metaspective

No more us and them...

Tue, 7 Oct 2003 13:20:58 GMT

Palestinians kill Israelis, Israelis kill Palestinians; Americans kill Iraqis, Iraqis kill Americans; Russians kill Chechnians, Chechnians kill Russians; Tamils kill Sinhalese, Sinhalese kill Tamils etc, etc.

Does anybody see a pattern here?

Does anybody think that killing brings peace?

We all need to start seeing only "US", for there is no "THEM"

That means we can't blame any particular group, because such generalisations are meaningless. If I say "the Palestinians did so and so", what do I mean? Or, "Americans want to control the whole world", who do I mean by "Americans"?

There are no masses of people, only people like us. We are all "us".

Nation states tell us that because of where we were born we are somehow different to those born a few miles away - due to an invisible line. What utter nonsense. When folk try the patriotic crap with you, give them short shrift. If someone tells you that all Jews are this and Palestinians are that, laugh at their naivety and ask them, "have you met them all, then?"

This is very important. Racism and sexism also operate in this manner. Wars only happen when enough people take sides. So don't take sides. There is only one side - us!

A sad but true story

Tue, 30 Sep 2003 05:55:35 GMT

Kurd who slit daughter's throat in 'honour killing' is jailed for life
Muslim father of girl, 16, who had relationship outside her religion, subjected her to months of beatings before stabbing her repeatedly

Vikram Dodd
Tuesday September 30, 2003
The Guardian

A 47-year-old Kurdish father who slit his teenage daughter's throat after she started dating a man from outside her own culture was yesterday jailed for life.

Police said the murder of Heshu Yones, 16, was an honour killing. Her father, Abdalla Yones, subjected her to months of beatings before stabbing her 17 times because he feared Heshu was too westernised.

The teenager had been planning to run away from home. In a note to her father she tried to cope with her ordeal by joking about the beatings he meted out to her: "Hey, for an older man you have a good strong punch and kick."

Yones, an Iraqi Kurd who gained indefinite leave to remain in Britain after opposing the Saddam Hussein dictatorship, begged an Old Bailey judge to order his execution.

Yones, a Muslim, had become "disgusted and distressed" by his daughter's relationship with an 18-year-old Lebanese Christian A-level student.

In October last year Heshu barricaded herself in the bathroom of the family home in west London. The father broke down the door and stabbed his daughter repeatedly, before slitting her throat and leaving her bleeding in the bath.

Then Yones attempted suicide by cutting his throat and throwing himself off a third floor balcony.

He was in hospital for several months and claimed that al-Qaida had broken into the family flat and murdered his daughter.

Heshu was described as a "bubbly" and "fun loving girl" in court. The jury was read a farewell letter the teenager wrote to her father as she planned to run away.

In it she apologised for having been a problem, promised to pay back any money she owed him and asked him not to worry about her.

The letter read: "Bye Dad, sorry I was so much trouble.

"Me and you will probably never understand each other, but I'm sorry I wasn't what you wanted, but there's some things you can't change.

"Hey, for an older man you have a good strong punch and kick.

"I hope you enjoyed testing your strength on me, it was fun being on the receiving end. Well done.

"One day when I have got a proper job, every penny I owe you will be repaid in full.

"I'm sure in saying I will be safe. I will find a way to independently look after myself.

"I will go to social security and get myself a flat or hostel. I will be okay.

"Don't look for me because I don't know where I'm going yet, I just want to be alone."

The court heard her grades had begun to slip. To limit any offence to her father, Heshu would wait until reaching college to put on make-up.

Yones never adapted to life in Britain and the cultural tensions it placed on his family; he wanted his daughter to observe his interpretation of strict tradition, but she wanted a more liberal life.

Yones was described as "a fish out of water" and became depressed, but his children thrived and Heshu studied at the William Morris Academy in Fulham, south-west London.

Sentencing Yones, who pleaded guilty, to life imprisonment, Judge Neil Denison said the Kurd was still suicidal: "This is, on any view, a tragic story arising out of irreconcilable cultural differ ences between traditional Kurdish values and the values of western society."

Icah Peart QC, defending Yones, said that before the murder his client had received a letter, written in Kurdish, describing his daughter as a slut who was sleeping with her boyfriend on a daily basis.

"He was disgusted and distressed by the letter, which he threw away in his anger," said Mr Peart.

"He did not want to believe what he had read although he suspected there might be some truth in it. He could not stop brooding on the content of the letter."

Scotland Yard yesterday said there had been 12 "honour killings" across different communities in the last year in Britain.

Police define an honour killing as a murder motivated by perceived dishonour to a family or community and stress that it is not limited to Islamic communities. There have been examples of Sikh and Christian honour killings.

Commander Andy Baker said Heshu had suffered "very significant physical abuse" in the months leading up to the killing, but it was never reported to police.

The issue of honour killings is being researched by the Metropolitan police racial and violent crimes task force and Mr Baker said many communities were helping police understand the practice.

"We've got to stop it, we can prevent these murders," he said, adding that a handful of people still believed it was an appropriate cultural response.

People who had tried to protect Yones could be investigated on suspicion of perverting the course of justice, he said.

"We are completely satisfied that some members of the community, or his friends, tried to assist him in that cover-up," said Mr Baker.

Sawsan Salim, coordinator of the Kurdistan Refugees Women's Organisation, said most Kurds condemned honour killings. The group has campaigned against murders and domestic violence against women.

"No one has the right to kill women under any name, whether it is God or culture," Ms Salim said. "No excuse should be given for such a brutal tragedy."

Aisha Gill, a lecturer in criminology at the University of Surrey, said there were examples where men accused of honour killings had used a "cultural defence" argument.

"What is important to emphasise here is that cultural rights cannot override women's right to life," she wrote in a recent edition of Police Review.

=========================================================

Police in UK claim that at least a dozen women and girls are murdered for this reason in this country annually.

Sue and I feel that gender issues are too important to ignore, and we think that NCN needs to do more in this area.

flame warriors

Fri, 26 Sep 2003 03:44:14 GMT

Good day fellow warriors for peace.

Check this link out for funny personifications of online personalities. I see myself in some. Are you there?

"flame warriors" - cartoons and descriptions
click on "flame warriors index"

An Ethical Question

Wed, 24 Sep 2003 15:39:05 GMT

Please help me to come to some kind of conclusion to a question that has been bugging me(if you'll excuse the pun)for some time now.
Namely, is it ethical to own a pet?

It's life Jim, but not as we know it...

Mon, 22 Sep 2003 15:03:04 GMT

Plasma blobs hint at new form of life

17 September 03

From New Scientist

Physicists have created blobs of gaseous plasma that can grow, replicate and communicate - fulfilling most of the traditional requirements for biological cells. Without inherited material they cannot be described as alive, but the researchers believe these curious spheres may offer a radical new explanation for how life began.

Most biologists think living cells arose out of a complex and lengthy evolution of chemicals that took millions of years, beginning with simple molecules through amino acids, primitive proteins and finally forming an organised structure. But if Mircea Sanduloviciu and his colleagues at Cuza University in Romania are right, the theory may have to be completely revised. They say cell-like self-organisation can occur in a few microseconds.

The researchers studied environmental conditions similar to those that existed on the Earth before life began, when the planet was enveloped in electric storms that caused ionised gases called plasmas to form in the atmosphere.

They inserted two electrodes into a chamber containing a low-temperature plasma of argon - a gas in which some of the atoms have been split into electrons and charged ions. They applied a high voltage to the electrodes, producing an arc of energy that flew across the gap between them, like a miniature lightning strike.

Sanduloviciu says this electric spark caused a high concentration of ions and electrons to accumulate at the positively charged electrode, which spontaneously formed spheres (Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, vol 18, p 335). Each sphere had a boundary made up of two layers - an outer layer of negatively charged electrons and an inner layer of positively charged ions.

Trapped inside the boundary was an inner nucleus of gas atoms. The amount of energy in the initial spark governed their size and lifespan. Sanduloviciu grew spheres from a few micrometres up to three centimetres in diameter.

Split in two

A distinct boundary layer that confines and separates an object from its environment is one of the four main criteria generally used to define living cells. Sanduloviciu decided to find out if his cells met the other criteria: the ability to replicate, to communicate information, and to metabolise and grow.

He found that the spheres could replicate by splitting into two. Under the right conditions they also got bigger, taking up neutral argon atoms and splitting them into ions and electrons to replenish their boundary layers.

Finally, they could communicate information by emitting electromagnetic energy, making the atoms within other spheres vibrate at a particular frequency. The spheres are not the only self-organising systems to meet all of these requirements. But they are the first gaseous "cells".

Sanduloviciu even thinks they could have been the first cells on Earth, arising within electric storms. "The emergence of such spheres seems likely to be a prerequisite for biochemical evolution," he says.

Temperature trouble

That view is "stretching the realms of possibility," says Gregoire Nicolis, a physical chemist at the University of Brussels. In particular, he doubts that biomolecules such as DNA could emerge at the temperatures at which the plasma balls exist.

However, Sanduloviciu insists that although the spheres require high temperature to form, they can survive at lower temperatures. "That would be the sort of environment in which normal biochemical interactions occur."

But perhaps the most intriguing implications of Sanduloviciu's work are for life on other planets. "The cell-like spheres we describe could be at the origin of other forms of life we have not yet considered," he says. Which means our search for extraterrestrial life may need a drastic re-think.

David Cohen

The land of the free...

Sun, 21 Sep 2003 02:24:25 GMT

Nine months in jail is bad trip for 'bong' seller Tommy Chong
Duncan Campbell in Los Angeles
Saturday September 20, 2003
The Guardian

One of America's best-known counter-cultural comedians, Tommy Chong, is facing the prospect of a nine-month jail sentence after being convicted of selling glass pipes on the internet which can be used for smoking cannabis.

Lawyers for Chong, 65, one half of the famous Cheech and Chong comedy duo and more recently a television actor, claim the US attorney general, John Ashcroft, chose to prosecute him for the publicity value. The glass pipes, or "bongs", that Chong has been offering for sale are the same as those that have been sold for years by thousands of "head shops" all over the US and Europe, and Chong has regularly been paying taxes on their sales.

"They are really prosecuting him for who he is," his Los Angeles-based attorney, Richard Hirsh, said yesterday. "It was a very selective prosecution. Ashcroft is 100% behind it."

Mr Hirsh said that for many years the sale of bongs and pipes had been accepted and no notice had been given of an intended change in policy.

Twenty-two people have been convicted of selling pipes since Mr Ashcroft launched Operation Pipe Dreams last year. Some 650,000 people in the US are arrested each year for minor cannabis possession.

Chong, who has no previous convictions and has run his business in Gardena, California, alongside an acting career, was arrested after a sting operation in which federal agents in Pittsburgh ordered bongs over the internet, thus ensuring that the items were sent across state lines.

Judge Arthur Schwab said jail was appropriate for "a felony of conspiring to distribute drug paraphernalia", and sentenced him to nine months last week. His lawyers are deciding whether to appeal.

Chong, who was born in Canada, linked up with "Cheech" Marin in the 1970s and made a number of comedy films with a cannabis-related theme. Among them were Up In Smoke, Cheech and Chong's Nice Dreams, Still Smokin' and, in the 1990s, National Lampoon's Senior Trip. His latest film is Pot Luck.

are we weird ?

Fri, 19 Sep 2003 12:23:08 GMT

Sue and I regularly surf the net, visit chat rooms, instant message and log in to and post to NCN = together !

But we can't find any other couples that do. We went to quite a few chat rooms but never met another couple once.

Same with instant messaging, we have friends who occasionally are in same room, but not really online together.

So what are other members experiences of this ?
Are we unusual in that we use the system as most couples and families watch televison together ?

Let us (both) know !

nation states are past their sell-by dates

Thu, 18 Sep 2003 02:09:25 GMT

terrorism can only grow where there is no hope of peaceful change
we have seen that in Northern Ireland, where centuries of colonial misrule led to decades of bombings and shooting

terror can come in many forms however, and nation states have the armies and equipment to wage war on poor people all over the globe

is very difficult for us in the wealthy west to empathise with those who seek to destroy the system, but we should always bear in mind that this system is responsible for much that is both positive and negative on our planet

and we must not identify with that system, it is not our system, they are not our nation states - the system is perpetuated for the benefits of the elites

the latest round of international trade negotiations are an example of the lack of love and respect that the powerful feel for the relatively powerless, and this by folk who claim to be christian - can you imagine jesus driving trade talks that force the majority of the world's population to live in poverty so that a few can gorge and grow obese?

we are shamed by the actions of our so called negotiators and representitives

personally, I feel that this crazy state of affairs will continue while we persist with this out-dated and divisive system of nation-states

we are citizens of the world not a particular country

(this piece was a comment on news log owned by cosman64, in response to a piece entitled :"Suprising attack and suprising response" by Haohua Jiang)

I woke up this morning with a burning need to say something about modern states. Had a look at a newslog I hadn't seen before and lo and behold 'twas rather relevant to my mindset today.[Edit]

Sleeping Positions

Wed, 17 Sep 2003 02:09:25 GMT

How You Sleep Reveals Who You Are
16-Sep-2003

Chris Idzikowski, of the Sleep Assessment and Advisory Service, has linked each of the the six most common sleeping positions to a personality type. He says, "We are all aware of our body language when we are awake but this is the first time we have been able to see what our subconscious posture says about us."
The most common sleep position, used by 41% of the 1,000 people he surveyed, is the "fetus" position. If you sleep all curled up, you're tough on the outside but have a sensitive heart. You're shy when you first meet someone, but you relax later. Twice as many women sleep this way as men.

15% of people sleep in the "log" position, lying down on their backs with both arms by their sides. These people are easygoing, popular, social and trust strangers. They can be gullible, though.

13% are "yearners," who sleep on their side with both arms out in front of them. They have an open nature, but can be suspicious and cynical. They're slow to make up their minds, but once they've made a decision, they stick to it.

"Soldier" sleepers (8% of us) lie on their backs with both arms down at their sides. These people are quiet and reserved and have high standards for themselves and others.

"Freefall" sleepers (7%) lie on their stomachs with both hands around the pillow and their heads to the side. These are friendly, outgoing people but they don't take criticism well.

If you're one of the 5% who are "starfish" sleepers, you lie on your back with both arms up around the pillow. These people are always ready to listen to others and offer help when needed. They don't like to be the center of attention.

Idzikowski says some positions are healthier than others. The "freefall" is good for digestion, while the "starfish" and "soldier" lead to snoring. He says, "Lying down flat means that stomach contents can more readily be worked back up into the mouth, while those who lie on their back may end up snoring and breathing less well during the night. Both these postures may not necessarily awaken the sleeper but could cause a less refreshing night's sleep."

Most people stick to the same position every nightonly 5% say they change positions nightly. One arm or leg sticking out from under the covers is very common, followed by both feet sticking out at the end. One in 10 people cover themselves completely with the blanket (including their heads).

=============================================================

My partner Sue utilises the "Freefall" position, while I tend to plump for the "Starfish", with one foot out and a corner of the quilt over my head to protect me from alien probes etc.

How about you?

Madonna's writing stories now...

Tue, 16 Sep 2003 06:37:18 GMT

'She shines like a star!'

Tuesday September 16, 2003
The Guardian

An extract from The English Roses, by Madonna:
You see, the English Roses wanted to be friendly, and they knew that Binah was lonely. But they could not bring themselves to be nice to her, because everywhere they went this is what they heard:

"What a beauty she is!"

"She shines like a star!"

"That Binah is something else!"

When Nicole and Amy and Charlotte and Grace heard people speak this way about Binah, they always felt like they were going to be sick. This is what they would have to say:

"How could anyone be so perfect?"

"No one ever says that about us!"

"It's not fair to have so much!"

"Let's pretend we don't see her when she walks by."

"Let's push her in the lake!"

And that is what they did.

Isn't Binah one of the Sephira of the Tree of Life? I read that Madge was into studying Kabbala, but am suprised she uses the terminology for a kid's book. And if the story is a thinly-veiled account of her life on these shores, it looks as if she is not being fully accepted into po(p)lite English society. We read over here that the CIA is working with various artists stateside to promote the American way of life. Madonna's recent works seem to fit this propaganda role only too well.