In the New York Times on May 14, 2008, the Op-Ed Columnist Thomas L. Friedman lands another insight. I'm thankful to the New York Times for allowing me to publish this article of Thomas' for personal use.

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

The next American president will inherit many foreign policy challenges, but surely one of the biggest will be the cold war. Yes, the next president is going to be a cold-war president -- but this cold war is with Iran.

That is the real umbrella story in the Middle East today -- the struggle for influence across the region, with America and its Sunni Arab allies (and Israel) versus Iran, Syria and their non-state allies, Hamas and Hezbollah. As the May 11 editorial in the Iranian daily Kayhan put it, "In the power struggle in the Middle East, there are only two sides: Iran and the U.S."

For now, Team America is losing on just about every front. How come? The short answer is that Iran is smart and ruthless, America is dumb and weak, and the Sunni Arab world is feckless and divided. Any other questions?

The outrage of the week is the Iranian-Syrian-Hezbollah attempt to take over Lebanon. Hezbollah thugs pushed into Sunni neighborhoods in West Beirut, focusing particular attention on crushing progressive news outlets like Future TV, so Hezbollah's propaganda machine could dominate the airwaves. The Shiite militia Hezbollah emerged supposedly to ......

Continue reading "Cold War - is there a new one with Iran?" »

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This morning I was reading all the threads about how much destruction and calamity has been wrought on the planet in the past six months. In particular, how China has had a lion's share and fairly continuous set of disasters over the past 24 months. The climate scientists all have their perspectives on this....that it's about weather patterns. I have my own view. I think the Earth is Angry.

The picture above is the before and after cyclone satellite picture. Cyclone Nargis in Burma wiped out a huge part of the country, and there are 2 million people without food and water, just waiting for diseases to take root. The junta has prevented relief efforts. Food has been stolen by government officials. The only Nobel prize winner in history to be imprisoned (12 years now, Aung San Suu Kyi), has not been heard from. What's rotten in Burma's government? Why might the Earth be angry?

Hurricane Katrina hasn't been addressed. There are 15 square miles of real estate that used to be people's homes and community that will not be rebuilt by those people. I wonder what will be built there? Do you need a clue? I wish that my government would consider caring for Hurricane Katrina victims as well they do those that live in Baghdad's Green Zone (code named Emerald City). You see, George W. there is so much wrong with this picture. Nate Berkus can only do so much.

Tornados are tearing through the Midwest, ripping through the lives of people our government has left behind. The media and government focus should be on how little help these people receive, how exhausted the emergency funds and coffers are for state-side relief. When federal wetlands are sold off to corporate development, how does this impact weather patterns? What's rotten about how our government prepares for these kinds of disasters?

Raging wildfires in Florida have destroyed lives and property and they don't have the resources to fight the fire soon enough before it goes on a tear. With water rationing enforced in many parts of Florida, there is not plan for fire-fighting at the first-line of defense in residential areas -- garden hoses. Today the FEMA people are talking about how they need updated equipment. What's rotten about state governments that don't have the resources to protect their people?

This week in China there are 12,000 dead and 18,000 missing (that they know about so far). The 7.9 earthquake that rocked them is still simmering with aftershocks and buried 1000 children this morning in a school structure where they sought safety. Last year it was a typhoon that killed 5,000. Before that SARS. Check out a timeline of China's disasters here. Why might the Earth be angry at China? Geez.....I don't know, do you? Imagine that the official Xinhua News Agency reported today that 'this will not affect the upcoming Olympic Games'. WHAT?

This is the time when I wish my government had the money on hand that they've poured into the corporate-sponsored imperialistic invasion of Iraq, to spend on uplifting humanity in times of need. I'm angry.

OK. I'm done ranting. I will get back on my cushion and meditate on duality. What else can one do?

P.S.
Dear Barack Obama, Your national campaign against John McCain requires only one theme (feel free to borrow this from me, Barack). "Our country must stop nation-building outside of the United States and start immediately to do nation-building of the United States in the United States. Love, Robin

Posted by robin at 11:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I wonder what Amy Pohler was thinking about just before she went live on national television to do this skit. This is the best of free speech and comedy shaken not stirred.

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I am blessed. My Mother brought me into this lifetime from a stock of strong and independent women. In her lineage there have been Quakers and Irish Catholics, Methodists and Lutherans, Protestants and Congregationalists, Jews and Buddhists, Yoginis and Square Dancers, Non-believers and Believers. She came through all those powerful women who immigrated across oceans and traveled across plains....just for me, to be my Mom. Isn't that what every daughter feels? It's how I feel about my Mom. My Mom is the Mothership. My Mom is ground zero.

In this lifetime I'm so grateful to be here as my Mom's daughter, and to have her support and her example...... to learn who I am in this lifetime and to be that person. I am at that place in my life where I want to repay my Mom for every kindness, for every lesson, for everything. There is, however, one problem between us. I wish I didn't have to force her - and I do have to force her - to fly first class. We do struggle with that one.

Posted by robin at 09:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

...but only through the lens of The Daily Show. I guess I have to look into the abyss now and then......thank God we have John Stewart to go ahead of us....and remind us that underneath the reptile suit, John McCain's got a good sense of humor.

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Pray for Myanmar

1 Timothy 2:1-4

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Condolezza Rice Must Go. http://condimustgo.com/

http://condimustgo.com/

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Something so essential to read....from our recently deputized (without his permission) JointEffects correspondent, Thomas L. Friedman:)

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published in the New York Times on May 4, 2008

Traveling the country these past five months while writing a book, I've had my own opportunity to take the pulse, far from the campaign crowds. My own totally unscientific polling has left me feeling that if there is one overwhelming hunger in our country today it's this: People want to do nation-building. They really do. But they want to do nation-building in America.

They are not only tired of nation-building in Iraq and in Afghanistan, with so little to show for it. They sense something deeper -- that we're just not that strong anymore. We're borrowing money to shore up our banks from city-states called Dubai and Singapore. Our generals regularly tell us that Iran is subverting our efforts in Iraq, but they do nothing about it because we have no leverage -- as long as our forces are pinned down in Baghdad and our economy is pinned to Middle East oil.

Our president's latest energy initiative was to go to Saudi Arabia and beg King Abdullah to give us a little relief on gasoline prices. I guess there was some justice in that. When you, the president, after 9/11, tell the country to go shopping instead of buckling down to break our addiction to oil, it ends with you, the president, shopping the world for discount gasoline.

We are not as powerful as we used to be because over the past three decades, the Asian values of our parents' generation -- work hard, study, save, invest, live within your means -- have given way to subprime values: "You can have the American dream -- a house -- with no money down and no payments for two years."

That's why Donald Rumsfeld's infamous defense of why he did not originally send more troops to Iraq is the mantra of our times: "You go to war with the army you have." Hey, you march into the future with the country you have -- not the one that you need, not the one you want, not the best you could have.

A few weeks ago, my wife and I flew from New York's Kennedy Airport to Singapore. In J.F.K.'s waiting lounge we could barely find a place to sit. Eighteen hours later, we landed at Singapore's ultramodern airport, with free Internet portals and children's play zones throughout. We felt, as we have before, like we had just flown from the Flintstones to the Jetsons. If all Americans could compare Berlin's luxurious central train station today with the grimy, decrepit Penn Station in New York City, they would swear we were the ones who lost World War II.

How could this be? We are a great power. How could we be borrowing money from Singapore? Maybe it's because Singapore is investing billions of dollars, from its own savings, into infrastructure and scientific research to attract the world's best talent -- including Americans.

Continue reading "Thomas Friedman: Who Will Tell The People?" »

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A person getting enlightened is like the moon reflecting in the water. The moon does not get wet, the water is not disturbed. Though it is a great expanse of light, it reflects in a little bit of water; the whole moon and the whole sky reflect even in the dew on the grass; they reflect even in a single drop of water. Enlightenment not disturbing the person is like the moon not piercing the water. A person not obstructing enlightenment is like the dewdrop not obstructing the heavens.

-Dogen, "Flowers Fall"

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