Our Spiritual Life

This text started as a comment to the latest post of fellow blogger Jennifer Browdy de Hernandez (here), but  despite my attempts to keep it simple it grew to a size which makes it unsuitable for a comment.

Throughout my life I was fascinated by the sacred texts of Asian cultures, the most eminent of them being the Tao De King (Dao De Jing), which I read in five English and two German translations. I also read many translations of  Buddhist and Zen-Buddhist writings.

The translations which I read were clearly shaped by the personality of the translators, but this didn’t bother me because I thought, that someone who has spent a good part of her or his life to learn an ancient Asian language must in the process have also gained a deep understanding of ancient wisdom.

The Tao De King as well as the Buddhist texts are not meant to be critically analyzed and dissected, these are inspirational texts which reach us on a level beyond the computation that goes on in the Central Executive (or Working Memory) area of our prefrontal cortex.

Like many others I have been taught by life in often very harsh lessons, that our world is much too diverse and multifarious to be understood or even fully recognized in all its beauty or ugliness by our limited senses and our even more limited cognitive capabilities.

We see, hear, feel, smell only a tiny little bit of what is going on around us and we are not able to fully comprehend even that severely abridged and abstracted information. Most of the sensory signals are ignored, discounted, thrown away and our brain only processes what it can easily recognize, categorize, understand.

One example:

Generations of philosophers and scientists based their understanding of the world on the principle of causality and the causal chain which was then extended to multi-causality and many parallel causal chains which in the end was upgraded to the notion of an infinite (or nearly infinite) number of vectors, forces, movements interconnected with each other and influencing each other.

Well, that seems a fine and adequate speculative model of the world, it is the best what scientific thinking can master right now, it only has the disadvantage that we cannot really grasp it.

It doesn’t help that nature, as we found out (or at least believe that we have found out) is a nonlinear system with amplification curves that can be exponential, logarithmic, sinusoidal, hyperbolic, elliptic, or whatever.

Scientists seek refuge in statistical mathematics and probability theory, network theory, chaos theory, knowing that their provisional and tentative approaches are not the finite answer. We have seen, that the most sophisticated computer models running on the most powerful supercomputers may generate completely false results because a tiny and as insignificant considered factor was omitted. 

No, we don’t have the finite answers to the mysteries of the universe and we maybe never will. Who can unhesitating and completely self-assured claim that she or he fully understands quantum mechanics?

Can spirituality transcend the boundaries of cognition?

Before I end this text with a full heartedly, enthusiastic “yes.” here in a few words my definition of spirituality:

The logical thinking in our Central Executive is not the most important and most powerful function of our brain, it is by far eclipsed by pattern recognition. Millions of synaptic connections are involved in a single  process and any one of these synapses is a powerful and versatile operator which can function as a switch, an operational amplifier, a unit of boolean algebra, or a frequency filter. The synapses are channeling and transforming the flow of action potentials and they are controlled by dozens of excitatory or inhibitory neurotransmitters.

The complexity of these processes is truly mind-boggling and the achieved results are mind-boggling and stunning as well. Faintest similarities between the structures of incoming sensory signals and stored memory patterns can be recognized, vague structures, symmetries, repetitions, that our conscious mind never would be able to identify, can be detected.

Intuition, creativity, fantasy, vision, spirituality are all based on the magic of pattern recognition. Utilizing pattern recognition and combining it with meditation practices that increase control over the brain and the nervous system will make you a spiritual person.

True spirituality, undiluted by superstition or religion, can become a powerful force and the guiding light in ones life, true spirituality will open your eyes, let you look through the fog, will be the compass and the map. It will be Aladdin’s ring and Aladdin’s lamp, it will keep you unhurt and will help you to navigate the rough waters of life and avoid the deadly dangers lurking everywhere.

Follow your heart, it will lead you to the hidden gate that your conscious mind never would have found.

Syria’s Betrayal by Palestinian Jihadists

Finian Cunningham  Press TV

For many Palestinians today the conflict in Syria is a source of deep shame. This is because large numbers of young Palestinian men have joined the ranks of the foreign-backed extremists trying to destabilize the Syrian government of Bashar al Assad.

The covert war of regime change in Syria, sponsored by the US and other NATO powers along with Saudi Arabia and Israel, has caused as many as 130,000 deaths and over nine million displaced persons (40 percent of the Syrian population).

Since the conflict began in mid-March 2011, largely fomented by these foreign forces, the estimated damage to Syria’s social infrastructure is put at a colossal 100 billion US$.

To put that last figure into perspective, this week’s UN appeal for humanitarian aid to Syria — the biggest ever such appeal — managed to raise a comparatively paltry 2.4 billion US$.

In one word, Syria has been devastated. And for Palestinians this is a cause of acute anguish.

Like from many Arab and non-Arab countries, including the US, Canada, Britain, France, and Germany, mercenaries from the Palestinian territories have flocked to Syria to join the fighting, improperly and misleadingly named “jihad,” which Saudi Arabia and the other Persian Gulf monarchies are bankrolling.

It is estimated, according to the Financial Times and other sources, that Saudi Arabia and Qatar have funneled more than 9 billion US$ into Syria over the past three years to pay wages and supply weapons to the extremist brigades, such as ISIL (the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant), Jabhat al-Nusra and the Islamic Front.

Ironically, answering the UN humanitarian appeal for Syria, held in Kuwait earlier this week, both Saudi Arabia and Qatar pledged a combined total of 120 million US$.

In other words, these two Persian Gulf monarchies have spent 75 times more on fueling conflict and destruction in Syria than what they are now pledging in humanitarian assistance.

In Syria, the dominant anti-government militants share the fundamentalist Wahhabi ideology of the Persian Gulf monarchies, and they have varying affiliation with Al Qaeda. They are also aligned with the extreme Salafist fringes of the Muslim Brotherhood.

This ideological spectrum has drawn in factions of the Hamas movement in Palestine, which has traditional links with the Muslim Brotherhood and more recently has been the recipient of aid donations totaling about 200 million US$ from the Qatari royal rulers.

Why is this particularly shameful for Palestinians? Well, of all the Arab countries that have provided humanitarian aid and solidarity to the Palestinians down through the decades perhaps none has been as loyal and self-sacrificing in its fraternal help than the Syrian Arab Republic.

From the Zionist Nakba massacers against the Palestinians in 1948 until the present day, Syria has received millions of Palestinian refugees with open arms. The country is believed to host the biggest exiled Palestinian population in the whole region.

One of the largest Palestinian communities in Syria is at the Yarmouk refugee camp near Damascus where some 18,000 live. But the term “refugee camp” is misleading. This is because the Palestinian residents have always been granted full Syrian citizenship and civil rights. Yarmouk is more like an ordinary suburb of Damascus, but it has the technical status of a refugee camp under Syrian and international law.

This is a measure of the traditional hospitality bestowed on the Palestinian diaspora inside Syria.

Since the outbreak of the Syrian conflict in 2011, Palestinian factions within the Yarmouk district have allowed the foreign-backed extremists of Jabhat al-Nusra and others to infiltrate and occupy large swathes of the area.

Half of Yarmouk has been overrun by Jabhat al Nusrah and other Al Qaeda brigades, as well as some small Muslim Brotherhood brigades. Sadly, Hamas has been playing a role in this through a recruitment campaign among young Palestinians to join the anti-government forces in Syria.

This occupation by Al Qaeda brigades has led to a dire humanitarian situation in Yarmouk, where residents are suffering from severe chronic shortages of food and medicines. Several dozen civilians are believed to have died from deprivation caused directly by the siege.

Anti-government factions within Yarmouk blame the Syrian army for the blockade and they claim it is being used as a tactic to force submission. This narrative has been zealously amplified by the Western media as a way of discrediting the Assad government.

But many observers stress that it is the foreign-backed militants who are holding the Yarmouk residents as hostages and as human shields. This week a UN aid convoy of food trying to enter the area was turned back when it came under fire from gunmen believed to be from the militant side.

This view was echoed by Palestinian Labour Minister Ahmad Majdalani who this week visited the Yarmouk area. Majdalani warned of a dire humanitarian unfolding among the residents because of the ongoing blockade. He blamed the foreign-backed insurgents. “The source of fire (on the aid convoy) was known… to be controlled by Al Nusra Front, Ahrar al Sham and Suqur al-Golan,” said Majdalani.

Some of the bad blood between the Assad government and radical Salafists stems from a period of repression in the mid-1980s against Muslim Brotherhood insurgents carried out by Bashar al Assad’s father, the late Hafez al Assad.

Nevertheless, that episode must be set against more than six decades of unstinting solidarity afforded to the Palestinian people by the Syrian state.

The central fact is that the historical plight of the Palestinian people in Syria and beyond has come at the hands of Western-backed Zionist aggression. In contrast to Syria, the oil-rich Saudi regime has been derelict in its support to the Palestinian cause and refugees in particular.

Syria today is living through a nightmare aggression inflicted by Washington and its imperialist allies, including Israel and Saudi Arabia. That some factions of the Palestinians have joined cause with the imperialist axis bearing down on Syria is a shameful betrayal of Syria, shameful for the involved actors but to some respect also shameful for their fellow Palestinians, both in the Middle East and around the world.

The Palestinians may have lost their last genuine friend and supporter.

Further reading:
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304868404579192933607042794

Poste

Russia may retaliate for Volgograd attacks

Finian Cunningham  Press TV

Russian intelligence has reportedly obtained solid proof that Saudi Arabia was directly involved in the twin terror attacks on the city of Volgograd. The attacks killed more than 32 people and injured over 100 others. Most of the victims were civilians.

According to an informed Russian source, reported by the Fars News Agency, Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) has informed President Vladimir Putin of the Saudi link to the Volgograd massacre.

This will come as no surprise to Putin. The Russian leader was warned by Saudi intelligence chief Prince Bandar Bin Sultan during a heated four-hour private meeting back in July that Wahhabi-sponsored terrorists based in the North Caucasus region of Russia would be targeting the Sochi Winter Olympics.

The Sochi Games are due to open on February 7. Volgograd is a key transport hub linking Moscow with the southern Russian territory and the Black Sea resort city of Sochi in particular, where the Winter Olympics are to be held.

The double bombings of Volgograd’s transport system on 29-30 December were therefore unmistakably an assault on Russia’s hosting of the Olympics. The atrocity caused the deaths of many women and children, and in the aftermath President Putin was livid in his disgust at the attacks. He said there was no justification, whatsoever, for the killing of innocent civilians and he vowed to “destroy the terrorists” behind the bombings.

This raises the onerous question: What will Putin do next if he has, in fact, been told that the authors of the Volgograd crime against humanity are connected to the Saudi rulers? This could be construed as an act of war.

There are unconfirmed reports that Putin and his senior intelligence officers have already drawn up plans to “destroy Saudi Arabia” over its systematic sponsoring of terrorism on Russian territory.

The Volgograd atrocity is just the latest in a long series of terrorist acts connected to Saudi-sponsored radicals in the North Caucasus. Back in October, another suicide bomb on a packed bus in Volgograd left six dead.

The group believed to be behind these attacks is known as the Caucasus Caliphate, led by Doko Umarov. Saudi Arabia is a major source of funds for the Caucasus Caliphate, which espouses the same fundamentalist ideology as the Saudi-sponsored Takfiris operating in Syria, Lebanon, Pakistan, Yemen and Iraq.

Based in Chechnya and Dagestan, Doko Umarov has publicly stated that “all means necessary would be used to derail” the Sochi Olympics.

Previously, the same network carried out suicide bomb attacks on Moscow’s metro system in 2010 and 2011, which caused dozens of deaths.

The Caucasus extremists are known to have close logistical connection with both American and Saudi military intelligence.

Indeed, from the early 1990s following the breakup of the Soviet Union, the Americans and the Saudis redeployed their Afghan Al Qaeda tactics into the southern Russian territories as a way to further destabilize Moscow. One of the architects of this plan was former CIA chief William Casey. This US and Saudi covert operations fueled the two Chechen wars of 1994-95 and 1999-2000.

Although Moscow has since managed to subdue the large-scale violence, the Caucasus Caliphate remains a potent source of terrorism and sabotage, as the latest horror in Volgograd all too grimly attests.

Saudi spy chief Bandar’s earlier threat to Putin that the Sochi Games were at risk of attack from the Caucasus-based terror groups was thus no idle threat.

In retrospect his words amount to self-indictment. Bandar reportedly boasted to Putin: “We control them (the Caucasus militants).” This implies that Saudi Arabia can turn on and off the conduct of these terror groups and places Saudi Arabia as the ultimate author of a catalogue of crimes that Russia has endured for the most part of 20 years, the latest being in the city of Volgograd.

It is not known what precise evidence Russian intelligence has lately uncovered that allegedly pinpoints Saudi Arabia’s involvement in the Volgograd massacre, but there is already copious circumstantial evidence, as well as Bandar’s own braggadocio.

One of the suicide bombers in the Volgograd double attack has been identified as Russian national Pavel Pechyonkin (32). He reportedly traveled to Syria last year and fought in the ranks of Saudi-backed extremists trying to topple the government of Bashar al Assad.

Many other Russian nationals have also been recruited by Saudi Arabia’s terror sponsors to wage regime-change war in Syria. Perhaps it was in Syria that the Volgograd bomber was recruited for that specific mission.

If the Russians have acquired hard evidence of Saudi collusion in terrorism on their soil, there is firm legal ground for Russia to exact retaliation under the doctrine of self-defense.

In a second meeting between Bandar and Putin, the Russian leader reportedly told the Saudi in no uncertain terms that his support for terrorism was “a double-edged sword” that would eventually inflict damage on those who wield it.

For years now Saudi Arabia has gotten away with covert state-sponsored terrorism disrupting its Middle East neighbors. Syria, Lebanon and Iraq are but the latest victims. The Saudis have done this with impunity in the service of American imperialism, just as Zionist Israel has likewise functioned as an imperial crime syndicate.

But now Saudi Arabia may have swung its double-edged sword too recklessly. It has apparently been caught red-handed in an attack against the Russian bear. Prince Bandar, we can be sure, will from now on be making extra checks beneath his car.

Mato’s Music

This is a selection of my own compositions. Recorded with Mac Mini (Intel), Yamaha mini mixer, Roland FP-2 e-piano and two AKG Perception microphones. The Software included Cubase 4, Waves plugins and some synth/samplers from National Instruments and Linplug. E-guitars and basses went directly into the mixer, acoustic guitars and percussion were recorded with the AKG microphones. Everything else is the sound of virtual instruments, played with the keyboard.

I made the recordings from 2004 to 2007. The years 2006 and 2007 were until now the most happy years of my life and though I still worked part time as a music teacher I had enough time to focus on my private musical projects and enough time to practice piano, guitar, bass, and percussion. (Practicing musical skills means 6 to 8 hours a day systematic musical exercise if one wants to reach a meaningful level of artistry.)

2008 was a bad year where I lost three of my dear animal companions (Harry and the two ducks Susi and Wuliwu) and experienced some personal troubles with my younger step-son. The bad experiences dampened my creativity and kind of derailed me. My focus shifted and I began writing this blog. In 2012 I started gardening which meant up to 12 hours work in the garden.

There is only so much time one has in this short live.

I don’t rule out that one day I will start making music again. I would need to practice my instrument skills for many hours a day and it would take month if not years till I would again be skilled enough to create new compositions and make them worth recording.

The recordings here are not perfect, they have their structural and technical limitations. The compositions though are not as trite and silly as the bulk of todays popular music, not as worn out and stale as the endlessly repeated pop oldies. The compositions defy usual cliches and stereotypes and perfectly represent my personality.

This is not easy listening, not background music, not music for multitaskers. One has to pay attention and some tunes will only be understandable after repeated listening.

These recordings are despite their imperfections and musical limitations the perfect soundtrack to my blog posts.

Blues

Blue And Brown
Guitar 22_03
Restless Traveler Blues
Suppressed Anger Blues

cat songs

Cats Lullaby
Harry, The Hero
Lizzy’s SongThe Cats Are Sleeping

Latin

Bahia De Buena Vista
Buena Vista 2
Cooperation
Study 7_8 c
Study 7_8 d
Study 7_8 f
Unintended Latin 2
You’re Not Allowed

R & B

Dedicated
Harlem Revisited
New Orleans Sustained
Old Country Home
Shareholders Happiness
The Key
Two Line Groove

soft & cheesy

Christmas Song 2002
Don’t Lose Hope
Duet In 7_8
Quiet Love Of A Quiet Life
Spread Your Wings
We Lost Eden

exotic & weird

African Bembe Study
African Images Part 4
Angels Robbed The Bank
PPG (Persistent Panic Groove)
Sleepless
The Fools Are Busy
The Whole Truth
Unfamiliar Territory
Wicket Tune
Sacred Secret Of Emptiness
Money Rules And Love Has Gone

These tunes are selected from an archive of about 200 recordings. Other files may be added or files  may be exchanged according to feedback.

Mission Statement 2014

You have heard it all before:

Industrial production, power plants, and big agriculture are pouring millions of toxic substances into the biosphere, converting forests and savannas into wastelands and landfills. Big machines and powerful weapons exterminate wildlife and turn the green hills into grey. The wells, the creeks and rivers are poisoned, the forests are clearcut, the oceans are dying. Wars for the dwindling resources are raging, our fellow humans and fellow animals are suffering.

Many of our fellow creatures will not make it and die, many species will go extinct. We ourselves are not immune to the poison and soon will experience declining health and epidemics of unprecedented proportions.

You don’t miss the crystal clear water of a creek?
You don’t miss the majestic silence of a forest?
You don’t miss the bees, butterflies, bats, lizards, toads, hedgehogs?
You don’t miss the millions of stars in the clear sky shining onto you as you wander through the pristine lands in a perfectly quiet night?

The wonders of your new smartphone are more interesting to you than the wonders of untouched nature? You prefer to spend your time staring at the TV screen, the computer screen, the smartphone screen? You prefer to watch YouTube videoclips instead of observing our fellow creatures small or big outside and the flowers, bushes, and trees in the gardens and forests?

I cannot believe that!

If you are visiting this blog and if you’ve made it through the first sentences of the text without clicking away the distracting page and surfing on to the newest internet meme you are not an idiot and you are not a crook. You may feel helpless, clueless, confused, depressed, paralyzed, but you are not callous.

It could be that you have found comfort in the belief that your conduct and your actions — of whatever kind they may be — will make no difference. It could be that you have retreated to the position, that it is too late to save humanity from itself.

Cheap excuses!

You don’t care about the fate of our children and think, that they shall look for themselves? You don’t care about the suffering of our fellow humans and our fellow creatures? You don’t care about the declining natural life as long as virtual life, represented by your Facebook clique and the myriads of YouTube videos, is growing and developing?

You are not that evil and dumb!

You think that you are too old to face the danger of bearing the brunt of the devastation and that things have not yet progressed far enough to inconvenience you noticeably in the remaining years of your life? You think that technology will find solutions and human ingenuity will be able to build an artificial environment that is even more beautiful, comfortable, and stable than the one that we are destroying right now?

You are deceiving yourself!

You cannot be bothered to abandon your cherished routines, habits, obsessions, addictions of consumerism? You consider yourself not as adaptable, flexible, malleable, ductile enough and you consider yourself not to be a fast learner? You are glad that you can manage the life as you know it and you feel not bright, talented, and energetic enough to leave everything behind, completely change direction and build up your life again from scratch?

You will be astonished how capable you are!

Change yourself and you will change the world. Face the challenge and start immediately. Don’t wast time with complaining, whining, pitying yourself. You have a winning chance and it is not your last chance. You will have a winning chance for all of your life and you will only lose if you stop to resist.

The ruling elites in their insatiable greed are advancing ever more bold and devious schemes to extort money and to control, oppress, exploit, and enslave their subjects. They have a detailed plan and a clear goal: They need their riches to shield them from the industrial poisons and to fortify their retreats in the remaining natural preserves of the earth.

The ruling elites are systematical, determined, and resourceful. They are not brighter than you and me but they employ the best experts, technicians, and scientist to advise them.

Yet they still don’t have enough drones and other killing machines to control every corner of the word and instill destruction and death everywhere they want to.

Their surveillance dragnet still has big holes where clever people can slip through. Their Cray XT4 computers will never be able to encrypt the communications of the dissidents because the dissidents values and ethics are beyond their understanding, beyond their limited perception.

Their mass media propaganda machine is the biggest one humanity has ever seen, surpassing by far the visions of Ray Bradbury, George Orwell, Aldous Huxley, and Margaret Atwood. They are able to sedate, deceive, reeducate, indoctrinate, brainwash many unassuming and naive consumers but they still cannot fool all the people all the time.

Their schemes may be insidious and cunning, but the fundamentals are flawed. The palaces of oppression and abuse are built on shaky ground.

If you comply and consent you will not only be the victim, you will be the perpetrator as well. You will share the guilt of destroying the world as we know it, you will share the guilt of destroying nature.

Change yourself and you will change the world. Change your life, minimize your carbon footprint, stop traveling, stop shopping. Stop shopping and hoarding stuff. Give away the things you don’t really need. Don’t throw things away, give them to someone who needs then, who can convert them, who finds ingenious ways to reuse them. Reuse, upcycle, recycle.

There is enough stuff around, you will not have to bother the cashiers in the supermarkets and malls for a long time. Stop shopping, stop buying new gadgets, stop consuming. Grow your own food, build your own things. This is the most effective way of bypassing, boycotting, subverting, sabotaging the system of consumerism, this is the best way to make the perverted schemes of the ruling class fizzle and founder. This is the way to bring down the tyranny of consumerism.

The informal economy is thriving. Flea markets, swat meetings, second-hand exchanges, barter, farmers markets, counter currencies, credit unions, co-ops, the DIY and Maker movements. There are dozens of alternatives to eBay.

If you revolutionize your life you are not alone. Millions of revolutionaries drop out and defy the rules of consumerism. Millions defy the trends, fashions, memes, the pressure to parade, show off, prance, boast, swagger, millions abandon the bizarre, grotesque, ridiculous conventions, etiquettes, rituals, and ceremonies of consumerism.

The revolution is going on right now but you will not hear anything about it in the mass media. The revolution will not be televised (thank you Gil), it will not be reported and commented. The revolution will not even be recognized, analyzed, and combatted by the masters of consumerism, because the values and goals of the revolutionaries are, as I wrote already before, beyond their understanding and beyond their limited perception.

They may shuffle their company shares, bonds, and derivates around, they may constantly increase the stock prices, the profits, the company valuations, they may climb up in the Forbes list of billionaires to become the envy of their peers, they may succeed in all their endeavors and consider themselves to be at the top of the world….

Yet when the markets crash and the gordian knot of the global financial system finally is cut all their holdings will be worthless.

There will be a deep recession and more people will be laid off. Millions of people will be unemployed but they will not be out of work because there is enough work to do. Caring for the elderly, sick, and disabled, growing food and changing the sterile lawns of sprawling suburbs into rich permaculture beds, repairing infrastructure, restoring nature, planting trees and bushes, cleaning up and decontaminating industrial and agricultural wastelands, refurbishing buildings and installing thermal insulation.

This is a gargantuan task and it will need all available hands to do the job. Nobody will be out of work anymore.

But who will pay for it?

There will not be much pay, but the local communities, the newly created local and regional bodies, the revolutionary councils will organize the flow of necessary materials and goods, the thinkers and planners will take out the blueprints from the hidden drawers and create appropriate local and regional support networks out of the broken pieces of the old economic system.

There will not be much pay and there will not be much money around. Money and personal wealth will have lost their meaning and their central importance. The rat race, the scramble for wealth and power will be over, replaced by kindness, passion, and love.

Are you ready to think out of the box? Are you ready to start a new live? Are you ready to join the revolution and to save the world?

You better be ready now!

 

Poste

Links January 2014

Environmental news:
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/12/fukushima.html
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/12/radiation-seals-sea-lions-polar-bears-bald-eagles-sea-stars-turtles-king-salmon-sockeye-salmon-herring-anchovies-sardines-west-coast-north-americaseals-sea-lions-polar-bears.htmlhttp://www.vancouversun.com/business/Mercury+levels+rising+expanse+around+Alberta+oilsands/9332186/story.html Minamata is everywhere.
http://www1.umn.edu/ships/ethics/minamata.htm
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=opinion-a-call-for-action-on-mercury-poisoning-in-minamata-japan

An addendum to Decembers beatification and canonization news:
http://snoopman.wordpress.com/2013/12/19/the-audacity-of-obama-a-black-wolf-in-corporate-clothing/

Cultural news:
http://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/names/2014/01/01/customs-officials-destroys-flute-virtuoso-instruments/HRnFgh1FwIqY5n2FdoKlMN/story.html

Imperial News:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/2014-will-bring-more-social-collapse/5362991
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-washington-post-and-amazon-doing-business-with-the-cia/5362026
http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/12/16/an-nsa-coworker-remembers-the-real-edward-snowden-a-genius-among-geniuses/
http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2013/12/15/mr-snowden-its-time-to-come-out-and-take-a-stand-publicly-as-to-your-intentions/
http://www.globalresearch.ca/inconsistencies-and-unanswered-questions-the-risks-of-trusting-the-snowden-story/5363262
http://www.minds.com/blog/view/264199355085361152/5-unnerving-documents-showing-ties-between-greenwald-omidyar-and-booz-allen-hamilton
http://www.workers.org/articles/2014/01/03/struggle-freed-lynne-stewart/

Imperial conquest news:
http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2013/12/24/the-changing-contours-of-us-imperial-intervention-in-world-conflicts/
http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2013/12/28/us-intelligence-planning-to-oust-the-president-of-ecuador.html
http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/12/20/what-really-happened-in-ukraine/
http://www.globalresearch.ca/volgograd-and-the-conquest-of-eurasia-will-the-house-of-saud-see-its-stalingrad/5363440
http://www.medialens.org/index.php/alerts/alert-archive/alerts-2013/751-an-awkward-silence-burying-the-hersh-revelations-of-obama-s-syrian-deceit.html
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/12/syria-falls-apart.html
http://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/66992.htm
http://sana.sy/eng/21/2013/12/30/520148.htm
http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2013/12/ttgs-analysis-of-the-syrian-civil-war.html
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MID-03-231213.html I don’t like this article because of its flashy style of writing and the reduction of Middle Eastern developments to power politics. The text contains interesting thoughts but neglects ecological, cultural, and social vectors, which could at any time lead to unexpected developments and unpleasant surprises.

Related:
http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2013/12/24/made-in-saudi-arabia-salafist-radicalism-in-africa.html
http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/12/24/mother-nature-intensifies-the-gaza-siege/
http://www.intifada-palestine.com/2013/12/little-hala-herods-israel/

Everything else news:
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/12/26/212736/rekha-basu-its-such-a-burden-being.html
http://thebaffler.com/past/networking_into_the_abyss
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25455991
http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/12/31/profits-may-rise-profits-may-fall-the-capitalist-system-doesnt-care-at-all/ Must read!
http://www.countercurrents.org/rockstroh20123.htm Not one of Rockstroh’s best, but the first two-third of the text is excellent, making it worth reading. Some readers will be unable to decode Rockstroh’s advices and marching instructions in the last third of the essay, their heart may be longing (to use the authors diction) for something more specific.

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The following text has no political, ecological, or cultural inclinations, it is about cats and nothing else.

To be more precise, this text is about the cat family who shares the house with me and in addition to that it includes stories about and photographs of a cat friend who is not part of the family, though he often joined our walks in the forest and even visited our house several times. The mentioned cat friend is Gandhi Sr., a huge and good locking ginger tomcat. I don’t know his real name, but I call him Gandhi, because he is the most peaceful tomcat I ever had the pleasure to meet.

When we first encountered him in Summer 2011 during one of our walks in the forest, he just went along with the group as if he were a member of the family. He was very fond of Cindy, who was still alive then, and they sniffed at each other and rubbed their noses. The other cats were quite puzzled and Ma Xi didn’t like the new participant at all, but as I was not objecting and chasing the foreign cat away, they either accepted or ignored the new group member.

Gandhi always wore a flea collar, and because of that I concluded the he was well cared for by his human hosts. One neighbor told me that Gandhi’s host family doesn’t let him into the house in summer, which would explain why he is all the time in the woods. Like Cindy, Gandhi is a forest cat, but his main whereabouts is a barn of the tree nursery on the southern edge of the forest. The barn has open as well as closed sections, and a cat like Gandhi has no problems to find a gap through which he can slip into the closed sections to spend some time there undisturbed and unthreatened.

In autumn 2011 Cindy disappeared, most likely killed by a hunter, while Ma Xi became more aggressive and started to attack Gandhi, chasing him away. Gandhi at this time had already made several visits to our house to inspect it carefully and he was accepted by all other cats; he was so much bigger and stronger than Ma Xi that he easily could have repelled him, but as Gandhi was a peaceful cat who tried to avoid fights as good as he could he simply ran away.

When Ma Xi came home one day with a bloody ear and some deep scratches in his face my instinctual conclusion was that he had cornered Gandhi somewhere in the forest and that he had been taught a tough lesson by his adversary. I was confirmed in my assumption when we encountered Gandhi a few days later during our obligatory forest walk and Ma Xi didn’t attack Gandhi but run away to hide in the underbrush where he stayed quietly growling till Gandhi was out of sight.

Despite his considerable weight Gandhi Sr. is a terrific tree climber while Ma Xi never managed to climb higher than two meters. I can remember several incidents where Ma Xi chased Gandhi just to be left sitting at a tree and looking up to Gandhi high above in the tree crown. The most puzzling thing in this story is the fact, that Gandhi is not neutered, while Ma Xi is. Normally a fixed tomcat should be calm and an intact one aggressive, but the story of Gandhi and Ma Xi defies this common knowledge. It defies also my lifetime experience with other tomcats (and the wisdom of the ages in general).

Well, always be ready for a surprise…

Btw, this was not the only time Ma Xi was told a lesson, Miss Marple (aka Sumo) also once handed him a long scratch on the nose, her six kilo surely made a difference.

2012 again saw some major changes in the cat family when my then sister-in-law (who is now my ex-sister-in-law) dumped a cat mother with three tiny kittens into my home. My sister-in-law was in a dire predicament at that time because her longtime relation had broken apart and she had to give up the house that she and her spouse had bought. The new arrivals, which I called “the little family,” increased the resident cat population to nine and brought my home close to the status of an animal sanctuary.

Mia, the cat mother, is a very pretty, petite cat, black with dark brown patches. She is reticent, her movements are always measured and elegant. Mia grew up in the city of Munich and she is clearly an urban lady. If she would be a human lady, she would wear stockings, designer cloth, and some exquisite jewelry.

Mia was a good mother, she was committed, dedicated, she did a tremendous job up to the point of self-sacrifice. She  was very thin and completely exhausted, when she arrived, probably because she only was used to dry food and my sister-in-law never had given her de-worming pills. My sister-in-law considers vaccinations and de-worming pills as unnecessary and as just another ploy of the pharmaceutical industry to extract/extort money. She may have a point to some extent, but as the vet found out, Mia was infected with tapeworms and it was high time to cure her from the worms.

After the treatment Mia recovered and the kittens grew nicely. One was a completely black male, which I called “Black.” His sister was also black but with a brown stripe on the forehead, I called her “Stripe.” The third kitten was a ginger male, which I called “Ginger.” Black was the smallest of them, but very smart and always ahead in his development. He was the first to crawl out of the office drawer where they resided and the first to drag the shoes from the shoe rack in the hall to various other places in the house. Black was always together with Stripe, they were inseparable, while Ginger, though he usually joined his siblings, occasionally also played alone.

Fortunately Black, who is now Marvin, and his sister, who is now Marlies, were taken by a nice family and they occupy a new home 50 km from here across the boarder. They are reportedly doing very well and they enjoy their adulthood. Mia was left with Ginger, whom I christened Gandhi Jr., hoping that he would be as peaceful as his namesake (the cat friend about whom I wrote before).

A couple, who looked for a new cat visited us but they didn’t take Gandhi Jr.. They wanted a big cat and as Mia is very small they thought Gandhi would also be small. As it came out a few month later they were completely wrong and I have to reiterate, that with cats one always should be ready for a surprise.

I’m really glad that they didn’t take Gandhi Jr. away, because, though not as peaceful as his namesake, Gandhi Jr. is a lovely, well behaved, intelligent, uncomplicated, friendly, and social cat. He is now a huge cat, as big as Gandhi Sr. and as big as Harry was. (I wrote about Harry before, here just as a reminder: Harry was the patriarch and the undisputed leader of the cat family right until his untimely dead in 2008.)

Yes, Gandhi Jr. has become a huge cat. In summer I had the impression for some time that he was getting thinner and thinner and I worried about his health till I realized that he was not getting thinner but only longer. Ma Xi must have seen this coming because in January 2013 he became more and more aggressive not only against Mia and Gandhi Jr. but also against all other family members. In was very obvious that he started searching for another host.

Ma Xi is not a pretty cat and he is not friendly or social — he was a feral cat for too long. Yet in the two years with the family he has learned basic social rules and I let him neuter, which for sure has helped to smoothen his rough edges. He also has a nice and nearly complete white fur which may attract some people. I was not surprised and kind of relieved when in February he stopped coming for food. In January he had already refused to sleep in the house, despite the freezing cold he was lodging in the toolshed where I had made a nest for him.

In hindsight I have to admit, that Ma Xi was in an impossible situation and that looking for a new place was the most sensible thing to do. In the forest he was facing a huge ginger cat who had humiliated him already several times, at home another ginger cat was growing rapidly and it was foreseeable that he would soon be humiliated at home as well.

So my friend luckily had found a new family, but there was one catch: Nobody made a walk with Ma Xi.

Nobody made a walk with him except me. From February till June Ma Xi was nearly every day waiting outside in the garden or in the adjacent forest. He was waiting for me to come and to go with him along one of our usual routes. He didn’t want any other cat to join, Princess Min Ki tried a few times to accompany us but he grew very angry, growling and hissing at her till she gave up.

Four month long I had to walk twice, one time with Ma Xi alone, a second time with the cat family. No, it was not a burden, Ma Xi was nice and grateful when we were alone. He had his special places where he wanted to make a pause and when I sat down on a tree stump he always jumped onto my lap and I held my hands around him. He curled into my arms and purred and was completely relaxed. There were moments when I really thought that he could maybe overcome his aversions against Gandhi Jr. and join the family again, but as I understand now, this was never in the cards.

At the end of the daily walk and as our route inevitably led us back to my home Ma Xi became moody, depressed and sometimes angry. The nearer we came to the house, the unhappier he appeared to be. Some 50 meters before the house he simply stopped and I had to walk the remaining distance alone. When I turned I saw him standing there, looking after me. Sometimes I stood still and he came to me and leaned against my feet before he slowly walked away.

It was hard, it was really hard and I often had tears in my eyes. I liked the walks with Ma Xi but I hated the ending, the sad and painful and often prolonged good bye procedure. Ma Xi was still my friend, I cared about him and understood him.

“He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother.” I have sung that tune myself, though not as ingenious and inspiring as Donny Hathaway — I’m not a talented singer. I sang it as good as I could and sometimes I was lucky and was not ridiculed. No, Ma Xi was not a burden, he was not a burden because he was a little cat with just below five kilo and he was not a burden because he was my friend and I had to be there for him as long as he needed me.

In late June Ma Xi unexpectedly stopped but after a few days he again waited in the garden. I went out, ready to make a walk with him, but he only hissed at me and turned around. It was his way to tell me that this was the end, that it was over finally. The walks had been nice but the painful good by procedures were too much to bear. It was a short and undramatic farewell.

Farewell, my friend, I like you still and I care about you!

I haven’t seen Ma Xi anymore since then and I hope, that he is alive and well. The cat family grows together and has reached a level of harmony that I never would have considered as possible. Princess Min Ki is not bossy anymore and shares her leadership with Rosy. Gandhi Jr. still needs some education, but he is a fast learner. Miss Marple aka Sumo has become 16 years old, she seems to be more content and more agreable. I spend a lot of time with her — who nows, how much time we have left…

Mia has gained weight significantly, she is not as heavy as Rosy or Miss Marple, but she is well rounded. Mia adores her son Gandhi Jr. and she is so proud of him. Cat mothers often leave the place when their children grow up to avoid conflict and competition but Mia and Gandhi are the best friends. If he wouldn’t be neutered and she not spayed, they would enjoy a splendid incestuous relationship.

I always thought, that the father of her kittens must have been a big ginger cat and my ex-sister-in-law recently confirmed this assumption. Mia would love to have both Gandhis around and it is sad that the two are not friends. If Junior would realize that he looks exactly like Senior he would (may)be less hostile, but cats are not self aware (they also don’t recognize themselves in a mirror). Gandhi Jr. occasionally jumps onto my lap while I sit on the computer and I then play movies for him that I recorded when the kittens grew up. When Gandhi sees his siblings he stands up and gets completely excited. Yet the movies where he is the lone actor don’t bother him at all, he just doesn’t realize, that this is about him.

I wrote about Gandhi Sr. as well as the Junior already in my blog post Walking with Gandhi and reading this earlier post would be very helpful to better understand the situation.

In October we met Gandhi Sr. once more during a walk and he joined us for a while. We were on our way from the valley where the tree nursery is located to the big clearing on top of the hill in the middle of the forest and shortly before we reached the clearing we made a pause at a place where there are a lot of tree stumps. The cats all rested on the tree stumps, as usual every cat occupied her/his own stump, only Mia and her son were laying together. But Mia soon went up and walked to Gandhi Sr. She climbed onto his tree stump, her tail high up, sniffed at him and tried to lick him. Spayed cats usually don’t allow sex but I can’t rule it out that Mia would have made an exemption for Gandhi Sr.

Yet it didn’t come that far because Gandhi Sr. was not at all responsive, and when Mia tried once more and rubbed her head again his he just shortly hissed at her. It was not an aggressive hissing, it was just a notice, that she should stop.

Mia was seemingly disappointed and sad and she didn’t take part in the walks for some weeks after that event.

This evening, as we made our daily walk in the forest, we met Gandhi Sr. again (and this is the reason while I type now a blog text in the middle of the night). I had a LED flashlight with me, because it was already dark, and when the eyes of the cats reflected the beam of the flashlight I discovered that Gandhi Sr. has bright blue eyes, very different from the Junior, who has amber/orange eyes.

As usual, Junior was growling and hiding behind a tree, while Gandhi Sr. unimpressed and undeterred by the Juniors hostile behavior walked to me, leaned against my feet and started purring. I stroke him for a little time and then we continued with our walk. Gandhi Sr. accompanied us a few minutes before he disappeared into the dark.

He for sure has occupied a place in my heart. He is not (and most likely never will be) a member of the cat family, but we are good friends. Two friends, who due to adverse circumstances cannot come closer but who will nevertheless hold each other always in high esteem and remember each other fondly for the rest of our lives.