one of the most respected lines in the Russian aristocracy. His family was directly related to Rurik.
He was trained in the Corps of Royal Pages and was offered a military career in an elite corps in the military.
But his scientific proclivity would lead him elsewhere. He became a geographer and insisted upon studying the geography of Siberia. It was there, in the unspeakable cold and harshness of Siberia, that he would develop his theory of Mutual Aid as the basis of survival and he argued his position forcefully against that of Darwin.
He developed a new theory about the structure of the Siberian mountains. His new findings garnered international acclaim.
The Russian Geographic Society offered him a position as its General Secretary.
Torn between the opportunity set before him and that which was in his heart from his early youth he wrote:
"Science is an excellent thing. I knew its joys and valued them...
But what right had I to these highest joys, when all around me was nothing but misery...when whatsoever I should spend to enable me to live in that world of higher emotions must need be taken from the very mouths of those who grew the wheat and had not bread enough for their children?...
Knowledge is an immense power. Man must know...What if that knowledge - should become the possession of all? Would not science itself progress in leaps, and cause mankind to make strides in production, invention, and social creation, of which we are hardly in a condition now to measure the speed? The masses want to know: they are willing to learn: they can learn...only give it to them, only give them the means of getting leisure. This is the direction in which, and these are the kind of people for whom I must work...So I sent my negative reply to the Geographical Society." – MEMOIRS OF A REVOLUTIONARY (New York: Dover Publications 1971) pp. 239-41
He went on to become a member of the revolutionary Anarchist underground in Russia, where he was jailed for his efforts. He escaped from prison in Russia after two years' internment and fled to Switzerland. In France he was interned once again for another two-year stint. Finally, after having been very active in the underground for years, he arrived in England.
He spent his mature years in England where he dedicated his life to research. He continued his studies of geography. He studied zoology, sociology, economics and history as well. The conclusions that he came to as a result of those studies culminated in the publication of two masterpieces in addition to his MUTUAL AID - A Factor of Evolution, those works being THE CONQUEST OF BREAD and FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.
He explains his purpose in carrying out that research and in writing FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS thus:
"Most socialists had hitherto said that in our present civilized societies we actually produce much more than is necessary for guaranteeing full well-being to all; that it was only the distribution which was defective; I thought, on the contrary, that under the present conditions of private ownership production itself had taken a wrong turn, and was entirely inadequate even as regards the very necessaries of life. None of these necessaries are produced in greater quantities than would be required to secure well-being for all.
But in all civilized countries the production, both agricultural and industrial, ought to and easily might be immensely increased, so as to secure a reign of plenty for all. This brought me to consider the possibilities of modern agriculture, as well as those of an education which would give to everyone the possibility of carrying on at the same time both enjoyable manual and brain work. I developed these ideas in a series of articles in the "Nineteenth Century" (a periodical in his time, my parentheses) which are now published as a book under the title FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS." ibid. pp. 447-48
Kropotkin was invited to return to Russia after the revolution of 1917. He was afforded respect there, but was deeply pained by the treatment he saw the Anarchists receiving at the hands of the Communist Party. After his death in 1921, the same year that Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman fled Russia after witnessing the treatment of Nestor Makno and other Anarchists, no holds barred persecution of the Anarchists would be conducted by the Russians.
I come from two great traditions of learning selflessly, only for the sake of betterment of humanity - that of Judaism and that of Anarchism. All of my role models are people who devoted themselves to amassing knowledge not for the sake of vainglory and not for the sake of personal power, but in order to put that knowledge at the disposal of Humankind for our common welfare.
My religion enjoins everyone to learn insofar as the person is able to. Kropotkin too speaks of the ability of all to learn and the right of everyone to access as much knowledge as they can. I too am a staunch believer in the right and the ability of everyone to access knowledge and believe that this will advance the cumulative body of knowledge to a now unimaginable extent. I bristle at every expression of elitism and exclusivity when it comes to knowledge.
A book has been running around in my mind for a long while. Like many who were persecuted and died as martyrs for their religious beliefs, so many Anarchists were persecuted and died horrible deaths for their beliefs. Though the latter group consists mainly of people who considered, and consider, themselves atheists; they are remarkably like the greatest religious personalities that the world's religions have produced. The thesis of my book will be the demonstration of the fact that the Anarchists are the true inheritors, and continuation, of the Prophetic tradition. Do they not, like the Prophets, continue to hope in a future of common peace, prosperity and welfare?
It is because I so dearly love and admire the people who were, and are, scholars for the sake of humankind, who put their genius at the service of humankind without thought to themselves and because I am so very painfully aware of their sacrifice for me, for a world of people they never knew, that I find selfish, frivolous, look at me! amassing of factoids so very revolting.
Isn't the story of Kropotkin's early life and the compassion he exhibited from so young an age for the poor and disenfranchised remarkably reminiscent of the account of the early life of Siddhartha?
And he was not alone. Bakunin too was of noble birth, as was Tolstoi.
More remarkable than Siddhartha, they, most Kropotkin and Bakunin, did not go off in search of "enlightenment" or self-realization.
These men left palaces to live among the people they loved. Everything they did, all that they were, was for others. Nothing daunted them - not rejection by their families and the nobility, not the forfeiture of promising futures, not imprisonment, not exile in Siberia and in foreign countries, not ill health. They fought on till they breathed their last expecting nothing in return for what they did, nothing at all but the betterment of the lot of humankind.
That's as great as it gets in my book.
Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel
DoreenDotan@gmail.com
He was not only born into the royal family of Czarist Russia, he was a prince among men.
Every time I encounter his life's dedication and work, I am overcome with admiration and awe of him anew. Though I have tried time and time again to pour out the admiration I feel for him and others like him, "if all the seas were ink and all the pine trees quills", still there would not be resource enough to praise them sufficiently.
He was a scion of one of the most respected lines in the Russian aristocracy. His family was directly related to Rurik.
He was trained in the Corps of Royal Pages and was offered a military career in an elite corps in the military.
But his scientific proclivity would lead him elsewhere. He became a geographer and insisted upon studying the geography of Siberia. It was there, in the unspeakable cold and harshness of Siberia, that he would develop his theory of Mutual Aid as the basis of survival and he argued his position forcefully against that of Darwin.
He developed a new theory about the structure of the Siberian mountains. His new findings garnered international acclaim.
The Russian Geographic Society offered him a position as its General Secretary.
Torn between the opportunity set before him and that which was in his heart from his early youth he wrote:
"Science is an excellent thing. I knew its joys and valued them...
But what right had I to these highest joys, when all around me was nothing but misery...when whatsoever I should spend to enable me to live in that world of higher emotions must need be taken from the very mouths of those who grew the wheat and had not bread enough for their children?...
Knowledge is an immense power. Man must know...What if that knowledge - should become the possession of all? Would not science itself progress in leaps, and cause mankind to make strides in production, invention, and social creation, of which we are hardly in a condition now to measure the speed? The masses want to know: they are willing to learn: they can learn...only give it to them, only give them the means of getting leisure. This is the direction in which, and these are the kind of people for whom I must work...So I sent my negative reply to the Geographical Society." – MEMOIRS OF A REVOLUTIONARY (New York: Dover Publications 1971) pp. 239-41
He went on to become a member of the revolutionary Anarchist underground in Russia, where he was jailed for his efforts. He escaped from prison in Russia after two years' internment and fled to Switzerland. In France he was interned once again for another two-year stint. Finally, after having been very active in the underground for years, he arrived in England.
He spent his mature years in England where he dedicated his life to research. He continued his studies of geography. He studied zoology, sociology, economics and history as well. The conclusions that he came to as a result of those studies culminated in the publication of two masterpieces in addition to his MUTUAL AID - A Factor of Evolution, those works being THE CONQUEST OF BREAD and FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.
He explains his purpose in carrying out that research and in writing FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS thus:
"Most socialists had hitherto said that in our present civilized societies we actually produce much more than is necessary for guaranteeing full well-being to all; that it was only the distribution which was defective; I thought, on the contrary, that under the present conditions of private ownership production itself had taken a wrong turn, and was entirely inadequate even as regards the very necessaries of life. None of these necessaries are produced in greater quantities than would be required to secure well-being for all.
But in all civilized countries the production, both agricultural and industrial, ought to and easily might be immensely increased, so as to secure a reign of plenty for all. This brought me to consider the possibilities of modern agriculture, as well as those of an education which would give to everyone the possibility of carrying on at the same time both enjoyable manual and brain work. I developed these ideas in a series of articles in the "Nineteenth Century" (a periodical in his time, my parentheses) which are now published as a book under the title FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS." ibid. pp. 447-48
Kropotkin was invited to return to Russia after the revolution of 1917. He was afforded respect there, but was deeply pained by the treatment he saw the Anarchists receiving at the hands of the Communist Party. After his death in 1921, the same year that Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman fled Russia after witnessing the treatment of Nestor Makno and other Anarchists, no holds barred persecution of the Anarchists would be conducted by the Russians.
I come from two great traditions of learning selflessly, only for the sake of betterment of humanity - that of Judaism and that of Anarchism. All of my role models are people who devoted themselves to amassing knowledge not for the sake of vainglory and not for the sake of personal power, but in order to put that knowledge at the disposal of Humankind for our common welfare.
My religion enjoins everyone to learn insofar as the person is able to. Kropotkin too speaks of the ability of all to learn and the right of everyone to access as much knowledge as they can. I too am a staunch believer in the right and the ability of everyone to access knowledge and believe that this will advance the cumulative body of knowledge to a now unimaginable extent. I bristle at every expression of elitism and exclusivity when it comes to knowledge.
A book has been running around in my mind for a long while. Like many who were persecuted and died as martyrs for their religious beliefs, so many Anarchists were persecuted and died horrible deaths for their beliefs. Though the latter group consists mainly of people who considered, and consider, themselves atheists; they are remarkably like the greatest religious personalities that the world's religions have produced. The thesis of my book will be the demonstration of the fact that the Anarchists are the true inheritors, and continuation, of the Prophetic tradition. Do they not, like the Prophets, continue to hope in a future of common peace, prosperity and welfare?
It is because I so dearly love and admire the people who were, and are, scholars for the sake of humankind, who put their genius at the service of humankind without thought to themselves and because I am so very painfully aware of their sacrifice for me, for a world of people they never knew, that I find selfish, frivolous, look at me! amassing of factoids so very revolting.
Isn't the story of Kropotkin's early life and the compassion he exhibited from so young an age for the poor and disenfranchised remarkably reminiscent of the account of the early life of Siddhartha?
And he was not alone. Bakunin too was of noble birth, as was Tolstoi.
More remarkable than Siddhartha, they, most Kropotkin and Bakunin, did not go off in search of "enlightenment" or self-realization.
These men left palaces to live among the people they loved. Everything they did, all that they were, was for others. Nothing daunted them - not rejection by their families and the nobility, not the forfeiture of promising futures, not imprisonment, not exile in Siberia and in foreign countries, not ill health. They fought on till they breathed their last expecting nothing in return for what they did, nothing at all but the betterment of the lot of humankind.
That's as great as it gets in my book.
Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel
DoreenDotan@gmail.com
Monday, July 23, 2007
ENCOUNTER WITH AN ANGEL
Once in my life I saw a full on halo around someone's head.
There was an Arab man, an older man, very kind, gentle and loving, who worked as a street cleaner when I lived in the desert.
When I would learn Torah, I would sometimes look out my window pondering something and I'd see him going about his work. I was always amazed how he did his work year in year out faithfully, without the least resentment in his demeanor.
Sometimes Ramadan would fall out during the summer. He would continue to work apace, without food or water, in the 40-50 degree heat.
The children loved him and he would always have a big smile on this face when the children came around.
So it went for five years.
Then, one day, I saw him crying. He told me that he had received a letter from the town council saying there would be cuts in staff and that he would be laid off. I cried with him. Furious, I wrote to the Mayor, with whom I had a good relationship and tried to plead for the man's job, but to no avail. I told him that I tried to help him, but was unsuccessful.
Just before he was to end his work there was a hail storm. Marble-sized hail fell. When it stopped the children wanted to go outside and play with the hail stones. We ran down and they were scooping up handfuls of hail and eating them, when suddenly this man appeared, seemingly out of nowhere.
He began to explain to me how the Angel Gabriel is commissioned to create the natural phenomena. I did not understand most of what he explained to me, but I listened respectfully as something inside me told me he knew of what he spoke.
I asked him: "How do you know so much about the Angel Gabriel?"
He smiled in response to my inquiry. Then a gentle gust of wind came along and his kaf'i'eh billowed in the breeze.
The halo around his head was enormous. I can still see it. It was a turquoise color and gold, at once. It was rarified, yet looked almost solid. There appeared to be some sort of beings moving within it, but I could not see them clearly.
I was shocked by what I saw. Then he was gone, just as he came, he left. He simply vanished.
I turned to the children. They were both standing there agape.
I asked them: "Did you see what I saw?"
They both nodded yes, obviously stunned.
As we went into the house my daughter said: "I didn't know you speak Arabic."
I answered that I didn't.
She said: "Mom, you spoke to him in Arabic."
I said: "I spoke to him in Hebrew, not Arabic."
My daughter answered: "Mom, Hebrew is my language. If you would have spoken in Hebrew I would have understood you. You were speaking to him in Arabic."
Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel
DoreenDotan@gmail.com
Once in my life I saw a full on halo around someone's head.
There was an Arab man, an older man, very kind, gentle and loving, who worked as a street cleaner when I lived in the desert.
When I would learn Torah, I would sometimes look out my window pondering something and I'd see him going about his work. I was always amazed how he did his work year in year out faithfully, without the least resentment in his demeanor.
Sometimes Ramadan would fall out during the summer. He would continue to work apace, without food or water, in the 40-50 degree heat.
The children loved him and he would always have a big smile on this face when the children came around.
So it went for five years.
Then, one day, I saw him crying. He told me that he had received a letter from the town council saying there would be cuts in staff and that he would be laid off. I cried with him. Furious, I wrote to the Mayor, with whom I had a good relationship and tried to plead for the man's job, but to no avail. I told him that I tried to help him, but was unsuccessful.
Just before he was to end his work there was a hail storm. Marble-sized hail fell. When it stopped the children wanted to go outside and play with the hail stones. We ran down and they were scooping up handfuls of hail and eating them, when suddenly this man appeared, seemingly out of nowhere.
He began to explain to me how the Angel Gabriel is commissioned to create the natural phenomena. I did not understand most of what he explained to me, but I listened respectfully as something inside me told me he knew of what he spoke.
I asked him: "How do you know so much about the Angel Gabriel?"
He smiled in response to my inquiry. Then a gentle gust of wind came along and his kaf'i'eh billowed in the breeze.
The halo around his head was enormous. I can still see it. It was a turquoise color and gold, at once. It was rarified, yet looked almost solid. There appeared to be some sort of beings moving within it, but I could not see them clearly.
I was shocked by what I saw. Then he was gone, just as he came, he left. He simply vanished.
I turned to the children. They were both standing there agape.
I asked them: "Did you see what I saw?"
They both nodded yes, obviously stunned.
As we went into the house my daughter said: "I didn't know you speak Arabic."
I answered that I didn't.
She said: "Mom, you spoke to him in Arabic."
I said: "I spoke to him in Hebrew, not Arabic."
My daughter answered: "Mom, Hebrew is my language. If you would have spoken in Hebrew I would have understood you. You were speaking to him in Arabic."
Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel
DoreenDotan@gmail.com
Sunday, July 22, 2007
Sex With a Girl Under Three in Jewish Law: "It is Nothing"
This is a quote that anti-Semites often "dig up" and present to those unfamiliar with Jewish Law as "proof" that Jewish Law condones pedophilia:
Kethuboth 11b : "When a grown-up man has intercourse with a little girl it is nothing."
The subject of discussion is the marital property rights of virgins vs. non-virgins. Virgins have greater entitlements. The rabbis discussed the hypothetical case of a girl raped at an age less than three years old - for the purposes of her rights at marriage, is she considered a virgin or a non-virgin? The answer is that she is considered a virgin. The quotation is out of context - _for the purposes of determining her rights, if a girl less than three has sex with a man, it is nothing. The phrase "it is nothing" is a common Talmudic idiom meaning "it has no bearing on the matter under discussion" (in this case, her property rights at marriage). It does NOT mean "it is perfectly acceptable."
Source: http://tinyurl.com/3458u8
Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel
DoreenDotan@gmail.com
This is a quote that anti-Semites often "dig up" and present to those unfamiliar with Jewish Law as "proof" that Jewish Law condones pedophilia:
Kethuboth 11b : "When a grown-up man has intercourse with a little girl it is nothing."
The subject of discussion is the marital property rights of virgins vs. non-virgins. Virgins have greater entitlements. The rabbis discussed the hypothetical case of a girl raped at an age less than three years old - for the purposes of her rights at marriage, is she considered a virgin or a non-virgin? The answer is that she is considered a virgin. The quotation is out of context - _for the purposes of determining her rights, if a girl less than three has sex with a man, it is nothing. The phrase "it is nothing" is a common Talmudic idiom meaning "it has no bearing on the matter under discussion" (in this case, her property rights at marriage). It does NOT mean "it is perfectly acceptable."
Source: http://tinyurl.com/3458u8
Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel
DoreenDotan@gmail.com
Monday, July 16, 2007
EINSTEIN'S INSIGHT INTO THE DESIRE FOR SELF-EXTINCITON ON THE PART OF SOME ANARCHO-PRIMITIVISTS
We were discussing the Anarcho-Primitivists on a group for Anarchists. Some of the Anarcho-Primitivists are neo-Malthusians and a very few of them have resorted to murderous measures. As a result, there are Anarchists who call for disavowing them from the Movement, for expunging the Anarcho- prefix from their chosen self-description.
While most certainly not justifying them in any way, the quote below from Einstein's famous essay "Why Socialism?", which was first published in 1949 in the premier edition of the Marxist journal MONTHLY REVIEW as is republished in the book ALBERT EINSTEIN from the Rebel Lives series published by Ocean Books, lends some insight into their thinking:
"Innumerable voices have been asserting for some time now that human society is passing through a crisis, that its stability has been gravely shattered. It is characteristic of such a situation that individuals feel indifferent or even hostile toward the group, small or large, to which they belong. In order to illustrate my meaning, let me record here a personal experience. I recently discussed with an intelligent and well-disposed man the threat of another war, which in my opinion would seriously endanger the existence of mankind, and I remarked that only a supranational organization would offer protection from that danger. Thereupon my visitor, very calmly and coolly said to me: "Why are you so deeply opposed to the disappearance of the human race?"
I am sure that as little as a century ago no one would have so lightly made a statement of this kind. It is the statement of a man who has striven in vain to attain an equilibrium within himself and has more or less lost hope of succeeding. It is the expression of a painful solitude and isolation from which so many people are suffering these days. "
While I am wholly against violent methods unless attacked, I do understand the neo-Maluthusian sentiments of some Anarcho-Primitivists and think that a compassionate hand should be extended to them instead of them being pushed away from the fold. It is only being shown compassion that hold out the hope that their will to live will be restored to them.
Solidarity,
Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel
DoreenDotan@gmail.com
We were discussing the Anarcho-Primitivists on a group for Anarchists. Some of the Anarcho-Primitivists are neo-Malthusians and a very few of them have resorted to murderous measures. As a result, there are Anarchists who call for disavowing them from the Movement, for expunging the Anarcho- prefix from their chosen self-description.
While most certainly not justifying them in any way, the quote below from Einstein's famous essay "Why Socialism?", which was first published in 1949 in the premier edition of the Marxist journal MONTHLY REVIEW as is republished in the book ALBERT EINSTEIN from the Rebel Lives series published by Ocean Books, lends some insight into their thinking:
"Innumerable voices have been asserting for some time now that human society is passing through a crisis, that its stability has been gravely shattered. It is characteristic of such a situation that individuals feel indifferent or even hostile toward the group, small or large, to which they belong. In order to illustrate my meaning, let me record here a personal experience. I recently discussed with an intelligent and well-disposed man the threat of another war, which in my opinion would seriously endanger the existence of mankind, and I remarked that only a supranational organization would offer protection from that danger. Thereupon my visitor, very calmly and coolly said to me: "Why are you so deeply opposed to the disappearance of the human race?"
I am sure that as little as a century ago no one would have so lightly made a statement of this kind. It is the statement of a man who has striven in vain to attain an equilibrium within himself and has more or less lost hope of succeeding. It is the expression of a painful solitude and isolation from which so many people are suffering these days. "
While I am wholly against violent methods unless attacked, I do understand the neo-Maluthusian sentiments of some Anarcho-Primitivists and think that a compassionate hand should be extended to them instead of them being pushed away from the fold. It is only being shown compassion that hold out the hope that their will to live will be restored to them.
Solidarity,
Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel
DoreenDotan@gmail.com
Tuesday, July 03, 2007
My call to capitulation below is based on the following article:
FROM WND'S JERUSALEM BUREAUMore London bombings on way, warns MuslimUK Islamist leader claims Brits ready to carry out 'many attacks'
Posted: July 2, 20071:00 a.m. Eastern
By Aaron Klein© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com
See: http://tinyurl.com/23gepe
Capitulate! Capitulate, I tell you!
Listen to me. I know of what I speak.
Their demands are so rational, so modest and so few.
What do they ask of you, oh you stiff-necked infidels, you heathens you?
They ask only that your women wear burqas in public, be the illiterate, barefoot maidservants Allah created them in His DivineWisdom to be, allow themselves to be beaten, submit to their husbands' every sexual whim whenever the urge strikes him (and he strikes her) and to not go out unescorted.
They ask only that you give up the booze and the bacon butties. Isn't there enough spam on the net? Must you have it in little cans too? I mean really.
Must you, I mean *must* you, put alcohol in shoe polish and floor varnish? That's crass.
They ask only that the blind not walk around the streets with their unclean dogs. I mean, they've got a point. They are terribly unsightly.
Wouldn't it be nice to wake to the sound of the pitter-patter of 40 little feet in your two-room apartment every morning?
And what have you to do that is more important, or more entertainingfor that matter, than praying five times per day?
Do not be so hard-hearted, brothers and sisters, but let the light and love of Allah Akbar in.
Those of you who reserve doubts as to whether this is the life you want to live and want for your children and their children after them can comfort yourselves in the thought that giving in to radical Islam will hasten a Malthusian crisis and usher in the end of days.
Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel
DoreenDotan@gmail.com
FROM WND'S JERUSALEM BUREAUMore London bombings on way, warns MuslimUK Islamist leader claims Brits ready to carry out 'many attacks'
Posted: July 2, 20071:00 a.m. Eastern
By Aaron Klein© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com
See: http://tinyurl.com/23gepe
Capitulate! Capitulate, I tell you!
Listen to me. I know of what I speak.
Their demands are so rational, so modest and so few.
What do they ask of you, oh you stiff-necked infidels, you heathens you?
They ask only that your women wear burqas in public, be the illiterate, barefoot maidservants Allah created them in His DivineWisdom to be, allow themselves to be beaten, submit to their husbands' every sexual whim whenever the urge strikes him (and he strikes her) and to not go out unescorted.
They ask only that you give up the booze and the bacon butties. Isn't there enough spam on the net? Must you have it in little cans too? I mean really.
Must you, I mean *must* you, put alcohol in shoe polish and floor varnish? That's crass.
They ask only that the blind not walk around the streets with their unclean dogs. I mean, they've got a point. They are terribly unsightly.
Wouldn't it be nice to wake to the sound of the pitter-patter of 40 little feet in your two-room apartment every morning?
And what have you to do that is more important, or more entertainingfor that matter, than praying five times per day?
Do not be so hard-hearted, brothers and sisters, but let the light and love of Allah Akbar in.
Those of you who reserve doubts as to whether this is the life you want to live and want for your children and their children after them can comfort yourselves in the thought that giving in to radical Islam will hasten a Malthusian crisis and usher in the end of days.
Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel
DoreenDotan@gmail.com
Sunday, July 01, 2007
The piece below was inspired by an article entitled:
"Rise of man theory ‘out by 400,000 years’", published June 25, 2007 in the TIMES ONLINE
See: http://tinyurl.com/3xq7t9
Anachronistic Agriculture
The recent discovery of microscopic-sized agricultural tools in a container of Spirulina amazed even the most skeptical of scientists and opened anew the discussion as to how early in our development agriculture in fact began.
The results of the research are astounding and have caused a revolution of thinking among evolutionists. Agriculture, it has been conclusively proven, dates to the mid-Hadean aeon, that is, 4 billion years ago!
Storehouses containing traces of spelt, einkorn, emmer and kamut, cultured by a people called the Pro-Karyotes, have been found in the Nile Delta region.
These little guys were busy as beavers. Their granaries were enormous relative to their size. Some measure as much as 20 X 20 mm.
Caches of flintlock firearms were found as well. It is believed that these were used by the Pro-Karyotes to defend themselves against marauding bands, whom they refer to as the Anti-Karyotes in their records, which are written in cuneiform.
The Anti-Karyotes, for their part, retained records in which they described themselves as "rewilded ferals" who returned to being hunter-gatherers. They subsisted mainly on Wooly Mammoth and cherimoya, but they did sometimes give in to their old ways and indulged their taste for processed foods and Hershey's Kisses. They seemed to have been partial to Velveeta Cheesefood. They typically wore nothing but red bandanas and their ideogram, with which they were all tattooed on their forearms, looks amazingly like the phrase "Guns and Roses". The Anti-Karyotes were the progenitors of the two branches of modern day Bushmen, those who inhabit the Kalahari Desert and those who inhabit Texas Desert.
Exacting inventories of stock were scrupulously kept by the Pro-Karyotes. Their mathematical abilities were impressively advanced for their time. Teensy weensy abaci were found in their managerial and accounting offices, which were on the top floor of some of the granaries.
The Pro-Karyotes worshipped a god they called Hugh (or Huge) Karyote. They described him as being unfathomably great in wisdom and magnitude. He was believed to look something like a "gargantuan abbey" that contained vast, labyrinthine corridors, which they referred to as "mite-o-chondria" or "might-o-chondria, within the holy of holies, which was named Nucleus, a name so sacred as to be forbidden to be pronounced on pain of death.
Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel
DoreenDotan@gmail.com
"Rise of man theory ‘out by 400,000 years’", published June 25, 2007 in the TIMES ONLINE
See: http://tinyurl.com/3xq7t9
Anachronistic Agriculture
The recent discovery of microscopic-sized agricultural tools in a container of Spirulina amazed even the most skeptical of scientists and opened anew the discussion as to how early in our development agriculture in fact began.
The results of the research are astounding and have caused a revolution of thinking among evolutionists. Agriculture, it has been conclusively proven, dates to the mid-Hadean aeon, that is, 4 billion years ago!
Storehouses containing traces of spelt, einkorn, emmer and kamut, cultured by a people called the Pro-Karyotes, have been found in the Nile Delta region.
These little guys were busy as beavers. Their granaries were enormous relative to their size. Some measure as much as 20 X 20 mm.
Caches of flintlock firearms were found as well. It is believed that these were used by the Pro-Karyotes to defend themselves against marauding bands, whom they refer to as the Anti-Karyotes in their records, which are written in cuneiform.
The Anti-Karyotes, for their part, retained records in which they described themselves as "rewilded ferals" who returned to being hunter-gatherers. They subsisted mainly on Wooly Mammoth and cherimoya, but they did sometimes give in to their old ways and indulged their taste for processed foods and Hershey's Kisses. They seemed to have been partial to Velveeta Cheesefood. They typically wore nothing but red bandanas and their ideogram, with which they were all tattooed on their forearms, looks amazingly like the phrase "Guns and Roses". The Anti-Karyotes were the progenitors of the two branches of modern day Bushmen, those who inhabit the Kalahari Desert and those who inhabit Texas Desert.
Exacting inventories of stock were scrupulously kept by the Pro-Karyotes. Their mathematical abilities were impressively advanced for their time. Teensy weensy abaci were found in their managerial and accounting offices, which were on the top floor of some of the granaries.
The Pro-Karyotes worshipped a god they called Hugh (or Huge) Karyote. They described him as being unfathomably great in wisdom and magnitude. He was believed to look something like a "gargantuan abbey" that contained vast, labyrinthine corridors, which they referred to as "mite-o-chondria" or "might-o-chondria, within the holy of holies, which was named Nucleus, a name so sacred as to be forbidden to be pronounced on pain of death.
Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel
DoreenDotan@gmail.com
Sunday, June 24, 2007
THE UNIVERSE APPREHENDED
Thanks to the combined, dedicated, heroic and unswerving forensic efforts of cosmologists and ATF Special Agents, the world's most, mercurial and fugitive fugitive, the Universe, has been apprehended after almost fourteen billion years at large, evading even the most sophisticated efforts to bring it into custody.
Fast forward: The Trial - The Planet Earth vs. The Universe
The Universe didn't look so big and bad being hauled manacled and in leg irons and chains into Federal Court earlier today accompanied by California State Police. Federal Justice Gary Joseph Easton was perceptibly astounded when he saw the charges leveled against the Universe.
The indictment drawn up against the Universe lists crimes so myriad and heinous as to defy the imagination. The Universe is known to have performed equally myriad acts of loving-kindness, but it has been amply demonstrated by the Prosecution that these were either meant to throw authorities off the track; fronts intended to conceal illegal and nefarious activities or money-laundering operations. The more minor charges against the Universe include paedophilia, zoophilia, piracy, use of computer software without license, tax evasion, marketing tainted toothpaste internationally, tapping bears for their bile, counterfeiting, pandering, extortion and one charge of loitering. The Universe was charged with innumerable capital offenses the world over as well. A mere sampling of these include: murder during hostage-taking, murder for hire, treason, adultery and apostasy. Among the military capital offenses allegedly committed by the Universe are participating in the Paris Commune, desertion during the American Civil War and not rendering unto Caesar what is Caesar's. But the crime of all time that the Universe is being charged with is the notorious Big Bang. The explosion to end all explosions was originally believed by the Pinkertons to be the result of the detonation of an "infernal machine" by Anarchists for the sake of striking terror in the Multiverse, starting with downtown Chicago. But more in-depth investigation has proven the Big Bang to have been long-planned by the Family of the Universe to establish its youngest son as the undisputed kingpin in a network of organized crime that was intended to, and eventually would have, spanned the entire Multiverse had it not been nipped in the bud.
Not in the least bit apprehensive in the courtroom, the Universe swaggeringly pleaded guilty to all the counts in the indictment and was so brazen as to tell the Judge that its only regret is that they know so little of the Universe's "adventures". However, when the death sentence was handed down by Judge Easton, the Universe began to tremble. Escorted out of the courtroom by State Police, the Universe realized that it would be spending the next few billion years on Death Row.
Twenty Billion Years Later: The Execution
In time, the Universe mellowed, matured and waxed introspective. It took up tai chi chuan and began to read such treatises as The Tibetan Book of the Dead. It became genuinely repentant and a model prisoner. It wrote numerous books, some of which it illustrated, aimed at youth at risk warning them of the hazards of a life of crime. Yet, its every request for a stay of execution was rejected. Having exhausted every legal channel, and near exhaustion itself, the wizened Universe was led to the cell in which it would expire. Understanding that all resistance was futile, the resigned Universe contracted itself into the 6 X 9 X 9.5 feet cell. The metal door of the cell clanged ominously behind the Universe and the bolt was thrown. Immediately, super-heated gas began to flow into the cell. Five minutes later a tiny, barely audible whimper was heard…and then absolute, eternal silence.
Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel
DoreenDotan@gmail.com
Thanks to the combined, dedicated, heroic and unswerving forensic efforts of cosmologists and ATF Special Agents, the world's most, mercurial and fugitive fugitive, the Universe, has been apprehended after almost fourteen billion years at large, evading even the most sophisticated efforts to bring it into custody.
Fast forward: The Trial - The Planet Earth vs. The Universe
The Universe didn't look so big and bad being hauled manacled and in leg irons and chains into Federal Court earlier today accompanied by California State Police. Federal Justice Gary Joseph Easton was perceptibly astounded when he saw the charges leveled against the Universe.
The indictment drawn up against the Universe lists crimes so myriad and heinous as to defy the imagination. The Universe is known to have performed equally myriad acts of loving-kindness, but it has been amply demonstrated by the Prosecution that these were either meant to throw authorities off the track; fronts intended to conceal illegal and nefarious activities or money-laundering operations. The more minor charges against the Universe include paedophilia, zoophilia, piracy, use of computer software without license, tax evasion, marketing tainted toothpaste internationally, tapping bears for their bile, counterfeiting, pandering, extortion and one charge of loitering. The Universe was charged with innumerable capital offenses the world over as well. A mere sampling of these include: murder during hostage-taking, murder for hire, treason, adultery and apostasy. Among the military capital offenses allegedly committed by the Universe are participating in the Paris Commune, desertion during the American Civil War and not rendering unto Caesar what is Caesar's. But the crime of all time that the Universe is being charged with is the notorious Big Bang. The explosion to end all explosions was originally believed by the Pinkertons to be the result of the detonation of an "infernal machine" by Anarchists for the sake of striking terror in the Multiverse, starting with downtown Chicago. But more in-depth investigation has proven the Big Bang to have been long-planned by the Family of the Universe to establish its youngest son as the undisputed kingpin in a network of organized crime that was intended to, and eventually would have, spanned the entire Multiverse had it not been nipped in the bud.
Not in the least bit apprehensive in the courtroom, the Universe swaggeringly pleaded guilty to all the counts in the indictment and was so brazen as to tell the Judge that its only regret is that they know so little of the Universe's "adventures". However, when the death sentence was handed down by Judge Easton, the Universe began to tremble. Escorted out of the courtroom by State Police, the Universe realized that it would be spending the next few billion years on Death Row.
Twenty Billion Years Later: The Execution
In time, the Universe mellowed, matured and waxed introspective. It took up tai chi chuan and began to read such treatises as The Tibetan Book of the Dead. It became genuinely repentant and a model prisoner. It wrote numerous books, some of which it illustrated, aimed at youth at risk warning them of the hazards of a life of crime. Yet, its every request for a stay of execution was rejected. Having exhausted every legal channel, and near exhaustion itself, the wizened Universe was led to the cell in which it would expire. Understanding that all resistance was futile, the resigned Universe contracted itself into the 6 X 9 X 9.5 feet cell. The metal door of the cell clanged ominously behind the Universe and the bolt was thrown. Immediately, super-heated gas began to flow into the cell. Five minutes later a tiny, barely audible whimper was heard…and then absolute, eternal silence.
Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel
DoreenDotan@gmail.com
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Ms. Multiverse
It was a tough contest, but the judges finally arrived at a decision. Here's the moment we've all been waiting for. We have a winna! And now, without further ado, allow me to introduce Xcolodjenenrhneymenejtmoethe 9838585, this year's Ms. Multiverse!
Step right up and speak loud and clear into the voice synthesizer, dear. My, you look and sound so excited. You're emitting photons and phonons all over the place. Not like the girls on earth who just tremble and giggle nervously. Is she?
I can't believe I won! I never expected this! There were soooo many beautiful contestants, from soooo many universes. I thought I might get Ms. Congeniality, because everyone's always told me the yellow light I transpire makes them feel so happy, but I never expected to be Ms. Multiverse. I feel soooo honored to have been chosen to represent my galaxy, Ademordna, and my universe.
No need to be modest, Xcolodjenenrhneymenejtmoethe 9838585. You were a sure win. You wowed us all in both the swimsuit and formal wear competition.
Step up to the electron microscope and let us get a better look at you. Oh, yes. You are a lovely creature. Lovely indeed. May I call you Xcolodjenenrhneymenejtmo for short?
Of course you may! That's what they called me when I was a blastocyst.
Is it too presumptuous to inquire as to your vital stats? You are enviably statuesque and svelte, you know.
It's not presumptuous at all. I am 47.013 meters tall and weigh exactly 7.279495 femtograms. I'm very careful about my diet and never let my weight fluctuate. And I exercise a lot too. But I'm careful not to let myself get too thin. I was really traumatized when the top model in Ademordna died of anorexia. She had been soooo beautiful. When she died she weighed something like 6.734592 attograms. She looked awful toward the end. She was so young, too. It was a tragedy, a terrible tragedy.
What are your favorite forms of exercise?
Sports. I love to play demrmentatsisiygs.
I've never heard of it. How is it played?
Oh. It's something like a cross between your badminton and foosball. Just instead of being played with a shuttlecock or a ball, we use subatomic particles that exist in our universe called pasteyons. Their lively -8/7 spin really makes for a great work-out.
Ah. I see. Well, I must say, the results are stunning. And your complexion is positively radiant, absolutely flawless. How do you keep it festering and oozing like that? Can you let us in on your secrets?
Sure. Back home I use an exfoliating scrub with a pH of 0.2 that I concoct myself from things I find in my Mom's kitchen. Here on Earth a wad of fiberglass imbibed with Diet Coca Cola with Vitamins and Minerals is a pretty good substitute, but I do find the Coke a bit harsh sometimes.
And your hair! It's so luxuriant. May we ask how you care for it?
Xcolodjenenrhneymenejtmoethe 9838585 tosses her magnificent mane, laughs and says. Oh, that! The most important element in having beautiful hair is choosing one's ancestors wisely. I only let it grow really long on my palms. The rest I keep neatly trimmed. She winks cheekily and smiles mischievously at the audience.
Is that your natural color?
The midnight blue is mine, yes, but the violet highlights are from a rinse.
And hobbies. Do you enjoy any hobbies?
Oh, yes! I love watching galaxies collide and painting my toenails.
That must take up a good deal of your free time. How many toenails do you have, Xcolodjenenrhneymenejtmo?
Four score and seven, last I counted.
What color is your toenail polish? Earthlings can't see in that range.
Oh, I'm sorry. How stupid of me. I keep forgetting the culture gap. It's frosted Kozmique Ray Blue. It makes me feel very feminine and goes soooo well with my hair. It's such a nice change from the Gamma Ray Grey I am expected to wear at work as an implanted 'bot too.
Your English is excellent, Xcolodjenenrhneymenejtmo. Where did you pick it up?
Why, thank you! At a store for second-hand designer clothes in the East Village. Just kidding. No, actually, when I was selected Ms. Ademordna I began to read Beowulf. Then I simply extrapolated what the development of the language would be by computer-simulating your culture and history and by the time I got here for the Ms. Multiverse contest I spoke what you call modern English with a few anachronisms.
Smart girl. Good thinking.
What do you like most in creatures, Xcolodjenenrhneymenejtmo? What are your turn-ons? What really gets your juices flowing?
Well, I get bored quickly. So, I really like creatures with a quick wit and short half life. A short half life is soooo hot.
And what turns you off?
Intolerance, impatience and lack of BO. Definitely. Also the red button on my back.
What are your plans for the future, Xcolodjenenrhneymenejtmo?
My long-term goal is to evolve into a Drormentejthemiszimentjltl. In the intervening light years, I'll use the prize money for travel. There are soooo many universes that I want to see! I've received soooo many invitations to stay with the many friends I've made among the contestants. I'm really excited about the prospect of visiting them and seeing their home star systems. Oops, there I go exuding the photons and phonons again.
There you have her, Ladies, Gentlemen and Life Forms of All Stripes, Xcolodjenenrhneymenejtmoethe 9838585, this year's Ms. Multiverse! Those of you that have hands, or reasonable analogues thereof, give her a warm round of applause.
Be careful descending the ramp, dear. Don't trip on those stiletto heels.
Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel
DoreenDotan@gmail.com
It was a tough contest, but the judges finally arrived at a decision. Here's the moment we've all been waiting for. We have a winna! And now, without further ado, allow me to introduce Xcolodjenenrhneymenejtmoethe 9838585, this year's Ms. Multiverse!
Step right up and speak loud and clear into the voice synthesizer, dear. My, you look and sound so excited. You're emitting photons and phonons all over the place. Not like the girls on earth who just tremble and giggle nervously. Is she?
I can't believe I won! I never expected this! There were soooo many beautiful contestants, from soooo many universes. I thought I might get Ms. Congeniality, because everyone's always told me the yellow light I transpire makes them feel so happy, but I never expected to be Ms. Multiverse. I feel soooo honored to have been chosen to represent my galaxy, Ademordna, and my universe.
No need to be modest, Xcolodjenenrhneymenejtmoethe 9838585. You were a sure win. You wowed us all in both the swimsuit and formal wear competition.
Step up to the electron microscope and let us get a better look at you. Oh, yes. You are a lovely creature. Lovely indeed. May I call you Xcolodjenenrhneymenejtmo for short?
Of course you may! That's what they called me when I was a blastocyst.
Is it too presumptuous to inquire as to your vital stats? You are enviably statuesque and svelte, you know.
It's not presumptuous at all. I am 47.013 meters tall and weigh exactly 7.279495 femtograms. I'm very careful about my diet and never let my weight fluctuate. And I exercise a lot too. But I'm careful not to let myself get too thin. I was really traumatized when the top model in Ademordna died of anorexia. She had been soooo beautiful. When she died she weighed something like 6.734592 attograms. She looked awful toward the end. She was so young, too. It was a tragedy, a terrible tragedy.
What are your favorite forms of exercise?
Sports. I love to play demrmentatsisiygs.
I've never heard of it. How is it played?
Oh. It's something like a cross between your badminton and foosball. Just instead of being played with a shuttlecock or a ball, we use subatomic particles that exist in our universe called pasteyons. Their lively -8/7 spin really makes for a great work-out.
Ah. I see. Well, I must say, the results are stunning. And your complexion is positively radiant, absolutely flawless. How do you keep it festering and oozing like that? Can you let us in on your secrets?
Sure. Back home I use an exfoliating scrub with a pH of 0.2 that I concoct myself from things I find in my Mom's kitchen. Here on Earth a wad of fiberglass imbibed with Diet Coca Cola with Vitamins and Minerals is a pretty good substitute, but I do find the Coke a bit harsh sometimes.
And your hair! It's so luxuriant. May we ask how you care for it?
Xcolodjenenrhneymenejtmoethe 9838585 tosses her magnificent mane, laughs and says. Oh, that! The most important element in having beautiful hair is choosing one's ancestors wisely. I only let it grow really long on my palms. The rest I keep neatly trimmed. She winks cheekily and smiles mischievously at the audience.
Is that your natural color?
The midnight blue is mine, yes, but the violet highlights are from a rinse.
And hobbies. Do you enjoy any hobbies?
Oh, yes! I love watching galaxies collide and painting my toenails.
That must take up a good deal of your free time. How many toenails do you have, Xcolodjenenrhneymenejtmo?
Four score and seven, last I counted.
What color is your toenail polish? Earthlings can't see in that range.
Oh, I'm sorry. How stupid of me. I keep forgetting the culture gap. It's frosted Kozmique Ray Blue. It makes me feel very feminine and goes soooo well with my hair. It's such a nice change from the Gamma Ray Grey I am expected to wear at work as an implanted 'bot too.
Your English is excellent, Xcolodjenenrhneymenejtmo. Where did you pick it up?
Why, thank you! At a store for second-hand designer clothes in the East Village. Just kidding. No, actually, when I was selected Ms. Ademordna I began to read Beowulf. Then I simply extrapolated what the development of the language would be by computer-simulating your culture and history and by the time I got here for the Ms. Multiverse contest I spoke what you call modern English with a few anachronisms.
Smart girl. Good thinking.
What do you like most in creatures, Xcolodjenenrhneymenejtmo? What are your turn-ons? What really gets your juices flowing?
Well, I get bored quickly. So, I really like creatures with a quick wit and short half life. A short half life is soooo hot.
And what turns you off?
Intolerance, impatience and lack of BO. Definitely. Also the red button on my back.
What are your plans for the future, Xcolodjenenrhneymenejtmo?
My long-term goal is to evolve into a Drormentejthemiszimentjltl. In the intervening light years, I'll use the prize money for travel. There are soooo many universes that I want to see! I've received soooo many invitations to stay with the many friends I've made among the contestants. I'm really excited about the prospect of visiting them and seeing their home star systems. Oops, there I go exuding the photons and phonons again.
There you have her, Ladies, Gentlemen and Life Forms of All Stripes, Xcolodjenenrhneymenejtmoethe 9838585, this year's Ms. Multiverse! Those of you that have hands, or reasonable analogues thereof, give her a warm round of applause.
Be careful descending the ramp, dear. Don't trip on those stiletto heels.
Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel
DoreenDotan@gmail.com
THE CREATION OF A STATE
This is what is involved in the creation of a state:http://tinyurl.com/2kyw6l
We Israelis too were brutalized and reduced to the ignominy of committing acts that would have been unthinkable before we had a state to defend. It really does not matter if we are more than, less than or equally brutal to the Palestinian Arabs. We have both become far more brutal and violent than we were - all for the sake of achieving and defending a state with "secure borders".
And that is why when people ask me if I believe in a two-state solution, I tell them that I believe in a zero-state solution.
No state is a solution to violence, to intrigue, to nefarious undertakings, systematic povertization of target populations in order to keep the drug, prostitution and weapons markets humming. No state will not send its young to war for the sake of maintaining the power of the elite.
And although I do not see Israel as an imperialist state because none of the land that we seized was as a result of our initiative, but rather as a result of wars that we did not begin, but were victorious in - still I do not doubt that we would be imperialists and colonialists if we could, because that is the way of the realpolitik of statecraft. And the Palestinians, given the chance, would do exactly the same thing.
From what I understand from scions of families that have inhabited this area for many generations, Arab and Jewish alike; these problems did not exist before the British arrived and fomented discord to their own purposes. Historians say the same. There was also no concept of state in this area until it was imported.
I don't see any solution to the conflicts in this area until states and borders are abolished. Only when there are no borders can disarmament, particularly nuclear disarmament, occur. Only then can prosperity based on truly free trade agreements take place. Only then can there be free educational and cultural exchange. Only then can there be religious speculation that is not the concept by which we measure our pain, as John Lennon so aptly observed, but rather the measure of our joy.
Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel
DoreenDotan@gmail.com
This is what is involved in the creation of a state:http://tinyurl.com/2kyw6l
We Israelis too were brutalized and reduced to the ignominy of committing acts that would have been unthinkable before we had a state to defend. It really does not matter if we are more than, less than or equally brutal to the Palestinian Arabs. We have both become far more brutal and violent than we were - all for the sake of achieving and defending a state with "secure borders".
And that is why when people ask me if I believe in a two-state solution, I tell them that I believe in a zero-state solution.
No state is a solution to violence, to intrigue, to nefarious undertakings, systematic povertization of target populations in order to keep the drug, prostitution and weapons markets humming. No state will not send its young to war for the sake of maintaining the power of the elite.
And although I do not see Israel as an imperialist state because none of the land that we seized was as a result of our initiative, but rather as a result of wars that we did not begin, but were victorious in - still I do not doubt that we would be imperialists and colonialists if we could, because that is the way of the realpolitik of statecraft. And the Palestinians, given the chance, would do exactly the same thing.
From what I understand from scions of families that have inhabited this area for many generations, Arab and Jewish alike; these problems did not exist before the British arrived and fomented discord to their own purposes. Historians say the same. There was also no concept of state in this area until it was imported.
I don't see any solution to the conflicts in this area until states and borders are abolished. Only when there are no borders can disarmament, particularly nuclear disarmament, occur. Only then can prosperity based on truly free trade agreements take place. Only then can there be free educational and cultural exchange. Only then can there be religious speculation that is not the concept by which we measure our pain, as John Lennon so aptly observed, but rather the measure of our joy.
Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel
DoreenDotan@gmail.com
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
So, what do we mean by civilization?
I was floored when someone who lives in England wrote on a message board recently that British imperialism and colonialism were media for the spread of civilization and that Britain was, and still is, a "beacon of civilization" to the world. I simply could not believe that anyone still held the view that imperialism and colonialism was a favor that the White man did for the "colored savages".
It is all the more surprising when one considers that this person is highly critical of Israel's relationship to the Palestinians. Less surprisingly, this person refuses to accept the fact that it was the British who flooded the area that was to become the state of Israel with Arabs from the surrounding countries, going so far as to apply pressure on France to allow this, and created the Israeli-Palestinian problem in so doing. But that is the subject of other treatises.
The following passage is a first-hand account of a man who lived under colonialism. While he is from Peru, the imperialism and colonialism of Britain was no less barbaric than that of Spain, it's competitor in the attempt to conquer as much of the world as possible.
In the passage quoted below Prada also mentions that the "gentlemen" who owned the haciendas were often educated in England. His description of the effects of that education should be noted.
Robert Graham's Introduction: "Manuel Gonzáles Prada (1848 – 1919) was a Peruvian poet, writer and intellectual who moved toward an anarchist position around 1920. He was familiar with the major anarchist writers, and shared with Kropotkin an admiration for the French moral philosopher, Jean Marie Gayau (1854 – 1888)*, and opposition to Social Darwinism. He was one of the first Latin American writers to discuss the issue of indigenous peoples. The following excerpts are taken from his 1904 essay "Our Indians" translated here by Paul Sharkey."
"A hacienda comes about through the amassing of tiny plots wrested from their lawful owners and the lord wields the authority of a Norman baron over his peons. Not only has he a say in the appointment of governors, mayors and justices of the peace, but he conducts weddings, appoints heirs, disposes of inheritances and has the sons submit to a slavery that normally lasts their lifetime just to clear the debts of the father. He enforces fearful punishments like the foot-stocks, flogging, the pillory and death; or as droll as head-shaving or cold water enemas. It would be a miracle if someone with no regard for life or property were to have any regard for female honor; every Indian woman, single or married, may find herself the target of the master's brutish lusts. Abduction, violation and rape do not mean much when the belief is that Indian women are there to be taken by force. And for all that the Indian never addresses his master without kneeling and kissing his hand. Let it not be said that the lords of the land act that way out of ignorance or for want of education; the children of some hacienda owners are shipped to Europe in their childhood, educated in France or England and return to Peru with all of the appearances of civilized folk; but once they are back on their haciendas, the European veneer comes off and they act even more inhumanely and violently than their fathers; haciendas are tantamount to kingships in the heart of the Republic and the hacienda owners act like autocrats in the bosom of democracy…
So, what do we mean by civilization? …The greatest accomplishment of morality, for individuals and societies alike, consist of its having turned man's strife with his neighbor into a mutual agreement to live. Where there is no justice, mercy or goodwill, civilization is nowhere to be found: where the "struggle for existence" is enunciated as the rule of society, barbarism rules. What is the point of amassing the learning of an Aristotle when one is a tiger at heart? What matter the artistic gifts of a Michelangelo when one has the heart of a swine? Rather than going around the world spreading the light of art or science, better to go around dispensing the mild of human kindness. Societies where doing good has graduated from being an obligation to being a habit where the act of kindness has turned into an instinctive impulse deserve the description highly civilized. Have Peru's rulers attained that degree of morality? Are they entitled to look upon the Indian as a creature incapable of civilization?"
* I heartily recommend the writing of Jean Marie Guyau as well. Excerpts from his work can be found in Kropotkin's ETHICS: ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT", Chapter XII, Development of Moral Teachings--XIX Century, (Concluded). See: http://tinyurl.com/2pnqk2
Source: ANARCHISM – A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas, Volume One: From Anarchy to Anarchism (300C3 to 1939), Robert Graham Editor,
Copyright @2005 BLACK ROSE BOOKS, pp. 322 - 323
Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel
DoreenDotan@gmail.com
I was floored when someone who lives in England wrote on a message board recently that British imperialism and colonialism were media for the spread of civilization and that Britain was, and still is, a "beacon of civilization" to the world. I simply could not believe that anyone still held the view that imperialism and colonialism was a favor that the White man did for the "colored savages".
It is all the more surprising when one considers that this person is highly critical of Israel's relationship to the Palestinians. Less surprisingly, this person refuses to accept the fact that it was the British who flooded the area that was to become the state of Israel with Arabs from the surrounding countries, going so far as to apply pressure on France to allow this, and created the Israeli-Palestinian problem in so doing. But that is the subject of other treatises.
The following passage is a first-hand account of a man who lived under colonialism. While he is from Peru, the imperialism and colonialism of Britain was no less barbaric than that of Spain, it's competitor in the attempt to conquer as much of the world as possible.
In the passage quoted below Prada also mentions that the "gentlemen" who owned the haciendas were often educated in England. His description of the effects of that education should be noted.
Robert Graham's Introduction: "Manuel Gonzáles Prada (1848 – 1919) was a Peruvian poet, writer and intellectual who moved toward an anarchist position around 1920. He was familiar with the major anarchist writers, and shared with Kropotkin an admiration for the French moral philosopher, Jean Marie Gayau (1854 – 1888)*, and opposition to Social Darwinism. He was one of the first Latin American writers to discuss the issue of indigenous peoples. The following excerpts are taken from his 1904 essay "Our Indians" translated here by Paul Sharkey."
"A hacienda comes about through the amassing of tiny plots wrested from their lawful owners and the lord wields the authority of a Norman baron over his peons. Not only has he a say in the appointment of governors, mayors and justices of the peace, but he conducts weddings, appoints heirs, disposes of inheritances and has the sons submit to a slavery that normally lasts their lifetime just to clear the debts of the father. He enforces fearful punishments like the foot-stocks, flogging, the pillory and death; or as droll as head-shaving or cold water enemas. It would be a miracle if someone with no regard for life or property were to have any regard for female honor; every Indian woman, single or married, may find herself the target of the master's brutish lusts. Abduction, violation and rape do not mean much when the belief is that Indian women are there to be taken by force. And for all that the Indian never addresses his master without kneeling and kissing his hand. Let it not be said that the lords of the land act that way out of ignorance or for want of education; the children of some hacienda owners are shipped to Europe in their childhood, educated in France or England and return to Peru with all of the appearances of civilized folk; but once they are back on their haciendas, the European veneer comes off and they act even more inhumanely and violently than their fathers; haciendas are tantamount to kingships in the heart of the Republic and the hacienda owners act like autocrats in the bosom of democracy…
So, what do we mean by civilization? …The greatest accomplishment of morality, for individuals and societies alike, consist of its having turned man's strife with his neighbor into a mutual agreement to live. Where there is no justice, mercy or goodwill, civilization is nowhere to be found: where the "struggle for existence" is enunciated as the rule of society, barbarism rules. What is the point of amassing the learning of an Aristotle when one is a tiger at heart? What matter the artistic gifts of a Michelangelo when one has the heart of a swine? Rather than going around the world spreading the light of art or science, better to go around dispensing the mild of human kindness. Societies where doing good has graduated from being an obligation to being a habit where the act of kindness has turned into an instinctive impulse deserve the description highly civilized. Have Peru's rulers attained that degree of morality? Are they entitled to look upon the Indian as a creature incapable of civilization?"
* I heartily recommend the writing of Jean Marie Guyau as well. Excerpts from his work can be found in Kropotkin's ETHICS: ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT", Chapter XII, Development of Moral Teachings--XIX Century, (Concluded). See: http://tinyurl.com/2pnqk2
Source: ANARCHISM – A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas, Volume One: From Anarchy to Anarchism (300C3 to 1939), Robert Graham Editor,
Copyright @2005 BLACK ROSE BOOKS, pp. 322 - 323
Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel
DoreenDotan@gmail.com
Sunday, May 27, 2007
Hear Ye! Hear Ye!
Oral Law is Now Mandated in Laputa Manqué
Henceforward, and from now on too, Oral has been instituted as the Law in all the Realm of Laputa Manqué.
In consideration of the manqué of the subjects of Laputa, We have found it proper and fitting to mandate Oral and not require masturbation of Our subjects. The Queen of the Laputans Manqué is an enlightened and compassionate Monarch and does not wish the good subjects to bring harm upon themselves.
Anyone found guilty of not performing cunnilingus (preferably double clitics) or fellatio, or both, in the course of any sexual encounter will be subject to public humiliation and catcalling from brawny, sweaty construction workers perched precariously on scaffoldings and rails on the buildings surrounding the commons.
Is that new Page, Horatio, around? Have him toss a couple of fish to the Official Seal and then attach it hereto. Then have him washed and brought to Our tent.
Queen Doreen of Laputa Manqué, Rhomboid and Pneumatic
Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel
DoreenDotan@gmail.com
Oral Law is Now Mandated in Laputa Manqué
Henceforward, and from now on too, Oral has been instituted as the Law in all the Realm of Laputa Manqué.
In consideration of the manqué of the subjects of Laputa, We have found it proper and fitting to mandate Oral and not require masturbation of Our subjects. The Queen of the Laputans Manqué is an enlightened and compassionate Monarch and does not wish the good subjects to bring harm upon themselves.
Anyone found guilty of not performing cunnilingus (preferably double clitics) or fellatio, or both, in the course of any sexual encounter will be subject to public humiliation and catcalling from brawny, sweaty construction workers perched precariously on scaffoldings and rails on the buildings surrounding the commons.
Is that new Page, Horatio, around? Have him toss a couple of fish to the Official Seal and then attach it hereto. Then have him washed and brought to Our tent.
Queen Doreen of Laputa Manqué, Rhomboid and Pneumatic
Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel
DoreenDotan@gmail.com
Friday, May 25, 2007
Dr. Otto Gross – The One Truly Committed Psychoanalyst
A bit about Otto Gross:
OTTO GROSS : Nietzschean Psychoanalyst, Love Guru, Pagan Anarchist
http://tinyurl.com/2lozna
Wikipedia article
http://tinyurl.com/2pnslv
Who was Otto Gross?
http://tinyurl.com/38sc78
What made Dr. Otto Gross so dangerous a threat to the establishment?
The BBC documentary series "The Century of the Self", to be found on You Tube, proposes convincingly that Sigmund Freud, and more so his daughter Anna, intended psychoanalysis to be a most power and indispensable tool of population control and manipulation.
Society was held up as the unquestionable standard of normalcy and any aberrant, rebellious or non-normative behavior demonstrated by any individual was considered pathological on the part of the individual. That pathology was to be corrected with psychoanalysis.
In contradistinction, Otto Gross wrote the following, which is excerpted from the small amount of his work that has been translated. Evidently, the psychiatric community would rather keep him in obscurity. You will see why presently.
"…I must assume that knowledge of the Freudian method and its important results is already widespread. Since Freud we understand all that is inappropriate and inadequate in our mental life to be the results of inner experiences whose emotional content excited intense conflict in us. At the time of those experiences – especially in early childhood – the conflict seemed insoluble, and they were excluded from the continuity of the inner life as it is known to the conscious ego. Since then they have continued to motivate us from the unconscious in an uncontrollably destructive and oppositional way. I believe that what is really decisive for the occurrence of repression is to be found in the inner conflict…rather than in relation to the sexual impulse. Sexuality is the universal motive for the infinite number if internal conflicts, though not in itself but as the object of a sexual morality which stands in insoluble conflict with everything that is of value and belongs to willing and reality.
It appears that at the deepest level the real nature of these conflicts may always be traced back to one comprehensive principle, to the conflict between that which belongs to oneself and that which belongs to the other, between that which is innately individual and that which has been suggested to us, i.e., that which is educated or otherwise forced into us.
This conflict of individuality with an authority that has penetrated into our own innermost self belongs more to the period of childhood than to any other time.
The tragedy is correspondingly greater as a person's individuality is more richly endowed, is stronger in its own particular nature. The earlier and the more intensely that the capacity to withstand suggestion and interference begins its protective function, the earlier and the more intensely will the self-divisive conflict be deepened and exacerbated. The only natures to be spared are those in whom the predisposition towards individuality is so weakly developed and is so little capable of resistance that under the pressure of suggestion from social surroundings, and the influence of education, it succumbs, in a manner of speaking, to atrophy and disappears altogether - natures whose guiding motives are at last composed entirely of alien, handed-down standards of evaluation and habits of reaction,. In such second-rate characters a certain apparent health can sustain itself, i.e., a peaceful and harmonious functioning of the whole of the soul or, more accurately, of what remains of the soul. On the other hand, each individual who stands in any way higher than this normal contemporary state of things is not, in existing, conditions, in a position to escape pathogenic conflict and to attain his individual health i.e., the full harmonious development of the highest possibilities of his innate individual character.
It is understood from all this that such characters hitherto, no matter in what outward form they manifest themselves – whether they are opposed to laws and morality, or lead us positively beyond the average, or collapse internally and become ill – have been perceived with either disgust, veneration or pity as disturbing exceptions whom people try to eliminate. It will come to be understood that, already today, there exists the demand to approve these people as the healthy, the warriors, the progressives, and to learn from and through them.
Not one of the revolutions in recorded history has succeeded in establishing freedom for individuality…Only now can it be recognized that the root of all authority lies in the family, that the combination of sexuality and authority, as it shows itself in the patriarchal family still prevailing today, claps every individuality in chains…" – "Overcoming Cultural Crisis", originally published in Die Aktion in April 1913, translated by Dr. John Turner of the University of Wales, Swansea, courtesy of Gottfried Heueer and the International Otto Gross Society, reprinted in ANARCHISM – A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas, Volume One: From Anarchy to Anarchism (300CE to 1939), pp. 282-3, Robert Graham, editor, copyright 2005 Black Rose Books.
We can see from the passage above, in which he eerily presaged his own "elimination", why Dr. Otto Gross was considered so very dangerous by the psychoanalytic establishment.
Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel
DoreenDotan@gmail.com
A bit about Otto Gross:
OTTO GROSS : Nietzschean Psychoanalyst, Love Guru, Pagan Anarchist
http://tinyurl.com/2lozna
Wikipedia article
http://tinyurl.com/2pnslv
Who was Otto Gross?
http://tinyurl.com/38sc78
What made Dr. Otto Gross so dangerous a threat to the establishment?
The BBC documentary series "The Century of the Self", to be found on You Tube, proposes convincingly that Sigmund Freud, and more so his daughter Anna, intended psychoanalysis to be a most power and indispensable tool of population control and manipulation.
Society was held up as the unquestionable standard of normalcy and any aberrant, rebellious or non-normative behavior demonstrated by any individual was considered pathological on the part of the individual. That pathology was to be corrected with psychoanalysis.
In contradistinction, Otto Gross wrote the following, which is excerpted from the small amount of his work that has been translated. Evidently, the psychiatric community would rather keep him in obscurity. You will see why presently.
"…I must assume that knowledge of the Freudian method and its important results is already widespread. Since Freud we understand all that is inappropriate and inadequate in our mental life to be the results of inner experiences whose emotional content excited intense conflict in us. At the time of those experiences – especially in early childhood – the conflict seemed insoluble, and they were excluded from the continuity of the inner life as it is known to the conscious ego. Since then they have continued to motivate us from the unconscious in an uncontrollably destructive and oppositional way. I believe that what is really decisive for the occurrence of repression is to be found in the inner conflict…rather than in relation to the sexual impulse. Sexuality is the universal motive for the infinite number if internal conflicts, though not in itself but as the object of a sexual morality which stands in insoluble conflict with everything that is of value and belongs to willing and reality.
It appears that at the deepest level the real nature of these conflicts may always be traced back to one comprehensive principle, to the conflict between that which belongs to oneself and that which belongs to the other, between that which is innately individual and that which has been suggested to us, i.e., that which is educated or otherwise forced into us.
This conflict of individuality with an authority that has penetrated into our own innermost self belongs more to the period of childhood than to any other time.
The tragedy is correspondingly greater as a person's individuality is more richly endowed, is stronger in its own particular nature. The earlier and the more intensely that the capacity to withstand suggestion and interference begins its protective function, the earlier and the more intensely will the self-divisive conflict be deepened and exacerbated. The only natures to be spared are those in whom the predisposition towards individuality is so weakly developed and is so little capable of resistance that under the pressure of suggestion from social surroundings, and the influence of education, it succumbs, in a manner of speaking, to atrophy and disappears altogether - natures whose guiding motives are at last composed entirely of alien, handed-down standards of evaluation and habits of reaction,. In such second-rate characters a certain apparent health can sustain itself, i.e., a peaceful and harmonious functioning of the whole of the soul or, more accurately, of what remains of the soul. On the other hand, each individual who stands in any way higher than this normal contemporary state of things is not, in existing, conditions, in a position to escape pathogenic conflict and to attain his individual health i.e., the full harmonious development of the highest possibilities of his innate individual character.
It is understood from all this that such characters hitherto, no matter in what outward form they manifest themselves – whether they are opposed to laws and morality, or lead us positively beyond the average, or collapse internally and become ill – have been perceived with either disgust, veneration or pity as disturbing exceptions whom people try to eliminate. It will come to be understood that, already today, there exists the demand to approve these people as the healthy, the warriors, the progressives, and to learn from and through them.
Not one of the revolutions in recorded history has succeeded in establishing freedom for individuality…Only now can it be recognized that the root of all authority lies in the family, that the combination of sexuality and authority, as it shows itself in the patriarchal family still prevailing today, claps every individuality in chains…" – "Overcoming Cultural Crisis", originally published in Die Aktion in April 1913, translated by Dr. John Turner of the University of Wales, Swansea, courtesy of Gottfried Heueer and the International Otto Gross Society, reprinted in ANARCHISM – A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas, Volume One: From Anarchy to Anarchism (300CE to 1939), pp. 282-3, Robert Graham, editor, copyright 2005 Black Rose Books.
We can see from the passage above, in which he eerily presaged his own "elimination", why Dr. Otto Gross was considered so very dangerous by the psychoanalytic establishment.
Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel
DoreenDotan@gmail.com
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Zeno, Zeno and Big Bill
It comes as no surprise that the Paradox of Motion, known as Achilles and the Tortoise posited by Zeno of Elea (ca. 490 BC – ca. 430 BC: [ See: http://tinyurl.com/yp2g5r http://tinyurl.com/8xtcy and http://tinyurl.com/2ztsuy ]) should have entertained the mind of Bertrand Russell (May 18, 1872– February 2, 1970), as it did so many intellects of eminence since the time of its pronunciation. Russell wrote: "Having invented four arguments all immeasurably subtle and profound, the grossness of subsequent philosophers pronounced him to be a mere ingenious juggler, and his arguments to be one and all sophisms. After two thousand years of continual refutation, these sophisms were reinstated, and made the foundation of a mathematical renaissance…" PRINCIPIA MATHEMATICA I, 1903
The date of the publication of the PRINCIPIA MATHEMATICA is significant. Einstein was working on his theory of Special Relativity and it was a mere three years after Max Planck had discovered that E=hf. The world was ready for another way of thinking. The work of Zeno of Elea, which had come to be considered mere philosophical amusement, was rehabilitated and given serious consideration once again, this time in light of new thinking about the nature of space, time and movement.
The following is a physicist's attempt to tackle the problems that Zeno of Elea raised: http://tinyurl.com/ky5p5 . The author ends his considerations thus: "Have we now finally resolved Zeno's "youthful effort"? Given the history of "final resolutions", from Aristotle onwards, it's probably foolhardy to think we've reached the end. It may be that Zeno's arguments on motion, because of their simplicity and universality, will always serve as a kind of "Rorschach image" onto which people can project their most fundamental phenomenological concerns (if they have any)."
We should, then, have expected that the Paradox of Motion articulated by Zeno of Elea in the 5th C. BCE would be solved, if at all, by a physicist or an analytic philosopher. Indeed, they tried. While their efforts were admirable, they did not produce a satisfying outcome as they readily admit.
It may be a surprise to some that the Paradox of Motion was most unambiguously articulated, elucidated and finally resolved in December of 1911 by William Dudley (Big Bill) Haywood (http://tinyurl.com/2og22u , http://tinyurl.com/2jpfkr ) who, despite having been referred to as "the Lincoln of Labor" by Eugene V. Debs (see: http://tinyurl.com/bq2h2 ) for his passionate and compassionate desire to emancipate laborers, from whose class he hailed, was also the subject of a biography entitled ROUGHNECK1.
It is highly unlikely that Haywood thought of himself as a philosopher, although his grasp of the conditions that create an underclass of workers was singularly insightful, analytical and sensitive. It is very unlikely that Haywood had considered the Paradox of Motion of Zeno of Elea from a purely philosophical view, if he ever did at all. Haywood was a man of action, not sophistry. He most certainly was not versed in higher mathematics. His education was cut short in early childhood. At the age of nine he began to work in a coal mine. Having been born into the working class in the United States in 1869 there was precious little time for him to learn philosophy or mathematics. It was as an honest man of action that he would solve the Paradox of Motion.
Had Haywood learned philosophy at all, we should have expected him to be more interested in the Anarchistic statement of Zeno of Citium than the paradoxes of Zeno of Elea. He likely would have been in agreement with the stance of Aristippus vis-à-vis society, if not with the spirit of his philosophy.
Zeno of Citium (ca. 336-ca. 224 BC) was so named after the Greek colony in Cypress that he lived in. Zeno of Citium was a student of Crates of Thebes, the Cynic (see: http://tinyurl.com/3aubby ). He was a merchant, the son of a merchant. Interestingly, like the vast majority of Anarchists of over two millennia later; he was not a common laborer, but was deeply concerned about a system of social organization that the common people would most benefit from if it were implemented. He worked at his profession until he reached the age of forty-two, when he founded the philosophical school that we know as Stoicism. The school of philosophy he founded was named for his teaching platform, the stoa, (Greek for 'platform' or 'porch'). None of Zeno of Citium's works are extant, to the best of our knowledge, but one of the quotes of Zeno of Citium that we are in possession of is this: "Men are rational, they do not need control; rational beings have no need of a state, or of money, or of law-courts, or of any organised, institutional life. In the perfect society men and women shall wear identical clothes and feed in a common pasture."
Aristippus (either the elder or the younger, see: http://tinyurl.com/2a9omp) was the founder of the Cyrenaic school of philosophy, the salient tenets of which were extreme, even crude, hedonism and egoism. Though so very different in his views from the Stoics; Aristippus articulated a similar sentiment concerning government as that of Zeno of Citium. He wrote: "The wise should not give up their liberty to the state".
Mayhap, had Big Bill had the leisure, he would have concerned himself with the Anarchistic ruminations of Zeno of Citium and Aristippus. It is highly unlikely that he did, or would, concern himself with the Paradoxes of Zeno of Elea. So, it is all the more remarkable that he is the final elucidator and resolver of the Paradox of Motion.
In December of 1911, Haywood, who had once been a member of the Executive Committee of the Socialist Party of America but was leaning more toward Anarchism by that time, told a Lower East Side audience at New York's Cooper Union that parliamentary Socialists were "step-at-a-time people whose every step is just a little shorter than the preceding step."
In making that statement, Big Bill Haywood, the child of working-class parents whose formal education ended when he went to work as a nine-year-old boy, made manifest the solution to the Paradox of Motion that Zeno of Elea had posed in the 5th C. BCE, the self-same Paradox that had proven to be so inscrutable a conundrum that the greatest minds who attempted to tackle it since its pronunciation could not solve it definitively.
Haywood, the man of action, dedicated to the cause of Human advancement, understood the nature of action as no analytic philosopher, mathematician or physicist had. Zeno of Elea's Paradox of Motion is not a phenomenological problem at all and any attempt to resolve it as such leads nowhere. No advancement in solving the problem such can be made. Zeno of Elea's Paradox of Motion is a moral question. Haywood understood that those who take action on the pretense of advancing others, while interested only in their own advancement would make no progress either for themselves or for others. To such people attempts at advancement are ever less efficacious. Such people would, ineluctably, become jaded and come to the conclusion that progress for Humankind is impossible.
We see, then, that attempting to solve Zeno of Elea's Paradox of Motion either as a purely phenomenological problem while in a purely intellectual state of mind, and thus not passionately concerned for Human welfare, or attempting to understand it while under the influence of desire for personal advancement will lead one nowhere. That is the moral lesson of the Paradox and, this author believes, is the salient lesson that Zeno of Elea intended when he posited the paradox.
Haywood knew that being untrue to oneself and sacrificing one's values on the alter of realpolitik caused myriad phantasmagoria to arise in the mind because those conclusions are based on convoluted thinking. The convolutions in thinking that people resort to in order to make dishonest decisions is that which causes every path to become crooked and advancement impossible. The illusion that one is advancing is one of the phantasmagoria of the disingenuous, while it is very real in the worlds of those who set themselves to action for Humanity's sake.
Simply stated, opportunistic phonies go nowhere fast.
ROUGHNECK, The Life and Times of Big Bill Haywood, Peter Carlson, 1983, page 199.
Article on CRIMSON BIRD: http://www.crimsonbird.com/history/zeno.htm
Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan of Tzfat (Safed), Israel
DoreenDotan@gmail.com
It comes as no surprise that the Paradox of Motion, known as Achilles and the Tortoise posited by Zeno of Elea (ca. 490 BC – ca. 430 BC: [ See: http://tinyurl.com/yp2g5r http://tinyurl.com/8xtcy and http://tinyurl.com/2ztsuy ]) should have entertained the mind of Bertrand Russell (May 18, 1872– February 2, 1970), as it did so many intellects of eminence since the time of its pronunciation. Russell wrote: "Having invented four arguments all immeasurably subtle and profound, the grossness of subsequent philosophers pronounced him to be a mere ingenious juggler, and his arguments to be one and all sophisms. After two thousand years of continual refutation, these sophisms were reinstated, and made the foundation of a mathematical renaissance…" PRINCIPIA MATHEMATICA I, 1903
The date of the publication of the PRINCIPIA MATHEMATICA is significant. Einstein was working on his theory of Special Relativity and it was a mere three years after Max Planck had discovered that E=hf. The world was ready for another way of thinking. The work of Zeno of Elea, which had come to be considered mere philosophical amusement, was rehabilitated and given serious consideration once again, this time in light of new thinking about the nature of space, time and movement.
The following is a physicist's attempt to tackle the problems that Zeno of Elea raised: http://tinyurl.com/ky5p5 . The author ends his considerations thus: "Have we now finally resolved Zeno's "youthful effort"? Given the history of "final resolutions", from Aristotle onwards, it's probably foolhardy to think we've reached the end. It may be that Zeno's arguments on motion, because of their simplicity and universality, will always serve as a kind of "Rorschach image" onto which people can project their most fundamental phenomenological concerns (if they have any)."
We should, then, have expected that the Paradox of Motion articulated by Zeno of Elea in the 5th C. BCE would be solved, if at all, by a physicist or an analytic philosopher. Indeed, they tried. While their efforts were admirable, they did not produce a satisfying outcome as they readily admit.
It may be a surprise to some that the Paradox of Motion was most unambiguously articulated, elucidated and finally resolved in December of 1911 by William Dudley (Big Bill) Haywood (http://tinyurl.com/2og22u , http://tinyurl.com/2jpfkr ) who, despite having been referred to as "the Lincoln of Labor" by Eugene V. Debs (see: http://tinyurl.com/bq2h2 ) for his passionate and compassionate desire to emancipate laborers, from whose class he hailed, was also the subject of a biography entitled ROUGHNECK1.
It is highly unlikely that Haywood thought of himself as a philosopher, although his grasp of the conditions that create an underclass of workers was singularly insightful, analytical and sensitive. It is very unlikely that Haywood had considered the Paradox of Motion of Zeno of Elea from a purely philosophical view, if he ever did at all. Haywood was a man of action, not sophistry. He most certainly was not versed in higher mathematics. His education was cut short in early childhood. At the age of nine he began to work in a coal mine. Having been born into the working class in the United States in 1869 there was precious little time for him to learn philosophy or mathematics. It was as an honest man of action that he would solve the Paradox of Motion.
Had Haywood learned philosophy at all, we should have expected him to be more interested in the Anarchistic statement of Zeno of Citium than the paradoxes of Zeno of Elea. He likely would have been in agreement with the stance of Aristippus vis-à-vis society, if not with the spirit of his philosophy.
Zeno of Citium (ca. 336-ca. 224 BC) was so named after the Greek colony in Cypress that he lived in. Zeno of Citium was a student of Crates of Thebes, the Cynic (see: http://tinyurl.com/3aubby ). He was a merchant, the son of a merchant. Interestingly, like the vast majority of Anarchists of over two millennia later; he was not a common laborer, but was deeply concerned about a system of social organization that the common people would most benefit from if it were implemented. He worked at his profession until he reached the age of forty-two, when he founded the philosophical school that we know as Stoicism. The school of philosophy he founded was named for his teaching platform, the stoa, (Greek for 'platform' or 'porch'). None of Zeno of Citium's works are extant, to the best of our knowledge, but one of the quotes of Zeno of Citium that we are in possession of is this: "Men are rational, they do not need control; rational beings have no need of a state, or of money, or of law-courts, or of any organised, institutional life. In the perfect society men and women shall wear identical clothes and feed in a common pasture."
Aristippus (either the elder or the younger, see: http://tinyurl.com/2a9omp) was the founder of the Cyrenaic school of philosophy, the salient tenets of which were extreme, even crude, hedonism and egoism. Though so very different in his views from the Stoics; Aristippus articulated a similar sentiment concerning government as that of Zeno of Citium. He wrote: "The wise should not give up their liberty to the state".
Mayhap, had Big Bill had the leisure, he would have concerned himself with the Anarchistic ruminations of Zeno of Citium and Aristippus. It is highly unlikely that he did, or would, concern himself with the Paradoxes of Zeno of Elea. So, it is all the more remarkable that he is the final elucidator and resolver of the Paradox of Motion.
In December of 1911, Haywood, who had once been a member of the Executive Committee of the Socialist Party of America but was leaning more toward Anarchism by that time, told a Lower East Side audience at New York's Cooper Union that parliamentary Socialists were "step-at-a-time people whose every step is just a little shorter than the preceding step."
In making that statement, Big Bill Haywood, the child of working-class parents whose formal education ended when he went to work as a nine-year-old boy, made manifest the solution to the Paradox of Motion that Zeno of Elea had posed in the 5th C. BCE, the self-same Paradox that had proven to be so inscrutable a conundrum that the greatest minds who attempted to tackle it since its pronunciation could not solve it definitively.
Haywood, the man of action, dedicated to the cause of Human advancement, understood the nature of action as no analytic philosopher, mathematician or physicist had. Zeno of Elea's Paradox of Motion is not a phenomenological problem at all and any attempt to resolve it as such leads nowhere. No advancement in solving the problem such can be made. Zeno of Elea's Paradox of Motion is a moral question. Haywood understood that those who take action on the pretense of advancing others, while interested only in their own advancement would make no progress either for themselves or for others. To such people attempts at advancement are ever less efficacious. Such people would, ineluctably, become jaded and come to the conclusion that progress for Humankind is impossible.
We see, then, that attempting to solve Zeno of Elea's Paradox of Motion either as a purely phenomenological problem while in a purely intellectual state of mind, and thus not passionately concerned for Human welfare, or attempting to understand it while under the influence of desire for personal advancement will lead one nowhere. That is the moral lesson of the Paradox and, this author believes, is the salient lesson that Zeno of Elea intended when he posited the paradox.
Haywood knew that being untrue to oneself and sacrificing one's values on the alter of realpolitik caused myriad phantasmagoria to arise in the mind because those conclusions are based on convoluted thinking. The convolutions in thinking that people resort to in order to make dishonest decisions is that which causes every path to become crooked and advancement impossible. The illusion that one is advancing is one of the phantasmagoria of the disingenuous, while it is very real in the worlds of those who set themselves to action for Humanity's sake.
Simply stated, opportunistic phonies go nowhere fast.
ROUGHNECK, The Life and Times of Big Bill Haywood, Peter Carlson, 1983, page 199.
Article on CRIMSON BIRD: http://www.crimsonbird.com/history/zeno.htm
Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan of Tzfat (Safed), Israel
DoreenDotan@gmail.com
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Pity the Poor Stem Cell
Surely you have seen the highly-magnified photos in magazines of bedraggled, malnourished stems cells peeping out piteously from squalid hovels.
Don't turn away. Don't pretend you don't know. Don't pretend that you don't see.
Think of their totipotential! Imagine what they can grow up to be with your help!
Show them you care.
Adopt a stem cell. Do it now. Tomorrow may be too late for these, our smallest and most vulnerable, victims.
Just a $1 a day can make so much difference in their little lives.
Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan of Tzfat (Safed), Israel, GRANDMOTHER
a.k.a. D2 and Doreen, Queen of Éire East and West,
The Laputans Manqué and Jewish Israeli Princess (JIP); also
Founder, Adept Extraordinaire and Sole Devotee of
Anarcho-Anachro-Nacro-Necro-Narcissism
DoreenDotan@gmail.com
Surely you have seen the highly-magnified photos in magazines of bedraggled, malnourished stems cells peeping out piteously from squalid hovels.
Don't turn away. Don't pretend you don't know. Don't pretend that you don't see.
Think of their totipotential! Imagine what they can grow up to be with your help!
Show them you care.
Adopt a stem cell. Do it now. Tomorrow may be too late for these, our smallest and most vulnerable, victims.
Just a $1 a day can make so much difference in their little lives.
Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan of Tzfat (Safed), Israel, GRANDMOTHER
a.k.a. D2 and Doreen, Queen of Éire East and West,
The Laputans Manqué and Jewish Israeli Princess (JIP); also
Founder, Adept Extraordinaire and Sole Devotee of
Anarcho-Anachro-Nacro-Necro-Narcissism
DoreenDotan@gmail.com
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
Becoming Ever More Israeli
In July I will be here 25 years.
I married here and became a parent here. So, most of my life as a responsible adult and the whole setting up of home and family experience happened to me here. My husband is a Sabra and an expert in the Hebrew language. So, my interactions with my family are mostly in Hebrew. In fact, my daughter's English is very poor. I have no choice but to speak in Hebrew with her. My son's English is considerably better.
I can pronounce the gutteral reish and ayin, even the kuf, which is so deep a gutteral that it issues from somewhere around one's knees.
Still, the process of becoming more Israeli goes ever on.
I remember being aghast that people would pick nuts or other finger foods out of the large, open sacks and boxes in the shuq. It looked so unsanitary to me. Just the thought of any number of people whose hands had been I know not where touching food and eating it one after the other me made me sick.
One day; I pinched a cookie in the shuq, tossing regard for sanitation to the wind. I enjoyed the septic morsel thoroughly and was delighted with my progress toward real Israeliship (Israeliness?).
When I got home I said to my son: "Today I became a real Israeli! I ate a cookie from an open box in the shuq!"
He looked at me levelly and said: "If you were a real Israeli you would do it without thinking about it and would never mention it."
I advanced nicely and today I even make my tuna and egg salad with humous instead of mayo.
Today, I took yet another giant step toward become a real local. Though I have a plastic squeeze bottle of real Heinz ketchup in the fridge; I put techina (tahini) on my hamburger today, like a lot of Israelis do. The first time I heard of putting techina on hamburger I thought I'd barf.
My next project: Learning how to smooth humous and labane on my plate with the back of a spoon and fashion a perfect indented pool in the middle for olive oil and za'atar.
When a Jew becomes more Israeli is that acculturation or enculturation?
Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat (Safed), Israel
DoreenDotan@gmail.com
In July I will be here 25 years.
I married here and became a parent here. So, most of my life as a responsible adult and the whole setting up of home and family experience happened to me here. My husband is a Sabra and an expert in the Hebrew language. So, my interactions with my family are mostly in Hebrew. In fact, my daughter's English is very poor. I have no choice but to speak in Hebrew with her. My son's English is considerably better.
I can pronounce the gutteral reish and ayin, even the kuf, which is so deep a gutteral that it issues from somewhere around one's knees.
Still, the process of becoming more Israeli goes ever on.
I remember being aghast that people would pick nuts or other finger foods out of the large, open sacks and boxes in the shuq. It looked so unsanitary to me. Just the thought of any number of people whose hands had been I know not where touching food and eating it one after the other me made me sick.
One day; I pinched a cookie in the shuq, tossing regard for sanitation to the wind. I enjoyed the septic morsel thoroughly and was delighted with my progress toward real Israeliship (Israeliness?).
When I got home I said to my son: "Today I became a real Israeli! I ate a cookie from an open box in the shuq!"
He looked at me levelly and said: "If you were a real Israeli you would do it without thinking about it and would never mention it."
I advanced nicely and today I even make my tuna and egg salad with humous instead of mayo.
Today, I took yet another giant step toward become a real local. Though I have a plastic squeeze bottle of real Heinz ketchup in the fridge; I put techina (tahini) on my hamburger today, like a lot of Israelis do. The first time I heard of putting techina on hamburger I thought I'd barf.
My next project: Learning how to smooth humous and labane on my plate with the back of a spoon and fashion a perfect indented pool in the middle for olive oil and za'atar.
When a Jew becomes more Israeli is that acculturation or enculturation?
Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat (Safed), Israel
DoreenDotan@gmail.com
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Cho Seung-Hui Morality and Debauchery
OK. Let's discuss morality and debauchery.
Let it be said unequivocally that I would have preferred if Cho Seung-Hui had used the abilities that he honed as an English major constructively and had gone on to contribute to the efforts of the people you'll find mentioned on this URL:
http://tinyurl.com/3bk5hk (Yes, this is a pitch.)
However, I understand that this man did not have the emotional resources to be able to channel his outrage constructively. Not all do.
Rather than elaborating in detail on what I think about Cho Seung-Hui, whom I consider a Attentäter par excellence; I will allow those whom I consider to have expressed the issues most eloquently to speak for me.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society."- Krishnamurthi
"Oftentimes have I heard you speak of one who commits a wrong as though he were not one of you, but a stranger unto you and an intruder upon your world.
But I say that even as the holy and the righteous cannot rise beyond the highest which is in each one of you,
So the wicked and the weak cannot fall lower than the lowest which is in you also.
And as a single leaf turns not yellow but with the silent knowledge of the whole tree,
So the wrong-doer cannot do wrong without the hidden will of you all…
And this also, though the word lie heavy upon your hearts:
The murdered is not unaccountable for his own murder…
The righteous is not innocent of the deeds of the wicked." THE PROPHET by Kahlil Gibran
"The Psychology of Political Violence" by Emma Goldman: http://tinyurl.com/36mshx
Finally I should like to draw your attention to the article entitled: "Class War in the School and Office" by Michael Nenonen. See: http://tinyurl.com/3afv9w
Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel
DoreenDotan@gmail.com
OK. Let's discuss morality and debauchery.
Let it be said unequivocally that I would have preferred if Cho Seung-Hui had used the abilities that he honed as an English major constructively and had gone on to contribute to the efforts of the people you'll find mentioned on this URL:
http://tinyurl.com/3bk5hk (Yes, this is a pitch.)
However, I understand that this man did not have the emotional resources to be able to channel his outrage constructively. Not all do.
Rather than elaborating in detail on what I think about Cho Seung-Hui, whom I consider a Attentäter par excellence; I will allow those whom I consider to have expressed the issues most eloquently to speak for me.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society."- Krishnamurthi
"Oftentimes have I heard you speak of one who commits a wrong as though he were not one of you, but a stranger unto you and an intruder upon your world.
But I say that even as the holy and the righteous cannot rise beyond the highest which is in each one of you,
So the wicked and the weak cannot fall lower than the lowest which is in you also.
And as a single leaf turns not yellow but with the silent knowledge of the whole tree,
So the wrong-doer cannot do wrong without the hidden will of you all…
And this also, though the word lie heavy upon your hearts:
The murdered is not unaccountable for his own murder…
The righteous is not innocent of the deeds of the wicked." THE PROPHET by Kahlil Gibran
"The Psychology of Political Violence" by Emma Goldman: http://tinyurl.com/36mshx
Finally I should like to draw your attention to the article entitled: "Class War in the School and Office" by Michael Nenonen. See: http://tinyurl.com/3afv9w
Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel
DoreenDotan@gmail.com
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