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Showing posts from May, 2007
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LOVE HELL, FIND HEAVEN "Only when we can love hell will we find heaven." -- Unknown source People often view the spiritual path as a search for the light. In truth, spirituality asks us to bring light and darkness together in wholeness. And in fact, this is the only possible solution. In our world of duality, any effort to focus all attention on the light only serves to increase the power of the darkness. Our aim is not to deny or reject anything but to embrace it all. "When you are able to contain both the light and dark together, that is a very enlightening state. It means that you no longer have to choose one experience over another. You do not have to choose love OR hate, blame OR forgiveness, sadness OR joy, anger OR openheartedness. You are no longer polarized; no particular feeling boxes you in and keeps you from the light of true self. You then have access to the full range of human experiences you came into this life to embrace." -- Martia Nelson PLEASE CLI
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STUPID IS AN EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER Does anyone know of any statement issued by Orthodox or Conservative leadership condemning Rabbi Eliyahu's statement? Remember, Rabbi Eliyahu is the former chief Rabbi of Israel. This is the same guy who said that God sent Hurricane Katrina because the people of New Orleans didn't study Torah enough. He was asked if he knew that the population of New Orleans was primarily black and non-Jewish, he said that was exactly what he meant. Oy! I'm truly ashamed. Reform files complaint against former chief rabbi by Neta Sela Movement files complaint with police against former Chief Rabbi Eliyahu, who said in radio interview establishment of Reform Judaism in Germany angered God, prompted Holocaust Members of the Reform movement, including Holocaust survivors, filed a complaint for libel with the police against former chief rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu Wednesday, following his statements linking the Reform movement and the Holocaust. In a radio int
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FEMALE CANTORS SEEK RECOGNITIO N This article below ties in very nice with something my blogger friend Lemon posted about on her blog , the full article which can be found here . Food for thought. A lot of thought. Women's voice is indecent - or is it? Female cantors slowly emerging as national-religious sector's next big trend, but face criticism, accusations of indecency by Smadar Shir In recent years, the world of national-religious women has been slowly but surely revolutionized. It started with female litigators who appear before rabbinical courts, which was unheard of just a decade ago, and continued with women attending Torah and Gemara classes in yeshivot, which produced women scholars who are already viewed as halachic rulers. The next big trend, though still evolving in secret, is women cantors. The odds are against them. Since early childhood, they have been told that hearing a woman sing is indecent. If they were men, their destiny would have been different, but t
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WHY WE REALLY INVADED IRAQ Here it is folks. And why Osama is still on the loose and not a priority (if he ever was) Because the PNAC cronies in the White House now had this agenda a LONG time ago and just USED 9/11 to get everyone's panties in a bunch and behind an illegal and unnecessary war. We have been had people - and we are still being had at the cost of our young people. Revealed: Why Your Sons and Daughters Died in Iraq by Cliff Carson Could it be that our soldiers died to enrich five or six International Oil Companies (Four of them American)? Or that possibly a million Iraqis suffered the same fate for the same reason? You might recall that President Bush claimed that one of the Benchmarks the Iraqi Government must meet is a deal to share the Oil revenues. What he didn't say is with whom they, the Iraqis, will have to share. Seems like it's not the Iraqis. This is according to a speech by Dennis Kucinich last week, well not all of it was a speech; some
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UNDER PRESSURE For some reason reading this article in Haaretz reminded me of those inane commercials (and net-spam) asking men "are you losing your edge in the bedroom" or "did you know as you age you lose testosterone?" of course followed up with the pitch for some testosterone boosting pill, cream or food replacement. Those commercials sprang to mind when I read the statement coming out of PM Olmert's office. Maybe he found some product that worked? FINALLY? Security cabinet rejects Gaza truce, opts to keep pressure on Hamas By Aluf Benn, Haaretz Correspondent, The security cabinet decided at a meeting Wednesday to reject a cease-fire with Hamas over the violence in the Gaza Strip, and that the Israel Defense Forces should continue with its ongoing policy of military action against the Palestinian militant groups. Noting a "relative decrease in Qassam rocket launchings," the cabinet decided to continue "attacks and military pressure on terro
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C-C-C-CONDI FOR PRESIDENT? Say it ain't so. I guess the Red States feel she might be a good foil to Hillary or Obama. Frankly, no one is standing out to me this election cycle. They all look the same, sound the same, pander to the same interests and bend over for the same ****. There's no one on the horizon at a time when we need true leadership in this country to clean up the mess that the Chimp-in-Charge and his Bananas have left. Condi isn't dealing with reality. The U.S. won't buy her for the most part. The Jews in the Diaspora I know probably won't be so thrilled about her kissing the derrieres of the terrorists in the Middle East. She needs to develop her own line of shoes or maybe get a boyfriend (or girlfriend, whatever...) and be a real person for a while. And she needs to stop drinking the Neocon Cosmopolitans. But PRESIDENT CONDI? (shaking head, walking away in disgust) Revisiting the possibility of a Rice ticket in 2008 Marcus Mabry, aut
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LAWLESS ARE THEY THAT MAKE THEIR WILLS LAW William Shakespeare always says it best, and sometimes more plainly than many of us today. The Bush double-speak, do-as-I-say, make-no-sense and can't-conjugate-a-verb talk makes my head hurt. I am a political animal and have been since high school but I can't watch this man or his administration. When he comes on TV I tune over to the Cartoon Network; the latter makes more sense. Tony Snow makes me naseous, Dick Cheney is too scary, Rummy made me cringe, John Bolton needs Risperdal, Condi needs to come back on the reality side of the looking glass, need I go on? The Democrats and Republicans are homogenizing into one disgusting mess. Where's the honor? Where's the energy? Where's the Constitution? I swore I saw the monuments in Washington crying when I was there in February. My Pilgrim and Revolutionary War ancestors are spinning like tops in their pine boxes. HOW ABOUT A LAW CZAR by Mark Green Instead of a War Czar,
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THE "WAR ON TERROR" + TALIBANIZATION OF IRAQI WOMEN = ! With reference to an article I posted yesterday , I was sent this article ( I cancelled my subscription to that paper about 8 years ago ) about the desperation of women fleeing Iraq. Apologists here in the U.S will allow Islamofascist men to enroll in college on endless student visas and feel too much "political correctness" and allow these abusers of women and our personal freedoms into the U.S. with low to no background checks. I've had some men tell me that women can be high price escorts now and CHOOSE this professional and heck no, its not full of alcoholics and drug abusers. That's a damn lie because I've worked with some who've left that "business" in the last couple years. They will abuse prescription drugs like Prozac or Celexa because of the 'dissociation' necessary to 'to their jobs.' They often have permanent reproductive system damage from allowing so m
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POLL: MAJORITY FAVORS REPLACING AMERICAN EAGLE WITH BIRD WHO POOPED ON BUSH “WE HAVE TO SH*T ON HIM HERE, SO HE DOESN’T SH*T ON THE WORLD EVERYWHERE.” FROM THIS SITE Couldn't resist! PLEASE CLICK HERE TO JBLOG ME
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The Talibanization of Iraq Under mounting repression, courageous women fight for their rights and their lives. Is this how the U.S. brought “freedom” to the country? by Bay Fang Yanar Mohammed returned to Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime because she thought the veil of tyranny had finally been lifted from her native country. She and two other women started the Organization for Women’s Freedom in Iraq (OWFI), with the goal of fighting for women’s rights. But since those days, her OWFI cofounders have fled the country, and Mohammed herself has received numerous death threats for her work. OWFI , one of the few remaining nongovernmental organizations left in Iraq, has been forced to operate in complete secrecy. “Because of the chaos on the streets and in the government, women have been forced to leave work and hide at home,” says Mohammed, 47. “ We live in a state of continuous fear—if our hair shows on the street, if we’re not veiled enough at work,” says Mohammed. “It’s
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VERY WORRIED ABOUT MISCALCULATION Israelis Don’t Want Gaza to Be Their Next Lebanon By STEVEN ERLANGER JERUSALEM — For the government of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, badly battered by last summer’s inconclusive war against the rockets of Hezbollah, launched from Lebanon, the rocket fire from the Gaza Strip seems a similarly intractable problem with no easy, popular response. While the Hamas militants in Gaza seem to have taken a lesson from that war — how to use rockets against Israeli civilians to eat away at Israeli self-confidence and frustrate the Israeli military — Israel’s own lesson is less clear, because its ground assault on southern Lebanon did not end in a clear victory, let alone destroy its adversary. The Israeli government is feeling constrained by its own weakness and damaged credibility. If it goes into Gaza too hard, it will be criticized for trying to overcompensate for its failures last summer against Hezbollah. If it acts with too much restraint and caution, it will
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Fix, Forgive, Forget Redux CLICK HERE FOR THREAD THAT GOT ME THINKING ABOUT THIS What if I can't forgive? Q. You wrote that we don't need to forgive blindly ; it is proper to demand reasonable amends for any wrongs. What should I do if a person has so harassed and offended me that I feel I can't forgive him at all ? A. Jewish law emphatically holds that we should be generous and forthcoming in forgiving those who have transgressed against us, and that following forgiveness we should put the entire matter behind us. For example, the Torah tells us, "Don't take vengeance and don't bear a grudge" (Leviticus 19:18). However, as we pointed out, this behavior is appropriate after amends have been made; it is not always possible or even desirable beforehand. First we need to fix ; only afterwards do we forgive; after passing these two stages we should indeed forget. The process of forgiveness in Jewish tradition basically has two distinct functions. On