Tighten Your Belts Folks, IMF Predicts Grim Future

In a recently published world economic outlook titled, Will It Hurt? Macroeconomic Effects of Fiscal Consolidation, the IMF has painted a bleak picture of near depression scenario from the south to the north of Europe including Britain, and in America as well. The world body also predicts that we are in a slump for the long haul.

Following the scandalous affairs of bankrupt Iceland, and riots in Greece, Spain is the new sick man of Europe mired by political upheaval and widespread public protests normally witnessed in the third world countries.

To reign in the harsh financial downturn, the IMF in the past had routinely dispensed the medicine of severe belt tightening in Asia and South America, forcing misery on the hapless poor people of those countries. Nonetheless, when the citadels of European civilization are catching pneumonia, the IMF admits that the measure of austerity is going do more damage than good.

Ah, what a revelation!

It should not take a Nobel Prize-winning economist to grasp that you do not recover from severe recession by further choking social programs and cutting jobs. In fact, Econ 101 says that if people have no money to buy, the consumption would keep on shrinking and production would follow suit in an interlinking chain of events.

IMF says that tightening of 1% of GDP in a country results in a 0.5% loss of growth in two years. Traditionally, countries have come out of economic recession by devaluing their currencies and increasing exports.

Austerity measures have worked effectively for some countries in the past. For an example, Britain has applied that successfully twice, once when it left the Gold Standard in 1931, and then again in 1992. This time the problem is there is no one to pick up the slack. How did we come here?

It is all in distribution of wealth, my friends. Unrestrained human greed gave rise to laissez-faire capitalism, which dismantled all regulations and created giant monopolies. Capitalism lives and dies with free competition; therefore, when giant monopolies are created in the name of “scale of economics,” the very spirit that thrives on capitalism is destroyed. Couple that with tax benefits for the high earning populace and shifting the tax burden to the middle class. Capital shifts from the bottom to the top, creating a few super-rich on one hand, and large number of struggling deprived masses on the other.
The mantra of the capitalists, cutting taxes for the rich and slicing social programs for the poor, is not going to work, as half the globe is now in financial trouble and taking the same measures in lockstep. When the interest rate is nearly zero, and everyone begins slashing expenditures, the downward slump doubles with time.

The leader of the free world, the USA, was supposed to lead by example in such a time. Unfortunately, in Barak Obama, the American people elected a President who neither had the courage nor the will to do a la FDR, as he is busy protecting the very group that brought this ruin on us.

It is apparent that people understand this and there is widespread dissatisfaction at the general level; notwithstanding, what is the solution? People may vote Obama out in 2012, and bring back the GOP and the Tea Party leaders, however, that would be like jumping from frying pan to the fire, because it is the policies of the renegade conservatives that have brought us here.

Thirty years of Reaganomics, embraced and implemented with vigor by subsequent Democratic and Republican administrations since Ronald Reagan have created this situation. The recovery will not be attained on the backs of the poor, as they are already broken.

Hold on to your shoestrings folks, this is going to be a long and hard ride.


Previously published on Technorati

Dear readers:

The poll on Future of America has closed. 51% of you said you expect major setback going forward. 36% of you foresee minor setback. 6% of you think that we are doomed, and equal number of you think of continuous prosperity.

I am with the majority this time, and will explain my position next week. Thank you all for letting me know what you think.

A Mohit

The Heart’s Code Says We Are All Interconnected

You may have heard it from your grandmother, Shamans, Lamas, or Indian Gurus. You might have even heard it coming from Gary E. R. Schwartz and Linda G.S. Russeka. And of course, you, the left-brained intellectual, rightfully knew all along, this was mere housewife’s tale, an irrational belief on the part of the unsophisticated rustic individuals.

Rightfully?

The problem is Dr. Schwartz and Dr. Russeka are not really laypeople. At the time of publishing of the book, The Heart’s Code, the former was a Professor of Psychology, Neurology, Psychiatry, and Medicine, at the University of Arizona, and the latter was a research Psychologist at the Harvard University. In a foreword to Dr. Paul Pearsall’s revolutionary book published in 1998, they wrote, “Sometimes a book is written that forever changes not only the way we think about life, but the way we feel about life as well. This is The Heart’s Code.”

And indeed, The Heart’s Code is such a book and more. Else, whoever in his right mind can claim in the world of science that our hearts are the real sources of our personalities and enduring memories? The heart dwarfs the brain in the matters of energy and memory. Truly, the heart has such lasting memories that it continues to retain minute details even when it is transplanted to another body.

Dr. Pearsall quoted a story that was told to him in a meeting of an international group of psychologists and psychiatrists in Houston, Texas, in the late 1990s. A psychiatrist told the group that she had an 8-year-old patient who received the heart of a murdered 10-year-old girl. The patient was having vivid dreams of a man who had murdered her donor. Her dreams became more intense with time and the girl’s mother decided to see the police with the advice of the psychiatrist. With detailed descriptions from the little girl about the time, the weapon, the place and the clothes the murderer wore, police apprehended the culprit.

Dr. Pearsall’s book is the result of painstaking efforts of leading researchers in the field of heart-brain connections in human thought processes and memories, having been conducted in the most prestigious institutions in the US and other countries. The overwhelming verdict from their research is that the heart thinks, feels, remembers, and there is a subtle yet very powerful energy that connects everything and every person.

He quotes scientists after scientists and their works in his book that convincingly points to an overflowing energy in the universe that Pearsall calls “L” energy. It is that “L” energy that interconnects all beings and is indestructible; it survives death.

First published on Technorati.

Is There a Limit to Human Achievement?

In 1994, Philippe Croizon, at the age of 26, had a vocation as a metal worker. While trying to remove a television antenna from a house roof, he was struck by an arc that hit him from a nearby electric line that carried 20,000 Volts.

To save his life, doctors amputated both his arms and legs. Recovering in the hospital, he watched a television documentary that showed a swimmer crossing the English Channel, and he dreamed of doing it himself one day.

Croizon was fitted with flipper-shaped prosthetic legs by his doctors, and he taught himself to swim using the stumps of his arms and his prosthetic legs . He trained for over two years before he tried for a 12-hour endurance test.

Then on September 18, 2010, 16 years after that fateful day, he began swimming the English Channel from Folkestone in southern England around 8 AM. He reached the French coast just before 9:30 PM local time. His average speed at 3 km/hr was marginally less than the normal swimmers’ 4-5 km/hr.

Philippe Croizon demonstrated once again that there is no limit to human achievement. If there is any limit, it is what we set ourselves in our own minds. Many athletes have demonstrated this time and again, and people in other fields, too, have achieved similar implausible feats.

And it is in this context, Jesus said, “If you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, move from here to there, and the mountain will move.” (John 14:14)


First published in Technorati

Mother’s Love Brings Dead Baby Back to life

Is there more to life than what meets the eyes? Is there a special bond between a mother and her child that can defy death? This story is about an Australian mother, whose longing for the life of her new born baby—who was pronounced dead at birth—revived him.

When the attending nurse handed the baby’s limp body to Kate, she would not let him go. For two hours she kept him on her chest, cuddling him, stroking him and talking to him. She told him that her twin sister Emily was doing well. Then suddenly, she felt a movement—the baby was grasping for air.

The doctors told her that those movements were merely autonomic reactions and she should not get her hopes high. Yet, in a short while the baby who was named Jamie, opened his eyes, and a little later began suckling at her mother’s breast. The doctor’s called it a medical miracle.

Today, Jamie is a normal healthy infant; the question is was it really his mothers indomitable desire for him to live that brought him back to life? Or, is it as the doctors said, a medical miracle, meaning; it is a phenomenon for which we have no explanation?

The greatest mystery of life is life itself, which is the true miracle. If you think in macro scale, so many variables, such as strong nuclear force, gravity, temperature of the earth surface and hosts of others, have to be so precisely at whatever magnitude they are, to make this world hospitable for life, that it is simply mind boggling.

And then again, every day in our lives, the odds that we fight against from the unseen microbes to the seen and known elements that act against us, make us wonder how we remain alive for years and years. For me it also makes me wonder how precious every life is!

The sad part is, while every other animal live and die with the fancy of the nature, we have the ability to alter nature, and oftentimes we do that, just for the short term benefit, causing enormous destruction to not only us but other living beings as well.

First published on Technorati

An Appeal To The Proponents Of Ground Zero Mosque

On August 3, New York mayor Michael Bloomberg standing on Governor’s Island departed from his usual style which is more suited to his technocrat image, and delivered the most heartfelt speech of his life. He was defending the right of the people who wants to build the Muslim community center near ground zero. He began citing from history, “We've come here to Governors Island to stand where the earliest settlers first set foot in New Amsterdam, and where the seeds of religious tolerance were first planted. We come here to see the inspiring symbol of liberty that more than 250 years later would greet millions of immigrants in this harbor. And we come here to state as strongly as ever; this is the freest city in the world. That's what makes New York special and different and strong.”

It was a long speech, and a visibly emotional mayor got choked up at one point. The mayor was accompanied by Council Speaker Christine Quinn and 10 religious leaders, among them three Jewish leaders— Rabbi Bob Kaplan from the Jewish Community Council, Rabbi Irwin Kula from the National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, and Cara Berkowitz from the UJA Federation.

It is remarkable that despite the general perception among Muslims that Jews are their arch enemies, they find, when chips are down; it is the leaders from the Jewish communities who stand by their side. And I say, there is a lesson to be learned in that.

It appears to me that at this time the most insensitive people, when it comes to religion, come from my fellow Muslims. Take for instance this very matter of ground zero mosque, when 70% American people are against it, why pursue this? The memory of loss of their loved ones is still fresh in many people’s minds. At least, why not defer the project till people are more receptive to it?

(First Published on Technorati)

Burqa And France

The lower house of French parliament has approved a law banning wearing Islamic veils, called burqas. The lawmakers consider that this practice is against the French ideals of women’s equal rights and the country's secular tradition.

Finally a western Government has shown courage against oppressive Muslim practices of forcing their women to wear “burqa” and “niqab”in the name of Islam. I commend President Sarkozy for this initial success, for he was the one who first declared in June 2009 that the burqa is “not welcome” in France.

Muslims are increasingly demonstrating their ignorance of their own religion by adhering to practices that is discriminatory against women and not even ordained by their holy book, Quran. Take for instance the statement of Egyptian Islamic scholar Abdelmotie Bayoumi, who said, “The niqab has no strong legitimacy based on Quran or in examples from the Prophet's life that makes it a religious imposition on women.” Then why women are forced to wear those veils?

The mainstream French Muslim organization agrees that such dress code is not suitable in France, yet, they worry that the ban will stigmatize all Muslims. However, perhaps it wouldn't if they did their part to educate their community to treat women as equals, and stop treating them as chattels.

During the National Assembly debate, the Greens lawmaker Francois de Rugy commented that conservatives “are throwing oil on the fire — you are reviving tensions just to win votes.” I say, how long will the civilized world condone medieval practices in the name of religion?

Berengere Poletti, a member of Sarkozy’s party, said that the face-covering veils “are a prison for women, they are the sign of their submission to their husbands, brothers or fathers.” Absolutely: this is the truth and the only truth. In France, the niqab and burqa are viewed as an opening to extremism and an attack on secularism which are the central values of French culture. As a Muslim, I say "Amen," and I share the French view wholly.

The Quran says when you are in a foreign country, obey their laws, respect their customs, and be a good citizen if you make that country your home. The tragedy is that many Muslims seldom read their holy book to understand its meaning, and defer their cultural guidance to the uneducated mullahs.

The Quran says: We made the Quran easy to learn. Does any of you wish to learn? (54:17) Yet, mullahs claim, it is difficult to understand Quran, and therefore they come up with fatwas (religious edicts) for uncharted territories, and force uninformed followers to live by their decrees.

The new law will be in the Senate in September, where it is expected to pass. However, this will be scrutinized by France’s constitutional watchdog before it becomes Law-of-the-land, and they may still find it unconstitutional.

I hope they do not.

Reprinted from Technorati

http://technorati.com/lifestyle/article/france-introduces-law-to-ban-islamic/

You Dare Play Judge?

You call me Lord, you worship me.
Others too give me names as they please
And worship they do in ways of their own.
Those are the games children play.
It is not for you to judge others.

You kill your brothers in my name,
Know that I am because you are
And the brother that you killed.
Only, for he was not one like you?
It is not for you to judge others.

If I desired your brother would be like you
But I want to test him with what I gave him.
For you know not, what I do.
Forgive your brother seventy times seven.
It is not for you to judge others.

These are my words for you to remember
In the books you call holy, go read them,
But understand them, if you can, and be humble,
For I do not like the boastful.
It is not for you to judge others.

Who Am I?

Who are you? Whence you come from? Where do you live?
Are the questions they ask of me.
So many ways I answered them
But their quest end not, like children,
They ask me again, and again, and again!

I live on this earth.
Its air flows through my body,
They call it my life, prana.
Its food sustains me and nourishes me,
I am in this world, but I am not of this world.

They came and thumped their
Vedas, Bible, Quran, Guru Granth Sahib
And their endless treatises.
Pity them, only I could, for they tell me
Who I am, like one blind telling another!

Oh ignorant, how dare you define me?
I am the nameless, faceless, and creedless.
Through me, the universe exists.
You have seen me in your mind,
Felt me in your hearts, yet you ask me who am I?

(Dedicated to my just-married niece, Nausheen)

Does Honesty Pay?

A few weeks ago you had participated in a survey on “honesty” and had chosen one from the four possible answers. 25% of you picked the response: Honesty has no consequence on success or failure in the material world.

Splendid!

I commend you for your vision and insight, and append that I could not agree with you more. Today, I would endeavor to support your opinion with facts from the world of science.

There is no cause and effect principle that control the worldly affairs in an orderly manner, I submit. Even Karma, the alluring hypothesis of crime and punishment and rewards for service, is only make belief. The “rule of jungle” is the true law of the universe, and it is called Uncertainty Principle.

In 1927, Werner Heisenberg, a German physicist said that the more we know about a particle’s position, the less we know about its speed and the direction it is traveling (and vice versa). This notion gave birth to the revolutionary theory known as Uncertainty Principle, and the concept shattered the world of physics.

Albert Einstein furiously protested the proposition. Guess what? Einstein was wrong.

We now know that in the microscopic world, sub-atomic particles behave as if they have their own minds—they do not follow any rules. In other words the tiny particles are free to chose their actions, and they do, and their behavior cannot be prediced by laws. In the world of the extraordinarily large bodies on the other hand, it appears that the laws of physics hold good, and when they do not, we say they are in aberrations.

Similarly, our own world seems to follow the same laws of physics, and we are happy that they do, for our brains are rationalizing. The truth, nonetheless, is that all natural laws are our creations, figments of our imagination.

We observe nature, formulate laws, and go on predicting the unknown based on our derived laws; and often, we find ourselves right.

Indeed, Einstein had made all his predictions based on mathematical calculations, and he was accurate in most of his mind-boggling derivations. But brilliant as he was, some of his predictions were wrong as well—why so? How could such a luminous mind make such rudimentary mistakes?

In the world of the small particles things happen in microseconds, therefore, we can study their life cycles more accurately. In the world of the stars and heavenly bodies, nevertheless, we do not have the time to study their complete life cycles; therefore we must rely on assumptions, hypothesis, and mathematics. Math is merely a tool invented by us and has its own limitations. Lest, we would have known that the Uncertainty Principle is the only truth in the universe.

That is the reason why honesty has no consequence on success or failure in life. The cause-and-effect principle, so believable in our small world, is merely an illusion in the larger perspective. Therefore, honesty may or may not pay.

Can we just be honest for honesty's sake, regardless? There is an inherent beauty in honesty, and next time we shall contemplate on that.

Can We Be Humane With Animals?

Last week in Orlando, I asked my daughter if she would like to see the Orca shows. Her “no” was a bit more forceful than I expected. The discussion that I had with her on Dawn Brancheau’s tragic death immediately crossed my mind.

The autopsy report on Dawn’s death is now out. It appears from the report that Tilly, the Orca was not playful towards Brancheau, and it was rather an enraged animal taking it out on its captor.

The report graphically described how Brancheau's left arm and part of her scalp were ripped off; she had suffered injuries to her spinal cord and her ribs were broken. She also had multiple injuries all over her body.

We can understand Brancheau's pain; can we be rational with Tilly’s emotions? Orcas may not have human emotions but similar incidents happen with other animals too. Animals in circuses, zoos, and other shows sometime act aggressively and kill their trainers. Can we blame animals for showing their natural instincts, which is to attack and kill?

PETA President Ingrid Newkirk had commented Tilly’s action as “vented fury of an angry and frustrated” animal that had been deprived of its natural habitat “for the sake of human profit and a few giggles.”

How outrageous is Newkirk’s comment sympathizing with an animal in view of a human death? Is it okay to treat animals anyway we like just because we can?

I remember a childhood incident of riding a cart that was being pulled by two bullocks. One of them had laceration on its neck. The wooden bar that rested on its neck would touch its wounds when the bullock would run faster with prodding from the driver.

I asked the driver, if the animal was feeling pain, and if we should rather go slowly.

I vividly remember the laugh that my question had evoked, the bullock and its wound, and after all these years the memory still makes me sad.

Story of an Average American

This is the story of a man who describes himself as, “I am just an average American in an average American city.”

Tom Hodges is real. He lives in Phoenix, Arizona with his wife, one daughter and two sons. He worries for the future of his children. He also worries for other human beings.

He calls himself an average American. I however see the true American spirit in him. I say, do not judge America on its foreign policy, rather look through the eyes of Mr. Hodges and experience the true American spirit in its entire splendor.

Here is his story in first person:

I am just an average American in an average American city trying to raise my kids and teach them what I think is good. I ask all to give love without expecting anything in return, since love is the greatest equalizer.

To me giving is better than receiving. When someone who has never received anything in life gets something unexpected, an unbound joy engulfs him, and that transforms him into a far superior person. The person then feels the urge to spread that happiness to others.

When the towers fell to the ground on 9/11, I asked what had pissed this guy (meaning the hijackers) off to provoke him to take revenge on us? What hurt had he suffered that would put so much hatred in him to kill innocent people, and take his own life?

If Bush (read the US) had not pissed him off, perhaps we would not be in the situation we are in today. He (the hijackers) used the name of God to get the support of his people. Is his God the same God as mine?

If his religion dictated him to behave as he did and which effected us all, did God forgive his sins?

If I were a billionaire, I would spend my money to spread the words that people should take care of each other, because our children are watching us and learning from us. If we teach them wrong, if they grow up aiming for success at any cost that would not be right.

Knowledge is power, but if the power goes in the wrong hands, I am scared of our future as human race.

Do You See God?

One was a burly sharp-eyed college kid and other an eccentric old sage. With finely honed intellect, the boy was in the sure footsteps to stride high with the cream of the crop. The old man was revered by a small circle of devotee, regardless, was destined to live an obscured life.

When they met, the youthful asked, “People say that you can see God, is that true?”

“Of course, my boy, I see Him like I see you,” the sage replied.

The boy was startled, either this man was an imposter, or he was someone very special, which one was he?

Curiosity got the better of the young boy, and he began seeing the old man frequently.

He watched him with probing eyes, questioned him with sharp wit, and tested him with intricate schemes.

The more the youth watched the old, the more fascinated he became. Eventually, history took a curious turn, and a lethal combination of charisma and piety took the world by storm.

The young boy was Narendra, known to the world as Vivekananda. The old man was Gadadhar, known to the world as Sree Ramakrishna.

Once a promising disciple asked Sree Ramakrishna, “Master, I am always searching God intensely, but I can never find him. Why is it so?”

The Master took the young boy to a pond and asked him to take a dip. As the boy took a dip, the Master held him down under the water. The boy gasped for air; the Master nevertheless, continued to hold him down. Finally, when the Master let him go the boy jumped out of water, started breathing heavily, and leaped with joy!

The Master asked the disciple, “When you were under water how did you feel?”

The boy said, “I felt very strongly for air.”

The Master said, “When your desire for God becomes as strong as your desire was for air when you were under water, you will find God.”

No Equal Rights in Islam

Religion exploits both men and women, albeit, women more than men. Hindus used to burn their widows; Taoists would bury their female born, and Bible ordained no priesthood for the women among other inequalities.

Muslims claim that the Koran has given equal rights to women, which is pure whey. There are no equal rights for women in Islam.

First, let us see how the Koran clearly states a man's witness is worthy of two women's:

Two men shall serve as witnesses; if not two men, then a man and two women whose testimony is acceptable to all. (2.282)

Koranic scholars defend this with statements such as, women are emotional and they are more likely to be biased. What else can be more amusing than this medieval logic?

The Koran is unequivocal when it comes to inheritance:

GOD decrees a will for the benefit of your children; the male gets twice the share of the female. (4.11)

When it comes to spousal relationship the Koran gives husbands authority to beat their wives which is delineated in the following verse:

The men are made responsible for the women, and God has endowed them with certain qualities, and made them the bread earners. The righteous women will cheerfully accept this arrangement, since it is God's commandment, and honor their husbands during their absence. If you experience rebellion from the women, you shall first talk to them, then desert them in bed, then you may beat them. If they obey you, you are not permitted to transgress against them. God is Most High, Supreme. (4.34)

Some equal rights!

A Creature Linking Plants And Animals

Plants are plants and animals are animals, the twine shall never merge, right?

Not so fast!

How about a creature which is part animal and part plant? For many years, scientists have been studying a green slug, which lives between the two worlds.

The slugs feast on algae. However, instead of digesting the whole algae the slugs retain and store the chloroplasts in their own bodies. This enables them to directly convert sun light into energy, as most plants do, through the process known as photosynthesis, and survive without any food for very long time.

The slug is known by its biological name, Elysia chlorotica. Sidney Pierce, a biologist at the University of South Florida in Tampa has been studying them for nearly twenty years. He presented his study on Jan 7, at the annual meeting of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology, creating a new interest in this unique animal.

During the early part of Christianity, there was no war between science and religion. Saint Augustine believed, the religious texts are allegorical and they must be interpreted anew with the latest scientific discoveries.

In the 17th century, René Descartes made his famous assertion, “cogito ergo sum,” which translates, “I think, therefore I am.” Since that time, the world was firmly divided between living and non living.

In the 20th century science has been moving away from the Newtonian world and steadily hammering the Cartesian Partition and punching hole in it. In 1925, Heisenberg shattered the Cartesian partition with his Uncertainty Principle in quantum mechanics. Yet, in the 21st century we are witnessing a return to fundamentalism in many religious groups with new war ensuing between Evolution theory and Creationism.

Maybe, some could argue, that Elysia chlorotica can help society understand Theory of Evolution and begin a new cooperation between religion and science.