Auschwitz Death Camp Learned

Auschwitz was the most notorious of the Nazi labor camps in WWII. There, a man or woman could expect at any moment to be sent to the gas chambers, used for medical experiments or given a phenol injection to the heart which would cause death in 15 seconds. If lucky, they would instead be used for exhaustive labor under the most grueling conditions.

A selection committee decided who was fit for labor and who would be used for medical experiments or exterminated. One ‘doctor’ drew an arbitrary height line of 5 feet 2 inches and any child who was not tall enough was sent to the gas chambers immediately.

Many were sent to the chambers directly upon arriving at Auschwitz. For that reason records do not exist for all of the people who were killed.

Their horrible suffering and the conditions they endured were beyond belief. People would tell each other lies just to give hope. “The allies have landed in Greece”. The implication was that they would be rescued soon. There were many other stories concocted to keep one another from utter despair.

After Auschwitz was closed and the inmates released there was a reckoning. The Nazis were hunted down over the years and brought to account for their crimes one by one.

The time of Nazi Germany has ended. Yet, there exists forced labor camps in China today while Holocaust survivors still live. Have we learned nothing from history?

The labor camps in China, much like the Nazi death camps, are used to harm those whom the Chinese Communist Party does not like. They are also used to attempt to break the will and spirit of those who practice the peaceful meditation practice of Falun Gong.

From these camps the Chinese Communist Party derives a source of free labor. The goods are exported for profit and consumption around the world. Similar to the Nazi camps, these nightmarish dens of horror are a source of suffering, torture and death. Why are they tolerated? Isn’t it time that they are dismantled and eliminated?

The famous poet Elie Wiesel, himself an Auschwitz survivor, had this to say, “I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.”

Simon Wiesenthal, another labor camp survivor who helped bring many Nazi criminals to justice said this. “For your benefit, learn from our tragedy. It is not a written law that the next victims must be Jews. It can also be other people. We saw it begin in Germany with Jews, but people from more than twenty other nations were also murdered. When I started this work, I said to myself, I will look for the murderers of all the victims, not only the Jewish victims. I will fight for justice.”

The Chinese Communist Party is responsible for the use of forced labor camps that house many Chinese citizens today. To do nothing is to ignore the lessons of the past as well as the suffering of the present. Isn’t it time to speak up?

Call a Chinese embassy or official and let them know what you think of their forced labor camps. Tell them to stop the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners. Do not remain silent.

Eulogy For A Good Book Powerpoint And The Two Reasons You Need To Understand It

Good bye Moby Dick! Farewell Crime and Punishment! Adios National Geographic and Readers Digest!

PowerPoint and the generation of the 7th Millennium rules.

If you’re a “Baby Boomer”, PowerPoint will likely not appeal to you. Perhaps you will even feel it is evil. But I’ll give you two good reasons you ought to understand and appreciate PowerPoint. Your children and grandchildren.

PowerPoint is the way the Generation of the 7th Millennium and beyond will cope in this fast-paced, frenetic world of iPods, search engines and micro-minute attention spans. (If man came on to the scene in the year 4026 BCE then 1975 would mark the beginning of the seventh Millennium



Yes, if you were a teen in ’75, you remember reading novels and composing essays for your teachers and professors. On the weekends, you caught movies like Dog Day Afternoon, Mahogany, The Man Who Would Be King, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Love Story, The Stepford Wives, Three Days of the Condor and Monty Python and the Holy Grail (“Sir, by what name be ye known?” …reply? “Some call me Tim?”)

A good plot, drama, and wit (ok, we weren’t perfect then either) ruled the big screen.



But times have evolved. What was a “New York Minute” back then is a New York milli-second today.



The big screen stars born in that notable year include Drew Barrymore, Angelina Jolie, Charlize Theron, and Kate Winslet.



In ’75, there were five notable deaths — Marjorie Main (Ma Kettle), Susan Hayward, The Three Stooges’ Larry Fine and Moe Howard. The fifth death at the birth of the 7th Millennium was not noted for almost 20 years.



The death of which I am speaking is the death of reading and comprehension skills.



Many college professors trace the decline of student reading and retention to 1975, or the beginning of the 7th Millennium.



This is manifested by students who take no notes, wear stylish headsets that re-play lectures which were recorded by professors.



Look at how many professors today use PowerPoint presentations and give copies of the slides to their students to use as a study guide.



Do you really think students have time to read when the Internet furnishes information in lightning-quick fashion?



Why are newspapers folding, libraries closing and reader’s club subscriptions falling? Perhaps the biggest indictment is the Internet. Yes, the industrial age has died and the information age is alive and well. That is, if you like looking at pictures in shades of PowerPoint blue.



Delivering and receiving information has changed. There are a new set of rules for writing and reading on the web.



One sentence paragraphs are acceptable. None are longer than three sentences. On the better sites, articles are generally no longer than 750 words. That’s because reading is done by scanning.



To engage a reader (or scanner as the case may be), psychological tricks like connectives are used to tie one paragraph to the next.



There are two kinds of copy on the Internet. One appeals to traditional readers, the other to the newer generation of the 7th Millennium.



The key to educating 7th Millennium students is PowerPoint. The challenge facing educators, speakers and presenters is creating a lecture that can stand on its own merit, utilizing Power Point as a visual aid rather than making Power Point the presentation.



The generation of the 7th Millennium becomes easily bored. Stimulating students’ grey matter neurons requires using our own little grey box of tricks, using word illustrations and probing questions to elevate thinking. Power Point presentations combined with effective speaking tactics are a dynamic one-two punch in the lecture hall.



The future will remember non-predictions of the past as was the case with Jules Vern’s novel conception of a facsimile machine several decades before its creation.



Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 and The Max Headroom Story will be ‘novel’ predictions of the future.



Moving forward, we will no longer look for 15 minutes of fame. No more New York minutes. On the web, things happen in seconds. Our future will soon become our past.



Perhaps the best we can hope for is that everybody will be somebody for 27 seconds. In a world of sound bites, images flashing before our eyes and action movies, the reality is that 27 seconds is an eternity on the net.



Capturing the attention of the generation of the 7th Millennium requires pictures, images, and attention-grabbing devices. PowerPoint is the solution. It is the salvation of tomorrow’s classroom.

May we use Power Point Presentations wisely.

Current Status of World Hunger

Where does starvation exist in the world today? What are some of the causes of world hunger? Are citizens of developed countries donating monetarily to the ongoing relief efforts? In this article I will address these questions with the hope that by creating an understanding of the current world hunger situation, morally conscious individuals will do their part in contributing to the eradication of this unseen suffering.

It is a well known fact that there is enough food in the world to feed every human being on earth. Sadly, malnutrition and hunger still afflict one out of every seven people in the world today. Or, from a slightly different statistical perspective, the current world population is 4,712,200,000. The number of malnourished is 797,900,000. Therefore 17% of the world population is currently malnourished or starving. No matter how you examine the issue, a current crisis is at hand. Why is this so?

The causes of starvation are complex, but there are some common threads that seem to be associated with this problem. First and foremost, starvation is caused by poverty. To address the problem of world hunger then the problem of global poverty must be addressed. Therefore, the question that we should examine is what are the causes of poverty. A thorough discussion on the causes of global poverty is outside the purview of this article. Entire textbooks have been written on the subject. For our discussion, it is suffice to say that one of the major causes of poverty is governments pursuing policies that inhibit self sufficiency.

Areas of starvation are also characterized by persistent problems in cultivating food from lack of seed, arable land, and tools. Those that can grow food, must deal with insects, drought, floods, and war, which can result in complete destruction of crops. Historically, areas of Africa have experienced periodic locusts infestations, which can completely destroy crops.

Other causes of world hunger are related to the globalize system of food production. The globalize system of food production and trade favors a reliance on export crops while discriminating against small-scale farmers and subsistence crops. Many third world countries export out to much food while concomitantly not keeping enough food to sustain their own people.

AIDS is a significant cause of hunger. In societies affected by AIDS, famine is more deadly and difficult to combat. Why is this so? AIDS attacks the most productive individuals within society. Fewer productive people within society means fewer individuals to work the jobs that involve food production. This is one contributor to the starvation currently taking place in Africa.

Weather plays a major role in terms of the prevalence of starvation. Areas of drought leads to non-useable land with subsequent famine. This is well known. But less well known is that floods can also lead to starvation. Crops can be flooded and therefore destroyed, which in essence produces the same result as drought. In both cases, weather can produce a complete lack of self sufficiency.

Military conflicts, both internal and between neighboring countries, can lead to starvation. These conflicts can result in destruction of crops. Government money is directed at funding the conflict at the expense of the starving people. Funds are diverted from social and economic development. Military conflicts can also result in the displacement of large groups of people, removing them from their farms and their way of life. People can end up in refugee camps, completely dependent on relief aid.

The causative factors of world hunger are numerous, and certain factors change from year to year, therefore at any given time, some areas may be more prone then others. The extent of drought, flood, internal conflicts, and war with neighboring countries can vary over time. Therefore, these factors incorporate a variable affect on the degree to which inhabitants of susceptible countries suffer from starvation.

A combination of these causative factors in a particular region is a formula for disaster. When this occurs, large scale starvation can take place. A case in point. The Horn of Africa has seen severe drought coupled with internal conflicts. This is leading to the development of a tragedy. In this region currently 11 million people are on the brink of starvation.

Historically, certain areas of the world have had a high prevalence of hunger and starvation. These areas are the central region of South America, large areas of East, Central, and Southern Africa, and regions of South Asia. As of 2006, the current hot spots, those areas which are suffering the greatest degree of starvation, are as follows:

Niger:

This area in central Africa has been struggling to cope with the devastating impact of drought and locusts infestations.

Haiti:

In this region extreme poverty has been further exacerbated by a political crisis, floods, tropical storms, and hurricanes.

Horn of Africa:

An estimated 11 million people in the Horn of Africa “are on the brink of starvation” because of severe drought and war. Somalia, Kenya, Djibouti and Ethiopia need food aid, water, new livestock and seeds. This is a major hunger crisis in development.

Afghanistan:

Poverty in Afghanistan, made worse by drought, has contributed greatly to their hunger problem.

Pakistan:

The recent earthquake coupled with a severe winter have produced starvation conditions. Recently, mud slides have hampered relief efforts.

North Korea:

Food insecurity caused by the countries economic problems, is compounded by unpredictable and severe weather conditions. To date, the North Korean government has failed in its duty to provide for it’s starving people. The North Korean government has actually refused foreign aid.

Columbia:

A 40 year civil conflict and the illegal drug trade have caused mass displacement and poverty.

Democratic Republic of Congo:

3.4 million people have been internally displaced as a result of a continuing internal conflict.

Mali:

They are struggling to cope with the devastating impact of a recent drought.

Southern Africa:

Erratic weather, lack of seed and fertilizer, chronic poverty, and AIDS have been contributing factors to starvation.

These are the areas of the world which are currently suffering the highest levels of malnutrition and hunger. With this understanding of where relief efforts are needed, we must address the question of individual response. Are individuals of developed countries donating to relief efforts? Most morally conscious individuals donate to relief efforts when the problem is presented to them.

A major problem in the relief effort is the general population of developed countries not knowing about the current hunger crisis. News organizations, more specifically television news, are not giving enough attention to the global hunger situation. While an in depth discussion as to the reasons for this is outside the purview of this article, a few points can be made.

Evidently, the American TV news organizations, do not think world hunger is much of a story since starvation is a daily occurrence. I suspect, from the perspective of these news organizations, that 24,000 people per day dying from hunger is not a big enough news story. When 1,386 people died from hurricane Katrina, the news coverage was enormous. Five months after hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, TV news organizations were still squeezing all they could out of this story. Granted this was an obvious tragedy, but an even bigger tragedy, much bigger, is going on in Africa and the general public does not even know about it.

I have seen little to almost no coverage given by American TV news organizations on the devastating hunger crisis in the Horn of Africa. I have only learned of this crisis through RSS feeds on the Internet. Television news organizations such as CNN, ABC, CBS, and NBC are thus far not reporting on this crisis. Hopefully this will change.

It is evident that the American TV news organizations do not really provide total and complete news, rather they screen the events and only provide what they feel may be interesting to their audience. News organizations should present the news and concomitantly maintain high journalistic standards. Maybe these news organizations need to incorporate a higher level of moral obligation into their decision making process, when deciding which stories to cover. In any case, people can not donate if they do not know the problem exists.

We have addressed some key questions in order to characterize the current status of the world hunger situation. We have examined where hunger is the most prevalent in the world today, and we have identified some of the causative factors which contribute to malnutrition, hunger, and starvation. We have concluded that most morally conscious individuals would contribute to the elimination of hunger, if they knew about the crisis. Finally, we have observed that the degree of world hunger coverage by TV news organizations is very much lacking.

Even though TV news organizations have not been covering the current world hunger crisis, by reading this article, you have developed an understanding of the degree to which starvation is prevalent in the world today. If you are reading this in a developed country, which is highly likely since you are reading it on a computer which has Internet access, you have a moral obligation to donate either time or money to help in the elimination of unseen suffering. Winston Churchill once said “we make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.” We must all do our part to eliminate world hunger.

We Live in a System of Beliefs

The following article about beliefs is just an expression of my thoughts. It is certainly not definitive.

In my opinion, we live our life on the basis of beliefs. We, literally live in a huge belief system. So seamlessly integrated (into our world) are some beliefs that most people assume that they are natural and accepted them without questioning.

The very act of reading this article is belief-based, because the very construct that is formed in your head now is conceptual & of the thinking mind. Perhaps, what really is does not just exist as concepts, but also exists in the NOW as experience. Although one is able to describe or conceptualize a truth, the conceptualization is itself a thought.

Beliefs can be very powerful, especially when the majority of the population buys into it. Sometime a certain belief when set in motion, causes catalytic reactions, triggering the formation of yet other beliefs. Gradually, layers upon layers of beliefs mire directness and truth. So thickly laden with beliefs and far removed from the original spontaneity that life becomes unnecessarily complex and ritualized.

Major beliefs operating in our world are:

Identification of self with physical body.

When in actual fact, we are much more than that. This belief can be very difficult to un-ravel. And it takes many series of self-discovery to realize our true nature. The entire scope of this belief is beyond what can be expressed within this article. So I will leave it as that.

War.

War is borne out of beliefs that justify aggression to others that is participated by large groups. War itself is a belief, because nature and animals do not engage in it. Only humans do it, because it was conceived in the human mind, and it isn’t natural or essential to human conditions. Military is an offshoot borne from War

Money buys happiness.

A belief that most thought of as true is that money gives one happiness. Happiness does not need money to fulfill, one merely made oneself believe so! The concept of Money set in motion the belief in status, status breeds competition, competition breeds the rat race, rat race cause one to slog a life time working and eventually few remembered the original purpose of life was for joy and fulfillment.

Status.

A person’s worth that is dictated by factors such as financial abundance and rank. This one creates much suffering in very hierarchical societies. This one is closely related to ‘money buys happiness.’

Perfectionism.

It is a most prevalent belief in our civilization. Everywhere in this world of ours, perfectionism is regarded as good while imperfection is bad. Everybody wants everybody else to be perfect. Is Perfection really an absolute value? I think not.

In my opinion, it is relative and is borne of human conception. Perfection is an idea. Things are the way they are. Perfection and imperfection are attached values.

Country.

The concept of country is just a belief in the ownership of land. Essentially, humans did not create land therefore nobody owns it. Patriotism is an offshoot belief borne from ‘country’. When there are no countries and no wars, there are no needs for Patriotism.

Well, I think I have rambled enough. Thank you for reading.