Evolution Growth Change

Evolution Growth Change

 

Looking back at my past life

Mistakes that seemed unforgivable

Crises that threatened to destroy everything

Or so I thought — My place in the world

And Universe — Now seem small and inconsequential

In retrospect — Except in how they shaped my evolution

And development as a human being

Small and large — Sometimes in ways that I only now

Understand and only partially grasp

 

I can’t blame anyone else but myself

Yet I can explain by describing how others

Might have been wrong, at least in regards

To what would be best for me — Yet who can say

How even the smallest changes in one life

Might positively or negatively affect the future

Present, now — A trillion trillion combinations

Of moments and choices over the course of human

History — And my own — Even if I have only lived

Once, my soul — There is almost an infinity of alternatives

Parallel courses of history, all existing simultaneously

Until the present moment — And choice — Love and life

Time — In my own life and the life of the world — Universe

 

Who can tell if I am not in fact better for all my mistakes

My parents, grandparents, ancestors from all over the world

The ambiguity and uncertainty in my own life and mind today, tonight

Might not be such a terrible thing after all — As long as it does not

Cripple, the door to the void open too much, more than just a crack

Some evolution along with the involution, meeting in the present moment

Future present for every living being sharing the world of possibilities

Growth and change, spiral life, and the arrow and circle of time

The maps in my head can be useful but discovery and exploration

Landscape of my mind and environment, greater and more wondrous

Than even my dreams — The maps help me when I get lost

Sometimes even helping me find the right path, or at least realize

I was on the wrong one in the past, and I can choose a different one

Perhaps even one from a long time ago, in the future past

That is yet new to me now — As long as I am moving forward

With an open heart and mind, in balance with my true self and the cosmos

Nature, love — The forces of order, chaos, and balance between the two

The Universe of Universes and the world we all inhabit, one of many

I am content and maybe even happy, for now — I must train myself

To be alright with the uncertainty and productive chaos of the world

That can be a blessing and not just a curse — As long as I keep

Trying to find some kind of order here, there — Truth within

Myself, if I have the right keys to understanding the all in all

The world and my place in it — Life continues ever onwards

 

As long as life continues on — And we learn from our mistakes

Become better stewards of the Earth and Air and Water — Soul

Of nature, fire of spirit — Humanity — We are only at the beginning

Of our history as a species, only limited by our imagination as a species

Imaginations or lack thereof — Our petty rivalries, ancient quarrels

Among groups of people, desire for power over others, outdated ideas

Ideologies of rigid control or complete freedom without consequences

No order at all — Out of balance with ourselves and nature

Yet we are learning — The old ways that no longer work fade away

With time and evolution of the human mind and spirit towards the source

Giving consciousness, room to new ways of organizing life and spirit

Some so old that they are completely foreign to us, some completely new

Ancient and future paradigms that can allow us to live in harmony

With ourselves and the Universe as one entity experiencing itself, ourself

Becoming aware of all aspects of existence and reality — Life and love

No greed or lust for power over one another and the planet

Belonging to the land, water, air, and sky, more than the other way around

 

Using our intelligence and wisdom to perform a sacred duty of helping

Life to flourish in ever more diverse and beautiful forms on Earth

And when we are ready, planets beyond our own solar system

Stars and galaxies far out in the infinite darkness, blue and white

Calling to us and keeping us company at night — Giving our sun a break

Dimensions and worlds within the deepest parts of our souls, of stars

And in the vast emptiness of space and time, yet almost bursting with light

Meaning and light even in the deepest darkness, the spark of life

Uniting and bringing together disparate individual souls

Throughout the Cosmic Ocean — Binding and bridging our Universe

With each part of itself, realities beyond this physical realm

Dimension, parallel universe — Doorways of consciousness

We can access with the right keys, and the knowledge of where they are

Awareness of the multiple forms of life, light, love everywhere

Inside us and outside our souls, all around us — Beyond

There is always more to discover and explore, always more

Beyond and within our own mind, body, and spirit — Our souls

Connected to the universal cosmic consciousness and awareness

Sailing Through Time on a Cosmic Ocean of Eternal Love

Sailing Through Time on a Cosmic Ocean of Eternal Love

 

Time travel, inhabiting my future self

Learning about alien species visiting Earth

Changing history by following along with myself

Leaving clues and signs for me to find later, earlier

Creating a small army of freedom fighters

Anarchists, socialists, communists united by vision

Of a world free from hunger, injustice, oppression

Taking the best of what the aliens have to offer for humanity

Replacing the old order and hierarchies of power

In the shared goal of making humanity a galactic citizen

Universal belonging, working for peace, justice, stability

And innovation — A bright future of light, life, love for all

Here, and beyond in the vast emptiness of space, other worlds

Transforming humanity’s basest instincts into higher callings

Dedication to truth, perfection, understanding of complexity

Instead of war, violent conflict, extreme competition beyond play

Shared resources, knowledge, wisdom — An Utopia — Life without fear

Problems we take for granted now, in the past, before

The Others come, who are yet to come, yet always here

Bringing new knowledge and wisdom that is yet old

Kept safe by elders of ancient cultures, carried on by future generations

Waiting for the day when they could share with all

Humanity suddenly confronted with the reality

That we are not ever truly alone in the Universe

For better or worse, and there are new, better ways of doing things

Organizing ourselves not only to survive

But thrive, and become full members of the community

Of the Universe of Universes — All times and places linked

By the knowledge and wisdom of the Elder Races

Guides and sometimes exploiters of the younger ones

Humanity — We must evolve and transform ourselves

Into something greater and more beautiful than we can imagine

Undreamed of, except by a few — The ones with love and peace

In their hearts and minds, those who are the storytellers

Artists, poets, philosophers — Leaders of thought and feeling

Those of gentle soul and also fierce passion for change and progress

Changes

Changes

Looking out my window at the treeline, from past to future

What once was diminished by imbalance and progress

Now lives free and true, a century of uninhibited growth

And flowering — All of the people I loved are gone

Taken by time and circumstance and the promise

Of a better life far away, in the Mega Cities and even beyond Earth

The mistakes of the 20th century have been fixed

Balance between humanity and nature has been restored

My home is a paradise on Earth, and most every change has been good

Yet I can’t help but wish that I could see some of my old friends

Earth Family — Soul mates, especially the ones I dream about

The World of the Future

The World of the Future

 

Advanced technology and more wisdom to go with

The ever changing human spirit, that yet remains

The same essential nature, better than it used to be

Better than things once were overall — The Hero

And Heroine — Come into the world to save us all

Yet we are all heroes, literally and figuratively

 

I awake and it is the future — One hundred years have passed

While I slept — Now I am in a world I barely recognize

Though the landscape remains essentially unchanged

Everything else is different: people, buildings, transportation

Not just in the Mega Cities, but also where I live at the edge

Of the misty mountains and its temperate rainforest

What once was a national park and is now a global one

Still the most diverse collection of communities of life

In the world — An ecosystem held in trust for the future

Generations to come, that have already come, for me

A traveler from the distant past unaware of how I came to be

Here now in the 22nd century of the common era

 

And outside the global park, as well as inside the borders

Free, plentiful, and clean energy available for everyone

The Sun, Wind, Earth, Water, and Cosmic forces of Sky

Harnessed for the benefit of all, with no cost or restriction

For those who use energy for heating, traveling, growing food

Essentially a paradise compared to the past, yet with some problems

Even in Utopia — But no hunger, poverty, or institutional injustice

A global government with local control through democratic means

And different styles of living in the hundreds of Mega Cities

Spread out over Planet Earth, unique yet unified by common interest

Peace and stability, order within the chaos of life and ever-increasing

Knowledge and wisdom about life, the universe, and the cosmos beyond

 

And in our space-time ship that I am lucky enough to have access to

Our first priority is to our home planet, and the stars and planets in our galaxy

And the stars and planets in galaxies beyond our own

Home — In all dimensions, universes, worlds connected

Parallel, alternate, pocket within and yet outside

The physical universe we call home

Even though I can go back to the world I once knew

The time of great transition at the beginning of the 21st century

I am not ready yet — There are so many beautiful and amazing things

Left to see, learn, and do in this new world of the future, yet now present

Between Earth and the Universe of Magic

Between Earth and the Universe of Magic

 

Castle at the edge of Sky — A gateway

To a world with castles floating in Sky

Faery, magical possibility and source

For many strange and wondrous things on Earth

 

And people of the moon and stars

Sharing our Sun, yet in a different dimension

Parallel universe — Connecting to many versions

Of Earth, alternate timelines — Infinite possibilities

 

Peace, Love, and Understanding — Ideals for an optimal real time future

A world that we all share without poverty, hunger, or injustice

An example for the Earth and the World of Faery

Balance and peace in both realms, dimensions bridged by the centers of power

 

Half influenced by Earth, and half by the magical land beyond yet near

The sources of material nature and magic, and the human world’s mythologies

Federal Spending Flattens Under Obama

via mediamatters.org

 

via mediamatters.org

via mediamatters.org

via mediamatters.org

Fact Sheet: The American Jobs Act | The White House

The White House

Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release

September 08, 2011

Fact Sheet: The American Jobs Act

THE AMERICAN JOBS ACT
 

1. Tax Cuts to Help America’s Small Businesses Hire and Grow

• Cutting the payroll tax in half for 98 percent of businesses: The President’s plan will cut in half the taxes paid by businesses on their first $5 million in payroll, targeting the benefit to the 98 percent of firms that have payroll below this threshold.
• A complete payroll tax holiday for added workers or increased wages: The President’s plan will completely eliminate payroll taxes for firms that increase their payroll by adding new workers or increasing the wages of their current worker (the benefit is capped at the first $50 million in payroll increases).
• Extending 100% expensing into 2012: This continues an effective incentive for new investment.
• Reforms and regulatory reductions to help entrepreneurs and small businesses access capital.
   

2. Putting Workers Back on the Job While Rebuilding and Modernizing America

• A “Returning Heroes” hiring tax credit for veterans: This provides tax credits from $5,600 to $9,600 to encourage the hiring of unemployed veterans.
• Preventing up to 280,000 teacher layoffs,while keeping cops and firefighters on the job.
• Modernizing at least 35,000 public schools across the country,supporting new science labs, Internet-ready classrooms and renovations at schools across the country, in rural and urban areas.
• Immediate investments in infrastructure and a bipartisan National Infrastructure Bank, modernizing our roads, rail, airports and waterways while putting hundreds of thousands of workers back on the job.
• A New “Project Rebuild”, which will put people to work rehabilitating homes, businesses and communities, leveraging private capital and scaling land banks and other public-private collaborations.
• Expanding access to high-speed wireless as part of a plan for freeing up the nation’s spectrum.

3. Pathways Back to Work for Americans Looking for Jobs.

• The most innovative reform to the unemployment insurance program in 40 years: As part of an extension of unemployment insurance to prevent 5 million Americans looking for work from losing their benefits, the President’s plan includes innovative work-based reforms to prevent layoffs and give states greater flexibility to use UI funds to best support job-seekers, including:
  • Work-Sharing:  UI for workers whose employers choose work-sharing over layoffs.
  • A new “Bridge to Work” program: The plan builds on and improves innovative state programs where those displacedtake temporary, voluntary work or pursue on-the-job training.
  • Innovative entrepreneurship and wage insurance programs: States will also be empowered to implement wage insurance to help reemploy older workers and programs that make it easier for unemployed workers to start their own businesses.
• A $4,000 tax credit to employers for hiring long-term unemployed workers.
• Prohibiting employers from discriminating against unemployed workers when hiring.
• Expanding job opportunities for low-income youth and adults through a fund for successful approaches for subsidized employment, innovative training programs and summer/year-round jobs for youth.

4. Tax Relief for Every American Worker and Family

• Cutting payroll taxes in half for 160 million workers next year: The President’s plan will expand the payroll tax cut passed last year to cut workers payroll taxes in half in 2012 – providing a $1,500 tax cut to the typical American family, without negatively impacting the Social Security Trust Fund.
• Allowing more Americans to refinance their mortgages at today’s near 4 percent interest rates, which can put more than $2,000 a year in a family’s pocket.

5. Fully Paid for as Part of the President’s Long-Term Deficit Reduction Plan.To ensure that the American Jobs Act is fully paid for, the President will call on the Joint Committee to come up with additional deficit reduction necessary to pay for the Act and still meet its deficit target. The President will, in the coming days, release a detailed plan that will show how we can do that while achieving the additional deficit reduction necessary to meet the President’s broader goal of stabilizing our debt as a share of the economy.

AMERICAN JOBS ACT OVERVIEW
 

The American people understand that the economic crisis and the deep recession weren’t created overnight and won’t be solved overnight. The economic security of the middle class has been under attack for decades. That’s why President Obama believes we need to do more than just recover from this economic crisis – we need to rebuild the economy the American way, based on balance, fairness, and the same set of rules for everyone from Wall Street to Main Street.  We can work together to create the jobs of the future by helping small business entrepreneurs, by investing in education, and by making things the world buys. The President understands that to restore an American economy that’s built to last we cannot afford to outsource American jobs and encourage reckless financial deals that put middle class security at risk.

To create jobs, the President unveiled the American Jobs Act – nearly all of which is made up of ideas that have been supported by both Democrats and Republicans, and that Congress should pass right away to get the economy moving now. The purpose of the American Jobs Act is simple: put more people back to work and put more money in the pockets of working Americans. And it would do so without adding a dime to the deficit.

 Tax Cuts to Help America’s Small Businesses Hire and Grow

 New Tax Cuts to Businesses to Support Hiring and Investment:The President is proposing three tax cuts to provide immediate incentives to hire and invest:

• Cutting the Payroll Tax Cut in Half for the First $5 Million in Wages:This provision would cut the payroll tax in half to 3.1% for employers on the first $5 million in wages, providing broad tax relief to all businesses but targeting it to the 98 percent of firms with wages below this level.
• Temporarily Eliminating Employer Payroll Taxes on Wages for New Workers or Raises for Existing Workers:The President is proposing a full holiday on the 6.2% payroll tax firms pay for any growth in their payroll up to $50 million above the prior year, whether driven by new hires, increased wages or both. This is the kind of job creation measure that CBO has called the most effective of all tax cuts in supporting employment.
• Extending 100% Expensing into 2012:The President is proposing to extend 100 percent expensing, the largest temporary investment incentive in history, allowing all firms – large and small – to take an immediate deduction on investments in new plants and equipment.
• Helping Entrepreneurs and Small Businesses Access Capital and Grow: The President’s plan includes administrative, regulatory and legislative measures – including those developed and recommended by the President’s Jobs Council – to help small firms start and expand. This includes changing the way the government does business with small firms. The Administration will soon announce a plan to accelerate government payments to small contractors to help put money in their hands faster. The President is also charging his CIO and CTO to, within 90 days, stand up a one-stop, online portal for small businesses to easily access government services. As part of the President’s Startup America initiative, the Administration will work with the SEC to conduct a comprehensive review of securities regulations from the perspective of these small companies to reduce the regulatory burdens on small business capital formation in ways that are consistent with investor protection, including expanding “crowdfunding” opportunities and increasing mini-offerings. Finally, the President’s plan calls for Congress to pass comprehensive patent reform, increase guarantees for bonds to help small businesses compete for infrastructure projects and remove burdensome withholding requirements that keep capital out of the hands of job creators.

 Putting Workers Back on the Job While Rebuilding and Modernizing America 

• Tax Credits and Career Readiness Efforts to Support Veterans’ Hiring:The President is proposing a Returning Heroes Tax Credit of up to $5,600 for hiring unemployed veterans who have been looking for a job for more than six months, and a Wounded Warriors Tax Credit of up to $9,600 for hiring unemployed workers with service-connected disabilities who have been looking for a job for more than six months, while creating a new task force to maximize career readiness of servicemembers.
• Preventing Layoffs of Teachers, Cops and Firefighters:The President is proposing to invest $35 billion to prevent layoffs of up to 280,000 teachers, while supporting the hiring of tens of thousands more and keeping cops and firefighters on the job. These funds would help states and localities avoid and reverse layoffs now, requiring that funds be drawn down quickly. Under the President’s proposal, $30 billion be directed towards educators and $5 billion would support the hiring and retention of public safety and first responder personnel.
• Modernizing Over 35,000 Schools – From Science Labs and Internet-Ready Classrooms to Renovated Facilities:The President is proposing a $25 billion investment in school infrastructure that will modernize at least 35,000 public schools – investments that will create jobs, while improving classrooms and upgrading our schools to meet 21^st century needs. This includes a priority for rural schools and dedicated funding for Bureau of Indian Education funded schools. Funds could be used for a range of emergency repair and renovation projects, greening and energy efficiency upgrades, asbestos abatement and removal, and modernization efforts to build new science and computer labs and to upgrade technology in our schools. The President is also proposing a $5 billion investment in modernizing community colleges (including tribal colleges), bolstering their infrastructure in this time of need while ensuring their ability to serve future generations of students and communities.
• Making an Immediate Investment in Our Roads, Rails and Airports: The President’s plan includes $50 billion in immediate investments for highways, transit, rail and aviation, helping to modernize an infrastructure that now receives a grade of “D” from the American Society of Civil Engineers and putting hundreds of thousands of construction workers back on the job. The President’s plan includes investments to improve our airports, support NextGen Air Traffic Modernization efforts, and resources for the TIGER and TIFIA programs, which target competitive dollars to innovative multi-modal infrastructure programs. It will also take special steps to enhance infrastructure-related job training opportunities for individuals from underrepresented groups and ensure that small businesses can compete for infrastructure contracts.The President will work administratively to speed infrastructure investment through a recently issued Presidential Memorandum developed with his Jobs Council directingdepartments and agencies to identify high impact, job-creating infrastructure projects that can be expedited in a transparent manner through outstanding review and permitting processes. The call for greater infrastructure investment has been joined by leaders from AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka to U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Thomas Donohue.
• Establishing a National Infrastructure Bank:The President is calling for Congress to pass a National Infrastructure Bank capitalized with $10 billion, in order to leverage private and public capital and to invest in a broad range of infrastructure projects of nationaland regional significance, without earmarks or traditional political influence. The Bank would be based on the model Senators Kerry and Hutchison have championed while building on legislation by Senators Rockefeller and Lautenberg and the work of long-time infrastructure bank champions like Rosa DeLauro and the input of the President’s Jobs Council.
• Project Rebuild: Putting People Back to Work Rehabilitating Homes, Businesses and Communities. The President is proposing to invest $15 billion in a national effort to put construction workers on the job rehabilitating and refurbishing hundreds of thousands of vacant and foreclosed homes and businesses. Building on proven approaches to stabilizing neighborhoods with high concentrations of foreclosures, Project Rebuild will bring in expertise and capital from the private sector, focus on commercial and residential property improvements, and expand innovative property solutions like land banks. This approach will not only create construction jobs but will help reduce blight and crime and stabilize housing prices in areas hardest hit by the housing crisis.
• Expanding Access to High-Speed Wireless in a Fiscally Responsible Way: The President is calling for a deficit reducing plan to deploy high-speed wireless services to at least 98 percent of Americans, including those in more remote rural communities, while freeing up spectrum through incentive auctions, spurring innovation, and creating a nationwide, interoperable wireless network for public safety.
   

Pathways Back to Work for Americans Looking for Jobs 

• Reform Our Unemployment Insurance System to Provide Greater Flexibility, While Ensuring 6 Million People Do Not Lose Benefits: Drawing on the best ideas of both parties and the most innovative states, the President is proposing the most sweeping reforms to the unemployment insurance (UI) system in 40 years help those without jobs transition to the workplace. Alongside these reforms, the President is reiterating his call to extend unemployment insurance, preventing 6 million people looking for work from losing their benefits and extending what the independent Congressional Budget Office has determined is the highest “bang for the buck” option to increase economic activity.
• Reemployment Assistance: States will be required to design more rigorous reemployment services for the long-term unemployed and to conduct assessments to review the longest-term claimants of UI to assess their eligibility and help them develop a work-search plan.  These reforms are proven to speed up UI beneficiaries’ return to work.
• Work-sharing:The President will expand “work-sharing” to encourage arrangements using UI that keep employees on the job at reduced hours, rather than laying them off.
• State Flexibility for Bold Reforms to Put the Long-Term Unemployed Back To Work:The President is proposing to provide additional funds to allow states to introduce new programs aimed at long-term unemployed workers, including:
• “Bridge to Work” Programs:States will be able to put in place reforms that build off what works in programs like Georgia Works or Opportunity North Carolina, while instituting important fixes and reforms that ensure minimum wage and fair labor protections are being enforced.  These approaches permits long-term unemployed workers to continue receiving UI while they take temporary, voluntary work or pursue work-based training. The President’s plan requires compliance with applicable minimum wage and other worker rights laws.
• Wage Insurance:  States will be able to use UI to encourage older, long-term unemployed Americans to return to work in new industries or occupations.
• Startup Assistance:  States will have flexibility to help long-term unemployed workers create their own jobs by starting their own small businesses.
• Other Reemployment Reforms:  States will be able to seek waivers from the Secretary of Labor to implement other innovative reforms to connect the long-term unemployed to work opportunities.
• Tax Credits for Hiring the Long-Term Unemployed:The President is proposing a tax credit of up to $4,000 for hiring workers who have been looking for a job for over six months.
• Investing in Low-Income Youth and Adults: The President is proposing a new Pathways Back to Work Fund to provide hundreds of thousands of low-income youth and adults with opportunities to work and to achieve needed training in growth industries. The Initiative will do three things: i) support summer and year-round jobs for youth, building off of successful programs that supported over 370,000 such jobs in 2009 and 2010; ii) support subsidized employment opportunities for low-income individuals who are unemployed, building off the successful TANF Emergency Contingency Fund wage subsidy program that supported 260,000 jobs in 2009 and 2010; and iii) support promising and innovative local work-based job and training initiatives to place low-income adults and youths in jobs quickly.
• Prohibiting Employers from Discriminating Against Unemployed Workers: The President’s plan calls for legislation that would make it unlawful to refuse to hire applicants solely because they are unemployed or to include in a job posting a provision that unemployed persons will not be considered.  

 More Money in the Pockets of Every American Worker and Family

•  Cutting Payroll Taxes in Half for 160 Million Workers Next Year: The President’s plan will expand the payroll tax cut passed last December by cutting workers payroll taxes in half next year. This provision will provide a tax cut of $1,500 to the typical family earning $50,000 a year. As with the payroll tax cut passed in December 2010, the American Jobs Act will specify that Social Security will still receive every dollar it would have gotten otherwise, through a transfer from the General Fund into the Social Security Trust Fund.
• Helping More Americans Refinance Mortgages at Today’s Historically Low Interest Rates: The President has instructed his economic team to work with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, their regulator the FHFA, major lenders and industry leaders to remove the barriers that exist in the current refinancing program (HARP) to help more borrowers benefit from today’s historically low interest rates. This has the potential to not only help these borrowers, but their communities and the American taxpayer, by keeping borrowers in their homes and reducing risk to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
   

Fully Paid for as Part of the President’s Long-Term Deficit Reduction Plan. 

• To ensure that the American Jobs Act is fully paid for, the President will call on the Joint Committee to come up with additional deficit reduction necessary to pay for the Act and still meet its deficit target. The President will, in the coming days, release a detailed plan that will show how we can do that while achieving the additional deficit reduction necessary to meet the President’s broader goal of stabilizing our debt as a share of the economy.

 

 

		$, bn
Tax Cuts to Help America’s Small Businesses Hire and Grow		70
	Cut employer payroll taxes in half & bonus payroll cut for new jobs/wages	65
	Extend 100% expensing in 2012	5
Putting Workers Back on the Job While Rebuilding and Modernizing America		140
	Teacher rehiring and first responders	35
	Modernizing schools	30
	Immediate surface transportation	50
	Infrastructure bank	10
	Rehabilitation/repurposing of vacant property (neighborhood stabilization)	15
	National wireless initiative	0*
	Veterans hiring initiative	n.a.
Pathways Back to Work for Americans Looking for Jobs		62
	UI Reform and Extension	49
	Jobs tax credit for long term unemployed	8
	Pathways back to work fund	5
More Money in the Pockets of Every American Worker and Family		175
	Cutting employee payroll taxes in half in 2012	175
TOTAL		447

* Proposal has a gross cost of $10bn, but a net deficit reducing impact of $18bn because of spectrum auction proceeds.

 

via whitehouse.gov

Sounds good to me …

What the Debt Deal Costs – How Almost Everyone Just Got Screwed In One Chart | Center for American Progress

via front.moveon.org

Uncanny how similar cuts to taxes that were protected are in relation to government programs that were not protected.

Rick Perry Says Social Security And Medicare Are Unconstitutional | ThinkProgress

Rick Perry Says Social Security And Medicare Are Unconstitutional | ThinkProgress.

‘Perry’s reading of the Constitution raises very serious questions about whether he understands the English language. The Constitution gives Congress the power to “to lay and collect taxes” and to “provide for the…general welfare of the United States.” No plausible interpretation of the words “general welfare” does not include programs that ensure that all Americans can live their entire lives secure in the understanding that retirement will not force them into poverty and untreated sickness.

Moreover, Perry’s belief that Social Security and Medicare must cease to exist not only puts him well to the right of his fellow Republicans in Congress — who recently voted to gradually phase out Medicare — it also puts him at the rightward fringe of the GOP presidential field. Not even Michele Bachmann has gone on record claiming that America’s two most cherished programs for seniors violate the Constitution, although she did invite a Fox News analyst who shares Perry’s beliefs to lecture her fellow lawmakers on what the Constitution requires.

When House Budget Chair Paul Ryan (R-WI) released the GOP’s plan to slowly eliminate Medicare, it was the most conservative budget proposal anyone had seriously considered in generations. Perry’s agenda, however, makes Paul Ryan look like Ted Kennedy.’

The Choices Still to Be Made in the New Debt Deal: Tax Breaks for the Wealthy and Special Interests Should Not Trump the Common Good | Center for American Progress

via americanprogress.org

‘House Republicans continue to stonewall on revenues. But some Senate Republicans have signaled a willingness to cut special tax breaks and subsidies. And poll after poll has shown that vast majorities of Americans—in fact strong majorities of Republicans—support a balanced approach that includes cuts to spending programs and special tax breaks. It remains to be seen whether our political system will be able to produce the balanced result the American people clearly want.’

Making More, Contributing Less: Millionaires’ Tax Rates Have Declined While Everyone Else Contributes to Deficit Reduction | Center for American Progress

Making More, Contributing Less

Millionaires’ Tax Rates Have Declined While Everyone Else Contributes to Deficit Reduction

SOURCE: iStockphoto

The final budget deal struck this week won’t ask America’s millionaires to contribute a single dime. That’s unfortunate because they certainly can afford it. Not only have their incomes been skyrocketing but their tax rates have plunged over the last two decades. As a percentage of their incomes, millionaires are now paying about one-quarter less of their income to federal taxes than they did in the mid-1990s.

By Seth Hanlon | August 4, 2011

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Republicans in the House of Representatives got their way this week: The final budget deal struck with President Barack Obama raises no additional revenues while cutting more than $2 trillion from public investments, defense, and government services that all Americans rely upon. That’s a better outcome than a Tea Party-caused default but it’s a bad deal for America’s middle class.

Meanwhile, America’s millionaires won’t be asked to contribute a single dime. That’s unfortunate because they certainly can afford it. Not only have their incomes been skyrocketing but data released this week by the Internal Revenue Service reveal that their tax rates have plunged over the last two decades. As a percentage of their incomes, millionaires are now paying about one-quarter less of their income to federal taxes than they did in the mid-1990s.

Millionaires paid an average tax rate of 22.4 percent in 2009, down by a quarter since 1995, when they paid an average of 30.4 percent. (see chart)

Big benefits from the Bush tax cuts

So what’s causing the tax bills of the wealthiest to drop? The average millionaire will pay $136,000 less this year because the Bush tax cuts are still in effect, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. The Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 lowered the top marginal rate from the Clinton-era 39.6 percent to 35 percent. They also dropped the rates on capital gains and dividend income to a historically low 15 percent. (Capital gains rates had already been cut from 28 percent to 20 percent in 1997.)

That move was a boon to millionaires because they receive more than 60 percent of all income from long-term capital gains and nearly 40 percent of all income from tax-favored dividends.

And it was a super-boon to mega-millionaires and billionaires. IRS data show that the tax rates of the richest 400 Americans declined from 29.9 percent in 1995 to 18.1 percent in 2008, largely because that exclusive group derives two-thirds of its income from capital gains.

Mounting inequality

To be sure, tax rates on middle-class Americans have also declined. But their incomes have stagnated, which is decidedly not the case for millionaires.

Tax return data show that millionaires are now taking home one-tenth of all income in the country, even though they comprise only 0.2 percent (or 1 in 500) of all tax filers. That continues a troubling trend of growing inequality: From 1979 to 2007, pretax incomes of the richest 1 percent nearly tripled in real terms, while the income of the middle 20 percent of Americans grew by only one-quarter.

Now what?

The budget deal requires Congress to convene a “Super Committee” to consider additional deficit reduction measures, and some members will undoubtedly push for far-reaching changes to Social Security and Medicare. But before cutting more of the programs that middle-class families rely on, the Super Committee should insist that millionaires pay taxes at the rates they did just a short time ago.

If millionaires were simply paying the same level of federal income taxes as they were in the mid-1990s, the federal government would have collected an additional $65 billion in revenues in 2009. That amount of revenue over 10 years, $650 billion, exceeds the cuts to domestic discretionary programs in the budget deal. Those $600 billion in cuts will result in reduced investment in infrastructure, education, housing, public health, food and drug safety, medical research, law enforcement, and other important areas.

Proponents of the Bush tax cuts argued that lower taxes on top earners would boost the economy. That didn’t happen. The United States experienced real economic growth of 3.2 percent during the 10 years before the Bush tax cuts but only 1.7 percent since. (And this anemic growth was not just a result of the Great Recession; pre-recession growth from 2002 to 2007 averaged only 2.7 percent.) The IRS data also show the effect of the recession on middle-class families: Average income declined 14 percent from 2007 to 2009.

In the 1990s, when the tax rates on millionaires were higher, the United States grew its economy, closed large deficits, and started to pay down the debt. Alas, the Bush tax cuts and other policies set us on a different fiscal course.

Despite the fact that their taxes were higher, the 1990s were also a pretty good time for millionaires. The after-tax income of the richest 1 percent of the country grew by 77 percent in real terms during that decade—and it’s now double what it was in 1996.

It’s time to ask the people who have benefited the most from unequal income growth and round after round of tax cuts to help reduce the deficit.

Seth Hanlon is Director of Fiscal Reform at the Center for American Progress.

Endnotes

[1]. Internal Revenue Service, Publication 1304 (tax year 2009), Figure 4 (based on the broad “1979” measure of income).

To speak with our experts on this topic, please contact:

Print: Anna Soellner (economic policy)
202.478.5322 or asoellner@americanprogress.org

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Well that makes perfect sense.

Fela Kuti – Music Is The Weapon on Vimeo

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King of Music.

Rabindranath Tagore, Mevlana Rumi, Dalai Lama, Vonnegut, Nhat Hahn, Lao Tzu, Yoko Ono, Mahatma Gandhi, Buddha <3

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☮Peace is every step.
- Thich Nhat Hahn

The Inner Sun

Love is longing and longing, the pain of being parted;
No illness is rich enough for the distress of the heart,
A lover’s lament surpasses all other cries of pain.
Love is the royal threshold to God’s mystery.
The carnival of small affections and polite attachments
Which litter and consume our passing time
Is no match to Love which pulses behind this play.
It’s easy to talk endlessly about Love,
To live Love is to be seized by joy and bewilderment;
Love is not clear-minded, busy with images and argument.
Language is too precocious, too impudent, too sane
To stop the molten lava of Love which churns the blood,
This practicing energy burns the tongue to silence;
The knowing pen is disabled, servile paper
Shrivels in the fire of Love. Bald reason too is an ass
Explaining Love, deceived by spoilt lucidity.
Love is dangerous offering no consolation,

Only those who are ravaged by Love know Love,
The sun alone unveils the sun to those who have
The sense to receive the senseless and not turn away.
Cavernous shadows need the light to play but light
And light alone can lead you to the light alone.
Material shadows weigh down your vision with dross,
But the rising sun splits the ashen moon in empty half.
The outer sun is our daily miracle in timely
Birth and death, the inner sun
Dazzles the inner eye in a timeless space.
Our daily sun is but a working star in a galaxy of stars,
Our inner sun is One, the dancing nuance of eternal light.
You must be set alight by the inner sun,
You have to live your Love or else
You’ll only end in words.
~ Mevlana Rumi

Translated by Raficq Abdulla

Knowing ignorance is strength; ignoring knowledge is sickness.
- Lao Tzu

I tell you one thing – if you want peace of mind, do not find fault with others. Rather learn to see your own faults. Learn to make the whole world your own. No one is a stranger, my child; this whole world is your own.
– SRI SARADA DEVI

Our world is in profound danger. Mankind must establish a set of positive values with which to secure its own survival.
This quest for enlightenment must begin now.
It is essential that all men and women become aware of what they are, why they are here on Earth and what they must do to preserve civilization before it is too late. ~ Richard Matheson (born 20 February 1926)

I will, in the name of humanity which is outraged, in the name of liberty which is fettered, in the name of the constitution and the Bible, which are disregarded and trampled upon, dare to call in question and to denounce, with all the emphasis I can command, everything that serves to perpetuate slavery — the great sin and shame of America! “I will not equivocate; I will not excuse;” I will use the severest language I can command; and yet not one word shall escape me that any man, whose judgement is not blinded by prejudice, or who is not at heart a slaveholder, shall not confess to be right and just.
~ Frederick Douglass ~

There can be no Friendship where there is no Freedom. Friendship loves a free Air, and will not be penned up in streight and narrow Enclosures. It will speak freely, and act so too; and take nothing ill where no ill is meant; nay, where it is, ’twill easily forgive, and forget too, upon small Acknowledgments. ~ William Penn

All in all is all we are. ~ Kurt Cobain (born 20 February 1967)

We picked up everything we could get our hands on. Not that we needed all that for the trip, but once you get locked into a serious drug-collection, the tendency is to push it as far as you can.
The only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. And I knew we’d get into that rotten stuff pretty soon. ~ Hunter S. Thompson (died 20 February 2005)

If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. ~ Frederick Douglass

Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what a people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. Men may not get all they pay for in this world; but they must pay for all they get. ~ Frederick Douglass (died February 20, 1895; born February 1817/1818, birthdate unknown)

No man can put a chain about the ankle of his fellow man without at last finding the other end fastened about his own neck. ~ Frederick Douglass

If you cannot find the truth right where you are, where else do you expect to find it?
- Dogen Zenji

Words of wisdom
came to me at last
“the beloved you’ve lost
the one you’ve been seeking outside
can only be found inside”
- Rumi

All great truths begin as blasphemies.
- George Bernard Shaw

‎”…meditation is the only way to make you absolutely sane.”
~ Osho

The rose has come from beyond; it is from the other world. That’s why this world cannot encompass the rose. The rose is so graceful, so elegant that the world of dreams is too narrow to dream of the rose. What is meant by the rose, a messenger from the garden of the intellect, from the grove of spirit? What is the rose? A document that describes the beauty and the highness of the rose of truth that neither turns brown nor withers.
~ Rumi

Come come the roses are in bloom!
The Beloved has arrived!
Now it is time to unite the soul and the world.
~ Rumi

Without trying, the world is heading for perfect awareness – and you are part of it.
- Yoko Ono

We cannot be loving and compassionate unless at the same time we curb our own harmful impulses and desires.

Large human movements spring from individual human initiatives.
- Dalai Lama

☮Peace is the only battle worth waging.
- Albert Camus (1913-1960)

☮All it takes for evil to rule a land is for good men to remain silent.
- Daniel Webster (1782-1852)

Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, What are you doing for others. ♥ Martin Luther King, Jr.

Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is of you.
♥ Ralph Waldo Emerson

‎”Responding to adverse situations or conditions with patience and tolerance rather than reacting with anger and hatred involves active restraint, which arises from a strong, self-disciplined mind. We should not see patience as a sign of weakness or giving in, but rather as a sign of strength.”
- Dalai Lama

Seek out the source
which shines forever.
- Mevlana Rumi

“In the midst of death life persists.
In the midst of untruth truth persists.
In the midst of darkness light persists.”
- Mahatma Gandhi

We are all dependent on one another, every soul of us on earth.
– George Bernard Shaw

I am not so enamored of my own opinions that I disregard what others may think of them. I am aware that a philosopher’s ideas are not subject to the judgement of ordinary persons, because it is his endeavor to seek the truth in all things, to the extent permitted to human reason by God. Yet I hold that completely erroneous views should be shunned. ~ Nicolaus Copernicus (born 19 February 1473)

External success has to do with people who may see me as a model, or an example, or a representative. As much as I may dislike or want to reject that responsibility, this is something that comes with public success. It’s important to give others a sense of hope that it is possible and you can come from really different places in the world and find your own place in the world that’s unique for yourself. ~ Amy Tan (born 19 February 1952)

Hello darkness, my old friend
I’ve come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence.
~ Paul Simon ~
(Lyrics to “The Sound of Silence” — written on this day in 1964)

Now that your rose is in bloom,
A light hits the gloom on the grave,
I’ve been kissed by a rose on the grave.
~ Seal ~

And the sign flashed out its warning
In the words that it was forming
And the sign said “The words of the prophets
Are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls
And whispered in the sound of silence.”
~ Paul Simon ~ (song written on this day in 1964)

People have such terrible assumptions about ghosts — you know, phantoms that haunt you, that make you scared, that turn the house upside down. Yin people are not in our living presence but are around, and kind of guide you to insights. Like in Las Vegas when the bells go off, telling you you’ve hit the jackpot. Yin people ring the bells, saying, “Pay attention.” And you say, “Oh, I see now.” Yet I’m a fairly skeptical person. I’m educated, I’m reasonably sane, and I know that this subject is fodder for ridicule. … To write the book, I had to put that aside. As with any book. I go through the anxiety, “What will people think of me for writing something like this?” But ultimately, I have to write what I have to write about, including the question of life continuing beyond our ordinary senses. ~ Amy Tan

Baby, I compare you to a kiss from a rose on the grave.
Ooh, the more I get of you,
Stranger it feels, yeah.
And now that your rose is in bloom,
A light hits the gloom on the grave.
~ Seal ~

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Wikiquote:Quote_of_the_day/February#19

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I’m sure you’ve noticed that more and more people are getting aware.
- Yoko Ono

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via apod.nasa.gov

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”
— Martin Luther King Jr.

“You’ve gotta dance like there’s nobody watching,
Love like you’ll never be hurt,
Sing like there’s nobody listening,
And live like it’s heaven on earth.”
— William W. Purkey

“You know you’re in love when you can’t fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.”
— Dr. Seuss

“I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells.”
— Dr. Seuss

“Be the change that you wish to see in the world.”
— Mahatma Gandhi

“Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.”
— Maya Angelou

“A room without books is like a body without a soul.”
— Marcus Tullius Cicero

“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”
— Eleanor Roosevelt

“Don’t walk behind me; I may not lead. Don’t walk in front of me; I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend.”
— Albert Camus

“If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.”
— Mark Twain

“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”
— Oscar Wilde

“It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt.”
— Abraham Lincoln

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”
— Mark Twain

“So many books, so little time.”
— Frank Zappa

“Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: “What! You too? I thought I was the only one.”
— C.S. Lewis

“In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.”
— Robert Frost

“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.”
— Mahatma Gandhi

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
— Maya Angelou

“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”
— John Lennon

“If you don’t stand for something you will fall for anything.”
— Malcolm X

“Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift. That’s why we call it ‘The Present’.”
— Eleanor Roosevelt

“Without music, life would be a mistake.”
— Friedrich Nietzsche

“A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool.”
— William Shakespeare (As You Like It)

“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.”
— Albert Einstein

“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.”
— Mark Twain

“I believe that everything happens for a reason. People change so that you can learn to let go, things go wrong so that you appreciate them when they’re right, you believe lies so you eventually learn to trust no one but yourself, and sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together.”
— Marilyn Monroe

“The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it’s indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference.”
— Elie Wiesel

“Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.”
— Groucho Marx (The Essential Groucho)

“All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.”
— J.R.R. Tolkien (The Fellowship of the Ring)

“The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can’t read them.”
— Mark Twain

“That which does not kill us makes us stronger.”
— Friedrich Nietzsche

“A day without sunshine is like, you know, night.”
— Steve Martin

“I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.”
— Albert Einstein

“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”
— Oscar Wilde (Lady Windermere’s Fan)

“If you want to know what a man’s like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.”
— J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire)

“The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.”
— Jane Austen (Northanger Abbey)

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and it may be necessary from time to time to give a stupid or misinformed beholder a black eye.”
— Jim Henson

via en.wikiquote.org

The Great Spirit does not toil within the bounds of human time, place, or casualty.
The Great Spirit is superior to these human questionings. It teems with many rich and wandering drives which to our shallow minds seem contradictory; but in the essence of divinity they fraternize and struggle together, faithful comrades-in-arms.
The primordial Spirit branches out, overflows, struggles, fails, succeeds, trains itself. It is the Rose of the Winds.
~ Nikos Kazantzakis ~

What a man believes may be ascertained, not from his creed, but from the assumptions on which he habitually acts. ~ George Bernard Shaw

Teachers are those who use themselves as bridges, over which they invite their students to cross; then having facilitated their crossing, joyfully collapse, encouraging them to create bridges of their own. ~ Nikos Kazantzakis (born 18 February 1883)

At some point in life the world’s beauty becomes enough. You don’t need to photograph, paint or even remember it. It is enough. No record of it needs to be kept and you don’t need someone to share it with or tell it to. When that happens — that letting go — you let go because you can. ~Toni Morrison (born 18 February 1931)

The doors of heaven and hell are adjacent and identical. ~ Nikos Kazantzakis

My prayer is not the whimpering of a beggar nor a confession of love. Nor is it the petty reckoning of a small tradesman: Give me and I shall give you. My prayer is the report of a soldier to his general: This is what I did today, this is how I fought to save the entire battle in my own sector, these are the obstacles I encountered, this is how I plan to fight tomorrow. ~ Nikos Kazantzakis

The heart unites whatever the mind separates, pushes on beyond the arena of necessity and transmutes the struggle into love. ~ Nikos Kazantzakis

Where are we going? Do not ask! Ascend, descend. There is no beginning and no end. Only this present moment exists, full of bitterness, full of sweetness, and I rejoice in it all. ~ Nikos Kazantzakis

I am a mariner of Odysseus with heart of fire but with mind ruthless and clear.

My entire soul is a cry, and all my work the commentary on that cry.

I said to the almond tree: “Speak to me of God”
and the almond tree blossomed.
~ Nikos Kazantzakis

Do not let your peace depend on the hearts of others; whatever they say about you, good or bad, you are not because of it another, for as you are, you are.
– THOMAS A KEMPIS

via apod.nasa.gov

‎”I am in the right place, at the right time, doing the right thing.”
— Louise L. Hay

‎”Love yourself as much as you can and all of life will mirror this love back to you.”
- Louise L. Hay

“Life is now. There was never a time when your life was not now, nor will there ever be.”
- Eckhart Tolle

The law of nature is that one can never unknow what one knows. So all of us are getting wiser and wiser. There’s no stopping it!

Change is inevitable. And it’s up to us to make it a good change.
- Yoko Ono

☮Peace will be victorious. — Yitzhak Rabin (1922-1995)

‎”Ambition is bondage.”
–Ibn Gabirol

Better than a thousand hollow words is one word that brings peace.
♥ Buddha

A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him, I may think aloud.
♥ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Your work is to discover your work and then with all your heart to give yourself to it.
♥ Buddha

The BIG question is whether you are going to be able to say a hearty YES to your adventure!
♥ Joseph Campbell

You cannot travel on the path until you become the path itself.
♥ Buddha

“The seemingly impossible is possible. We can have a good world.”
~ Hans Rosling

Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents which, in prosperous circumstances, would have lain dormant.
♥ Horace

“It’s not worth doing something unless someone, somewhere, would much rather you weren’t doing it.”
— Terry Pratchett

“How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.”
— Henry David Thoreau

“The world is indeed full of peril and in it there are many dark places.
But still there is much that is fair. And though in all lands, love is now
mingled with grief, it still grows, perhaps, the greater.”
— J.R.R. Tolkien (The Lord of the Rings)

“However many holy words you read, however many you speak, what good will they do you if you do not act on upon them?”
— Siddhārtha Gautama

“Try not to become a man of success. Rather become a man of value.”
— Albert Einstein

“Love doesn’t just sit there like a stone; it has to be made, like bread, remade all the time, made new.”
— Ursula K. Le Guin (The Lathe of Heaven)

(I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.)”
— Pablo Neruda

“The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious – the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science.”
— Albert Einstein

“If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:
THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC”
— Kurt Vonnegut

“By virtue of being human, each of us has the capacity to choose, to change, to grow.”
EKNATH EASWARAN
(1910–1999)

“This is the central principle of meditation: we become what we meditate on.”
EKNATH EASWARAN
(1910–1999)

I claim to be an average man of less than average ability. . . . I have not the shadow of a doubt that any man or woman can achieve what I have, if he or she would make the same effort and cultivate the same hope and faith.
– MAHATMA GANDHI

Our body needs peace of mind and is not suited to agitation. This shows that an appreciation for peace of mind is in our blood.
- Dalai Lama

I understand Being in all and over all, as there is nothing without participation in Being, and there is no being without Essence. Thus nothing can be free of the Divine Presence.
~ Giordano Bruno ~

Treat a person as he is, and he will remain as he is. Treat him as he could be, and he will become what he should be. ~ Anonymous

There is one simple Divinity found in all things, everything has Divinity latent within itself. For she enfolds and imparts herself even unto the smallest beings. Without her presence nothing would have being, because she is the essence of the existence of the first unto the last being. ~ Giordano Bruno (died 17 February 1600)

Even to have come forth is something, since I see that being able to conquer is placed in the hands of fate. However, there was in me, whatever I was able to do, that which no future century will deny to be mine, that which a victor could have for his own: Not to have feared to die, not to have yielded to any equal in firmness of nature, and to have preferred a courageous death to a noncombatant life. ~ Giordano Bruno (executed 17 February 1600)

A voiceless song in an ageless light
Sings at the coming dawn
Birds in flight are calling there
Where the heart moves the stones
It’s there that my heart is calling
All for the love of you.
~ Loreena McKennitt ~

All things are in the Universe, and the universe is in all things: we in it, and it in us; in this way everything concurs in a perfect unity. ~ Giordano Bruno

The Divine Light is always in man, presenting itself to the senses and to the comprehension, but man rejects it. ~ Giordano Bruno

Writing…is an art; and artists…are human beings. As a human being stands, so a human being is…

Poetry and every other art was and is and forever will be strictly and distinctly a question of individuality….poetry is being, not doing….if poetry is your goal, you’ve got to forget all about punishments and all about rewards and all about selfstyled obligations and duties and responsibilities . . .

Almost anybody can learn to think or believe or know, but not a single human being can be taught to feel …
the moment you feel, you’re nobody-but-yourself.
To be nobody-but-yourself — in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else — means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.

nothing is quite as easy as using words like somebody else. We all of us do exactly this nearly all of the time —and whenever we do it, we are not poets.

I’d rather learn from one bird how to sing than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance. ~ e. e. cummings

A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops. ~ Henry Adams (born 16 February 1838)

The counsels of impatience and hatred can always be supported by the crudest and cheapest symbols; for the counsels of moderation, the reasons are often intricate, rather than emotional, and difficult to explain. And so the chauvinists of all times and places go their appointed way: plucking the easy fruits, reaping the little triumphs of the day at the expense of someone else tomorrow, deluging in noise and filth anyone who gets in their way, dancing their reckless dance on the prospects for human progress, drawing the shadow of a great doubt over the validity of democratic institutions. And until people learn to spot the fanning of mass emotions and the sowing of bitterness, suspicion, and intolerance as crimes in themselves — as perhaps the greatest disservice that can be done to the cause of popular government — this sort of thing will continue to occur. ~George F. Kennan

Public opinion, or what passes for public opinion, is not invariably a moderating force in the jungle of politics. It may be true, and I suspect it is, that the mass of people everywhere are normally peace-loving and would accept many restraints and sacrifices in preference to the monstrous calamities of war. But I also suspect that what purports to be public opinion in most countries that consider themselves to have popular government is often not really the consensus of the feelings of the mass of the people at all, but rather the expression of the interests of special highly vocal minorities — politicians, commentators, and publicity-seekers of all sorts: people who live by their ability to draw attention to themselves and die, like fish out of water, if they are compelled to remain silent. ~ George F. Kennan

All experience is an arch, to build upon. ~ Henry Brooks Adams

What one knows is, in youth, of little moment; they know enough who know how to learn. ~ Henry Adams

Knowledge of human nature is the beginning and end of political education. ~ Henry Adams

To be happy is to be able to become aware of oneself without fright.
–Walter Benjamin

I’m sick of following my dreams. I’m just going to ask them where they’re going and hook up with them later.
- Mitch Hedberg

When two men in business always agree, one of them is unnecessary.
- William Wrigley Jr.

People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don’t believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can’t find them, make them.
- George Bernard Shaw

‎”The greatest good you can do for another is not just to share your riches but to reveal to him his own.”
- Benjamin Disraeli

“The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, nor to worry about the future, but to live the present moment wisely and earnestly.”
—
Siddhārtha Gautama

All the powers in the universe are already ours. It is we who have put our hands before our eyes and cry that it is dark.
- Swami Vivekananda

Love is invisible except here, in us.
Sometimes I praise love,
sometimes love praises me.
Love, a little shell somewhere
on the ocean floor,
open its mouth.
You and I and we, those imaginary beings,
enter that shell as a single sip of seawater.
- Rumi

“Be Yourself. Everyone else is already taken.”
- Oscar Wilde

“The actions of men are the best interpreters of thoughts.”
–Zig Ziglar

Your imagination is your preview of life’s coming attractions.
♥ Albert Einstein

☮Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without.
- Hindu Prince Gautama Siddharta, the founder of Buddhism, 563-483 B.C.

Friends and enemies do not exist as such; friendship and enmity depend on many factors, of which the primary one is our own mental attitude.

Whoever wants to tell a variety of stories ought to have a variety of beginnings.
–Marie de France

“We all need joy, and we can all receive joy in only one way, by adding to the joy of others.”EKNATH EASWARAN(1910–1999)

As Plato sometimes speaks of the divine love, it arises not out of indigency, as created love does, but out of fullness and redundancy.
– JOHN SMITH THE PLATONIST

“The widest possibilities for spiritual growth lie in the give-and-take of everyday relationships.”
EKNATH EASWARAN
(1910–1999)

“This is the central principle of meditation: we become what we meditate on.”
EKNATH EASWARAN
(1910–1999)

“The capacity to be patient, to bear with others through thick and thin, is within the reach of anyone”
EKNATH EASWARAN
(1910–1999)

Justice and power must be brought together, so that whatever is just may be powerful, and whatever is powerful may be just. ~ Blaise Pascal

via nasa.gov

via nasa.gov

via nasa.gov

via nasa.gov

via apod.nasa.gov

“The spiritual journey is individual, highly personal. It can’t be organized or regulated. It isn’t true that everyone should follow one path. Listen to your own truth.”
—
Ram Dass

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
– WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

“By virtue of being human, each of us has the capacity to choose, to change, to grow.”
EKNATH EASWARAN
(1910–1999)

If God gave the soul his whole creation she would not be filled thereby but only with himself.
– MEISTER ECKHART

“Nothing can be more important than being able to choose the way we think.”
EKNATH EASWARAN
(1910–1999)

‎”Your progress depends upon your degree of sustained intensity in a given direction.”
- Roger McDonald

‎”This is what we call love. When you are loved, you can do anything in creation. When you are loved, there’s no need at all to understand what’s happening, because everything happens within you.”
— Paulo Coelho

look at water and fire
earth and wind
enemies and friends all at once
- Rumi

“We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, and engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.”
—
John Keating (Dead Poets Society)

The house of my heart is empty,
devoid of desire, like paradise.
Within it is no work but the LOVE OF GOD,
no inhabitant but the image of union with Him.
I have swept the house clear of good and bad -
my house is full of love for the One…
- Rumi

The dismaying thing about the classic totalitarian mind is that any given gear, though mutilated, will have at its circumference unbroken sequences of teeth that are immaculately maintained, that are exquisitely machined.

Hence the cuckoo clock in Hell – keeping perfect time for eight minutes and twenty-three seconds, jumping ahead fourteen minutes, keeping perfect time for six seconds, jumping ahead two seconds, keeping perfect time for two hours and one second, then jumping a year.

The missing teeth, of course, are simple, obvious truths, truths available and comprehensible even to ten-year-olds, in most cases.

The wilful filing off of gear teeth, the wilful doing without certain obvious pieces of information.

Mother Night, Kurt Vonnegut

“Fuck every cause that ends in murder and children crying.”
– Iain M. Banks

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.
♥ Martin Luther King Jr.

Fear breeds fear. Hate breeds hate. And Love breeds love.
- Yoko Ono

A given situation can be viewed as either unbearable or beneficial: it depends how we look at it. We must make certain that things don’t begin to seem unbearable. If we look too closely at problems we will see nothing else and they will appear all out of proportion with reality; that is when they become intolerable. If we can stand back from them, we will be better able to judge them and they will seem less serious.
- Dalai Lama

God made everything out of nothing, but the nothingness shows through.
- Paul Valery

Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed there are many rewards, if you disgrace yourself you can always write a book.
- Ronald Reagan

Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.
- Martin Luther King Jr.

Special-interest publications should realize that if they are attracting enough advertising and readers to make a profit, the interest is not so special.
- Fran Lebowitz

Now I know what a statesman is; he’s a dead politician. We need more statesmen.
- Bob Edwards

Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards.
- Robert Heinlein

God wasn’t too bad a novelist except he was a Realist.
- John Barth

Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us ~ Bill Watterson

Never give in and never give up.
- Hubert H. Humphrey

“It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.”
— Friedrich Nietzsche

“Where does one go from a world of insanity? Somewhere on the other side of despair.”
- T.S. Eliot

“Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be, The last of life, for which the first was made.”
- Robert Browning

We are inclined to believe those whom we do not know because they have never deceived us.
- Samuel Johnson

You’ve achieved success in your field when you don’t know whether what you’re doing is work or play.
- Warren Beatty

The whole dream of democracy is to raise the proletarian to the level of stupidity attained by the bourgeois.
- Gustave Flaubert

The only things in my life that compatibly exist with this grand universe are the creative works of the human spirit.

No matter how sophisticated you may be, a large granite mountain cannot be denied — it speaks in silence to the very core of your being.
- Ansel Adams (Born February 20, 1902)

“I’d rather be hated for who I am, than loved for who I am not.”
- Kurt Kobain (Born February 20, 1967)

via en.wikiquote.org

The truth comes as conqueror only because we have lost the art of receiving it as guest.

Depth of friendship does not depend on length of acquaintance.

Let this be my last word, that I trust in thy love.

God, the Great Giver, can open the whole universe to our gaze in the narrow space of a single land.

My debts are large, my failures great, my shame secret and heavy; yet I come to ask for my good, I quake in fear lest my prayer be granted.

In this playhouse of infinite forms I have had my play, and here have I caught sight of him that is formless.

Love is the ultimate meaning of everything around us. It is not a mere sentiment; it is truth; it is the joy that is at the root of all creation.

When we define a man by the market value of the service we can expect of him, we know him imperfectly.

Civilisation must be judged and prized, not by the amount of power it has developed, but by how much it has evolved and given expression to, by its laws and institutions, the love of humanity.

The human soul is on its journey from the law to love, from discipline to liberation, from the moral plane to the spiritual.

Joy is the realisation of the truth of oneness, the oneness of our soul with the world and of the world-soul with the supreme lover.

The infinite being has assumed unto himself the mystery of finitude. And in him who is love the finite and the infinite are made one.

Your idol is shattered in the dust to prove that God’s dust is greater than your idol.

The wise man warns me that life is but a dewdrop on the lotus leaf.

In the world’s audience hall, the simple blade of grass sits on the same carpet with the sunbeams, and the stars of midnight.

Wishing to hearten a timid lamp
great night lights all her stars.

God seeks comrades and claims love,
the Devil seeks slaves and claims obedience.

Life’s errors cry for the merciful beauty
that can modulate their isolation
into a harmony with the whole.

Color may, by combination with lines, create great pictures, so long as it does not smother and destroy their value.
- Rabindranath Tagore

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Rabindranath_Tagore

See this Amp at http://bit.ly/gPn87l

Cosmos: A Personal Voyage – Disk 3 (Carl Sagan)

Episode 4: “Heaven and Hell”
Episode 5: “Blues for a Red Planet”

If you like this series, buy it!
- http://www.amazon.com/Cosmos-Carl-Sagan-DVD-Set/dp/B000055ZOB
- http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/4774/cosmos-carl-sagan/

1st collector for Cosmos: A Personal Voyage – Disk 3 (Carl Sagan)
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