Monthly Archives: July 2011

Maori Justice Model

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Righting Wrongs the Maori Way

by Allan MacRae, Howard Zehr

Instead of prison, New Zealand chooses restorative justice and community problem-solving.

During the 1980s, New Zealand faced a crisis familiar to other Western nations around the world. Thousands of children, especially members of minority groups, were being removed from their homes and placed in foster care or institutions. The juvenile justice system was overburdened and ineffective. New Zealand’s incarceration rate for young people was one of the highest in the world, but its crime rate also remained high. At the same time, New Zealand’s punitive approach was also in part a “welfare” model. Although young people were being punished, they were also being rewarded by receiving attention. Yet they were not being required to address the actual harm they had caused.

Especially affected was the minority Maori population, the indigenous people of New Zealand. Maori leaders pointed out that the Western system of justice was a foreign imposition. In their cultural tradition, judges did not mete out punishment. Instead, the whole community was involved in the process, and the intended outcome was repair. Instead of focusing on blame, they wanted to know “why,” because they argued that finding the cause of crime is part of resolving it. Instead of punishment (“Let shame be the punishment” is a Maori proverb), they were concerned with healing and problem-solving. The Maori also pointed out that the Western system, which undermined the family and disproportionately incarcerated Maori youth, emerged from a larger pattern of institutional racism. They argued persuasively that cultural identity is based on three primary institutional pillars—law, religion, and education—and when any of these undermines or ignores the values and traditions of the indigenous people, a system of racism is operating.

Maori leaders pointed out that the Western system of justice was a foreign imposition. In their cultural tradition, the whole community was involved in the process.

Because of these concerns, in the late 1980s the government initiated a process of listening to communities throughout the country. Through this listening process, the Maori recommended that the resources of the extended family and the community be the source of any effort to address these issues. The FGC [Family Group Conference] process emerged as the central tool to do this in the child protection and youth justice systems.

 

to read more, go to: http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/beyond-prisons/righting-wrongs-the-maori-way

 

 

Pronoia by Rob Brezsny

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(Excerpted from the revised and expanded edition ofPronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia. To hear a podcast version of this text, go here.)

DEFINITION: Pronoia is the antidote for paranoia. It’s the understanding that the universe is fundamentally friendly. It’s a mode of training your senses and intellect so you’re able to perceive the fact that life always gives you exactly what you need, exactly when you need it.

OBJECTIVE OF PRONOIA: To explore the secrets of becoming a wildly disciplined, fiercely tender, ironically sincere, scrupulously curious, aggressively sensitive, blasphemously reverent, lyrically logical, lustfully compassionate Master of Rowdy Bliss.

HYPOTHESES: Evil is boring. Cynicism is idiotic. Fear is a bad habit. Despair is lazy. Joy is fascinating. Love is an act of heroic genius. Pleasure is your birthright. Receptivity is a superpower.

PROCEDURE: Act as if the universe is a prodigious miracle created for your amusement and illumination. Assume that secret helpers are working behind the scenes to assist you in turning into the gorgeous masterpiece you were born to be. Join the conspiracy to shower all of creation with blessings.

GUIDING QUESTION: “The secret of life,” said sculptor Henry Moore to poet Donald Hall, “is to have a task, something you devote your entire life to, something you bring everything to, every minute of the day for your whole life. And the most important thing is — it must be something you cannot possibly do.” What is that task for you?

to read more, go to:  http://www.freewillastrology.com/home.shtml

Evolution of the Brain

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The Evolution of the Brain and the Mind

neurons.jpg 

The following is excerpted from Power Up Your Brain: The Neuroscience of Enlightenment, by David Perlmutter, FACN, and Alberto Villoldo, PhD,  published by Hay House.

Thousands of years ago, our ancestors faced a neurological opportunity similar to the one we face today, an opportunity that facilitated an evolutionary leap forward. With the awakening of the neocortex, our forebears acquired a new brain structure that nature had wired for joy, creativity, and innovation.

To access that potential, our ancestors required specific nutrients to provide fuel to run their neurocomputer. Once they added brain-enriching foods to their diet, the faculties of certain individuals, the visionaries of their day, came online and began to create great works of art, devise written language, establish civilizations, and lay the foundations for our modern human experience.

During this time, ancestral shamans described Creation as a web of life in which we are all interconnected. This was a kind of Indra’s Net, which the mythology of ancient India describes as a web with an infinite number of intersecting strands and a precious jewel at the intersection of every strand. Each of the infinite number of jewels reflects every other jewel perfectly. Within this mythical net, all beings are interrelated, and all of our actions, no matter how slight, affect everyone else. Within this net, prophets converse with God and interpret His will, while mystics search for the elixir of immortality and alchemists attempt to transform lead into gold. These sages, mystics, and alchemists shared the same preoccupations as seers of today. They asked, as we do now: How can we live long and healthy lives, unaffected by debilitating illness and degenerative brain disease? How can we turn the dense lead of human suffering into the gold of enlightened consciousness?

to read more, go to:    http://www.realitysandwich.com/evolution_brain_mind

Zambia Earthquake

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“Moderate unusual earthquake near Kafue National Park, Zambia Last update: July 21, 2011 at 2:54 pm by By Armand Vervaeck and James Daniell ”

“Earthquake overview : Moderate shallow earthquake in a location with very few prior earthquakes. Earthquake-Report.com calls this earthquake moderately damaging as the houses are not prepared to resist earthquakes and as the epicenter location is surrounded by many villages.
Read more about Moderate unusual earthquake near Kafue National Park, Zambia on:

Moderate unusual earthquake near Lake Kariba, Zambia – Is the man made lake to blame ?

Weather Changes to Come for West Coast

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West coast cooler than normal, heatwave and humidity to hit toward the end of the month

Published on July 18, 2011 8:20 pm PT
– By Kevin Martin – Senior Meteorologist
– Article Editor and Approved – Ron Jackson


No larger image

(TheWeatherSpace.com) — Cooler than normal temperatures continue for the Western Coast of the United States as trough hangs tight.

Rain fell in parts of Northern California and Southern Oregon on Monday and this will move east for your Tuesday. A frontal zone will bring rain to the Seattle and Portland areas on Thursday. This is not a flooding hazard, but it will drop some rainfall in these spots.

As for the rest of the coastal areas, Southern California is in the middle of a ridge to the east and a trough over the Pacific Northwest. The trough seems to be winning as thunderstorms are confined in the state of Arizona.

to read more, go to:   http://theweatherspace.com/news/TWS-07_18_2011_pacnwsw.html

 

24 Hours in the Life of Earth

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Preview Trailer For ‘One Day On Earth,’ 24 Hours Of Life Across The World (VIDEO)

One Day On Earth

First Posted: 7/20/11 04:13 AM ET Updated: 7/20/11 11:16 AM ET

For their new film, ‘One Day on Earth,’ filmmakers recorded 24 hours of footage in every country in the world. The film acts as catalogue for human culture in the current moment–our problems and our triumphs, our inventions and our traditions.

From their website:

One Day on Earth started in September of 2008 with the goal of creating a unique worldwide media event where thousands of participants would simultaneously film over a 24-hour period. The idea for the project was conceived while watching musicians from very different regions of the world collaborate on stage at the opening night of the 2008 World festival of Sacred Music. Their initial attempts to create music together were awkward, and it was clear that they had never collaborated prior to this moment. Eventually though, over the period of a couple minutes, what was disharmony became harmony, and a beautiful fusion of music came together for the first time. The moment inspired a similar vision for another universal form of communication—cinema.

 

On 10/10/10, people all over the world recorded the events in their lives and uploaded them to Vimeo, and the film will premier shortly before 11/11/11 the, next global filming date. The filmmakers hope to produce a film each year to capture our global experience. Check out the preview for the film below.

to see the video, go to:    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/18/preview-trailer-for-one-d_n_901938.html

 

Pluto’s 4th Moon

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It may not be a planet any more, but it does have its share of moons:

Hubble spies fourth moon at Pluto

By Jonathan AmosScience correspondent, BBC News

Pluto and moonsThe Hubble Space Telecope observations of P4 were made in June and July
Continue reading the main story

Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope have identified another moon around the dwarf planet Pluto.

It becomes the fourth object known to be circling the distant world after the long-recognised Charon and recently observed Nix and Hydra satellites.

Scientists are temporarily calling the new moon P4 and estimate its diameter to be 13 to 34 km (of 8 to 21 miles).

Pluto, controversially demoted from full planet status in 2006, will be the target of a big space mission in 2015.

Nasa’s New Horizons probe is due to fly past the icy world and should get a good look at the moons, also.

To read more, go to:    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14220620

Magnetic Portals Between Earth & Sun

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Magnetic Portals Connect Sun And Earth

ScienceDaily (Nov. 2, 2008) — During the time it takes you to read this article, something will happen high overhead that until recently many scientists didn’t believe in. A magnetic portal will open, linking Earth to the sun 93 million miles away. Tons of high-energy particles may flow through the opening before it closes again, around the time you reach the end of the page

“It’s called a flux transfer event or ‘FTE,'” says space physicist David Sibeck of the Goddard Space Flight Center. “Ten years ago I was pretty sure they didn’t exist, but now the evidence is incontrovertible.”

Indeed, today Sibeck is telling an international assembly of space physicists at the 2008 Plasma Workshop in Huntsville, Alabama, that FTEs are not just common, but possibly twice as common as anyone had ever imagined.

to read more, go to:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/11/081101093713.htm

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