28 December 2007

No jokes in Pakistan...

At ZENmud productions, we've seriously debated whether this line of thought will send assassins to our door...

What happened these last days in Pakistan, seems like a message, but not the kind that the press is discussing on Page ONE.

We're lost, thinking of how Benazir Bhutto's death is the culmination of several intersecting lines of past history and current events. Without the key elements, however (and 'whew!!!' that we don't know those...), the only thing to do is to cast these disparate elements on the table, like I Ching yarrow sticks...


The ELEMENTS:

In 1996 or so, the Taliban were created and installed in Afghanistan, as a means of solidifying a rogue State; the group was trained and exported from Pakistan. Pakistan was then the first State to recognize, diplomatically and officially, the new Afghani government.

As we saw in newsreels, some of which were included in the Michael Moore film FAHRENHEIT 9-11, at about that same time, a pipeline was under discussion between various governments and the US company UNOCAL; Moore showed footage of the Taliban being entertained by Governor GW Bush.

At about the same time that the Taliban refused to dance, on the UNOCAL proposal,
or shortly thereafter, the Project for a New American Century (PNAC) was hotting up its rhetoric, calling for a 'Pearl Harbor' type of 'cataclysmic event' that would force US citizens to think differently about foreign policy.

In 1999, Pervez Musharraf became President of Pakistan, in an ingenious coup-d'Etat: while circling over Pakistani soil in a plane, former PM Sharif had refused entry to Musharraf's plane, after a short 'war' with India had gone very much awry. That war, planned by Musharraf, was condemned by the international community, yet! When Musharraf was denied entry by Sharif, that provoked the PK generals to oust Sharif, allowing Musharraf to land with some seven minutes of fuel remaining.

One cannot but include the bin Laden/Bush/Baker/Major connections through the Carlyle Group, a major privately-held US corporation that invests in the machinery of war, and recently has diversified into communications acquisitions.

Bush takes over the US Presidency, from a decision by the US Supreme Court.

Bin Laden (AKA Usama during Clinton's reign, changed to 'Osama' during the Bush administration) makes himself central player of the three Islamic dynamos, being Yassar Arafat, Saddam Hussein, and Usama bin Laden.

Bush creates his first WAR Coalition, to take over the Taliban government, reek havoc on the innocent Afghani people (mostly, and nearly bombed out of existence over the preceding twenty years).

Bush takes Musharraf's offers of support and alliance with the US government, paying a monstrous amount of money annually for Pakistan's help on the "WAR FOR TERROR" (A ZENmud post on that here), from 2001 until today.


IRAQ... sigh...



Throughout these war-wearied years, a dance between Bush, Musharraf and bin Laden has undermined American support of the perpetual Bush war plans... and bin Laden has enjoyed perhaps the longest streak of failures ever displayed by the 'mightiest force on Earth'... due to complicity by any of his partners, whom we can only fear knowing, whether domestically located within the USA, or elsewhere.



AND, reading today about the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, ZENmud productions is left with one recurring thought:

IF Bhutto, an opponent of Musharraf, was assassinated by factions loyal to bin Laden, then there can be no doubt on Earth, that bin Laden is showing gratitude towards his host, as a GUEST, for the luxury of a peaceful existence so near to two US Armed Forces actions, by reducing the Pakistani opposition to 'rubble'.

IF it isn't clear yet, who's playing whom against whom, it could very well be that there is no part of any recent history emanating from these 'Stanistan' countries, that IS as it APPEARS to be.

Is the last series of Pakistan events, rotating between Bhutto's return, the emergency martial law month, and now her assassination, a reward for Musharraf (or his military, or Intelligence Service?), to Musharraf, for his perpetual "We honestly don't know..." responses to those who 'want' to find bin Laden???


SEE ALSO:

The Perverzions of Two Presidencies...

After America, what?

Try this at home...



Courage, as the uncontrollable expands exponentially

ç*””*”*”*ç*””* ZENmud *””*ç*”*”*””*ç




where to, Lakota Nation?


Haumikole! Hello my friend!
Mitaku Oyasin! We are all related!

The friendly words above are a greeting to all from the Lakota Nation, a declaration of independence having been offered to the United States Department of the Interior late in December 2007.

The sons and daughters of famous Native American chieftains - of Sitting Bull, Red Cloud and Crazy Horse, took a giant, world-altering step last week, by declaring the Lakota Nation to exist again, where once their forebears led free lives on land they'd held for many generations.

This is an event of magnificent purport, purpose and projects a new dialogue, long overdue, between the White settlers of the United States, and the Native Americans (although that name seems anachronistic now...) are receiving international attention and early signs of diplomatic support. From Bolivia, Russia and Venezuela, come indications or rumours, of international diplomatic support and, eventually, recognition?



Russell Means, of the Lakota Nation, at the
press conference given on 19 December, 2007.

From the website www.lakotafreedom.com, come these heartwrenching words:

A long time ago my father told me what his father told him. There was once a Lakota Holy man called Drinks Water, who visioned what was to be; and this was long before the coming of the Wasicus.

He visioned that the four-legged were going back into the earth and that a strange race had woven a spider’s web all around the Lakotas. And he said, “When this happens, you shall live in barren lands, and there beside those gray houses you shall starve.”

They say he went back to Mother Earth soon after he saw this vision and it was sorrow that killed him.

Black Elk, Oglala Sioux Holy Man


Lest we forget as a conquering nation, perhaps the only nation that had swallowed its conquests, instead of travelling to other faraway continents, the United States government under Bush the Lesser, is now in an embarrassing position, the kind of which has always brought out the worst in his paranoid, megalomaniacal disposition.

As stated on the Lakota Freedom website, a rumour exists: that Bush is contemplating the withdrawal of financial aid from usual government sources, for Indian community programs found within this proclaimed Lakota territory.

Courage, Native Fathers, from a US citizen who would willingly give you title to your lands.

ç*””*”*”*ç*””* ZENmud *””*ç*”*”*””*ç


24 December 2007

The PARODOX of HUMANITY...

Between the Winter Solstice and the Christian holiday of Christmas, is a special time for nearly all of the developed world, as it draws close the year upon us, and brings forward a new year, sometimes more hopeful, sometimes less (Good-bye lyublyu)... But it is the perfect time to unveil the Parodox of Humanity, a crystelZENmud 'wakeup call' for fellow earthbound planet-sharing peoples...



Humanity is the only Species on Earth
Intelligent enough to kill itself off,

and...


Too egotistical not to do so.




Whatever you believe, THIS planet is worth keeping...

I hope OUR Beliefs bring PEACE to some future generation(s)

Good bye, enjoy your holidays, your family, friends and try to live in the reality of our times: it's now, people...


Courage, Mother Earth!

ç*””*”*”*ç*””* ZENmud *””*ç*”*”*””*ç


18 December 2007

Momma away

Я тeбя люблю
I love you...

It was nearly two months ago when the call came,
ending her voyage,
eighty-nine tours around the Sun...

Ending an enduring wait,
an enormous weight

The call,
from the state where I last visited my darling mother...

Our shared journey ended, and with her parting breath
the following generation stood on hand.

Where doth she fly?



(December 23, 1917 --- October 29, 2007)

I am and always was her Youngest, last of a series of four boys; our generation really straddles two, the older pair an early-Sixties generation, the second pair found their majority in the 'disco-era', of the post-Nixonian economic 'malaise' that we called the Seventies.

Mom was counterpoint to 'the old man' (
ToM), and she was strong in her faith, strong in her beliefs, and especially strong in her inquisitive intellect and moral being: it came naturally, in stark contrast to 'ToM'... and when once I reminded her in Aspen, maybe in 1968 or 69, that the man that had held open the door of the restaurant for her and I, was none other than Stein Erikson, immortal skiing hero from Norway, her heart fluttered a bit, I'm sure...

When she took my other brother and I, to see 'Mr President Nixon' arriving at the local airstrip in New Jersey, I remember fondly how she corrected me, after I offered Dick Nixon my own well-aimed middle-finger salute...

She said “SON! Please! You must respect the Office, even if you cannot respect the man that holds it...”


I've often wonder why it appears that no other American's mother taught them that?

After learning how the media has shifted so far to the right, while Republican politicians still thrill, in berating the 'liberal media' that obviously died in the Clinton era, the crass discourse that has survived, grown stronger and poisoned
the new Millennium... Mom you won't be missing much, my dear.



We latter boys, grew up in a Jersey forest of delights, a forest that we never feared, between deer herds and horse stables, swamp lands of the Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge. and hillside creeks... in the most beautiful part of New Jersey. Hundreds of deer fed off the verdant hillside flora... cycling cross-country to school on the same trails ridden (once or twice a season) by Jackie Kennedy and her crowd...


We grew up, steeped within Early US history, walking the wooded paths where, some 190 years prior, the Continental Army had camped for some 24 months of the Revolutionary War: the Wick House,
the lore which included how daughter Tempe had hidden her horse from ransacking British troops, later to ride away and warn the Generals in Morristown... and we as naïve children believed in the heroism of free-fighting colonialists.

Mom, it wasn't until many years later, that I began to find out more of the history of our region. "WAR IS HELL" is not the most recently-coined phrase:

In 1776, the people of Morristown wanted nothing more than to have the army stay in town in order to protect them. When the troops actually did come, however, the townsfolk found they got more than they had bargained for. The soldiers they had hoped would protect them from harm brought with them deadly disease, stole and damaged property, and caused severe overcrowding. Despite the uneasy relationship between Morristown and the military, however, the town’s role was vital to the American cause and part of New Jersey’s vast contribution to the revolution.



This may sound familiar, to any student of foreign occupancies...


Mom, you brought we two boys with you to see A CLOCKWORK ORANGE. back in its original X-rated version, when released in 1971, the manager wouldn't let us in, and you let him know that you thought a mother could and should have the capacity to offer her children a metaphorical journey into the future, as we are witnessing Burgess and Kubrick's prevoyant premonitions of rampant violent decadence in the youth of ... now!


My mother would remember, how she dropped me off to McGovern county headquarters, so I and my lovely friend (sigh...) could stuff some 12,000 envelopes with campaign information. I think we set a record, dear, although the cause was lost: to the man who created the Watergate cover-up... someone once called 1972 'The First Year of the New Millennium', in a clear reference to the political destruction of the American Dream...



Mom, you agreed (groovy....), when my friend and I proposed to travel by hitch-hiking, some 400 miles (700km) to Watkins Glen, in NY State, for the Summer Jam concert of 1973... and better, you convinced the ToM not to oppose this, and you provided us with our first ride, to rocket us up to the Interstate, where our prospects for a long haul were considerably stronger... and when E. and I arrived, to find peace and fun in the midst of 600 thousand hippies - and how we returned on Monday, one (first!) bag of weed and one sunburn later - three cents left in my pocket.

The Grateful Dead, who played twice! Their two hour sound check, the evening before their concert in the late morning... the Allman Brothers' Band, and the BAND...

This generational event, could only but add to my pacifist convictions, Mom, after siding with you against
ToM, our racist Republican father, who spewed on the greatness of Nixon, the obvious necessity of fighting Communism by killing babies in Vietnam, the atrocity when HIS university set up an inner-city campus in Newark...


1973...

It became the year of transition,
although we didn't even know it yet...


Momma, who watched as another brother took mySelf and a motorcycle off to Nova Scotia, to voyage by ferry, moto to Lunenburg, Halifax, and discuss whether the
ToM and I could survive, living in the same house, as violently opposed to one another as are the Shi'ites and Sunnis today... could I survive for the two remaining years of my high school?

A question without answer, but a solution nevertheless, was proposed: and good-bye to the Eastern Liberal upbringing...

Momma, you eventually resettled in Denver, joining the Eldest son for a year or more, in which you decompressed from the mighty weight of the eternal warfare we had waged together, against the
ToM, whose alcoholism and other nasty habits (A truer, right-wing Hunter Thompson "FEAR AND LOATHING" personality could hardly be invented) had vanquished much of our spirits... we survived that.

And Momma, I remember when you brought our dog
MacDuff to
the foothills
above Boulder, Colorado,



... so we could all three say good-bye, to a faithful animal that had cost the price of four tumour operations on your limited budget... his health betrayed his enthusiasm, even as he laboured to cross the rugged terrain, dry under a Colorado sky...


You entered the work force nearly the same year as I did, earning a living as best you could, after being one of the stoic housewives in the last generation that venerated this domain.

The ToM had retired to the mountains, and due to my collapsed program in film studies, while I had suffered to share his digs and earn some film-study money, I stayed, moving beyond the ToM to enjoy my own form of decompressing, as a skier and raft guide, for families and celebrities alike.

Momma, you were so happy when I married, so compassionate through my divorce, and your serious problems started to accrue, in the years after I had left Colorado for the East again, with wife, to create the new and intellectually-broadened son, aiming for a law degree, hoping to go off into the wilds of diplomacy, and write a treaty that helped the world advance in normative law formation... while learning divorce law as an extra-curricular activity, and suffering the same pains as you, to have stayed so long in a negative energy, unloving atmosphere.

Into Europe came I, as you travelled less and read more, an
Oprah fan, a liberal of stature, and a inquisitive light always... how much you suffered, watching as Bush the Lesser created his zombie world of terrorist ghouls that were certainly (FOXnews knows) only a mile or less away from KILLING EVERY AMERICAN (NB: HomeSec - this is a joke!) EVERY DAY FOR SEVEN YEARS NOW...

The only thing we have to fear TODAY, Momma, is hearing the word 'fear' itself, broadcasted from the US Government on a 24/7 basis; to win the votes of the fearful, to inhibit healthy campaign discourse on real tangible issues, to motivate the opinion of the media into supporting 'war president' policy chocies...

But as you quietly 'went to sleep' this year, suffering as so many do, the scourge of Alzheimer's, the long-term effects from diseases you'd long vanquished, or held at bay... and I so far away...

Momma, you once told me
in the mid-to-late 1990s, as I recall now, that I was the only son that said "I love you Mom" (or 'honey', 'sexy mama', 'darling') with every call; and you noted that I did this EVERY TIME...

But it was only natural to me, after being raised by you... maman, ma petite chèrie... meine Geliebte, I thought it right to break the chains that bound our relationship in the stoic ways of past generations.

Momma, we also saw the film Little Big Man, a
Dustin Hoffman classic...

... he who had the Chief as his grandfather... and who certainly gave me a facet of my beliefs, in his memorial line "It is a good day to die..."

Many know this quote... many more do not retain the powerful words that followed... these are words that tie ourSelves together, Momma...

Thank You for making me a Human Being!
Thank You for helpin' me to become a warrior!

Thank You for my victories, and for my defeats!
Thank You for my vision, and the blindness in which I saw further!

You make all things and direct them in their ways, O Grandfather.

And now You have decided the Human Beings will soon walk a road that leads nowhere.

I am gonna die now, unless death wants to fight.


And I ask You for the last time to grant me my old power to make things happen.



Remember, Mom, that to these Cheyenne Indians, the words 'Human Beings' only referred to themselves... Recall how this sequence ends, as Grandfather opens his eyes?

Am I still in this world?”

Jack Crabb (Hoffman): “Yes, Grandfather.”

“I was afraid of that... Well, sometimes the magic works, sometimes it does not.”



Momma, you helped make the magic work... and nearly three weeks ago, three weeks after your quiet sleep began, I met someone whose heart may beat as mine does... which is why I'll say one more time, in Russian...

Я тeбя люблю
I love you...


13 December 2007

NOT good NEWS


Once upon a time, there was a country that had 'EVERYTHING', and it was the envy of the world it shared... and it was warned, by Dwight Eisenhower, in 1960.

Its currency, respected and held around the world, facilitated the purchase of petroleum, especially to power THE CAR.

From T-birds to T-Bonds, the world has been transformed in many ways, during these last forty years, and that tout-puissant country, yet again, is resisting any calls upon it to 'tighten its belt', to arrest the expanding burden it places on a fragile global eco-system, and even worse:

Its currency, the once-almighty DOLLAR, has pistoned its value into the collective toilet, as the GROSS VALUE of AMERICA falls daily.

SIDEBAR: In its 2005 report: WHERE IS THE Wealth of NATIONS? Measuring Capital for the 21st Century (The WORLD BANK, Washington, D. C.), its team of authors established a 'wealth value per capita' for each country on our beautiful planet; the data in this crystelZENmud post comes exclusively from their numbers, and ZENmud productions' own derivative calculations.


If a country, say... Saudi Arabia, wanted to buy the ENTIRE United States: every business, every resource, every personal bank or savings account, every tangible and intangible asset, the World Bank estimated the US total wealth to be roughly USD 14,466.8 BILLION (in 2005 dollars). Based on a population of 282 million persons, this number was equivalent to 'each citizen' having a share in the total wealth, per capita, of 512 thousand dollars (rounded numbers).

In our day, as we near 2008, we also hear that Bush and Congress are agreeing on a 696 BILLION dollar defense budget, for fiscal year (FY) 2008.

What does total wealth and defense spending have to do with each other?

Simply, it points out yet again how disastrous US governmental response has been, perpetually, when regarding the sum of material benefits accruing to the Petroleum-Military-Communications-Industrial-Complex (PMCIC), rather than to the common citizen of our country.

Remember that the Saudis *could* have bought the United States, lock-stock-and-barrel for some 14,466.8 BILLION dollars in 2005. If they had wanted to pay this in Euros, that would mean that the King of SA would have to fork over some 12,354.4 BILLION Euros (given November 2005 exchange rates).

TODAY?

Bargain CITY, my friends, my fellow patriots: the Republicant Party has succeeded, through the amazing drifting spiral of US domestic and foreign policy, in achieving the unthinkable.

Our astute Saudi King, if he had chosen to purchase all of the United States today, would only have to pay 10,406.5 BILLION Euros, and all the while receiving the bonus from economic growth these last two years: likely estimates today, of US total value, should range above 15,000 BILLION dollars.

ANALOGY:

Say you wanted to buy a US-made LEXUS in 2005, after returning from your two-year assignment in Paris, with your hands full of Euros.

Say it cost $50k in 2005. It would have cost you Euro 42,760 for your new car, in November, 2005.

But TODAY?

A $51k car, in the US, priced in Euros, would cost you only Euro 34,744!

And this car analogy is perfect, as we read in the International Herald Tribune from Tuesday, that Alfa Romeo, a division of FIAT, is seriously considering the opening of a production plant in the US, to reintroduce its cars to the American market.

READ THIS CAREFULLY:

European automakers want to SAVE PRODUCTION COSTS.

The cost of an average American auto-worker is now TEN DOLLARS per hour CHEAPER than average Western European countries' labour costs, such as France (Peugeot, Citroën), Germany (Porsche, Mercedes, VW), Italy (Fiat, Ferrari).

European automakers would not be considering massive, expensive relocation of PRODUCTION FACILITIES if they believed that the current sad status of the dollar was going to REVERSE course in the near future.

In only two years, a growing wealth base in the US has now become worth some FIFTEEN percent less (15 %, in EURO terms) than a smaller wealth base would have been two years ago.

And how does the American Eagle feel, about becoming the source of cheaper labour for a strengthening EUROworld?

America cannot ignore the world it shares, via the bias of the media which 'serves' the public. Should it continue to do exactly what it does best: ignore climate change, ignore deficit spending Republicant misAdministrations, and worry more about Michael Vick than the Bali Climate Summit, it can only have itself to blame.

This post is merely a warning... ACT or REACT, America: it's your choice...

Courage,

ç*””*”*”*ç*””* ZENmud *””*ç*”*”*””*ç


11 December 2007

Al GORE: the last of the Americans...


In a previous post, ZENmud had endorsed wholeheartedly the winning nomination of Al Gore, former US Vice-president to President Clinton, and gave him a custom, photographic honorarium in commemoration, which we are glad to re-publish today ...

.


From the Nobel Committee website, you can read the full text of a very impressive, impressing, and heartfelt speech, from a man who could have made the past decade much less agonizing, much less deadly, than did his Republicant opponent, GW Bush... sigh - here is an excerpt from climatic expert AL GORE:

We, the human species, are confronting a planetary emergency - a threat to the survival of our civilization that is gathering ominous and destructive potential even as we gather here. But there is hopeful news as well: we have the ability to solve this crisis and avoid the worst - though not all - of its consequences, if we act boldly, decisively and quickly.


Lest we lapse into a giddy euphoria, an acknowledgement is also extended to the Peace Prize-sharing Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), whose outstanding work, in amassing troves of information from organizations and researchers around the world, are also very much worthy of our gratitude.

You can read the full text of Chairman Rajendra Pachauri here.

We cherish your dedication, both to the entire IPCC and Mr Gore.


Given our changing world, with Capitalism having granted to itself sole authority to strip, to mine, to strip-mine, extract, harvest and sell some SEVENTY-FIVE per cent (75 %) of all primary resources, in our and our fathers' lifetimes (since roughly 1880, when the OIL Economy took off), one has to balance the positive with the negative.

The POSITIVE: that commerce-oriented HUMANITY can wrench the destructive momentum of our times and forefathers' activities ...

(SEXISM ALERT: the trends that begat the problems of our gender-neutral epoch, began with the economic rules and practices that were laid down long before the feminist movement acquired its stature, and the gender-equalizing practices of these last forty years or so were no longer 'news')



... through acceptance, modification and adaptation of new commerce means, and avenues for selling wares and services.

Which is Yang... acting to promote a better way forward, towards a Yin and thus a centering future....

The NEGATIVE: remains to be seen on nightly broadcasts of terror reigning down upon ancient civilizations, by younger 'civilizations', whose means of destruction are a disguise for the need to acquire diminishing reserves of resources, turning these into products for sale, to satisfy the most crass and crude short-term 'needs'...

"We do not inherit this world from our parents, we borrow it from our children"
(a quotation that is variously attributed to French authors or Native American Tribal Chiefs)

AND thus decide for yourself, today, what world are you helping them to forge? What lessons that you teach them, will serve them in eighty years?

Walk gently in nature;
Take what you need, but use what you take;
Never harvest the last seed;
Lyublyu every day...

At ZENmud productions, it is useful to note that the thought-process patterns here, have for the first time in this life become multi-generational... there may be a future 'there' there, as Gertrude Stein said (paraphrasing why)...


COURAGE, for the dreams to come into our reality...

ç*”*”*””*ç”*”* ZENmud ”*””*ç*”*”*””*ç”

05 December 2007

"...a Kazakhstani state of mind..."

sigh...

Would someone from Kazakhstan know as little about, say,
the western slope of Colorado, as ZENmud knows about her country? (photo 1: the great Tien Shan mountain range, northern extension of the Himalayas)


Yet, as the 'great exporter' of film and TV 'messages' for nearly a hundred years, the use by America of its home-grown media as 'cultural software' (a misplaced quote from Hans ____ (to be updated)), one might guess that there are more perceptions available as to 'life in the USA', than are available to those who ponder these majestic lands that make up the Eurasian landmass.

BUT!


Who wouldn't love to visit the land from which
Humanity first domesticated the Horse, and which knows one of the oldest strains of wild Apple? (photo 2: the Malus sierversii Kazakh apple)

With a landmass greater than Western Europe, prosperity from natural resources, and .... one fact that ZENresearch knew from years back, is that Kazakhstan is one of the great LAND-LOCKED countries (other than the Caspian Sea); there is no need for a Navy, and thus the country must use pipelines for its natural resources export.
(photo 3: lovely Kaindy Lake)


Not to recount boring historical facts sans cesse, but it is interesting to note that the Russian Federation has recently renewed a long term lease on an immense swath of Kazakh territory until 2050, where the Baikonur Cosmodrome
is located; this was the scene for all Soviet space launches from Vostok 1 onward.

This leased land is some 6,000 square kilometers (approx 2,300 sq. miles); a zone 60 by 100 km encompasses nearly the same sized terrain as that of the lac Léman basin (Home of ZENmud productions, the UNOG, WIPO and the UCI and IOC) in Switzerland.

Why an interest in Kazakhstan?


Is it an overwhelming interest in our stark and beautiful natural planet?

The enticement of seeing amazingly long-lasted cultures?

A desire to pursue unfulfilled dreams?

Many potential reasons...

One concrete response... a heart beats there... and if I spelled this right:

Я тeбя люблю


ç*””*”*”*ç*””* ZENmud *””*ç*”*”*””*ç




29 November 2007

AFTER Worlds Collide... Part II of the ZENfull future...


one generation plants a tree; the
next generation gets the shade.”

(Chinese proverb quoted in Human Development Report 2007/08)



ZENmud productions is still as high as three kites, from an overly-energized period of time spent amongst fellow world-travellers who voyaged to Switzerland for a week-long seminar entitled Climate Change II: Understanding Solutions, sponsored by Media21.


Although the week was mostly devoted to the filming of speakers and participants to these workshops, time was allowed for developing friendships of a profound nature, and these were amply rewarded. (ya tebya...)

The photo of these logs came from a municipal waste incinerating plant in the Swiss Jura mountains, from which a town supplements its heating supply by burning the detritus from various commercial logging operations.

This 'solution' was one of a wide range of Swiss governmental or industrial actions that were presented to our group. Steps taken to reduce environmental problems showed how small and large government initiatives could aid to reduce the greenhouse gasses that were driving Humanity across the REACTION zone.

That zone defines a place where short-sightedness, if not replaced by long-term sustainability, will provoke unending consequences for the biological balance of our planet.

Meeting people who share multiple common planetary concerns, although certainly their experiences, from passing through various 'prisms' of national or cultural origins, enabled an expanded shared focus, and the input from Swiss and UN authorities allowed everyone to walk away more knowledgeable about the radical times we face as 'Humanity', in the coming 80 or more years of
peak climate change.


Given that Mr Al Gore shared the Nobel Peace Prize with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
just a month ago or so, the concerns it reported, on climate change are even overpowering the petroleum-profit base in the Republican Party, which has distanced itself from the rapacious Halliburton-derived foreign policy that has saddened and rendered bleak, both an outlook for "tomorrow", and the world's opinion of the United States as a 'leader' that would get us there.


To the right, is the major graph (source: HDR 2007/08) that has circled the world, showing the sustainable (dark lines) future progressions, versus the unsustainable (reddish lines) alternatives that the IPCC postulated to be fully-impacting our future if no modification or adaptation actions were fully implemented.

Since at ZENmud productions this philosophy of car-less life and sustainability through 'small-living' has been a ten-year affair, assuredly more people can find new 'freedom' by rejecting the 'slavery' that cars induce... such as:

freedom from car insurance;
freedom from car repairs;
freedom from car thefts;
freedom from ROAD RAGE;
freedom from parking tickets;
and

freedom to discuss life in a bus with a stranger;
freedom to cycle to the store and return with a smaller pack of food;
freedom to breath air shared with birds and other fauna...

Whoever said "IF you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem" is talking about all of US, sharing ONE planet, until we return it to our grandchildren...

Not from Tibet, lyublyu,

Courage through the darkening days

ç*”*”*””*ç”*”* ZENmud ”*””*ç*”*”*””*ç”






26 November 2007

When Worlds Collide... Part I of the ZENfull future...

ZENmud productions is ah-ah-live again...

Hello ZENers, welcome to those from the Media21 Fall Climate Change conference.

(FN: "When Worlds Collide" was a super, childhood science fiction novel, co- written by Philip Gordon Wylie and Edwin Balmer; the plot concerned pre and post-event effects of two 'otherworldly planets' entering in contact with the inner Solar System, and the migration of the 'chosen' to the new planet)



Rarely does such a vibrant chance materialize, to witness so many different Worlds interacting.

For the 25 participants of Media21's second Climate change workshop, our past met our future (or certain potential components for a sustainable future), as South met North, West met East, developed met developing, and the problem - of global climate change, man-made or otherwise - was offered parallel solutions.

By seeking to stress mitigation and adaptation as the solutions to actual climate change, through recognition of the value-added concepts of increasing alternative-energy use or ecological construction (which both share components of mitigation and adaptation), Media21's Conference participants were offered abundant information of certain concrete solutions offered by various players in the waste-disposal sector, a Zero Energy home owner, and an abundant array of UN Program or Agency officials whose work revolves around Climate Change.


Monday's program included a visit to Les Cheneviers, a plant operated by the Service Industriel de Genève. Throughout the windy afternoon, journalists from four continents were ably guided through this multifunctional, state-of-the-revolution plant, combining municipal functions of waste-removal storage or, here, incineration, from which the 1,000° C flames allow this SIG facility to heat water, which generates local household heating and as electricity, for some 3,000 households in the vicinity.

ZENmud will be writing much more on this in the days and weeks to come, as the events of the past week provided more-than-ample fodder for in-depth commentary.

Welcoming new friends, ZENmud returns energized for the new winter to come...


As we move toward mitigation and adaptation;

Courage!
Et la prochaine en français?

ç*””*”*”*ç*””* ZENmud *””*ç*”*”*””*ç

Ya teb...


15 November 2007

Off to Madrid...

Dear ZENers! Connected LIVE! from Madrid, you can follow the events nearly live through the miracle of WIFI... at ZENmud productions sister blog: WADAwatch



See you Live! Daily! until Saturday, its

ZENvacation week...


ç*””*”*”*ç*””* ZENmud *””*ç*”*”*””*ç

13 November 2007

Universal health care: response to Romney/Mankiw


In mortal combat with the enemy, their attacks were coming from all sides – their motivation was at least as strong as mine, their alliance was well-formed, and I was alone in the wilderness...

T
hen I woke up...

R
ealizing they were only technicolor-dreams, night-on-the-moonlit-porch-like dreams; mere memories of correspondents from the chat-site Topix, and our week's combat concerned a long website debate, mostly in the United States about...

U
niversal Health Care.

S
ome of the debaters are (apparently) of the Bush-fox-Rush-Daily mold, but one Studious conservative challenged ZEN Central to provide responses that required massive work...

Are you for or against 'Good Health'?

Are they for 'Claims Denial-systems', are they FOR depriving citizens of care?? Have they disclosed personal or professional interests, such as being a stock-broker specializing in the buy-n-sell of Hospital stock properties?

(ZENmud has no financial ties (other than a Jerry Garcia tie collection) to the healthcare industry; and minimal ties to the US Government at present)

I also wonder, how many US conservatives have taken the time to seek information from the English Conservatives, or the European 'Liberals' (STOP: in most world politics, being 'Liberal' means Free-Market supporters, aka US Conservatives; 'Liberal' is opposite 'Statist' or 'Socialist' over here), regarding Healthcare delivery... at ZENmud productions, we think that they really don't want to see the World-Conservative view as to healthcare.


Learning is fun, and another source of learning comes from mastering the 'Spin' that imbibes certain individuals to compare a Universal Health Care system to impending Stalinism, to foist off the worst of scenarios!


You wouldn't believe it, when reading what I've been reading. One rather “Cheeky Conservative” suggested that if America followed the 'ZENway', he'd have to pay for a woman in Cincinnati to have her cancer operation.

And I didn't think in time of this perfect response (ZENthought is a slow process), but since he had the gall to tell me my response was irrelevant, after I merely pointed out that his panic-in-the-face-of-communism's impending invasion, due to a woman's cancer operation being put onto the public burden, which was his BS analogy without basis in fact, I picked up speed a little bit.

Again, this is a ZEN-gift to Liberal argument of one of the REAL issues of the 2008 election: the exploding costs of GOOD or BETTER HEALTH, and the growing number of citizens without Health Insurance (Through all Government or Private Sector systems)!

I
t's about being the man or woman you are; about your right to the pursuit of Happiness, your faith in the mission of Congress (de jure, not de facto) to 'provide for the general Welfare', your expectations of your President to guide the nation forward, as gently, with determination, as does the Captain who guides his or her ocean liner across the vast charted sea–lanes for the first time, after promotion from lieutenant.

When your family: a sister, a husband, a mother, a son, receive the fated news of rejection by a health insurance provider, that the anticipated relief is not valid under the definitions of the script
.

He or she may shout or scream at you:

I don't care about them. I got what I earned, and I don't want to pay for anyone else's lack of foresight. Why should I pay for some woman's operation in Cincinnati???

Try this response:

Okay, look there are some 250 million people that have some form of private or public insurance coverage. There are 47 million people without. If we had a Unicare system, all 297 million people would be covered. So * You * wouldn't be paying for 'Her' operation, everyone would.


You'd be paying (figure of speech) 1/297,000,000th of the costs (Actually, if we go to 'Head of the Household' or 'shared household' statistics, it would perhaps be a ratio of 1/115,000,000th or so: but if it was a $100,000 situation, each person's contribution to that woman's BETTER HEALTH, would be less than 1 penny!


If you ever handed a begger a dime, you gave them 10x the need of a shared costs operation... And if you ever walked down the streets in Cincinnati, and saw a woman whose appearance suggested she'd had chemo-therapy session in her post-op convalescence, you could actually smile and say 'I did my share...'!”


Now I'd like some Cheeky Conservative's authentic response as to what I'm not thinking about, where we have to take this to a more profound level. Obviously if we add 297 million people's problems to our grateful friend from Cincinnati, we add infinitesimal, incremental costs to the situation.


Why don't Capitalist Conservatives ever think of 'Economies of Scale' when they're dissing Unicare?

H
ow many conflicting 'Codes' and 'Forms' are hospitals, clinics, Doctors and Dentists required to fill out, thanks to the thousands of private insurance and Medicaid-Medicare forms? How about the hypothetical Unicare system having Five Forms: 1) out-patient, 2) in-patient, 3) dentist, 4) pharmacy and 5) therapy?

O
ne set of therapeutic codes for computer data entry? (if that doesn't already exist?)

B
ut there's more; the Conservatives are gasping politically, thanks again to their incessant-but-waining support of the Bush-fox-Rush theory of American supremacy.

The charts to the right were developed at ZENmud productions HQ-CH, and we are thankful to the US Census Bureau, for their report and statistics that made this possible.
(Citation follows, at bottom of post)


W
hile we know that the MSM is going to continue dissing Hillary, Obama and Edwards, as we watched them screwing Al Gore, Howard Dean, and John Kerry, the pathetic status of Republican Politix is actually revealing that which I've been saying for two years now:

Who could possibly be capable of cleaning up the remnants of the Bush-debacle-decade of total American decay and decadence?”


I'd frankly rather have a Republican clean up a Republican's mess, because I believe in Republican's theory of Government: I just can't find one that has survived Bush-ism; the true Conservatives are as underground now as are the true Liberals.


Fred Thompson? You won't read much here about him because I think his cause (and campaign) is retiring...


Rudi Guilliani? Is there a reason I don't see why he actually has momentum, that isn't veering his limo towards Ground Zero: source of all his strength, bad taste and illegitimate relationships with women, Bernie and who-we-haven't-heard-about yet...


Mitt Romney?

Teflon Republicans always look nicest... and now back to Health Care.

There was an article in the New York Times, which came to the IHT a day later, attributed to Harvard Economics professor N. Gregory Mankiw: “Beyond those health care numbers”. The good professor is an 'advisor to the Romney campaign'.


Mankiw wants us to remember, as ZEN Central also preaches, to beware of statistics; I'm certainly hoping former Mayor Guilliani is paying attention, after his recent faux-pas concerning the English National Health System.


His points are paraphrased here: 'beware of Canadian longevity and infant mortality statistics, both categories of which are stronger in the Great White North' (“Canada”); 'some 47 million Americans do not have health insurance' (“No Insurance”); 'health costs are eating up an ever-increasing share of American's incomes' (“Runaway H-costs”).


ZENmud Central is going to try and address the pertinence or impertinence of these three items:


Canada:
Mankiw stokes the research provided by fellow economists Judy and Dave O'Neill from Baruch College, who point to gun-homicides and automobile violence as impacting longevity statistics; he points out that American men in their 20's have a mortality rate 50% higher than their Canadian neighbors. His flip summary on those differences is that this may point out something about US “traffic laws and gun control, but they teach nothing about the U.S. system of health care.”


Wisely or otherwise, Mankiw doesn't mention how to factor in the desperation of US citizens, especially those at the lower-earning parts of the economic ladder, whose situations may lead to guns, robbery and murder, thus creating victims. Nor did he mention what research the O'Neill's produced, as to what actual percentages these socially-violent 'impacts' produced on the final numbers.


He then throws in the American trend towards obesity, and relates that to another research study, which congratulates the American economy's ability to “supply high-calorie foods inexpensively.” Sadly he has no comment on the American economy's continuing inability to induce low-caloric-output lifestyles (Editor's note: this article is being written on a laptop, perched on the knees of ZENmud himself, who's watching TV on a rainy Sunday afternoon).

Calories (IN) > caloric burn-rate (OUT) = GAINED weight (energy stored)

Calories (IN) < caloric burn-rate (OUT) = LOWER weight (energy utilized)


Nothing else to add to that perfect equation.


He attributes greater US infant mortality to a “correlated” connection between low-birth rate babies and teen-motherhood. And here, a problem is clear, as the professor suggests that Unicare won't change the “sexual mores of American youths.”


Conclusion(s)? It's sad to distort the very important debates of our time; in the very first example, he twists a valid comparison of two distinctly different systems, chipping away at the legitimacy of the issue.


By reminding us that if we didn't have violent young men who drive too fast, seducing and screwing horny young girls, getting them pregnant, then getting shot and disappearing, while leading all of the pregnant girls to become fat welfare-mamas drinking way too much inexpensive sugar-sodas; there's Universal-healthcare for you...


Professor Mankiw proves an expert in stoking the politics of fear, and turning the debate away from an Issue-Resolution paradigm, into sewing the seeds of simplistic stress, the 'gotcha' of the Republican Party modus operandi.


How nice, if we could actually debate how to unify (at any level! “Economies of scale”) the debate on an implemented, stable health system where young woman could actually get advice on Birth Control without facing an armed-and-dangerous Pro–life activist with personal and often deranged issues against contraception... (I too can raise your fear levels, n'est-ce pas?)


What, do YOU think? Never forget, thinking in its purest form can lead to a better democracy... onward!


No insurance:
Here's the thing, Bing: there are many reasons for not 'having' (Ahem: in the US, we should strictly say 'Acquiring', 'Purchasing' or 'Being granted') health insurance. Let's look at three items (two of which cost ZENmud productions nearly a whole weekend):


First, a pertinent quote by the authors of the US Government report:
Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2006


Compared with other national surveys, the CPS ASEC’s estimate of the number of people without health insurance more closely approximates the number of people who were uninsured at a specific point in time during the year than the number of people uninsured for the entire year. (p. 18)


See, that brings out one of the hidden horrors of the health-for-profit system (insurance being only one component of the medical-pharmaceutical-hospital-insurance-lawyers “food chain”): in the more-transient, lower and middle economic strata, people may become UN-healthy, by reason of having to stay planted in the only job where they can maintain their health insurance.


Clearly, once anyone has 'used' their insurance to solve their own, their partner or their family's 'crisis', they attain the anti-Gold-ring: 'Preexisting Condition(s)'...if they don't lose a job, which this author once experienced after an expensive, work-related ski injury (trying to meet hotel clients), they face the burden of knowing that a change in career would present a new insurer with those two dreaded words...


And that is the key: ZENmud productions has sought without luck, an answer to the key question: what percent of non-insured Americans is due to poverty, or due to preexisting conditions? As well, a certain large percentage is due to people who are not eligible, as they are in the country illegitimately. Reconciling these problems (Republicans seem not to mind that illegal aliens are working in the country, being paid by farmers, agri-business or other bosses, that are as much the problem as the workers that perform labor) require concerted effort between two political parties.


Why they waste your life and mine to argue and play the blame-game is unconscionable. Remember one important item: a healthy workforce is more productive; a sick workforce doesn't. A healthy workforce spends money on the pursuit of Happiness; a sick workforce doesn't. A healthy workforce stimulates the economy properly: from the bottom UP. A sick workforce acts like a jake-brake on the economy: money loses velocity when workers become ill.


Runaway Health Costs:
Why Professor Mankiw has decided to offer Mitt Romney's 'Healthcare Program' in such a safe, 'Donor-friendly' (hint: that's Campaign finance, not transplant donors) fashion, is not our concern.


Pointing out that yet another Republican is supporting the God-given (?) right to make a profit at every turn of the screws that end up destroying the American citizen, voter, consumer and breadwinner, Mankiw makes a point that only 'better equipped health providers' are providing miracles and thus the cost has gone up from the 1946 level of five per cent of income to 16 per cent.


Professor, how sad it is that all those living Europeans, including the Germans, most of whose insurance will pay for one week a year at the therapeutic spa of their choice, have been able to contain costs to under 7-9%. How?


NON-profit healthcare delivery.


And as an economist, wouldn't your latent macro-economics focus salivate, when thinking what American's could do without crippling premiums, 'preexisting conditions', happy healthy children and partners, while spending that extra unnecessary 5 to 9 percent of GDP on Barneys, barns or Barns&Noble?

The professor wrote: “Fortunately, incomes are growing, and it makes sense to spend this growing prosperity on better health.”

Professor, you're a bit behind the ball I believe, from the source we both should be citing:


Household income increased 0.7 percent, from $47,845 to $48,201 (Figure 1 and Table 1).


Real median household income of White households rose 1.1 percent between 2005 and 2006 (Table 1) — the first real increase in annual household income for this group since 1999.”


Mankiw doesn't want you to look at Figure 1: any schoolboy or girl can see that Mankiw's distortion is frightening, especially in his words.


FYI: Real Median Household income (“RMHI”) PEAKED in 1998–1999, under impeached Democratic President Bill Clinton (a ridiculous Republican character-assassination, quasi-juvenile retaliation for a previous generation's great Criminal President).


RMHI DROPPED from 2000 to 2006, especially starting in December 2000, when the Supreme Court-annointed President announced that the economy was in a recession. Precipitously, apparently, it became a six year slide downhill for a great many Americans. And professor Mankiw glosses up the true increase for that median household: the median increase was $356/year. And let's not forget that median figures belie the truth: it indicates NO great increase for most of the people, offset by HUGE increases from the upper echelons.


Professor Mankiw thus can only be addressing the Republican base:


Everyone knows that the upper twenty per cent were lucky enough to see their incomes rise under the Bush 'No Class Warfare' tax cuts for the rich, a fact which makes the 'increase' observed by the professor evaporate.


So is Mitt Romney's man truly saying: “you may as well pay all of the extra three hundred bones you earned in 2006 (not that most did) to the Healthcare industry” (no doubt pleasing Mr Romney's for-profit healthcare industry campaign supporters)?


Folks that are struggling to maintain their homes in light of the sub–prime house-financing market's crisis. They are looking to elected officials for a resolution to the undesired reform of a system that deprives one-sixth of its citizens and residents the benefits of regular checkups that are the first line of defense to the expensive concept of catastrophic incident payments.


The US health-for-profit industry growth pattern is based on various models that maintain our increasingly depressive obsessions with life-sustaining/extending procedures, in whatever state of physical repair or disrepair, through increasingly expensive medical state of the art. For every increasing percentage point of European income that has been devoted to healthcare in the last 50 years, our US system has doubled that growth rate in percentage of income drained into basic health.



What economics professor Mankiw has either blatantly or innocently ignored, is the point that consumers and manufacturing are now seeing the increasing price of petroleum products, whose components become plastics, fertilizers, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, fuels, films and the clothes you where skiing...

All the King's Horses, and All the King's Men, couldn't put Humpty Dumpty together again...


If we find no cure for increasingly scarce oil and gas, no replacement magic fuel that lubricates the entire world economy, we still will have the greater number of decent people, whose real income has statistically stagnated since Bush struck Supreme Court gold, struggling to rein in, with no evident solution offered by Congress, the costs of healthcare. And soon, the American economy will tumble, as consumers turn off their cars to pay for “Catherine's operation”.


So Romney's advisor, this economics professor, wants people to flock to Mitt, to appreciate their zero income growth in the era of Bush the Lesser. Zero real growth thanks to increased government deficits, decreased US dollar value in foreign exchange, increased government debt and increased healthcare costs.


Funny. ("Funny."?? Not to the weary and weeping)


Everything that Bush and his misAdministration achieved, and the sad Congresses that supported him (2002-2006, and still today), is the opposite of what America needs from its next (truly-elected?) President. It is the opposite of what a VAST majority of Americans want; but it is exactly what America's 'Ruling Class' wants...


America needs a President that leads a sustained effort towards reducing American forces being over-exposed to multi-year, hostility-zone tours.


America needs a President that addresses all spiraling costs: Healthcare delivery, fuel consumption, global warming.


And Mitt Romney's economic advice on Health Care, is 'Stay the course'. Maybe Mitt will be lucky enough to be President when healthcare costs pass the cap of 20 per cent of median household income.


ZEN Central can't predict whether other candidates will actually have the radical healthcare plan that functions; no more than it can predict what event at either end of the political-military command structure will bring one of America's two armies back home.


ZEN Central analysis continues supporting the paradigm that $75/barrel is the minimum future floor-price for oil, if ever it drops below the 90 dollar mark.


Universal healthcare requires an efficient funding mechanism, an efficient and secure e-payment transmission mechanism, sustained financial and medical oversight, regional flexibility, and sustained efforts towards manipulating the markets to affected by a industry-shaking transformation.


Remember, insurance companies gave no one a choice, when pre-existing conditions became grounds for inhuman treatment of a client who's funds had produced their bottom lines;


Contemplate, pharmaceutical companies gave no one a choice, when pre-existing known side effects were suppressed in peer-reviewed research literature, allowing drugs to become block-buster killers, such as the famous Merck product Vioxx, now (perhaps) the greatest nightmare in US pharmaceutical history.


Assure yourself, that hospitals gave no one a chance, every time 'medical error' aggravates or terminates a patient's hospital stay, through malpractice or benign ignorance.


Cogitate, as to why any politician is supporting out-of-control growth of this essential industry, a uniquely non-outsource-able industry (similar to education),
whose commercial models combine super-expensive diagnostic equipment with catastrophic care, under lifetime ceilings that could be exhausted with one curable-but-durable illness or condition. No politician has created a plan to attack the lack of financial incentives for those lower income citizens or resident aliens to pass regular checkups.


And while sitting in the next automobile traffic jam, especially those which are six to twelve lanes wide, those which move as fast as molasses, are going to have to stifle their conscious minds, which offer this mantra: “My god, how can we survive this shit?”...


Courage! Unicare is coming to town...


ç*””*”*”*ç*””* ZENmud *””*ç*”*”*””*ç



Government document citation:
DeNavas-Walt, Carmen, Bernadette D. Proctor, and Jessica Smith, U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Reports, P60-233, Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2006, US Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 2007.