Order Out of Chaos: March 8, 2016

The Voices of Humanity project has launched with the election of four great messages.

Voice of Humanity as One & Voice of Women

Educating Young GirlsVoice of Humanity as One

Dear UN Women Executive Director Mlambo-Ngcuka,

What happens when girls are educated? Many wonderful things happen.

1. Birth control – Which results pulling herself out of poverty

2. Completes higher educationVoice of Women

3. Sets an example for her children and other family members

The real questions is how do we educate young girls in our country and the world?

———–
by Patti Rowuin


 

Voice of Men & Voice of Youth

Report from Kampala

Dear UN Women Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka,Voice of Men

Thank you for supporting Cities for CEDAW . As a young man from Kampala I believe that grassroots advocacy can help with the challenges that women and girls face. Here in Africa most people don’t believe in gender equality and so it is hard to reach our goals, but the good thing is that the International Community is spreading the word about the Sustainable Development Goals Voice of Youthonline. That flow of information has helped people understand the role of women and girls in the development of any community or country. I see positive changes in my community. The number of girls attending school is growing big, early marriages are dropping down and domestic violence is no longer on a high scale. These achievements are due to your great efforts. We should keep with the fight against gender inequality and gender based violence. Thank you

———–
by Siryebo Mwesigye


 

 Voice of Experience

Seize opportunities for Women & Girls Rights/Equality

Executive Director Mlambo-Ngcuka,

Recent decades mark a historic paradigm shift: women’s rights and gender equality Voice of Experiencebecame recognized and supported by all nations in the UN’s Charter, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, four UN Women’s World Conferences, and the MDGs.

Regrettably, progress is problematic. Complacency to seize opportunities and to fulfill aspirations and needs are intolerable.

UN Women is needed as a powerful voice and agent to galvanize greater action. As Director of UN Women, your continued strong stewardship of the mission is indispensable — to ensure equality and opportunity for women are strengthened in Post-2015 Development Goals; that women and girls benefit from security and development in their communities; that violence and trafficking are treated as criminal; and that culture and values evolve in current generations to protect the rights of billions of women and girls.

———–
by Herb Behrstock



Voice of Wisdom

There is Only One Race and That’s the Human Race

Dear UN Women Executive Director Mlambo-Ngcuka,Voice of Wisdom

If you ever have a DNA analysis, you’ll realize that we are all related. The idea of the one “human family” is not a idealized notion anymore. It is literally true. The Mahabharata makes this point at the very end. To kill anyone is to kill your own family member, your own kin. Many religions began as an effort to unite humanity. Perhaps revelations made through science and DNA will succeed where the religions have failed.

———–
by George Wolfe

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UN Goals as a Scaffold for Local-to-Global Organizing

Voices of Humanity has launched.   On March 8, 2016, we will send our crowd-sourced messages to Dr. Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, the Executive Director of UN Women. Please sign up to participate at voh.c4c.intermix.org.

Elevator Speech: The Voices of Humanity social media gives a collective voice to the genders and ages of humanity.  As women, men, youth, middle aged and seniors, we transcend the nations and religions. These groupings by gender and age naturally support human unity. By giving them each a collective voice, we create that foundation of trust and cooperation that we must have if we are to successfully handle our serious global problems.

Voices of Humanity will build a heartfelt sense of human unity, which makes it a great candidate as a local-to-global network facility for the Goals of the United Nations. The UN Goals in turn will give Voices of Humanity the structure it needs to be useful in a practical way.

The 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with 169 targets have been adopted at a United Nations Summit on September 25, 2015. The finalized text of the SDGs is only 30 pages – must reading, please! And we must not forget the other great goals of the UN: to end the scourge of war, complete and general disarmament, nuclear disarmament, human rights, global security and a fully respected system of international law. Please see the full write-up on the expected synergy between Voices of Humanity and the SDGs.

Together, the goals of the UN are a formidable platform for local-to-global organizing. Achieving them will require a huge common effort at every level. Skepticism abounds, but achieve them we must for the sake of Earth and humanity, so people everywhere will be looking for ways to connect and cooperate on the venture.  More detail here.

Please participate at voh.c4c.intermix.org.

———–

The Voices of Humanity Community will remake the way humanity sees itself, giving us an all-inclusive global consciousness that has gender equality built in. Voices of Humanity is more than technology — it is also a highly ambitious project. The idea is to empower our common humanity while respecting our differences.  Yes, we love our nations and religions and won’t give them up, but so, too, we see that we are all one human family.

Voices of Humanity is a project of Collective Communication, Inc. (CCI).

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State of the Global Union by Peter Dumont, President of Star Alliance

 Star Alliance Logo

STAR ALLIANCE
FOUNDATION FOR ALL™

• Promoting ​​Highest Civic Ideals • Good Will Values for All to Share • ​​Since 1985 •
Educating for Essential Principles of Sustainable, Fulfilling Society • Peace & Love
P.O. Box 11125Berkeley • California 94712
www.STARALLIANCE.org
510-540-8887 


The Honorable Barack Obama
President of the United States

Dear President Obama:

Thank you so very much for your courageous and heartfelt leadership to improve gun laws; for the great global agreement on Climate Change recently achieved in Paris; and for the many other ways you continue to serve and strengthen our nation and world.

In furtherance to your State of the Union Address this Tuesday, and your important administrative and legislative agendas for 2016, I attach photographs from three recent policy advisory text-batches sent to NPR’s The Takeway  show, in response to their stimulating new citizen-input program.  I hope you will find these ideas, expressions, and resources useful for your address and the national agenda: particularly a proper emphasis on the first phrase of the Second Amendment, which clearly stipulates well-regulated. 

Please note that the Declaration of Highest Civic Ideals posted at www.STARALLIANCE.org (under Good Will Documents Offered for All), has been updated to the January 10th edition.  We plan to start offering this Declaration to several Bay Area city councils for initial official endorsements as a start on our global Campaign Good Will Vision.

The Rutgers Climatologist referred to in the texts is Alan Robock, PhD.  The importance of Dr. Robock’s work can hardly be exaggerated. He continues to warn of the Clear and Present Danger of a Nuclear Winter triggered by a relatively small number of actual explosions and the resulting uncontrollable fires that would burn until there is no more fuel.  Our nation should vigorously promote the goal of a Zero Nuclear Weapons future for the safety of all nations and people.

We should also show dynamic leadership for three critical upgrades toward a more fully-democratic United Nations.  The laudable goal of establishing a population-based, representative house for the world is now much more feasible thanks to the Internet.  It is no longer necessary to have all those individual human bodies from every nation meeting regularly in one global location!  Political leadership needs to catch up with our technological capacities, and you can distinguish yourself for all of history by promoting this great ideal which is newly practical.

The current General Assembly can also, rather easily all things considered: be upgraded to a true Senate of Nations where representative are elected directly by their respective peoples. This is not an outlandish goal!  On the contrary, it is an idea whose time has come.  It will be a very graceful way to start transitioning to full democracies for those countries, like Saudi Arabia, which are still under the rule of a king.  In this example, the king can stay a king and keep his pride and tradition while establishing an additional, do-able step of national and international elected representation.  Somebody on the global stage has got to start suggesting this in a big way.  Why not you, Sir?  Why not now?

Finally, there should be established a reasonable legislative override to the present, always-threatening Security Council veto.  As you know, the current veto too often creates paralysis and discouragement.  No large functioning democracy depends on 100% consensus.  Why should the Security Council, of all bodies, remain dysfunctional at a time of ongoing global threats?

The leaders of the five, historical veto-holding nations, including yourself, must stop acting helpless in this regard, if you will forgive me for being so blunt.  Because: the status quo is having the effect of discouraging the people everywhere as to the efficacy and possibility of true global democracy!

The five nations and national leaders who have the freedom and security of the grossly unequal historical power arrangement are precisely those nations therefore responsible to provide corresponding leadership necessary to generate, in this case: consensus among the exclusive power club for a meaningful upgrade.  These are the five who must work most creatively and courageously towards global democratic success.  There is no time to lose.

As you know, Article 109 of the U.N. Charter provides for convening a Charter Review Conference of the Members of the United Nations.  This is equivalent to a Global Constitutional Convention. It can be called at any time with a two-thirds vote of the General Assembly plus any nine members of the fifteen-member Security Council.  Every ten years, the Conference may be convened with a simple majority of the GA plus any seven members of the Security Council.  According to the Congressional Research Office publication written by Louisa Blanchfield, published 2009 December 15 (Page 21): A Charter review conference has never been held. It has now been 70 years.

Your bold leadership to convene such a Conference to consider meaningful upgrades to the United Nations would electrify the hopes of the masses, and particularly: of authentic democratic political activists throughout the world.  Your last year in office, President Obama, is a rare Golden Opportunity for our nation to show the evolutionary leadership required to do the right thing.  Such leadership would also, happily, be shining jewels in your legacy and also that of Secretary of State John Kerry,  U.N. Representative Samantha Power, and others who participate.  Should the conference even build momentum, much less succeed at first, your team will live forever among the Global Greats.  It is your opportunity to be first among the five veto holders to take a stand and encourage the others.  Will you let another of the current five take the lead? Please: don’t be a global lame duck!…Soar like The Eagle you are!

Forgive me for my boldness, born of service; please accept our good-will greetings and encouragements, and also convey them to our First Lady.  I look forward to meeting one or both of you in person should mutual opportunity allow perhaps later this year.

Most sincerely yours for practical unity, harmonious diversity, and all our declared STAR ALLIANCE Highest Civic Ideals,

Peter Bruce DuMont

Founding President-in-Service
STAR ALLIANCE • Since 1985
[Dba: STAR ALLIANCE • FOUNDATION FOR ALL]
Website: www.STARALLIANCE.org

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Living in Parallel Universes By George Wolfe

Living in Parallel Universes
By George Wolfe

George Wolfe

George Wolfe

The Outer Banks of North Carolina is a precious environmental reserve. While vacationing there this past September, I had the rare opportunity to witness one of the remarkable marvels of nature. On the beach about 50 yards from our hotel, 90 plus baby loggerhead turtles had begun to hatch and crawl out of their nest. After orienting themselves to the evening light reflecting off the incoming waves, they began their arduous journey to the sea. Trained conservation workers were there helping to guide the turtles while making sure onlookers stayed clear and did not confuse the turtles with flash cameras.

Albert Einstein said, “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”

As I observed this amazing natural phenomenon, I realized the two ways I could perceive this event. I could see it through the eyes of evolutionary biology, in which case I would recognize this as the result of millions of years of evolution. Those individuals who could adapt to their environmental challenges would be more likely to have offspring and pass on their genetic material that gave them an advantage in the struggle to survive.

At the same time, I could appreciate the baby turtles through the eyes of wonder, in which case I would view it as a miraculous complex event, an expression of what we might refer to as “Mother Nature,” a consciousness that seems as much spiritual as it is biological. It is as if I have a choice as to the kind of universe I want to live in.

In his book The Demon Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, astronomer Carl Sagan recognizes that “. . . nature is always more subtle, more intricate, more elegant than what we are able to imagine.” It is perhaps an experience like seeing the baby loggerhead turtles, investigated through the discipline of science yet viewed with awe, that moved Sagan to write: “Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality. When we recognize our place in an immensity of light‐years and in the passage of ages, when we grasp the intricacy, beauty, and subtlety of life, then that soaring feeling, that sense of elation and humility combined, is surely spiritual. So are our emotions in the presence of great art or music or literature, or acts of exemplary selfless courage such as those of Mohandas Gandhi or Martin Luther King, Jr. The notion that science and spirituality are somehow mutually exclusive does a disservice to both.”

So which universe should we live in?  In a sense, the universe as defined by Isaac Newton denies miracles. The “laws of nature” govern everything. Something may seem like a miracle, but that is only because it is too complex for us to understand as of now. Once we dissect the phenomenon enough, whatever it is, we think we will understand it fully.

The other universe is one where everything is a miracle.  When systems reach a certain level of complexity, subtlety and synergy, we stumble onto a reality that is beyond what the mind can fully grasp.  We are awakened to the beauty of incomprehensible wonder.

I personally find myself living in both universes. The more I appreciate evolution, the more I see it as miraculous. Those baby loggerhead sea turtles are a miracle, as was the birth of the universe from an incomprehensible singularity 14 billion years ago.

George Wolfe is Professor Emeritus at Ball State University and former Director and Coordinator of Outreach Programs for the Ball State University Center for Peace and Conflict Studies. He also chairs the Muncie Interfaith Fellowship, is a trained mediator, and is the author of Meditations on Mystery: Science, Paradox and Contemplative Spirituality.

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Hanukkah, Assimilation and Our Inner Light by George Wolfe

 Hanukkah, Assimilation and Our Inner Light
by George Wolfe

George Wolfe

George Wolfe

As someone who discovered two years ago that his father was Jewish and concealed his Jewish heritage to elude anti-Semitism, I now have a new appreciation of Hanukkah, the Jewish “Festival of Lights.”

Historically, the word Hanukkah means “dedication” and refers to the rededication of the temple in Jerusalem that occurred in 168 BCE after Jewish rebels known as the Maccabees defeated the Syrian-Greek occupiers. Purification of the temple required the burning of the lamp in the temple with purified oil. There was, however, only enough oil for the lamp to remain lit for one day. Those in charge of the rededication went out seeking more oil to complete the rededication, but when they returned eight days later, they miraculously found the lamp still burning.

Michele Alperin, in his article “The Maccabees: Heroes or Fanatics” (MyJewish Learning.com) explains the complexities of the uprising against the Syrian-Greek authorities and against the Hellenized Jews who, at the time, sought some degree of assimilation with Hellenist politics. There is a tendency to represent the Maccabean revolt simplistically as “the first battle for religious freedom,” a phrase that resonates well with Americans. But like all violent conflicts, there is a dark side to the rebellion and its aftermath that has some Jewish historians characterizing it as a ruthless civil war where many civilians were killed and young boys forcibly circumcised.

My father’s family, after leaving the Jewish Ashkenazi community and immigrating to the United States in the late 1800s, chose the path of assimilation. Unfortunately, they abandoned their Jewish heritage entirely, most likely because my paternal grandfather chose to marry a German woman outside the faith. At the time, this meant they could not continue as members of a Jewish community. So I can sympathize with the Hellenized Jews in 168 BCE who sought to preserve Jewish customs, yet remain within Greek culture.

Suffice it to say that the following symbolism I attribute to Hanukkah, as opposed to its violent context, is what for me makes the holiday spiritually significant and universal in its meaning.

It is said that the body is the temple of the soul. There is a light within each of us, an inner light of realization and wisdom that dwells in the temple of the body. Through spiritual practice, a person comes to recognize that this inner light is eternally present and continues to burn, regardless of the battles we may be waging in life outside the temple of the body.

For the mystic, this inner light becomes the source of the Hasidic masters’ passionate, ecstatic, and transforming love. As Andrew Harvey expresses it in his foreword to a book of Hasidic tales: “This bliss-fire of Divine love, underpins the whole of the universe and is boundless like the heart it streams from forever.”

Christian mystic St. John of the Cross, uses similar language to describe his experience of what he calls the “living flame of love.” “This flame,” he writes, “the soul feels within it, not only as a fire that has consumed and transformed it in sweet love . . . and that flame bathes the soul in glory and refreshes it with the temper of Divine life.”

The simple miracle of Hanukkah celebrates the transformative experience where the mind of the devotee is awakened. It beckons us to choose light over darkness, and assimilation and inclusion while still preserving our treasured beliefs and traditions.

George Wolfe is Professor Emeritus and former director of the Ball State University Center for Peace and Conflict Studies. He also chairs the Muncie Interfaith Fellowship, is a trained mediator, and the author of The Spiritual Power of Nonviolence: Interfaith Understanding for a Future Without War.

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Latest Overview: How Voices of Humanity Can Underpin a Strategy for Human Unity

The Big Picture

On the positive side, humanity is experiencing a welcome long range trend towards greater understanding, acceptance and even compassion. Literacy rates are going up. Living conditions are improving generally with proportionally more people being healthy and having to worry less about where the next meal is coming from. But this overall improvement is fueled by unsustainable economic practices. Through a combination of population growth, an ever more powerful technology, and a mistaken belief that we are separate from the natural world, humanity has overstepped Nature’s limits.

We need to leverage our intelligence and our growing sense of common humanity for a transition to a sustainable world. The great obstacle to our accomplishing such a transition is our appalling lack of unity. The nations of the world spend some 1.8 trillion dollars annually on arms. The alarming stockpile of nuclear weapons on hair trigger alert is enough to destroy human civilization many times over. Armed as they are, the nations are naturally distrustful of each other and find it hard to cooperate.

We love our nations and religions and won’t give them up, but we must enlarge our sense of common humanity so we can cooperate fully on a global scale. We are no longer in a win-lose world, if we ever were. We have entered a world that is clearly either win-win or lose-lose. Only a powerful realization that we are all in the same boat can provide the perspective and political will needed to get us through the coming population peak without precipitous collapse. That is the big picture.

What is Voices of Humanity?

Humanity has love, intelligence and spirit more than enough to overcome our difficulties. What we need is a tool to express our sense of unity in a way that does not box us in, but rather opens up avenues for cooperation at every level from the local to the global. That’s what Voices of Humanity (VoH) is, a new kind of social medium designed to foster human unity in a complicated and unpredictable world. Voices of Humanity has the flexibility needed to cope with the unexpected.

The VoH software puts together three formats: 1) the group list-serve/forum, which gives local civic society organizing efforts a way to communicate within the group; 2) the social media format with a “wall” and “friends,” which enables participation at the individual level; and 3) the local-to-global Order out of Chaos discussion, which enables collective participation by gender and age, local to global.

The Order out of Chaos discussion is organized around a monthly cycle and is open to participation by members of all groups. At every new moon, a new discussion period begins. During the month, participants write “candidate” messages. They also read, rate and comment on candidate messages written by others. Results of the ratings for the previous month are easily viewed with “winners” displayed for each of the six voices of humanity: humanity-as-one, women, men, youth, middle-aged and seniors.

Another feature that sets Voices of Humanity apart is its local-to-global geographic levels. The geographic levels let the participant shift the focus from city to metro to province/state to nation to Planet Earth. At each level, only messages written by others who share the same locale with the participant are visible. Results from the previous month are likewise narrowed if the setting is below the global level. This means we can see the overall winner for San Francisco or Greater Cairo or for Japan. The ability to go down to the city level will be useful for organizing bottom up participation by networks of cities, such as Cities for CEDAW or Mayors for Peace or International Cities for Peace or Cities of Compassion.

Checkboxes for Indigenous, Interfaith, Other minority, and Veterans make it easy for people who identify with these groupings to have their own global voices by gender and age as well as overall. It is an exciting prospect – imagine a collective voice for indigenous peoples from all areas of the world! How curious to bring veterans together from all nations. Theirs will be a voice for peace!

Importantly, candidate messages for the current month can be in reply to one of the winners from the previous month at any level. This sets up the possibility of an exchange of messages between the six voices and across levels. For instance, Indigenous Youth of Quebec might reply to the previous month’s winning message from the Women of the Central African Republic.

The VoH software will give a collective voice not just to the genders and generations, but also to the nations. In the process, the animosities that block full international cooperation will be dissolved. Why? Because a collective national voice in the context of 1) a global Voice of Humanity-as-one, and 2) a simultaneous exchange between the genders and generations within the nation in question, will not fall prey to fear and hate. Hardliners will stay away because merely by participating, they will be supporting human unity.

Also coming soon, there will be a way to use specially designed hierarchical hashtags to specify a topic and its sub-topics. At every new moon, results will be available for the six voices of humanity for each topic and subtopic with concurrent local-to-global selection and special checkboxes also available. A writeup using the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a good example is available here: voicesofhumanity.org/using-the-sdgs-as-a-framework. At the bottom of the linked article there is a picture of the geographic level control.

Getting there: The Global Women’s Movement

Voices of Humanity – Order out of Chaos builds gender equality into the foundation of the discussion. The Voice of Women is structurally on a par with the Voice of Men. So wherever Voices of Humanity is adopted, gender equality will be woven into the social fabric. The global Voice of Women is going to change the world for the better. Women already transcend the nations and religions in a way that men do not, so women will naturally take the lead in fostering human unity.

The winning messages from the first month of the discussion, which ends at the new moon of March 8, 2016 will be addressed to the Executive Director of UN Women, Dr Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka. We have a way to get the messages on her desk, but no promise of a response at this point. The best way to “get it” is to try it: ugc.c4c.intermix.org.

It makes sense to bring in women to be the leadership team for the Voices of Humanity project. VoH is a project of UNA San Francisco, and funding for the project goes through Collective Communication, Inc. (CCI) a 501(3)(3) non-profit. CCI has a small board headed up by myself, Roger Eaton. I am the Voices of Humanity designer with VoH programmer, Flemming Funch. I am looking to build a largely women’s Board for CCI and hand over the presidency to a woman by Sep 21, 2016 – International Day of Peace. Women reading this who would like to be on the Board of CCI, please contact me: 1-415-933-0153, rogerweaton@gmail.com. Send me your resume. The CCI Board meets via conference calls (English only at this point) so you do not need to live in San Francisco to participate.

Getting there: A Global Citizens Movement

We need a massive nonviolent global citizens movement (GCM) if we are to prevent global catastrophe in one form or another and manage a transition to a peaceful integrated world that works for all. Local organizing around local issues is a must as a stepping stone towards the GCM, but for local organizing to be effective on the big issues, it must be in the context of a global movement for human unity, and of course, that global movement for human unity is the GCM we are working towards. It is a catch 22. How can we get a global citizens movement off the ground when the greater part of our energy is naturally devoted to things local?

Voices of Humanity – Order out of Chaos is my answer. It gives us the context that makes our local organizing meaningful on a global scale. As we build towards a full scale GCM, the Voice of Humanity-as-One boosts morale and gives us a sense of being in the same boat; the Voices of Women and Men build gender equality into the foundation of the global movement; and the Voices of Youth, Middle-age and Seniors maintain humanity’s sense of being in process rather than a static entity while helping to bring in young people, which we need to do.

The strategy that can work is to use the awe-inspiring goals of the UN as our framework for organizing, local to global, both in person and online. The idea of working together on these goals is something that people will intuitively understand. My write up of this strategy is available here: voicesofhumanity.org/un-goals-as-a-scaffold. The article also includes a list of positives and negatives of the Voices of Humanity project as it currently stands.

Next step

The immediate need is to incentivize online participation in the Voices of Humanity community. For this purpose, we will use crowdfunding to collect money that will be given to the author of the humanity-as-one winner each month for distribution to the non-profit of that author’s choice. This program is called “Make your gift work twice,” i.e., once to incentivize participation and again to fund a non-profit. The program could bring in local non-profits who are hoping to win funding. We will keep ten percent of what we raise to fund development of the software.

Voices of Humanity smallby Roger Eaton
rogerweaton@gmail.com

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Mysteries of the Mind By George Wolfe

  Mysteries of the Mind
By George Wolfe

George Wolfe

George Wolfe

When I was in high school, I met a student named Rick who had a peculiar savant ability. You could rapidly read to him a long list of two digit numbers to add, and he would give you the sum immediately after you gave him the last number. He would not have to pause to think and calculate. The answer came to him instantly.

I recall an afternoon when a few of my friends decided to test Rick’s ability. One of us had a baseball card that listed the player’s stats. On the back of the card was a column of two digit numbers and their sum. We decided to read off the numbers to him, then check Rick’s answer with the sum on the card. After reading the numbers, Rick gave his answer. One of my friends responded, “Sorry, that’s incorrect,” seeing that Rick’s answer differed from the sum on the card.

“No,” said Rick with confidence. “You check that. That card’s wrong.” Sure enough Rick’s answer held up. The baseball card had it wrong.

Rick could only do this with two digit numbers.  If you threw in a couple of three digit numbers, he was not so accurate. His was a modest and very narrow savant ability, but it was nevertheless an unexplainable gift.

There are of course many, more astonishing examples of savants, like the musical genius of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and prowess of Srinivasa Ramanujan, the young Indian mathematical wizard and college dropout who had caught the attention of theoretical mathematicians in Cambridge, England.

It was Mozart who wrote his first symphony at age 8. When he was 13, the young protégé heard a performance of the nine-part choral work Miserere by Antonio Allegri which, by papal decree, could only be performed by the papal choir in Rome during Holy Week.  The choir jealously guarded the only existing copy of this composition, and performances elsewhere were forbidden. After hearing the work but one time, Mozart wrote down the entire composition. His father Leopold, who promoted his son’s genius at every opportunity, then showed the reproduced score to an astonished choirmaster.

Another remarkable savant is Daniel Tammet who speaks 11 languages, learned the Icelandic language in a week, and who recited the value of pi from memory, carrying it out to 22,514 decimal places. And there also Alfonzo Clemons, who suffered a disabling brain injury as a toddler, but who can, after briefly seeing an image of an animal, sculpt the animal in three dimensions with impeccable clarity and detail.

Such abilities go beyond mere talent, so much so that in Mozart’s time, it was believed a genius somehow had a direct channel open to the Divine. Indeed Ramanujan attributed his mathematical insights to a “deva” which is roughly the Hindu equivalent to an angel.

In the gospels, Jesus is portrayed as a child protégé when, at the age of 12, he was found at the temple in Jerusalem, sitting with the teachers who were “amazed at his understanding and his answers” (Luke 46, 47).

We continue to be perplexed by those who possess precocious and unexplainable gifts. Whatever explanations we ascribe to such abilities, it is clear that the mind harbors many incomprehensible mysteries. We can only wonder and humbly marvel at the depth of human consciousness and what the mind it is capable of.

George Wolfe is Professor Emeritus at Ball State University and former Director and Coordinator of Outreach Programs for the Ball State University Center for Peace and Conflict Studies. He also chairs the Muncie Interfaith Fellowship, is a trained mediator, and is the author of Meditations on Mystery: Science, Paradox and Contemplative Spirituality.

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Retirement: “To die but not to perish” By George Wolfe

Retirement: “To die but not to perish”
By George Wolfe

George Wolfe

George Wolfe

Retirement is about relationship. That’s what I’ve learned during the transition from controlling, narcissistic academic to “golden ager.” It is a time to let go of grudges and political battles so we can be freed from the power they have over us. This is one purpose of those familiar teachings of forgiveness, atonement and “love thy neighbor as thyself.”

Everything changes. The old must step aside to make way for the visions of the younger generation. If you don’t accept that, sooner or later, death will do it for you. It’s far better to die and be reborn in the process, letting go of ego attachment so you can discard your self-constructed façade and redefine your life. As it says in the Tao Te Ching: “To die but not to perish is to be eternally present.”

A favorite Hasidic story of mine tells of a rabbi who was seated along side a street watching people pass by. Soon an older man walks by at a hurried pace, burdened by the load of goods he was carrying. Seeing his distress, the rabbi asks him: “Sir, what are you doing?”

The man, looking at the rabbi with contempt, replies, “I’m pursuing my livelihood!”

The rabbi responds: “How do you know it is out in front of you? Perhaps it is behind you, and all you need to do is be still.” Retirement is about being still and listening to your inner voice, so your livelihood can catch up to you!

One of the more bewildering passages in the gospels is the story of Jesus cursing the fig tree (Matt. 21:20). When passing by a fig tree with his disciples, he noticed the tree was not bearing fruit. This was to be expected since the tree was not in season. But Jesus cursed the tree anyway for not being productive.

Since ancient times, the seasons have been a metaphor for the four stages of life, these being youth, symbolized by spring, middle-age, symbolized by summer, retirement which is represented by autumn, and old age being the season of winter. It is in the summer of life that a person typically “bears fruit,” advancing one’s career and accumulating wealth to provide for one’s family and dependents.

Once we enter the fall season of life, we are, as if, “out of season.” But this story is telling us we must not be like the fruitless fig tree. Rather, we must find new ways to contribute to society and “bear fruit,” lest we be cursed with cynicism and, in our frustration, see the human condition as hopeless.

I have seen this cynicism overtake men my age, many of whom are retired. Cynicism stifles growth and positive community activism. To avoid the curse of cynicism, we must continue to serve humanity using whatever gifts we have been given.

This effort includes reviving forgotten friendships, which for me included looking up a woman named Allison Porter. She and I met in high school on a European tour as members of a nationally selected concert band.

While sorting through the slides of my trip, I found her picture, which revived the feelings I had for her at the time. I recall that we traded a few letters after our tour, but soon I stopped writing. There seemed little chance our relationship could survive. After all, I lived in Pennsylvania and she was from Idaho. I was Presbyterian whereas she was a Mormon.

I decided to Google her name and discovered what she had written about her life for a class reunion in 2002. There was an entire history I had missed out on. But when I scrolled down further, I saw that I was reading part of her obituary. Allison died of cancer in 2004.

Share life’s precious moments and keep in touch with your friends. It won’t be long before they’re gone.

George Wolfe is Professor Emeritus at Ball State University and former Director and Coordinator of Outreach Programs for the Ball State University Center for Peace and Conflict Studies. He also chairs the Muncie Interfaith Fellowship, is a trained mediator, and is the author of Meditations on Mystery: Science, Paradox and Contemplative Spirituality.

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“Winning the Argument but Losing the Sale.” by George Wolfe

Winning the Argument but Losing the Sale.”
by George Wolfe

George Wolfe

George Wolfe

Sigmund Freud and other psychological theorists have argued that social pressures force us to repress aggressive urges. Over time, this repression creates inner conflict until our aggressive tendencies are given an opportunity to be expressed in the “legalized” violence of war. These urges are then cut loose, and people are able to fulfill their vengeful subconscious desires.

The same is true for what in Peace Studies is called psychological violence. Psychological violence is defined as emotional hostility, insults, name-calling, intimidation, verbal abuse, threats and forms of passive aggression. We repress hostile, insulting and abusive speech because it creates problems in our personal and professional relationships. Hostile speech is difficult to deal with in American society because it is protected under the first amendment of our constitution. And we have recently heard many examples of insulting rhetoric and name-calling by Republican political candidate Donald Trump.

Regretfully, Donald Trump appears to be giving expression to hostilities many Americans have been holding within themselves. There are times when we wish we could tell our boss to get lost, or throw a chair onto the basketball court like Bobby Knight, without there being any damaging, long-term repercussions.

Every so often Republicans rail against being “politically correct,” suggesting that the practice constitutes a repression of free speech. The rejection of political correctness however, does not give a person a license to insult people or subject them to verbal abuse. Donald Trump calling Fox news anchor Megyn Kelly a bimbo or stereotyping Latinos as rapists, represents a new low point in political rhetoric among presidential candidates.

In the long term, hostile and abusive speech is counterproductive and invariably comes back to haunt the person responsible for unleashing it. We see this often as politicians who resort to such rhetoric place themselves in a position where they are held accountable for their abusive language, as it is invariably misleading or blatantly untrue. In the end, American voters will prefer a cool-headed leader like Ben Carson whose message is “heal, inspire, revive.”

Years ago, a wise friend of mine named Jack Reichart gave me some excellent advice on how to approach resolving a conflict I was in. He rightfully pointed out that my anger was getting in the way of my effort to convince others of my point, that I was at risk of “winning the argument but losing the sale.”

Donald Trump may be giving voice to repressed hostilities and deeply felt urges held by many Americans, but realistically, you can’t win an election if you insult and alienate half the electorate. His speech may be entertaining and good for television ratings, but it is damaging to the Republican Party and to the process of holding constructive, well-informed debate on the pressing issues facing our country.

 

George Wolfe is Professor Emeritus and former director of the Ball State University Center for Peace and Conflict Studies. He also chairs the Muncie Interfaith Fellowship, is a trained mediator, and the author of The Spiritual Power of Nonviolence: Interfaith Understanding for a Future Without War.

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Using the SDGs as a Framework for Local to Global Organizing – an example

The International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics (FIGO) has recently published an important “opinion on reproductive health impacts of exposure to toxic environmental chemicals”. See http://www.ijgo.org/article/S0020-7292%2815%2900590-1/fulltext. The article has been picked up and popularized by outlets as diverse as Mother Jones and Fox News.

A quick examination of the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the associated 169 targets shows that at least 9 of the goals and 14 of the targets are related to the article. See below.

How will the SDGs act as an organizing framework? It is simple enough. A link to the FIGO article will be posted with a description in the Voices of Humanity online discussion and tagged for each of the SDG goals and targets listed below. For instance, the hierarchical hashtag #sdgs#3#2 would translate into three tags: #sdgs, #sdgs_3 and #sdgs_3_2. The article would thus be accessible to those who are interested in SDGs generally, or in Goal 3, or most particularly in Target 2 under Goal 3. For those who know, neonatal mortality is far from what it should be here in the Bay Area, so this is a good way to keep all the interested local parties in the know. At the same time, by changing the Voices of Humanity geographic level up to the state, national or global, the conversation can be expanded to bring in other points of view, and perhaps some novel best practices in the area of neonatal mortality.

If we lock on the FIGO post and expand from #sdgs_3_2 to #sdgs, we will see comments from people who are interested from other points of view. The philosophy behind the SDGs is that all the goals are interrelated, though of course some more closely than others. But how to have a conversation that both goes across the SDG boundaries and allows the proper focus on each? The Voices of Humanity technology is one answer. Please see the previous article for more context: voicesofhumanity.org/voices-of-humanity-un-goals-as-a-scaffold-for-local-to-global-organizing. And see at the bottom of the post for how the new geographic levels and related controls will look.

Here are the goals and targets that relate to the FIGO publication:

Goal 3. Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages
3.2 By 2030, end preventable deaths of newborns and children under 5 years of age, with all countries aiming to reduce neonatal mortality to at least as low as 12 per 1,000 live births and under-5 mortality to at least as low as 25 per 1,000 live births
3.4 By 2030, reduce by one third premature mortality from non-communicable diseases through prevention and treatment and promote mental health and well-being
3.7 By 2030, ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health-care services, including for family planning, information and education, and the integration of reproductive health into national strategies and programmes
3.9 By 2030, substantially reduce the number of deaths and illnesses from hazardous chemicals and air, water and soil pollution and contamination
3.d Strengthen the capacity of all countries, in particular developing countries, for early warning, risk reduction and management of national and global health risks

Goal 5. Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls
5.6 Ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights as agreed in accordance with the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development and the Beijing Platform for Action and the outcome documents of their review conferences

Goal 6. Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all
6.3 By 2030, improve water quality by reducing pollution, eliminating dumping and minimizing release of hazardous chemicals and materials, halving the proportion of untreated wastewater and substantially increasing recycling and safe reuse globally

Goal 7. Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all
7.a By 2030, enhance international cooperation to facilitate access to clean energy research and technology, including renewable energy, energy efficiency and advanced and cleaner fossil-fuel technology, and promote investment in energy infrastructure and clean energy technology

Goal 9. Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation
9.4 By 2030, upgrade infrastructure and retrofit industries to make them sustainable, with increased resource-use efficiency and greater adoption of clean and environmentally sound technologies and industrial processes, with all countries taking action in accordance with their respective capabilities

Goal 11. Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable
11.6 By 2030, reduce the adverse per capita environmental impact of cities, including by paying special attention to air quality and municipal and other waste management

Goal 12. Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns
12.4 By 2020, achieve the environmentally sound management of chemicals and all wastes throughout their life cycle, in accordance with agreed international frameworks, and significantly reduce their release to air, water and soil in order to minimize their adverse impacts on human health and the environment

Goal 14. Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development
14.1 By 2025, prevent and significantly reduce marine pollution of all kinds, in particular from land-based activities, including marine debris and nutrient pollution

Goal 17. Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development
17.18 By 2020, enhance capacity-building support to developing countries, including for least developed countries and small island developing States, to increase significantly the availability of high-quality, timely and reliable data disaggregated by income, gender, age, race, ethnicity, migratory status, disability, geographic location and other characteristics relevant in national contexts
17.19 By 2030, build on existing initiatives to develop measurements of progress on sustainable development that complement gross domestic product, and support statistical capacity-building in developing countries

Thanks to Bob Gould of Physicians for Social Responsibility for bringing this article to my attention. San Francisco Bay PSR is a member of the UNA San Francisco Bay Area Council of Organizations (COO). It is my hope the the COO can bring in dozens or even hundreds of organizations like SFBayPSR to work on achieving the goals of the United Nations right here in the Bay Area and using Voices of Humanity technology to connect the Bay Area at every level up to global on the particulars, such as toxic chemicals, which after all, are ubiquitous.

Directly below on the right, see how the new Voices of Humanity geographic levels will work in conjunction with other selection criteria.

2015Octgeographicslider

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