Health, Abuse, Terrorism and Poetry

2007-01-13T21:52:00.000-08:00

Will India Destroy the United States?

Simon Jones

The title to this article may sound extreme. You be the judge.
After responding recently to articles about the Indian invasion of America, I was finally encouraged to write an article about my experiences in the high-tech industry. Because of severance agreements, the names of my former company and former coworkers have been changed.
I am a computer programmer, and have been for 15 years. I worked for a company TechnoDataCode inCalifornia for 6 years, and I was the director of one of the R&D projects. About a year ago, most of the other American employees and I were fired and replaced with people from India on H-1B and L-1 visas. The people from India were making only a fraction of what we Americans were making. I was making $110K a year; my replacement,$37K. The people under me were making about $75K;their replacements, about $29K. To keep my severance pay, I was required to stay on for an additional six months (after the otherAmericans were fired) to train the replacements.

This was probably the most humiliating experience of my life.What I describe above is happening now every day. Many of my friends in high-tech have also recently been fired, and are being replaced with cheap imported labor from India or China. Microsoft says there is a"high-tech shortage," which is a lie. Almost everyAmerican programmer I know is now unemployed and has been replaced by a cheap import. There is not a"shortage." Big business only wants more cheap labor.But the story only gets better....You would think that the Indians would be appreciative of being allowed to work in the United States, but this was very far from the case. Most of their conversations involved extreme hatred of America, Americans, and anyone of European descent.

Here are some examples of their daily conversations:* Indians are the real "Aryans." The Human Genome Project shows that Indians are closely related to Africans. Thus Indians and Africans are the real"Aryans." * All people of European descent (i.e. all whites) must be exterminated * Blond hair and blue eyes are inferior traits. By the year 2090, all people with blond hair and blue eyes will either be bred or executed out of existence.* One day India will invade and take over. It is India's destiny to rule over whites.* Christianity is a disease that can only be cured with a bullet Although most of the Indians were Hindu, a few were Muslim, and they were quite openly fond of Bin Laden. The Hindus, however, seemed to hate white Americans just as much as if not more than the Muslims. On this they could agree. And then there is the story about Praveen. Praveen, a Hindu from Northern India, was often very"touchy" with me and the other Americans. He wasalways shaking our hands and patting us on the backs.I noticed too that after touching me he often left"red marks" on my clothes, and on others' clothes. There was also a break room that only a few Americans frequented. (Indians never visited it.) And Praveen was always in there tampering with the coffee machine.After seeing him one day pricking himself with a safety pin to make himself bleed, it all came together. He was trying to transmit his blood to others - either by direct contact or by putting it in the coffee machine.Come to find out, he was HIV+ and was trying to transmit it to the Americans. Praveen went back to India shortly after that, so nocriminal action was able to be taken. But a few of the other Indians did transmit HIV to a couple of the American women - and seemed very proud of it. Management of the company was informed of this, but they did very little to look into it. When I told our CEO that I suspected that the Indians were spreading HIV around the workers, he called me a "racist" and told me to be quiet.I'm sure he was aware of what was going on - but simply did not care. Cheap labor is cheap labor, that is the bottom line for big business.The only loyalty of big business is profit, and they could care less about American workers, American values, or the well-being of the United States. And what about the future of America?Are we going to auction off every American job to low-paid imports until there are no good American jobs left? Are we going to let third-world hordes takeover our high-tech sector until not a single Americanis left in any important position? The only effective and patriotic way to stop this is by massive deportations of all the cheap labor fromIndia and China. Otherwise, with the help of big business, we are well on our way to becoming a third-world country.

2006-11-11T22:09:00.000-08:00

My Motherland Serendib

I’ve been getting a lot of mail recently from my fellow Serendibians inquiring as to why I only write on issues pertaining to the Western culture. Some have even gone to the extent of telling me that I am a disgrace to my country of birth.

As a writer, it is not unusual to be criticized by your readers, but when criticism is based on ignorance, then we have a serious problem.

My reason for focusing on issues related to the Western culture has to do with the fact that I grew up in the Western culture and spent a great deal of my life in Western countries. Another reason, I never took the time to do research on issues faced by the people of my motherland. When I say research……………. I mean from books……………. and not from the opinions of individuals who live in Serendib. I did some serious digging in the library and almost gave up until I came across “Searching for Peace in Central and South Asia” by Monique Menkencamp, Paul van Tongeren, and Hans van de Veen. The following excerpts taken from this book is what I tend to agree with wholeheartedly as a Serendibian living in the country of my origin for the past 16 years.

1) The Ethnic War in Serendib -

The type of democracy introduced by the British led to a majority system in which the Sinhalese would always control the country’s parliament. Subsequent policies, especially with regard to language and access to education by successive Sri Lankan (Sinhalese-dominated) governments, and the reactions to these by the Tamil people, sowed the seeds of what has become a protracted and violent conflict that has particularly exacerbated by anti-Tamil rots in 1958, 1977-1978, and 1983.

The conflict, which has been raging at varying intensities since the 1983 attacks against the Tamil population, can be described as being between the largest, and most militarily effective Tamil militant group, the LTTE and the Sinhalese government of Sri Lanka.

The situation has been further inflamed by two violent insurrections in 1971 and 1987-1989 by the JVP, a group made up mostly from disaffected Sinhalese youth which combined a potent mixture of Marxism and nationalism. The second JVP insurrection was in part triggered by the arrival of an Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) in 1987.

Although many analysts describe the current situation as an “ethnic war” it is also a crisis of the state in that the LTTE and JVP conflicts are both symptomatic of broader issues concerning the identity, policies, and legitimacy of the state. The legitimacy of the state itself is questioned by some because of corruption and abuses of power, and the disputed and flawed nature of elections in past years.

Denial of justice and abuse of police power in Sri Lanka is often justified by reference to the ongoing civil war and in relation to human-rights abuses committed by the LTTE insurgents. It should be noted that human rights cases against members of the security forces, including the police, rarely result in a successful prosecution. This climate of impunity encourages local politicians, members of the security forces, and other armed groups to pursue personal agendas and engage in corrupt practices. This connection between military and civil “war economy” interests contribute to the tensions in the conflict affected areas of the island.

2) Peace –

How Sri Lankans perceive peacefulness differs between the north, east, central, and southern parts of the country. Polarization of communities continues with little contact with one another, beginning from preschool through to university education. Disparities in access to employment provide little scope for communities to come together. Grievances felt by all sides are heavily loaded by history and, it would seem, manipulated by ethnically motivated interests to keep theses grievances alive and to maintain the polarized and vindictive narrative.

3) NGOs –

Relations between the government and NGOs have been difficult at times, a relationship that has been described as one of “suspicious cooperation.” It seems that some sections of the government and the general population have the view that international NGOs are pro-LTTE, and the LTTE exploits naïve NGOs, and that the LTTE uses humanitarian aid to support their military efforts. This perception is supported by media often hostile towards NGOs.

NGOs, especially international NGOs, can themselves only be part of the overall process of creating a peaceful and just society. The bottom line is that the people and their government themselves must ultimately be responsible for sustainable peace and development.

Most of my earlier postings have been based on the atrocities that prevail when another civilization invades and dominates another culture in a foreign land, but in this posting you can clearly see what happens to a civilization when they are divided (irrespective of the fact that they originate from the same country) solely on the grounds that some of its people feel they are far more superior than the rest.

It’s also sad to note that my ancestor and the other warriors who fought the British, shed their blood in vain. They fought for our country’s independence so that the future generations may live in unification, while respecting our culture as well as each other, and, at the same time work together to develop our land of Serendib.

Unfortunately, we, have failed in fullfilling their vision.

Rain

2006-11-11T09:39:00.000-08:00

The Australian Aborigines

Those who have property will do anything to defend it, conversely, that in the Western world those who don’t will do almost anything to get it; whilst the Australian Aborigines, who had no sense of property at all, had no place in a world where property rights counted above all else.

But it would be wrong to put all the blame for what was cultivated in a way completely alien to white understanding on the shoulders of the white invaders without an appreciation of the manner of life and thinking of those invaders. For they were the products of the brutal age and it is very unlikely that they were much more brutal to the blacks, whom they rarely considered to be human beings, than they had been to the convicts who had preceded the Aborigines as beasts of burden.

The early settlers were ignorant concerning the Aborigines and their beliefs and equally ignorant about the land they were ravaging. Unfortunately, there were schools and scholars who were able to teach husbandry long before there were any people of truly Christian attitudes or trained in anthropology who could teach the white man enough about the Aborigines. When there were signs of enlightenment amongst the settlers, greed got in the way and those who would have treated their Aborigines properly, those who trained them to become good stockmen and their women as other than a source of sexual gratification, were soon ostracized.

First, there was the use of hard footed animals killing the native grasses, then over-stocking and destruction of the trees and the waterways in which the spirits of the Aborigines dwelt. At first, some of the squatters treated the Aborigines with decency, mostly because they needed them as shepherds and general laborers. But soon misunderstandings arose. As sheep and cattle drove away the natural inhabitants upon whom the Aborigines depended for food, the Aborigines started to take some of the invader’s cattle for sustenance; this led to slaughter of Aborigines, who retaliated. Then came native troopers, always from other tribes or groupings, who carried out the white man’s wish to destroy the local inhabitants.

When judging the behavior of the whites it must be remembered that they were acting under the pressure of fear and ignorance, two very hard taskmasters.

(Quoted from the book review of “The Cry For The Dead” by A.W. Sheppard)

Rain

2006-10-24T09:01:00.000-07:00

The Regan Era

After Ronald Reagan’s sweeping victory in 1984, one of his most vigorous critics, House Speaker Thomas (“Tip”) O’Neill, told him, “I’ve never seen a man more popular than you are with the American people.” Reagan maintained that popularity throughout his second term, even though he failed to effect promised changes in social, judicial, and environmental policies, and failed to find solutions for growing budget deficits, declining American productivity, and a widening gap between the rich and poor.

In 1980, his political opponent, George Bush, had ridiculed Reagan’s promise to cut taxes (and thus reduce government income) while boosting military spending and at the same time balancing the budget. Bush called this “voodoo economics.” He nevertheless gladly joined up as Reagan’s vice-president and shared the glory of the “Reaganomics” boom. The U.S. gross national product (GNP) mushroomed to $5 trillion, nearly twice the size of the Soviet and Japanese economies.

Some Americans grew very rich. In 1982 there were thirteen billionaires; by 1988, at least fifty-one.

For various reasons, however, the economy’s health was less rosy than it appeared. First, Reaganomics, especially the tax laws of 1981 and 1986, badly skewed income distribution. The share of the nation’s total after-tax wealth enjoyed by the top 10 percent of the nation’s families rose from 67 percent in 1979 to 73 percent in 1988. By 1990 the richest 2.5 million Americans had enjoyed a spectacular 75 percent income increase during the 1980s. They had nearly as much income as the 100 million Americans who had the lowest incomes.

By the end of the Reagan years, 31.5 million people of the population lived at the poverty level.

A second problem with Reaganomics also appeared. The President argued that his tax cuts would leave wealthier Americans with money that they could invest in productive enterprises. Instead these Americans spent their money on personal goods.

A third problem was that Americans demanded more from their government than they were willing to pay in taxes.

In 1986 alone, Americans spent $150 billion more than they produced. Private borrowing and indebtedness approached $9 trillion. Between 1984 and 1989 they bought $100 billion to 150 billion more each year from overseas than they sold.

Such spending led to a fourth problem: to cover the gap between what they spent and produced, Americans borrowed from foreigners-especially the British, Canadians, Japanese, and Germans. In 1981 the United States had been the world’s largest creditor, the globe’s main source of money. By 1986 the United States had suddenly become the world’s largest debtor. Because of its spending spree, it owed others a half-trillion dollars by the end of the 1980’s. It was the first time in seventy-five years that Americans had owed money to foreigners.

It would be “our children,” as one economist wrote, who would have to pay off the 1980’s debts, or sell off U.S. properties “our kids would otherwise have inherited.”

By 1990, Americans had less control over their economic future than at any time in the twentieth century. Foreigners controlled one-third of all U.S. savings and investments. In addition, Americans dependence on imported foreign oil rose to historic highs in 1990.Americans were the most energy-guzzling people in the world. The Japanese, who had begun radical energy-saving measures after the 1973 oil crisis, were two and one half times more energy saving than Americans. This meant that the Japanese could produce two and one half times more goods per unit of energy than could Americans.

The nation’s economic difficulties meant not only increasing problems at home, but they also meant that U.S. officials had less power to control powers abroad. The days when America enjoyed a large superiority in nuclear weapons, the economic strength to rebuild and control key regions of the world, and the ability to land troops, or CIA agents, to prop up or throw governments against little opposition-all that seemed to be over.

(Quoted from “The American Century” by Walter LaFeber, Richard Polenberg and Nancy Woloch)

Rain

2006-10-21T08:57:00.000-07:00

The Koreans of Japan

North Korea launched its nuclear tests on October 9th. I’m perplexed as to why President Bush and his entourage of administrators didn’t prevent this from happening, especially after all the trouble they took to invade Iraq so that the world would not fall victim to Iraq’s “weapons of mass destruction.” Did they invade the wrong country? And let’s not forget about all those people who died in Iraq.

And about Ms. Condoleezza Rice’s trip to Japan. “She said her mission was intended in part to reassure South Korea and Japan they had no need to develop a nuclear deterrent of their own in response to the North’s weapon program ”(Quoted from Tokyo, Wednesday, Reuters). I wonder if she’ll succeed in convincing Japan, especially since some Japanese and Koreans are not too crazy about each other.

Read on to find out why.

Koreans in Japan suffer the same fate as dominated groups in the United States. In Yongsook Lee’s words, most Japanese “despise Koreans.” Korea became a colony of Japan in 1910. Large-scale immigration of Koreans into Japan started in 1922 when Japanese Industrialists recruited them for their expanding economy.

The resentment of Japanese toward these Korean laborers was expressed in the 1923 massacre of between 4,500 and 20,000 Koreans. During World War II, the government forced 2 million Koreans to come to Japan as laborers and military conscripts. Japanese colonial control of Korea ended with the conclusion of World War II.

Today, Koreans in Japan are discriminated against in employment, and they are not eligible for pensions, insurance, and public housing. They cannot be hired by national and local governments, public schools, and universities. Naturalization has provided legal citizenship but not social equality. Applications for jobs, schools or membership in any group requires a copy of one’s family registration.

Korean school graduates face barriers at every level of employment. In school, Koreans experience overt and covert discrimination. Many private schools will not admit Koreans. Some public schools will only admit Koreans if they take a pledge “not to disturb school order.” Japanese textbooks present a negative image of Korean history and culture.

(Quoted from, The Intersection of Cultures by Joel Spring)

Rain

2006-10-21T08:52:00.000-07:00

Cultural Differences of Japan and The U.S.

The United States is considered an individualistic culture where a person sees herself or himself as a separate and unique individual, and whose self-definition does not include others. An individualistic culture places emphasis on individual goals.

Japan, on the other hand, is a collectivist culture where a person defines herself or himself in relation to others. The concept of Wa in Japan refers to the harmony of the group, where the self is merged into the group to form a grand harmony. The concept of Enryo refers to reserve or restraint resulting from conformity to the group. Enryo is a response to group pressure to conform.

The United States is a low context and individualistic culture, which emphasizes direct communication. Common phrases in the United States that reflect this cultural style of communication are: “Say what you mean!” “Don’t beat around the bush!” “Get to the point!”

As a high context and collectivist culture, Japanese often use indirect forms of communications filled with qualifiers such as, “perhaps,” “probably” “and “somewhat.” The Japanese are self-effacing and strive to maintain the harmony of the group in their communications.

In Japanese culture, silence is accepted behavior in the company of others. Japanese believe that an indication of good manners is not talking too much. In contrast, North Americans talk more and try to control the conversation.

Japanese like to avoid uncertainty. In conversation they want to know the context of others to avoid uncertainty in the communication. It is considered proper to clearly identify who you are when first meeting. The more context a person can give about themselves the more comfortable the listener feels. This concern about certainty in relationships often results in North Americans referring to Japanese as regimented, rigid and closely ordered.

(Quoted from “ The Intersection of Cultures” by Joel Spring)

Rain

2006-10-19T08:48:00.000-07:00

How the English Dominated the Irish and the Native Americans

The growth of racism in English culture, according to Ronald Takaki, begins with the English conquest of Ireland in the sixteenth century. The English justified their conquest of Ireland by calling the Irish “savages.” Savage in this context referred to cultural differences. The Irish were considered savages because they lived outside the framework of what the English considered civilization. This implied that the Irish could be educated and brought into the realm of what the English defined as civilization. While the English held out the possibility for the improvement of Irish culture, they considered the Irish lazy, wicked and as living like beasts.

One of the important functions of identifying another culture as inferior is that it provides a justification for economic exploitation and political control. Therefore, the English believed that the Irish would benefit by being controlled by the superior culture of England. In addition, since the Irish were considered savages, the English believed that it would be in the best interest of the Irish to deny them political and economic rights. Consequently, English colonizers of Ireland passed laws that gave the death penalty to any Irishman carrying a weapon and denied the Irish the right to purchase land, hold a public office, and serve on a jury.

By branding a culture as inferior and considering that inferiority as biologically inherent, the English could not only justify control and management of a group of people but also their eradication. Genocide is justified with the argument that a group of people is inherently inferior.

While Native Americans retained a sense of the superiority of their culture, English culture was characterized by racist attitudes which branded Native Americans as savages and inferior, and which justified not only moving them off their lands but, in some cases, the practice of genocide. Native Americans thought of social differences in terms of wisdom and the ability to contribute to the welfare of the tribe. The English thought of society in terms of social classes – the rich and the poor.

It is important to understand the relationship between the English concept of “civilizing” Native Americans and economic exploitation. Just as branding the Irish as inferior justified the conquest of Ireland, branding Indian culture as inferior justified the conquest of Indian lands. Turning Native Americans into yeoman farmers as opposed to hunters would reduce the amount of land needed by Indian tribes. Contained on farms, Indian lands would become available to English settlers.

In the 1820s and 1830s, Andrew Jackson adopted the position that Indians were racially inferior and, consequently, incapable of civilization. The only hope was to move them from their lands to the area west of the Mississippi that became known as Indian Territory. Under Andrew Jackson, the forced march of the Five Civilized Tribes to Indian Territory became known as the “Trail of Tears” because of the forced abandonment of homes and the large number of Indians who died on the trail. It was one of the major acts of genocide in human history.
(Quoted from “The Intersection of Cultures” by Joel Spring)

Rain

2006-10-13T09:25:00.000-07:00

Anthrax

The tragic events of September 11, 2001 are a wake up call to how vulnerable we are to terrorist attacks. Antiterrorism experts warn, however, that crashing jet planes into large buildings isn’t the easiest or most effective way to cause panic and destruction. Biological agents can be a greater threat.

Using pathogens as weapons isn’t a new idea. More than 2000 years ago, Sythian archers dipped their arrowheads in rotting corpses to increase their deadlines. During the fourteenth century, Tartar soldiers hurled plague victim’s corpses over the walls of besieged cities in an effort to start epidemics. In 1763, British General Jeffrey Amherst ordered smallpox –infected blankets distributed to Delaware Indians during the French and Indian War. During World War II, the Japanese dropped paper bags filled with plague-infested fleas on Chinese cities, killing thousands of people.

At the end of World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union embarked on massive biological and chemical warfare research programs. Using molecular biology techniques, these research labs combined genes and created new and more dangerous organisms than ever found in nature. Among the most lethal agents known to have been tested are anthrax.

In 1999, the Department of Defense ordered that all 2.5 million military personnel be vaccinated against anthrax, regardless of duty stations or responsibilities. Members of the military were to be vaccinated under threat of court martial. The vaccine is administered in a series of six shots.

Former Air force security specialist Jenny Enoch was diagnosed in February 2000 with fibromyalgia. “I’m in constant pain,” Enoch said, “I have chronic fatigue, I have serious concentration problems and memory loss. I was healthy and active, absolutely prior to that third shot of the anthrax vaccine.”

Army pilot Rhonda Breneman was noticed by superiors for her boundless energy and outstanding physical fitness. But weeks after her third shot for anthrax, she developed extreme gastroparesis, or paralysis of the stomach. She now lives in a state of chronic nausea, has lost 45 pounds, and has memory loss.

Army Specialist Sandra Larson had her immune system collapse in a virulent case of aplastic anemia 31/2 weeks after her sixth anthrax vaccination shot. She died two months later.

Because anthrax vaccines have never been used on a mass scale, their use by the Armed Forces is thought to be an instance of medical experimentation. The entire stockpile of anthrax vaccine is owned by the Department of Defense.

Captain John Buck is a 32-year-old emergency room doctor at Keesler Medical Center who refused the vaccine. He claimed that the germ warfare vaccine is an experimental and potentially hazardous drug that was unlawfully forced on soldiers. He was court-martialed in May 2001.

Marine spokesman, First Lieutenant Vincent Vasquez says –

“ We in the Marine Corps don’t have the luxury of deciding which order to obey and which to refuse. We obey all lawful orders, period. That’s the issue here. It’s our obligation to make sure our marines go into a combat zone with every weapon at their disposal, and the anthrax vaccine is our best weapon against this deadly threat.”

(Quoted from “Principles of Environmental Science” by W.P. Cunningham and M.A Cunningham and “Second Thoughts” by Wanda Teays)

Rain

2006-10-13T09:19:00.000-07:00

The Deadly European Germs

Until World War II more victims of war died of microbes than of gunshot or sword wounds. All those military histories glorifying Alexander the Great and Napoleon ignore the ego-deflating truth: the winners of past wars were not necessarily those armies with the best generals and weapons, but those bearing the worst germs with which to smite their enemies.

U.S. and Australian whites bent on wiping out “belligerent” native peoples sent them gifts of blankets previously used by smallpox patients.

In the century or two following Columbus’s arrival in the New World, the Indian population is estimated to have declined about 95 per cent. The main killers were European germs, to which the Indians had never been exposed and against which they therefore had neither immunologic nor genetic resistance.

Smallpox, measles, influenza, and typhus competed for top rank among the killers. As if those were not enough, pertussis, plague, tuberculosis, diphtheria, mumps, malaria and yellow fever came close behind.

In countless cases Europeans were actually there to witness the decimation that occurred when the germs arrived. For example, in 1837 the Mandan Indian Tribe, with one of the most elaborate cultures in the Great Plains, contracted smallpox thanks to a steamboat traveling up the Missouri River from St. Louis. The population of one Mandan village crashed from 2,000 to less than 40 within a few weeks.

Eurasian germs played a key role in decimating native peoples in many other parts of the world as well. Racist Europeans use to attribute those conquests to their supposedly better brains. But no evidence for such better brains has been forthcoming.

There’s no doubt that Columbus was a great visionary, seaman and leader. There is also no doubt that he and his successors often behaved as bestial murderers. But those facts alone don’t fully explain why it took so few European immigrants to initially conquer and ultimately supplant so much of the native population of the Americas.

Without the germs Europeans brought with them-germs that were derived from their animals-such conquests might have been impossible.

(Quoted from The Arrow of Disease by Jared Diamond)

Rain

2006-10-13T09:13:00.000-07:00

Did You Know………………… Part 2.

1) Being born involves considerable stress for the baby. During each contraction, when the placenta and umbilical chord are compressed as the uterine walls draw together, the supply of oxygen to the fetus is decreased. The baby has considerable capacity to withstand the stress of birth. Large quantities of the hormones adrenaline and noradrenaline are secreted, protecting the fetus in the event of oxygen deficiency. These hormones increase the heart’s pumping, speed up heart rate, channel blood flow to the brain, and raise the blood sugar level. Never again in life will such large amounts of these hormones be secreted.

2) A small number of newborns have a disorder called pelvic field defect, which in boys involves a missing penis. For many years, doctors usually recommended that these genetic boys be raised as girls and undergo castration, which was required because they were born with testicles but not a penis.

3) No matter which set of genital organs have developed in the body – whether the embryo is physically male or female – the brain’s wired-in pattern of sexual behavior is female.
Long after the genes and hormones have dictated a male body, additional sex hormones must act upon the brain and make it a male. If they do not, the embryo will develop a female brain in a male body – and the boy will grow up to act feminine.

4) Bouncing and jiggling a baby can be dangerous. The infant’s heavy but weakly supported head may be flopped back and forth so hard that brain blood vessels bleed, leading to the formation of membranes that interfere with brain growth. Many slow-learning and clumsy children with IQ’s of 90 might have been intelligent and normally mobile children with IQ’s of 120, had they not been habitually shaken and whip lashed during infancy.

5) During the elementary school years, children grow an average of 2 to 3 inches a year. At the age of 8 the average girl and the average boy are 4 feet 2 inches tall. During the middle and late childhood years, children gain about 5 to 7 pounds a year. The average 8-year-old girl and the average 8-year-old boy weigh 56 pounds.

(Quoted from Life – Span Development by John W. Santrock and The Role of the Brain by Ronald H. Bailey)

Rain

2006-10-06T09:27:00.000-07:00

Male Producing Gene

Females have two chromosomes called X chromosomes and males have an X and a Y chromosome. But what happens when a female is born with the XY chromosome?

Gender represents a person’s social identity as a male or a female. Most of us accept the fact that people are born either as male or female – that’s all there is to it. While sex and gender are simple matters for most people, it is a complex issue for some. In order to understand the problem, we have to distinguish among phenotypic sex (a person’s sex organs and secondary sexual characteristics), chromosomal sex (the number of X and Y chromosomes), and genetic sex (the presence of genes that determine sex).

A human embryo develops a set of generalized organs and tubes that will eventually turn into the sex organs. A gene, usually found on the Y chromosome, controls which set of organs, male or female develops. Between the fifth and seventh week of development, this gene, if present, produces a chemical that influences the undifferentiated gonad to become a testis. Once the testis begins to develop, it produces secretions that turn the other structures into the male sex organs. If this does not occur by the thirteenth week, the gonad begins to develop into an ovary, and under the influence of ovarian secretions, the undifferentiated organs develop into female structures.

Can an XY individual be a female? This can happen if the male producing gene is not operating (a mutation) or if the receptor sites on the undifferentiated organs do not respond to the presence of the hormone. In addition to this, other problems result in ambiguous phenotypic sex.

One area of human endeavor where this has become a major issue is athletic competition, especially the Olympics. Fearing that a phenotypic female who is a genetic or chromosomal male will have an unfair advantage, all phenotypic female athletes have been forced to undergo testing. Female athletes are put through this demeaning process in spite of the fact that several decades of testing have demonstrated that the few phenotypic females, who, for an example, carry an X and a Y chromosome, do not have any particular athletic advantage.

Women with this syndrome have breasts and vaginas and are socialized as females, but lack a uterus and ovaries and have a testis located within their bodies.

(Quoted from “Gender, Sex and Athletics”, Physical Anthropology-Sixth Edition by Philip L. Stein and Bruce M. Rowe)

Rain

2006-10-06T08:53:00.000-07:00

Are The Japanese Smarter Than The Americans?

In October 1986, Yasuhiro Nakasone, Prime Minister of Japan, offered an explanation of why Japan competes so well against the United States: the Japanese people score higher on IQ tests than Americans.

Here are some reasons why –

1) Japanese children attend school for an average of 240 days a year; American children attend school for less than 180 days a year.

2) The quality of education is uniformly high in Japan. Most Japanese are of the same social class, and about 99 percent are of the same ethnic group.

3) Discipline and expectations of students in Japan are much higher than in the United States.

4) Japanese students are assigned heavier course loads and more homework than their American counterparts.

5) Economic success in Japan is absolutely dependent on academic achievement. Although academic achievement increases the chances of economic success in the United States, it is not absolutely essential.

It is therefore no wonder that mean IQ scores are higher in Japan than in the United States. The Japanese place a greater value on education. As a result, Japanese children take educational goals more seriously and spend more time in school and on homework than American children.

Even though the American IQ is not as high as that of the Japanese, Americans are responsible for innovating more of this century’s new technologies than any other nationality, and they have won more Nobel Prizes than the members of any other culture. IQ scores do not test such things as creativity.
American society emphasizes creativity.

(Quoted from “Are the Japanese, On The Average, Smarter Than Americans?”, Physical Anthropology-Sixth Edition by Philip L. Stein and Bruce M. Rowe)

Rain

2006-10-06T08:46:00.000-07:00

Social Inequalities

English philosopher Herbert Spencer (1820-1930), who was greatly influenced by Charles Darwin’s ideas, coined the phrase, “survival of the fittest”.

Spencer and other proponents of social Darwinism viewed social life as a competitive struggle for power, wealth and general well being among individuals and nations. Using this concept, Europeans of the nineteenth century could argue that their dominant position in the world was the result of natural superiority that resulted from natural selection. The Asian, African, Polynesian and other peoples that Europeans ruled or subdued at the time were seen as belonging to earlier and more primitive stages of evolution. Likewise, the social inequalities among individuals within European society were thought to be variations on which natural selection acted. The prosperous were seen as being “fit”, while the poor and powerless was seen as “unfit” individuals that natural selection would select against.

Spencer and other social Darwinists, including the American sociologist William Graham Sumner (1840-1910), believed that government should do nothing to aid the poor or sick. Modern social Darwinists assert that programs such as food stamps, Aid to Families with Dependent Children, and free public health clinics interfere with the natural weeding out of unfit people and thereby weaken society. Or, said in reverse, a laissez-faire approach to social inequalities would lead to a natural cleansing of a population and hence would lead to a society and a world better adapted to environment pressures. In the United States and Europe, social Darwinism has been used to justify discriminatory actions against women, nonwhites and various ethnic groups. It must be noted, however, that Charles Darwin was not a social Darwinist; at least, he avoided any discussion of the social implications of his ideas.

Scientific studies on human populations have not supported the tenets of social Darwinism. It appears that it is discrimination and the ideas of superiority, as well as differential access to natural resources that produce most inequalities. The fact that some societies are more powerful than others and that some individuals within a society do not have access to necessities and luxuries is due to social history. When populations or classes of people within societies are freed from discriminatory practices, they can reach the same levels of wealth, power and education as those groups who traditionally define them as superiors.

(Quoted from “Social Darwinism”, Physical Anthropology – Sixth Edition by Philip L. Stein and Bruce M. Rowe)

Rain

2006-10-05T09:25:00.000-07:00

The Dangers of Pornography

Current evidence suggests a high correlation between deviant fantasies and deviant behaviors…… some treatment methods are also predicated on the link between fantasies and behavior by attempting to alter fantasy patterns in order to change the deviant behaviors.

The following statements about men imitating abusive sexual acts that they had seen in pornography were made by the following women;

Ms. M –

I agreed to act out in private a lot of scenarios that my husband read to me. These depicted bondage and different sexual acts that I found very humiliating to do……He read the pornography like a textbook, lie a journal. When he finally convinced me to bound, he read in the magazine how to tie the knots and bind me in a way that I couldn’t escape. Most of the scenes where I had to dress up or go through different fantasies were the exact same scenes that he read in the magazines.

Ms. O described a case in which a man –

brought pornographic magazines, books, and paraphernalia into the bedroom with him and told her that if she did not perform the sexual acts in the “dirty” books and magazines, he would beat her and kill her.

Ms. S testified about the experiences of a group of women prostitutes, who she said –

were forced constantly to enact specific scenes that men had witnessed in pornography….These men….would set up scenarios, usually with more than one woman, to copy scenes that they had seen portrayed in magazines and books.

Ms. S quoted a woman in her group as saying –

He held up a porn magazine with a picture of a beaten woman and said, “I want you to look like that. I want you to hurt.” He then began beating me. When I did not cry fast enough, he lit a cigarette and held it right above my breast for a long time before he burned me.

Ms. S also described what three men did to a nude woman prostitute. They first tied her up while she was seated on a chair, then –

They burned her with cigarettes and attached nipple clips to her breasts. They had many S and M magazines with them and showed her many pictures of women appearing to consent, enjoy, and encourage this abuse. She was held for twelve hours while she was continuously raped and beaten.

Ms. U testified –

A society that sells books, movies, and video games like “Custer’s Last Stand [Revenge]” on its street corners, gives white men permission to do what they did to me. Like they [her rapists] said, I’m scum. It is a game to track me down, rape and torture me.

There can be no “equality” in porn, no female equivalent, no turning of the tables in the name of bawdy fun. Pornography, like rape, is a male intervention, designed to dehumanize women, to reduce the female to an object of sexual access, not to free sensuality from moralistic or parental inhibition. The staple of porn will always be the naked female body, breasts and genitals exposed, because as man devised it, her naked body is the female’s “shame,” her private parts the private property of man, while his are the ancient, holy, universal, patriarchal instrument of his power, his rule by force over her.

(Quoted from “Taking Sides”, Second Edition by Richard P. Halgin)

Rain

2006-09-30T09:40:00.000-07:00

Testosterone

When sufficient quantities circulate in the blood of men, it turbo charges libido, sprouts beards, beefs up muscles, hardens bones and incline their minds toward the kind of rambunctious, competitiveness that is both the signature blessing and occasional curse of masculinity.

Men start producing testosterone when they’re still in the womb – as early as the twelfth week of pregnancy. But the real tsunami comes in adolescence. Testosterone circulates from the testicles to the blood, turning on the genes that make boys men.

By the time they turn 30, testosterone levels begin to decline at the rate of 1 percent a year, though most men still produce enough for a healthy libido and healthy erections (that said, it’s definitely more a hormone of desire than performance).

The “normal” range for testosterone is quite broad – somewhat between 240 – 1,000 nanograms of the stuff per deciliter of blood. Trying to boost your level within the normal range can backfire.

“The key point to realize is that the human body balances,’ says Harvard researcher Richard Spark, M.D., author of Sexual Health For Men (Perseus, 2000). “When you give a normal man testosterone supplements, it just causes him to shut down his own internal production. Over time, his testicles will start to shrink.”

“I think you can make the case that some young men have too much testosterone and only when they get a little older do they become reasonable,” says Stanley Korenman, M.D., a reproductive endocrinologist at UCLA School of Medicine. “Throughout history, the world has been run by older men. Young men make better soldiers because they’re more aggressive, and more impulsive. Older men are wiser, they make more sense, and they are the ones who go into positions of leaderships.”

George State psychology professor James Dabbs, PhD., says his research supports the idea that high testosterone hurts occupational achievement. Unemployed men, he found, have higher average testosterone levels than blue-collar workers, who in turn have higher average levels than white-collar workers. Waning testosterone may also make men better husbands and fathers. “It’s very clear in birds,” says Dabbs, “that the testosterone levels of the males drop dramatically once they start nesting.”

A study presented at the Endocrine Society’s meeting last summer showed a similar drop in men following the birth of a child. Lowering testosterone with age, Dabbs speculates, may help predispose men to the gentler activities of parenthood.

Bottom line: Men may need high testosterone to get a mate – and lower testosterone to keep her.

(Quoted from – Man Power by Jim Thornton )

(American Psychological Association’s Division 20, Adult Development and Aging – http:// www.aging.ufl.edu/apadiv20/apadiv20.htm)

Rain

2006-09-30T09:35:00.000-07:00

Equal Rights In The U.S. – Does it exist?

“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.

I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
- Mr. Martin Luther King –

It's sad that Mr. King’s dream has yet to be fulfilled, for most Americans, such as the African Americans, Native Americans, Latino Americans, etc are still struggling for their equal rights.

Today African Americans have equal rights under the law, but in fact they are far from equal. Compared with whites, blacks are twice as likely to live in poverty, twice as likely to be unable to find a job, and twice as likely to die in infancy. There have always been at least two Americas, one for whites and one for blacks.

Despite the lofty claim that “all men are created equal,” equality has never been an American birthright.

Recent studies indicate that minority status is still a factor in the lending practices of some banks. A 1998 report of the U.S. Conference of Mayors indicated that, among applicants with average or slightly higher incomes relative to their community, Hispanics and African Americans were twice as likely as whites to be denied a mortgage.

Adrienne Cureton, a plainclothes police officer, who on January 2, 1995, with a uniformed partner, was called to the scene of a domestic dispute. When a struggle ensued, her partner radioed for help. When the officers arrived, Cureton and her partner had already handcuffed the homeowner. The officers barged in and mistook Cureton, an African American for the other person involved in the dispute. They grabbed her by the collar, dragged her by her hair onto the porch, and clubbed her repeatedly with flashlights, despite her screams that she was a police officer.

The realities of everyday American life are still very different for its white and black Americans. For example, a black child born in the United States has more than twice the chance of dying before reaching his or her birthday than a white child does. The difference in the infant mortality rates of whites and African Americans reflects the differences in nutrition, medical care, and education – in other words, differences in their access to the most basic resources of a modern society.

(Quoted from – The American Democracy by Thomas Patterson, Sixth Edition)

Rain

2006-09-30T09:30:00.000-07:00

Your Unborn Baby

Most people assume that the safest period of one’s life, is the time spent as a fetus in their mother’s womb.

Unfortunately, this is not always true. If a mother smokes, drinks, consumes an unbalanced diet or is prone to “infections in the reproductive tract”, the chances of her baby being born with abnormalities are very high.

“We are never more clever than we are as a fetus,” says Dr. Peter Nathanielz, a fetal researcher, obstetrician, and professor of reproductive medicine at Cornell University. “We pass far more biological milestones before we are born than we’ll ever pass after we’re born.”

Studies show that it’s the fetus, not the mother, who sends the hormonal signals that determine when a baby will be born. And we’ve found out that its health in the womb depends in part on its mother’s health when she was in the womb.

The fetus is strongly affected by the mother’s eating habits. If the mother exercises more than usual, the fetus may become temporarily short of oxygen. If she takes a hot bath, the fetus feels the heat. If she smokes, so does the fetus. One study has shown that pregnant women exposed to more sunlight had more outgoing children.

“Because of genetics, we once thought that we would unfold in the womb like a blueprint, but now we know that it’s not that simple,” says Janet DiPietro, an associate professor of maternal and child health at the John’s Hopkins School of Public Health and one of a handful of fetal-behavior specialists. “The mother and the uterine environment she creates have a major impact on many aspects of fetal development, and a number of things laid down during that time remain with you throughout your life.”

Researchers say consuming up to three servings of aspartame (artificial sweetener) a day – in either diet soda or low calorie foods – appears to be safe for the fetus. However, a pregnant woman of average weight who eats ten or more servings a day may put her unborn baby at risk.

Recent studies show that exposure to one of the most common of winter’s ills – influenza – may put an unborn child at risk of cognitive and emotional problems. If flu strikes in the second trimester, it may increase the unborn baby’s risk of developing schizophrenia later in life. While the flu may be a trigger, it’s likely that a genetic susceptibility is also needed for schizophrenia to develop.

Some evidence exists that maternal flu may also lead to dyslexia, and suspicions persist that a first – trimester flu may cause fetal neural tube defects resulting in spina bifida.

“Infections are probably the most important thing for a pregnant woman to protect herself against,” says Lise Eliot, a developmental neurobiologist at the Chicago Medical School.
Some researchers recommend that pregnant women avoid close contact with cats. Toxoplasmosis, a parasitic infection, can travel from a cat to a woman to her unborn child.

Most humans become infected through cat litter boxes. An infected woman might experience only mild symptoms, if any, so the illness usually goes undetected. If she is diagnosed with the infection, antiparasitic drugs are helpful, but they don’t completely eliminate the disease. The infection is relatively rare, and the odds of passing it from mother to child are only one in five during the first two trimesters, when the fetal harm is most serious. The bad news is that a fetus infected by toxoplasmosis can suffer severe brain damage, including mental retardation and epilepsy. Some researchers also suspect it may be a latent trigger for serious mental illness as the child grows older.

Researchers suspect most cerebral palsy cases are not caused by delivery problems, as has been widely assumed. There’s strong evidence that some cases of cerebral palsy may be linked to placental infections that occur during uterine life. Other cerebral palsy cases may be triggered by oxygen deprivation in early development, but very few appear to be caused by oxygen deprivation during delivery. It’s now estimated that only 10 percent of cerebral palsy cases are related to delivery problems.

Maternal urinary-tract infections have been linked to lower IQ’s in children. Another infection, cytomegalovirus (CMV), has been linked to congenital deafness. Sexually transmitted diseases such as chlamydia are suspected to be a trigger for pre-term birth.

Women can help prevent neurological and other birth defects by taking vitamin supplements before pregnancy. A daily dose of 400 micrograms of folic acid can reduce the risk of such problems as spina bifida by more than 70 percent as well as prevent brain defects and cleft lip and palate.

To be effective, folic acid should be taken before pregnancy to prevent developmental defects. Folic acid comes in multivitamins and prenatal vitamins and is found naturally in legumes, whole wheat bread, citrus fruits, fortified breakfast cereal, and leafy green vegetables. Despite the proven value of folic acid, a recent March of Dimes survey found that only 32 percent of American women of childbearing age – including pregnant women – took folic – acid supplements.

What is the impact of life in the womb on intelligence? Bernie Devlin, a biostatistician and assistant professor at the University of Pittsburgh thinks it’s equal to if not greater than the impact of a child’s upbringing. In other words, it’s possible a mother may have more influence over her child’s intelligence before birth than after.

As the brain develops in utero, we know it undergoes changes that affect its ultimate capacity. Nutritional and hormonal influences from the mother have a big impact. And twins studies show that the heavier twin at birth most often has the higher IQ.

The August 1999 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine reported that expected mothers with low thyroid function gave birth to children with markedly diminished IQ’s as well as motor and attention deficits. The study said one cause of hypothyroidism _ present in 2 to 3 percent of American women - is a lack of iodine in the American diet. Women whose hypothyroidism was detected and treated before pregnancy had children with normal test scores.

There are companies offering kits so expectant mothers can play music of different sounds to their developing babies – the prenatal “Mozart effect.” One kit promises this stimulation will lead to “longer new-born attention span, better sleep patterns, accelerated development, expanded cognitive powers, enhanced social awareness and extraordinary language abilities.” Will acceptance to Harvard come next?

“The number of bogus and dangerous devices available to expectant parents to make their babies smarter constantly shocks me,” says DiPietro. “All these claims are made without a shred of evidence to support them.”

Adds DeCasper, a professor of developmental psychology at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro: “I think it is dangerous to stimulate the baby in the womb. If you play Mozart and it remembers Mozart, is it going to be a smarter baby? I haven’t got a clue. Could it hurt the baby? Yes, I think it could. If you started this stimulation too early and played it too loud, there is evidence from animal studies that you can destroy the ear’s ability to hear sounds in a particular range. That’s an established fact. Would I take a risk with my fetus? No!”

DeCasper and other researchers emphasize that no devices or tricks can enhance the brainpower of a developing baby. Their advice to the expectant mother: Take the best possible care of yourself.

“The womb is a quiet, protective place for a reason,” DiPietro concludes. “Nature didn’t design megaphones to be placed on the abdomen. The fetus gets all the stimulation it needs for its brain to develop.”

(Quoted from – The Mystery Of Fetal life: Secrets Of The Womb by John Pekkanen)

Rain

2006-09-30T09:24:00.000-07:00

I Q

Have you wondered why some have higher IQ’s than others?

“Stephen Ceci, Ph.D., lays out facts about intelligence that may astound even the experts.’

Fact 1: IQ is affected by school attendance.

Although intelligence does influence the decision to stay in school, staying in school itself can elevate IQ. Or more accurately, prevent it from slipping.

Each additional month a student remains in school may increase his IQ above what would have been expected had he dropped out. The idea that schooling increases IQ may surprise anyone who views it as a measure of innate intelligence.

A few other facts about school attendance:

IQ is affected by delayed schooling. Researchers in South Africa studied the intellectual function of children of Indian ancestry. For each year of delayed schooling, the children experienced a decrement of five IQ points. Similar data has been reported in the U.S.

IQ is affected by remaining in school longer. Toward the end of the Vietnam War, a draft priority was established by lottery. Men born on July 9, 1951, were picked first so they tended to stay in school longer to avoid the draft; while men born July 7 had no incentive to stay in school longer because they were picked last in the lottery. As a result, men born on July 9 not only had higher IQ’s, they also earned more money – approximately 7% more.

Dropping out of school can also diminish IQ. In a large-scale study, 10% of all males in the Swedish school population born in 1948 were randomly selected and given an IQ test at age 13. Upon reaching age 18 (in 1966), 4,616 of them were tested again. For each year of high school not completed, there was a loss of 1.8 IQ points.

IQ is affected by summer vacations. Two independent studies have documented that there is a systematic decline in IQ scores over the summer months. With each passing month away from school, children lose ground from their end of year scores. The decline is pronounced for children whose summers are least academically oriented.

Fact 2: IQ is related to breast-feeding.

My colleagues and I were skeptical when we first heard claims that breast-fed infants grew into children with higher IQ’s than their siblings who were not breast-fed. There are factors that differ between breast-fed and non-breast fed children, such as the amount of time mother and child spend together through nursing and the sense of closeness they gain from nursing.
It turns out, however, that even when researchers control for such factors, there still appears to be a gain of 3 to 8 IQ points for breast-fed by children by age three. Exactly why is unclear. Perhaps the immune factors in mother’s milk prevent children from getting diseases that deplete energy and impair early learning. Breast milk may also affect nervous system functioning. Mother’s milk is an especially rich source of mega-3 fatty acids that are building blocks of nerve cell membranes and crucial to the efficient transmission of nerve impulses.

READ MORE ABOUT IT: On Intelligence: A Bio-ecological Treatise on Intellectual Development, Stephen J. Ceci, Ph.D. (Harvard University Press, 1996)

(Quoted from – Intelligence: The Surprising Truth by Stephen Ceci, Ph.D.)

For information on “Education of Young Children”, visit –

The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC)
http://www.naeyc.org

Rain

2006-09-30T09:17:00.000-07:00

Foods

Scientists have found that low-fat proteins tend to stimulate while carbohydrates tend to calm you down.

Among the brain booster foods are low-fat milk, skinned chicken and dried beans.

Mood soother foods include bread, pasta and cereals.

Breads, Cereal, Rice and Pasta -

Enriched and whole grain products are good sources of complex carbohydrates and, iron and B vitamins. You need 6-11 servings daily.

Fruits -

Fruit and fruit juices can be good sources of vitamins A and C and carbohydrates. You need 2 to 4 servings of fruit daily.

Vegetables –

Many vegetables and vegetable juices are good sources of vitamins A or C. Starchy vegetables, such as potatoes and squash, also supply complex carbohydrates – starch and fiber. Each day eat at least 3 to 5 servings.

Meat, Poultry, Fish, Dry Beans, Eggs and Nuts –

Eggs, dry beans, nuts are alternates. Theses foods along with meat, poultry and fish are good sources of protein, iron, and B vitamins. At least 2 to 3 servings equal the recommended 5 to 7 ounces (142 to 198 g) daily.

Milk, Yogurt and Cheese –

These foods are good sources of protein, calcium and riboflavin, a B vitamin. You need at least 2 to 3 servings daily.

1 serving of vegetables equals –

½ cup cooked or raw vegetables

1-cup leafy raw vegetables

¾ cup vegetable juice

1 serving of meat, fish or alternates equals –
2 ounces of lean meat

2 eggs

1 cup cooked dry beans

2 ounces peanut butter

1 serving of milk, yogurt or cheese equals –

8 ounces of milk or yogurt

1 ½ ounces natural cheese

2 ounces processed cheese

1 serving of breads, cereals and other grain products equals –

1 slice bread

½ hamburger bun or English muffin

1 small roll, biscuit or muffin

½ cup cooked cereal, rice or pasta

3 to 4 small crackers

1 cup ready to eat breakfast cereal

1 serving of fruit equals –

1 whole fruit (an apple or a banana)

½ grapefruit or melon wedge

¾ cup fruit juice

½ cup berries

½ cup cooked or canned fruit

½ cup dried fruit

Rain

(Quoted from - Glencoe Health, A Guide to Wellness, Fifth Edition – M.B. Merki Ph.D. and D. Merki, Ph. D., 1997)

2006-09-23T10:32:00.000-07:00

George W. Bush

When George W. Bush won the presidential elections the second time around, I, like many of his supporters were extremely happy and relieved. For I truly believed that as the President of the United States and as a world leader, his policies were based on principles that safeguarded humanity irrespective of one’s race, religion, or beliefs, and that we and our families were safe as long as we had a world leader such as President Bush. I admired the President for the way he expressed himself with calmness and the fact that he was a Born-Again Christian, but I had very little knowledge of his policies. After the bombing of Iraq where so many human lives were lost, and after reading numerous books and magazines, which featured the President and his policies, I was horrified and ashamed.

Horrified to find out that some of his policies were unethical and ashamed for my ignorance about them.

Here's what I compiled together from the World Watch issue of March/April 2004, “Ladies, you Have No Choice” by Dan Hinrichsen.

“From the day Bush first sat down in the Oval Office, his decisions in the areas of family planning and population appear to have been guided solely by ideology, with little interest in what is actually happening in developing countries.”

“Here are a few of the actions taken by George W. Bush to reverse U.S. progress in family planning and population.”

Ø Prior to inauguration, selected an anti-choice zealot, John Ashcroft, to be attorney general-providing an early signal of his intention to have the U.S. government decide how women’s bodies are to be used rather than allowing women to make their own choices.

Ø On his first day in office, restored the Reagan-era “gag rule” – withdrawing U.S funding for international family planning.

Ø Three months later, closed the White House Office for Women’s Initiatives and Outreach.

Ø In his first budget, stripped contraceptive coverage for federal employees.

Ø Began campaign to pack federal courts with judges zealously opposed to birth control and women’s choice.

Ø Selected Patricia Funderburk Ware, an advocate of “abstinence only” education, to lead the Presidential advisory Council on HIV/AIDS.

Ø Joined with nations practicing extreme suppression of women (basically the “Evil Axis” nations Iraq, Iran, plus Syria, Libya and Sudan) to block UN consensus on sexuality education.

Ø Announced new rules making fetuses eligible for prenatal care-but providing no coverage for pregnant women-thus elevating the fetus to “personhood” while reducing the role of the woman to mere “host” status.

Ø Appointed a Title IX commission aiming to gut the law that provided athletic programs for girls and women. Remember the 1950’s when girls did not play soccer or basketball?

Ø Withheld $34 million in funding for birth control, maternal and child health care, and HIV/AIDS prevention from the United Nations Population Fund.

Ø Rejected the U.S. participation in the women’s rights treaty (Convention on the Elimination of All forms of Discrimination Against Women), which had been ratified by 170 other nations.

Ø Rejected funding that had been provided by Congress for programs to support women’s health in Afghanistan, where maternal mortality rates are among the highest in the world.

Ø Extended the global gag rule to all international family planning programs.

Ronald Green, chairman of the department of religion at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire says- The Bush Administration has made UNFPA a sacrificial lamb for the religious right in America. It’s crass election politics. These groups not only oppose abortion, they are against family planning and reproductive health in general. Their positions……have no basis in reality.

The UNFPA calculates that the loss of $34 million, about 13 percent of its total budget, is having a devastating effect on programs in some of the poorest countries in which the Fund works. In Bangladesh, where close to 70 percent of pregnant women receive no medical care before, during, or after childbirth, programs to train doctors to deal with obstetric emergencies had to be cancelled. In Kenya, where the Fund was working with the Catholic Church to prevent teenagers from contracting the HIV virus, the project had to be shelved when funds dried up. Overall, UNFPA estimates that the loss of U.S funding will result in 2 million unwanted pregnancies, 800,000 abortions, and more than 81,000 deaths.

Stirling Scruggs reflects- it is sad when one considers that the U.S. was the prime mover in creating UNFPA during the Nixon administration. UNFPA has become just what the U.S. envisioned; the worlds premiere reproductive health and rights organization. But now, that reputation is in jeopardy-not because of misdeeds, but because of misinformation.

To IPPF’s Steve Sinding, UNFPA’s Scruggs, and others who have toiled on the front lines of development, these cutbacks in funding from the world’s richest country are not just numbers, but human faces-like that of the 25-year old woman in the Philippines who died from hemorrhage on her way to a hospital 20 kilometers away because the local clinic didn’t have the training or equipment to stop her from bleeding to death after giving birth to her sixth child in seven years; or the 20 year old college student in Botswana who died from AIDS for lack of a condom; or the adolescent girl from Ethiopia who, forced to give birth at the tender age of 13, ended up suffering from fistula-a condition in which a woman’s rectum, urethra, and vagina are torn apart during childbirth, leaving her incontinent and causing bodily wastes to seep through her vaginal canal and down her legs.

Steve Sinding – We are dealing with real people and their unmet needs, not statistics. These acts are a testament to the Bush administration’s war against women and his overall contempt for their fundamental civil and human rights.”

Rain

2006-09-23T10:29:00.000-07:00

Water Wastage

Have you considered how much of the water you use for your daily consumption goes to waste?

1 Only about 4 gallons of water each day per person are needed for survival, yet the average American uses between 75 and 100 gallons per day.

2 On certain toilets, it takes 11/2 to 3 gallons (6 to 11 liters) of water to flush a toilet, 30 to 40 gallons (115 to 150 liters) of water to take a bath, and about an equal amount to run a load of laundry in a washer.

3 If you leave the tap running while you brush your teeth, you will use about 10 gallons of water. If you turn the water off while brushing and rinse briefly, you will use about ½ gallon.

4 To produce enough paper for just one Sunday newspaper, 150 gallons of water (568 liters) are needed

(“A Guide to Wellness”, Glencoe, Fifth Edition, M.B. Merki and D. Merki, 1997)

Have you wondered how much water is used to maintain the world’s golf courses?

1 Amount of water used per day, to irrigate
the world’s golf courses ……………………………… 2.5 BILLION GALLONS

Amount of water it would take, per day,
to support 4.7 billion people at the UN
daily minimum ………………………………………...2.5 BILLION GALLONS

2 Amount of water used by one golf course
in Thailand, on average, per day..……………………… 6,500 CUBIC METERS

Amount of water used by 60,000
villagers in Thailand, on average, per day……………….6,500 CUBIC METERS

(World-Watch, March/April 2004)

Rain

2006-09-23T10:27:00.000-07:00

How safe is Bottled Water

Doctors and health experts advice us to drink at least 6-8 glasses of water a day to sustain a healthy life. Water not only flushes out the toxins within our body but also helps in the efficient functioning of the organs within.

But by drinking bottled water, we may be doing more harm than good to ourselves as well as to the environment we live in.

“Before paying for water, that you can get for free from a drinking fountain, or for vastly less cost from a faucet, consider that bottled water may pose a threat from toxic chemicals that have leached into the water from the plastic. Because leaching can be increased by heat, exercisers who gulp from a water bottle on a hot day may notice a certain plastic taste” (Mindy Pennybacker, The Green Guide).

“Bottles made from PET (polyethylene terephthalate) are recyclable (they’re labeled with a 1 in the recycle triangle). Yet of the 14 billion water bottles sold in the United States in 2002 (most made from PET), 90 percent wound up in the trash. Making the bottles from PET means releasing significant amounts of air pollutants. The manufacture of one kilogram of PET (enough to make about 17 1.5 liter bottles) entails the release into air of 40 grams of hydrocarbons, 25 grams of sulfur oxides, 18 grams of carbon monoxide, 20 grams of nitrogen oxides, and 2.3 kilograms of carbon dioxide. All have direct or indirect effects on climate” (Paul McRandle, The Green Guide)

Rain

2006-09-23T10:23:00.000-07:00

Did you Know…………..

Here are some amazing facts I came across while reading the January/February 2003 issue of World Watch.

Time it takes to grow 1 inch of soil………………………1000 years

Time it takes to erode and wash away
one-third of the topsoil in the United states……………….40 years

Number of fish caught by a single
Norwegian boat in 1986……………………………………120 MILLION

Number of people in Norway………………………………4 MILLION

Kilograms of toxic chemicals
that would be removed from
the environment each year if
U.S. homeowners reduced their
use of pesticides by 10%……………………………………2 MILLION

Kilograms of toxic chemicals
that would be removed from
the environment each year if
U.S. manufacturing firms reduced
their releases by 10%………………………………………..700 MILLION

Number of pieces of live coral broken
off from reefs (which are habitat to 1 million species)
and purchased by Americans each year……………………..350,000

Number of pieces purchased
by the rest of the world……………………………………….90,000

Rain

2006-09-22T11:20:00.000-07:00

God’s Gift to you

When God created sunshine
He created it for you,
And for all those in this world
Who reminded him of you,

When God created the seven-colored rainbow,
He created it
so that you will always remember,
The number of days that it took
to create this world for you.

When God created the clear blue sky,
He created it so that you would remember
That as you gaze your eyes
Up towards the sky,
That he is not that far away
Watching over you,

But God did not create the wars and famines
Or the suffering in this world,
For everything he created was filled with love and blessings
Which were his gifts to you.

2006-09-22T11:17:00.000-07:00

The Motherless Child

The tears that swell and fill my eyes,
Are the tears that I shed for the motherless child,

Born to this world seeking love and care,
Only to be abused and made to feel ashamed,

Abused for being innocent and filled with no contempt,
Ashamed for crying out for the mother that there should have been,

As the years pass by
Anger and frustration rages within
For failing to succeed in life
And for being reminded
Of being born
a motherless child.

2006-09-15T09:12:00.000-07:00

What’s wrong with being Black?

Today I was called a N……,
I wondered what that word really meant,
For it was a word that really hurt me
And which made me feel ashamed,

I ran to my mother
Hoping to find the answer,
With tears filling her eyes
She told me what I did not want to hear,

The color of your dark brown skin
Which was one of the many gifts God gave you
As he gave you life,
Is their reason for calling you my dear,
The racist word “Nigger”.

It’s one thing having racist remarks thrown at you when you’re an adult just for being black, but when you’re a child, those words hurt and leaves a deep wound, which usually takes a long time to heal.

I wonder how many kids out there can relate to the poem I wrote above. My guess is quite a few.

I came across an article by Mr. Justice Marshall that I thought of sharing with you. Footnotes have been deleted. Here it is:

“Three hundred and fifty years ago, the Negro was dragged to this country in chains to be sold into slavery. Uprooted from his homeland and thrust into bondage for forced labor, the slave was deprived of all legal rights. It was unlawful to teach him to read: he could be sold away from his family and friends at the whim of his master; and killing him or maiming him was not a crime. The system of slavery brutalized and dehumanized both master and slave………..

The position of the Negro today in America is the tragic but inevitable consequence of centuries of unequal treatment, meaningful equality remains a distant dream for the Negro.

A Negro child today has a life expectancy, which is shorter by more than five years than that of a white child. The Negro child’s mother is over three times more likely to die of complications in childbirth, and the infant mortality rate for Negroes is nearly twice that for whites. The median income of the Negro family is only 60% that of the median of a white family, and the percentage of Negroes who live in families with incomes below the poverty line is nearly four times greater than that of whites.

When the Negro child reaches working age, he finds that America offers him significantly less than it offers his white counterpart. For Negro adults, the unemployment rate is twice that of whites, and the unemployment rate for Negro teenagers is nearly three times that of white teenagers. A Negro male who completes four years of college can expect a median annual income of merely $110 more than a white male who has only a high school diploma. Although Negroes represent 11.5% of the population, they are only 1.2 % of the lawyers and judges, 2% of the physicians, 2.3% of the dentists, 1.1% of the engineers and 2.6% of the college and university professors.

The relationship between those figures and the history of unequal treatment afforded to the Negro cannot be denied. At every point from birth to death the impact of the past is reflected in the still disfavored position of the Negro.

In light of the sorry history of discrimination and its devastating impact on the lives of the Negroes, bringing the Negro into the mainstream of American life should be a state interest of the highest order. To fail to do so is to ensure that America will forever remain a divided society.”

Rain

2006-09-07T09:56:00.000-07:00

Stereotyping of American- born Hispanic and Asian Americans-
Is it fair?

Read what the following people have to say about it.

Richard Lopez, a Mexican American-

“Nobody ever put a roadblock in front of me. I earned my way into college, and it offended me when people asked if I was receiving affirmative action. I think a lot of whining about discrimination is blown out of proportion. The biggest thing holding a lot of Mexicans back here is there resentment against those who succeed.”

Ray Chin, a Chinese American-

“Yes, we can successfully join the mainstream, but once we reach a certain level, we’re stifled by that glass ceiling. People think that we Asians can take care of ourselves, and they don’t see the need to help us. But it’s not true. We are still not included in things and we have to work three times harder to get to the same level as our co-workers.

Juan Santiago, while working at a construction site –

All the workers were Mexicans, and the white owners had no respect for them. The work was very hard, the pay was very low, and there was no overtime. They tried to exploit me too, but I knew my rights and I wouldn’t let them. Until then, I never really understood what discrimination was.”

Harry Pachon –

I see Latinos trying to distance themselves from their roots as they react to the wave of anti-immigrant sentiment. But I keep asking, how does an Anglo driving down the street pick out which Latino is native-born, which is a refugee, which is undocumented.

Mario Vargas –

“People have this idea that we are coming here in industrial quantities to invade America and go on welfare. The truth is that most of us were born here, we are working hard or going to school. ‘But these days the stereotypes are making it harder for the rest of us.”

Juan Garcia-

I’ve been living here 13 years and my English is still poor, so I can’t always defend myself. Once you become civilized, you don’t want to go back to a village with no lights or running water.”

I wonder how many immigrants and their children feel the same way as Juan Garcia. I bet many. I guess some people would rather prefer being humiliated while living in a foreign land that gives them a better life than live in poverty in their own land.

Rain

2006-09-07T09:40:00.000-07:00

Latino Americans- a closer look at the racist remarks made against the Latino Americans of Siler City, North Carolina.

Ruth Tapia, a Latino American, was at a health clinic and an employee of the clinic approached her and asked her “Do you speak-ee English?”
Her reply, “No I don’t speak-ee, I speak English.”

David Duke, a former Klansman and Louisiana state representative –

“Either you get the INS to kick the illegal aliens out, or you’ll lose your community and heritage”.

63-year-old Clyde Jones –

“Mexicans took my job and my family’s starving. My ancestors fought for this country and they took it away without a shot.”

David Duke (again)-

We’re not going to solve the problems of Mexico by turning America into another Mexico. Siler City is a symbol of what’s happening in America. If you don’t do something now, you’re going to be outnumbered and outvoted in your country.”

And here’s one Latino American, Wilfredo Hernandez’s reasons for having lived in Siler City amidst racial hostility;

“All I wanted to do was have a job, have a descent life and give everything that I wanted to my family. I never wanted anyone to like me because of the color of my skin. I just want to have a job and go on with my life.”

Rain

2006-09-06T09:11:00.000-07:00

Haiti

The people of this land
Cry out for a leader,
For hunger, crime and corruption
is all what remains,
for the present and future generation
to survive and coexist.

Where is the lush green tropical rainforest,
And the Caribbean Pine,
Which once use to flourish and cover,
This land of mine?

Where is the hope and happiness,
that should fill the hearts and minds,
of all God’s Haitian children
who are just like
you and I?

When will you come dear leader?
For time is swiftly passing by.

Here are a few facts of the people of Haiti, which I have gathered from Holly Peters-Golden’s book “Culture Sketches”.

1) Only 2 per cent of the country’s original rainforest remains (Catanese 1999). As a consequence, much of the soil has been eroded away, the topsoil running into the oceans (where it takes its toll on marine life and fishing).

2) Rural poverty and deforestation are the result of –

a) Haiti’s long history of political instability. The succession of violent and chaotic regimes sometimes only lasting months, made long – range planning for ongoing problems impossible, and concerns about the environment and economy of the rural peasants singularly unimportant.

b) The shift of power from rural areas to the capital, Port- au- Prince has resulted in “continuing avoidance of investment in rural and physical capital in ways that would effectively improve agricultural productivity and rural income”.

3) In the 1980’s, Haiti’s already devastated economy received two more blows –

a) Creole pigs, a staple in the rural pheasant economy, were struck by an outbreak of African swine fever. In an attempt to curb the spread of disease, the government (encouraged by USAID) ordered every pig killed without offering their owners any form of compensation. Recognizing the catastrophic results of this policy, a small number of an American breed of pigs were brought in, but were unsuited to the Haitian environment and could not survive.

b) The decline of the tourism industry. The association of Aids with Haiti, promulgated both by the media and by health experts, brought foreign travel to a halt. In fact, it was American vacation travel, which brought AIDS to Haiti in the first place, and not the other way around. (Farmer 1994). However, both political unrest and health concerns led to official warnings that American citizens not travel to Haiti. The Haitian tourist market has yet to rebound.

4) Rising population and diminishing agricultural yield have led to an influx of rural peasants seeking jobs in the capital, Port-au-Prince. While this work was sometimes available in earlier times, over the past twenty years it has become nearly impossible to find, resulting in urban centers of impoverished unemployed. In one such slum, nearly a quarter of a million people are packed into five square kilometers with neither running water nor a sewage system. (Doggett and Gordon 1999)

5) 90 per cent of the population of Haiti are poor. 10 per cent are wealthy. The distinction between Haiti’s poor and wealthy are drawn along the lines of religion, language and skin color. The poor majority are of African descent, speak Creole and practice voudon (voodoo). The wealthy are most often the descendants of African slaves and French landowners, lighter skinned, French-speaking and Roman Catholic. Michel-Rolph Trouillot, a Haitian anthropologist, describes the feeling most well-off urban Haitians have for “the common people of Haiti” as “contempt.” (1990:229)

Rain

2006-09-06T08:54:00.000-07:00

Immigrants – Why I chose not to be one.

I am one of the very few people who opted not to become a citizen of the numerous countries I was privileged to live and study in.

My mother, a Norwegian immigrant, was always puzzled as to why, I, her daughter, would get up and walk away every time the topic of “changing my citizenship to that of a Norwegian” would come up.

The idea of changing one’s citizenship and to be labeled as an immigrant just so that one can live, study and work in a western country in my opinion is absurd. I lived, studied and worked in a lot of countries and I did all that legally on a student visa as well as a resident visa. And the beauty of it is that I never changed my citizenship, and I came back to the country I was born to and used the knowledge, which I gained while living in those countries, to contribute to the welfare of my country and my people. I think of all those people who abandoned their country and left it for better employment and a better life. All I can say to them is,” come back and spent a few years in your land of birth and invest some of your time, knowledge and the skills you have gained throughout the years to help your people and your country. For that is the greatest gift which you can give to the land and the people who gave you life.

There are some Americans and Europeans who view the overwhelming entry of legal and illegal immigrants and refugees throughout the years into their countries have been the cause to the rise of terrorism. Do you blame them for thinking this way? I know I don’t. After all, most of these immigrants and refugees do come from terrorist countries.

I know a few Americans who have repeatedly blamed Congress for getting rid of the National Origin Act of 1924 and the Asiatic Barred Zone of 1917 in 1965. These Americans, who are my friends, feel that Congress’s decision has cost their country and people dearly. Their country has become susceptible to terrorist attacks and their traditional American way of life is disintegrating.

For those of you want to know what the National Origin Act of 1924 and the Asiatic Barred Zone of 1917 is, here it is:

The National Origin Act was established “to confine immigration as much as possible to western and northern European stock”.

The Asiatic Barred Zone was created “to exclude all persons from Asia”.

I don’t know if you agree with everything I have written. If you do, then you, like me, are concerned for not only the country which is rightly yours by birth, but also for the damage most immigrants are doing to themselves and us by living in countries where they are not welcome and do not belong.

Rain

http://www.immigrationforum.org

2006-09-03T05:32:00.000-07:00

The Google Sandbox –

Is there really a google sandbox? A lot of bloggers out there think so.

I really didn’t know that there was a thing called the “google sandbox”, until I was gathering the information I needed to write “New to Blogging? Find out the....... " and came across a blog written about the sandbox.

I decided that since I’m still not getting much traffic to my site, why not write a blog and share with you what I have so far compiled together on the definition of the “google sandbox” to make it easier for all you new bloggers out there who (like me) are running out of patience since, yea, there’s not much traffic coming into our sites, and to better understand why it’s happening and whether it really is because of the “sandbox” theory.

What is the “Google Sandbox”? -

Alan Cole’s definition-

“The Google Sandbox is a metaphorical term to explain why most new websites have very poor rankings in Google Search Engine Results Pages (SERPS). Very few people know for sure if the 'sandbox' actually exists, but it seems to be a filter added to the Google algorithms sometime around March 2004” (Alan Cole, http://www.pixelwave.co.uk/.http://www.pixelwave.co.uk/)

Wayne Hurlbert’s definition -

The Google Sandbox is an alleged filter placed on new websites. The result is that a site does not receive good rankings for its most important keywords and keyword phrases. Even with good content, abundant incoming links and strong Google PageRank, a site is still adversely affected by the Sandbox effect. The Sandbox acts as a de facto probation for sites, possibly to discourage spam sites from rising quickly, getting banned, and repeating the process.
The Google Sandbox is very similar to a new website being placed on probation, and kept lower than expected in searches, prior to being given full value for its incoming links and content (Wayne Hurlbert)

Why the sandbox?

It is thought that the reason Google created the Sandbox new site filter was to stop spam related sites from adding numerous purchased links--and ranking highly for their keywords from the date of launch. Since Google apparently considers a high number of links pointing to a site from the beginning to be rather suspicious, the links are not considered to be natural. Another possibility is spam sites would use various tactics to rise to the top of the search results, and gain heavy sales prior to being banned for being in violation of Google’s Terms of Service; and then repeating the process continually. As a result, new sites are put into a form of probation, usually referred to as the Google Sandbox. (Wayne Hurlbert,The webconfs.com).

The generally accepted principle behind the Google Sandbox is that it enables Google to filter out 'Flash-in-the-Pan' websites from those that offer good quality, up-to-date content. It is within Googles interest to ensure that the results it displays to its users within the SERPS lead to highly relevant, up-to-date, useful websites Relevancy is key to the search engines success so it will take all steps it can to ensure the relevancy of its search results. Filtering out new websites and monitoring them may allow them to provide more accurate results within the real SERPS (Alan Cole).

How long will it be before one gets out of the sandbox?

“The only real escape from the Sandbox is time. Depending on the competitiveness of your most important keywords, that time can vary from one to six months, with three to four months being the normal duration. In the meantime, continue to improve your site, and be prepared to make a rapid rise once the Sandbox probation ends” (Wayne Hurlbert).

It is difficult to say how long a website will stay in the Google sandbox as this seems to depend on the types of keywords it will be completing for in the real SERPS It can be up to 6-8 months and the only way to get out of the sandbox is to wait. The Google Sandbox isn't all bad news. If your site contains good quality relevant material it will find its way out of the sandbox and will get the rankings it deserves in the Google SERPS. I even have some theories that may mean that your time in the sandbox can be used wisely to actually improve your final rankings (Alan Cole).

What can I do to improve my site while it’s in the sandbox?

While your site is in the Sandbox, it’s an ideal time to continue to add fresh keyword rich content and new incoming links to your site. Adding incoming links will ensure that they also avoid any possible new link dampening filter that might be in effect. They would be well aged and ready to pass along their full value of PageRank and link popularity as the site rises from the depths of the Sandbox (Wayne Hurlbert).

What’s type of links should be added onto one’s site to reduce the time spent in the sandbox?

A linking strategy should concentrate on developing natural incoming theme relevant links as its ultimate objective. While that goal is a bit idealistic for many website owners, it certainly has the potential to avoid any filters. By providing precisely the type of link Google prefers, it is far less likely to trigger any dampeners, if at all. Because they are added gradually over time, relevant natural links are highly unlikely to be sandboxed.
To receive this type of natural incoming link, strong theme relevant content must be developed for the website. Good informative content for website visitors attracts links. The problem is that natural linking is a slow process, and the real world SERPs need faster attention.
Add one-way directory links. Google’s spider crawls the major, and even minor directories, on a very frequent basis. Categorized directory links, especially from human edited directories, are very relevant and theme oriented.
Keep link exchange programs confined to theme relevant sites. Avoid exchanges with websites that have little to no topic relation to your site. Entirely non-relevant links are much more likely to be viewed with suspicion by Google, and possibly filtered.
We already are quite certain, that Google passes along more PageRank and link popularity boost from theme relevant sites, than from topically unrelated sites.
When making link exchanges, space them out over a period of time. Instead of doing all of the link trades in one week, use a two to three month time frame instead.
A longer time lag will give each link a full opportunity to be integrated into the Google system, and avoid being dampened (Wayne Hurlbert).

Is there a way to keep my site from getting stuck in the sandbox?

The Sandbox can be avoided to a degree by purchasing and sending live a website, prior to its being fully ready for prime time. While the site will endure low rankings, it will start the clock ticking on its Sandbox duration time. Be sure to add as many incoming links as possible to get past the alleged new links filter. Keep adding content to your site. Anything that can be done to speed up your site’s appearance on the internet, including the purchase of an already existing domain, should be considered. If you have the time working in your site’s favor, it can be applied against your possible stay in the Sandbox. With proper time management, a site can avoid the Sandbox entirely Wayne Hurlbert).

Well, hope you guys enjoyed reading this blog and for those of you had very little knowledge of what the “Google Sandbox” really was (as I was before) I hope this blog helped.

Rain

2006-09-02T09:01:00.000-07:00

This blog is dedicated to you, the wonderful indigenous people of America, The Native Americans

To enter into a new land, which offers freedom and opportunities, is a blessing.
To contribute to its destruction by killing its people
and robbing their lands is a sin.
May those who sin be stopped before it’s too late.
For there may not be anything left,
for the future generation of this land to call their own.

A friend of mine the other day said to me, ‘You know Rain, you should write a blog about the Native Americans. You’ve always admired them. And at least all those Americans in favor of the war in Iraq and Lebanon will remember that their addiction for killing another race has been running in their veins from generation to generation. First they tried to destroy the Native Americans and African Americans. Now they’ve gone one-step further, they’ve gone international, waging war on countries who they feel are a danger to them and threatening to stop aid to countries who try to defy them ”. I didn’t agree with everything my friend said, but one thing I did agree was that, yes, I should write a blog dedicated to the Native Americans, whom I have always considered to be true surviors.

“Most scientists agree that the human history of North America began when the ancient ancestors of modern Native Americans made their way across a land bridge that once spanned the Bering Sea and connected northeastern Asia to North America. However, some Native Americans believe their ancestors originated in the Americas, citing gaps in the archaeological record and oral accounts of their origins that have been passed down through generations” (© 1993-2006 Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved).

Who do you agree with, the scientists or the Native Americans? I tend to agree with the Native Americans. Not only because I’ve been fascinated with them and their way of life ever since I was a child, but also because as I gathered the research necessary to write this blog, I learnt so very much of how these people have had to suffer and lose everything which was rightly their own. I sometimes wonder if the reason scientists had tried to prove that the Native Americans did not originate from America, was so that they could show proof that their land was never forcibly taken from them, and therefore they too would be considered just settlers and not the true people of the land.

It’s one thing having your land forcibly taken from you, but when it comes to the destruction of your race, that’s immorally wrong and cruel.

“European settlement of the Americas drastically reduced the Native American population. The European conquest was primarily a biological one. Explorers and colonists brought a wide range of deadly communicable diseases directly from crowded European cities. These diseases spread quickly among Native Americans, who had no immunity to them” (© 1993-2006 Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved).

“Although the introduction of new diseases was the main cause of the rapid decline of indigenous populations, other reasons were genocidal warfare, massive relocations and removals of Native Americans from their homelands, and the destruction of traditional ways of life. With white encroachment on their land, Native Americans no longer had access to their traditional hunting, gathering, and farming areas. Their subsistence patterns broke down, leading to malnutrition and greater susceptibility to disease” (© 1993-2006 Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved).

“By 1900, these factors, along with increased mortality and decreased fertility, had reduced the Native American population to its low point of only about 250,000 people in the United States and about 100,000 in Canada” (© 1993-2006 Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved).

Native Americans still suffer today because of unemployment, lack of a proper education, lack of proper housing, health facilities. Take a look at the following facts by the Native American Emergency Relief if you don’t believe me.

Read These Shocking Indian Facts:

· Poverty on Indian Reservations includes homes without ovens and children with almost no clothes--regardless of season. Thousands of Indians barely survive. They are a “Third World” country right here in the U.S.

· Thousands of Native American children cry themselves to sleep every night . . . just because they are hungry.

· Average family incomes are far below poverty levels.

· Deadly diseases--including TB and diabetes--are common. The average lifespan is 46 years.

· Native American teen suicides run over four times the national average.

· Thousands of youngsters have little food, no protection from summer's heat or winter's cold, and no hope.

· Child abuse and spousal abuse are almost epidemic.

· Native American youngsters face a bleak future without food, medical care or hope. We provide these essentials; so Indian children will be more productive citizens for our country and their tribes.

And another thing, when the Native Americans were being killed by the thousands, no one knew the meaning of the word “GENOCIDE”. “Only when white people exterminated each other did the language of genocide begin to be defined, they did not care to discuss it when black and red peoples were the victims”. (http://www.iwchildren.org/calif.htm) Do you find this hard to believe? I know I don’t.

Something else I find to be shocking is the fact that if intermarriages take place between Native Americans and “nonnative people”, their children cannot be registered as a Native American. “Those who marry outside their race or tribe will have children who are no longer given the acknowledgment of being of their parent's tribe. Registered/enrolled Native Americans are forced to marry inside their tribe or face the extinction of their tribe and the termination of all things connected to that tribe. Native Americans are forced to be racist against all others never loving or marrying another or they become extinct as a people. After a decade of work this was the failed goal of Hitler, but it still remains the goal of America after centuries (http://www.iwchildren.org/calif.htm).

But what I still find hard to understand is why “only registered Jews were allowed to pass their inheritance on to their children” and not the Native Americans?

And here are two very sad facts that I found at http://www.iwchildren.org/calif.htm:
A Native survivor of the California terrorist attacks relates her experience:

1)"About ten o'clock in the morning, some white men came. They killed my grandfather and my mother and father. I saw them do it. I was a big girl at that time. Then they killed my baby sister and cut her heart out and threw it in the brush where I ran and hid...I didn't know what to do. I was so scared that I guess I just hid there a long time with my little sister's heart in my hands."

2) The 1849 agreement between California territorial and federal governments provided $1,000,000 for the arming and supply of persons who would seek out and destroy Native American families. The campaign promised all "plunder" and horses taken from the Indians, which will be the vigilante's bonus.

I never realized that the California and federal governments, 157 years ago, would have so much money. What a lot of money to spend to wipe out an entire human race.

I hope someday very soon, that the children of these wonderful people will get a chance to get a proper education so that when they are all grown up, they will be able to uplift the standards of their community before it is too late.
After all, their ancestors did shed their precious blood on this earth so that they, the next generation could exist. I hope the blood they spilled was not in vain.

Rain

2006-08-31T09:32:00.000-07:00

The fall of my motherland

I come from the bloodline of warriors
who fought fiercely and heroically,
against the invaders
who tried to take over our motherland,

My ancestors shed their blood
To gain what was rightly ours-
Which was our Independence and our motherland,
Independence from those
who tried so hard to destroy
our future existence.

They slew the innocent children
With the strike of their mighty swords,
They even trampled
the new born babies
Until all life in them
was gone,
Some even grabbed the little children,
from their tiny limbs,
and killed them
by throwing them against the walls,

To them my people were not humans,
Who deserved the right to live.
To them my people were
Savages and beasts.

But the blood my ancestors shed,
was not at all in vain,
For our motherland did gain its independence
And my people did live in peace.

But peace was not for long,
For someone far more worse
Emerged from the North,
Bringing with him hatred and anger
.
These pictures unfold the real truth
of his terror and his thirst for war,
The war he has waged against the helpless and the innocent,
Who are no other than the people
of my beloved motherland.
.

My people and I implore you,
Please do not sympathize with terrorists,
They do not fight for a cause
based on principles, ethics or equality,
They only fight for one thing,
The destruction of other races,
And the survival of their own.

Rain

2006-08-30T09:28:00.000-07:00

Painful memories of the years gone by
Haunt me every single night,
And as I try so hard to hold on to,
Everything I cherish to be dear and true,
The memories keep haunting me,
And I face each day
Not with rays of hope and faith,
But only with sorrow and heartache.
I yearn so much for the peace and tranquility
That will help fulfill my destiny and ease my pain.

I wrote this poem,
in the year of 1985,
when I was only 16
and at an age,
when I was struggling to find my true identityin a world,
which greatly confused me.
Little did I realize,
the impact those words
written by me
at such a tender age
would have on my life.
Most women
go through life
without knowing the importance of their existence in this world
because of certain actions and words of others
that affect us
which lead us to believe
that the knowledge and in born talents we possess
is of limited use.
Confusion sets in
distracting us,
and our true potential which we use
to overcome our problems,
becomes nothing but
continuous failures.

We end up
wasting the few years we have left in this world
struggling to find new ways
of overcoming our failures
while missing out on the wonderful opportunities life has to offer us.
Some of us succeed
but some of us are not so fortunate.

I, Rain,am one of those women,
who were fortunate enough to succeed,
after struggling for years
to achieve what I have now.

Death will come to us all when we least expect it.
We must live life to the fullest
so that we may find true happiness
before our time is up in this world.

Have you found that true happiness?

Rain

2006-08-30T08:38:00.000-07:00

Female Circumcision

Yes, unbelievable as it may seem to some, female circumcision or what I prefer to call it, Genital Mutilation, exists and has been around for over 1000 years and happens to be an age old tradition in many parts of Africa and even Asia.

In 1998, it was estimated that around 126 million women in 28 countries were circumcised in the name of tradition. 6000 girls fall victim to this ancient traditional practice everyday.

The ritual is performed on girls who are sometimes as young as 2 years old.

The child is first tied to a chair and her legs are spread apart. The cutter, an elderly woman, grips the skin of the clitoris and begins cutting it until there is no longer a clitoris left. This ritual is performed without any anesthetic. As I write, I can imagine the horrifying screams coming out of those little girls and their tiny bodies writhing in pain. There are instances where all the genitals are removed. Once they finishing cutting off the clitoris and removing the organs, the wound is stuffed with herbs and raw eggs and “sewn together with catgut or thorns”.

I personally find it hard to believe that this age old tradition of female circumcision is practiced to “preserve virginity before marriage and to enhance a woman’s beauty”. But what I did find to be true was that a child who has been a victim of female circumcision will be “re-cut with a razor again when she gets married “to make intercourse possible”. And her first-born usually dies “because the labia minora that stretches and aids in the baby’s birth has been cut off, the labor is therefore prolonged and the baby is starved of oxygen”.

Here is another valuable piece of information I came across on female circumcision:

“Just a few generations ago, some physicians in the United States suggested that a woman who showed “excessive’ interest in sex should have her clitoris removed. Such a procedure, it was argued would keep her sexual behavior under control (Hyde, 1994).

Rain

2006-08-30T08:28:00.000-07:00

A closer look at Racism

The hatred that dwells in their hearts
For those who are of a different race,
Is not hatred they were born with,
For as they were born
their heart was pure
and filled with no hate.

The hatred that dwells in their hearts
For those who are of another race
Is hatred that they were taughtby their parents and peers,
who feel the world would be a better place
if people of their own kind
were the only ones who exist.

No other race,
No other religion,
No other skin color
Except that of their own
Is what they crave.
Does this same hatred dwell within your heart,
For if it does,
We sincerely hope
that you will soon find the knowledge and wisdom
to accept human beings
for who they truly are
irrespective of their race, religion,
or
the color of their skin.

Racism has always been a part of society since historical times. But in my opinion, the overwhelming flow of illegal immigrants and refugees into western countries and lets not forget the terrorists, have to take part of the blame for the racism that prevails in the world today.

I strongly believe that there is way to stop the flow of illegal immigrants and terrorists. And that is by teaching the children of these western countries that they have a responsibilty to their country. And one of those reposibilities is to stay in school and complete their education. Because it is the education that they receive and their ideas and beliefs that will help their country to prosper and be strong. Not the ideas and beliefs of immigrants, refugees and terrorists.

A country which is weak is one which is economically weak. And it’s economically weak because the majority of the present generation has taken things for granted thus not paving the way for the future generation to succeed.And we all know what happens to a country which has a weak economy (especially if the country’s a western one). It becomes susceptible to terrorist attacks.

As I was writing this blog, I came across a few factual excerpts on racism which I thought of sharing with you:

1) In 1931, President Herbert Hoover’s exact words to New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, a son of Italian immigrants-You should go back where you belong and advise Mussolini how to make good honest citizens in Italy. The Italians are preponderantly our murderers and bootleggers………… Like a lot of other foreign spawn, you do not appreciate the country that supports and tolerates you.

2) With the fall of communism and dismantling of the Berlin Wall, the ensuing reunification of East and West Germany has sparked a revival of Nazi-style intolerance and hatred of foreign immigrants within that country.

3) As Yugoslavia dissolved into individual republics, Serbians who were the dominant ethnic group, used their greater military force to grab huge portions of the territory of the other ethnic groups in Bosnia and Croatia. Serb soldiers had raped more than 20,000 Muslim women as part of an organized terrorist campaign to drive them from their homes.

4) In certain real estate businesses, agents will show their African-American clients only houses located in Black or racially mixed neighborhoods because of their belief that property values will be lowered by residential integration. This institutional practice is known as redlining. Redlining, an illegal real estate practice of showing minority clients only houses located in minority or racially mixed neighborhoods.

5) The White settlers of the New World used their superior weapons to dominate and conquer the indigenous people of North America. Europeans were also capturing and buying Africans and transporting them to the colonies as slaves. They justified the inhuman exploitation that took place by stigmatizing both Native Americans and Africans as inferior races who needed civilizing.

The whites told only one side.
Told it to please themselves.
Told much that is not true.
Only his own best deeds,
Only the worst deeds of the Indians,
Has the white man told.
- Yellow Wolf of the Nez Perces, 1940 –

6) In 1982, two unemployed White Detroit autoworkers used a baseball bat to kill Vincent Chin, a Chinese American, whom they mistook for a Japanese. They were hostile towards the Japanese because they perceived that Americans’ fondness for Japanese foreign car imports resulted in lower sales of American-made cars and their own subsequent unemployment.

Rain

2006-08-29T09:54:00.000-07:00

Do you believe in hope and in love?
Two wonderful things
we need in this world
to survive the pain
and the guilt,
that haunts each one of us
as we lay.

Does confusion follow
and keep you,
from being the person
that you truly are meant to be,
or
do the silent tears
that you shed,
bring back the wish
a long time ago
as a child you made,
the wish to accept
only the wonderful gifts
that the world has to offer you
to make it a better place.

Anger and frustration is all that remains
for some who have given up
and forgotten their childhood days,
For happiness and love ,
Although it should have been,
was not a part of those days
as a child they spent,
Instead,
sorrow and grief was all that followed
which robbed them of their innocence and their faith.

Rain