What is spirituality, and why do I care? Four reasons….

August 20, 2015
20 August, 12015 HE

A woman came up to me, after a Zembekiko at a Greek festival in the Boston area, and asked me
‘What do you feel when you dance?’ -I had to ask her what she meant; she explained that I seemed to be in another world, as if I were having a spiritual experience, when I danced.
Upon reflection, I had to admit that she was right -the beautiful music of the Mediterranean, the Balkans, even of those wild places where men danced with swords in hand, or like Zorba, gone mad with grief -those mournful yet insistent strains pulled me into some place where life existed. A place, maybe the only place, where I felt alive.

For me, spirituality seems to be that thing that gives meaning to life, a reason to keep going day after day, eating, breathing. Why bother? Because there is beauty in this world, and each person has a particular way of looking at it -a distinctive way of seeing the world.

For me, writing makes me understand and remember how it felt to be alive, throwing myself into the air, reaching into the clouds, stretching into the breeze. When the words overwhelm me, refusing to leave me alone, writing them down is the only escape.
But then, they demand to be pondered.
The emotional work always follows the meaning -is it possible to be happy, and why does that matter? Action matters. But thoughts and feelings affect actions.

So I use four criteria to order my days:

1. An action that gives meaning to my life: either dance or write each day,
2. A thought that adds to my emotional stability each day, either comprehending my reasons for feeling/behaving a certain way, or meditation on some feeling and the causes behind that feeling, leading to a decision on how to classify and use that feeling in the future.
3. A physical action that furthers my goals for reaching my body’s fullest potential (running a marathon, for example), and
4. An action that furthers my goals for developing my fullest personal intelectual potential (reading a certain number of pages in Turkish, for example).

For me, these four things represent my personal responsibility to reach my fullest potential as a human being, spiritually (if that exists), emotionally, physically and intellectually. Now, I wonder if and how I can help others do the same?
Shira “Holocene/Human Era” Destinie
20 August, 12015 HE
Bretagne

Current Mood: calm
Current Location: A world that should be safe for ALL
Current Music: Imagine -John Lennon

Tags: Coop, abuse, autobiography, health, recovery, survivors, tools

abuse, adultriteofpassage, health, jogging, marathon, meowvision, novel, survivors, tools, writing

( Cut: Semaine 11, jour 3; jeudi = session dur pour la semaine

4 km marche/course ‘J’ selon le plan, donc j’aurais du marcher/courrir, mais je trottins si lente que je me suis permets de trottiner tout les 4 km…)

J’ai commencé ventre vide et très fatiguée à cause du temps gris:
marché 5 minutes pour m’échauffer,
km 1: 12:34
km 2: 10:07
km 3: 10:10
km 4: 9:16
Totale de 4 km: 42:07 en trottinant si lentement possible sauf le dernier km.
12 minutes de marche en refroidisant.

Je remarques (mon Bescherelle, il est où ?) que j’ai senti meilleure le dernier km, quand je me suis permis de trottiner plus vite. Par contre, j’ai commencé à sentir mes gennoux aussi après quelques minutes de trot plus vite. :-( aufff…
20.8.12015 èH )

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Çok Merci Cumhuriyet -“Nous sommes tous Charlie”

Merci pour soutenir La Laicité et la liberté du presse.
Teşşekurler Laicité ve basın özgürlüğü destek ıçın.
Thank you for supporting the Separation of Church and State, and freedom of the Press.

ShiraDestinie -“Je Suis Charlie”

14 Ocak 2015 Çarşamba == 14 January 2015 Wednesday == 14 janvier 2015 mercredi == 14 Jan. 12015 Samedi/Saturday 12015 HE (Human Era)

http://www.cumhuriyet.com.tr/video/video/184541/Cumhuriyet_Gazetesi_onunde_guvenlik_onlemi.html

“Nous sommes tous Charlie”
Orıg: http://meowdate.dreamwidth.org/12336.html

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“Nous sommes tous Charlie” -We Are All Charlie Hebdo

Ladies and Gentlemen, keep a pen behind earch ear, and remember the words of FranceInter: the Human animal feels fear, but we must not allow our Human selves to give in to fear, nor to hatred. Freedom of thought remains alive and standing today.

In Solidarity, Brotherhood, and Community,

ShiraDestinie Jones LANDRAC

Today’s ‘normal’ date is: Thursday, January 8, 2015
Today’s Universal Date is: Sunday, January 8, 12015 HE (Holocene/Human Era)

Orig: http://meowdate.dreamwidth.org/12157.html

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Protect others by teaching them how You Overcame…

How have you overcome, and taught others to overcome?

Are you an adult? Take the Adulthood Challenge, and tell us:
http://adulthoodchallenge.dreamwidth.org/

Then, write your autobiography!

In service to Community Cooperation (and the Universal Holocene/Human Era Calendar…)
ShiraDestinie,

Universal Date (fka William-James-MEOW Date) : Friday, 6 January, 12015 HE
(TWC + Holocene Cal.: http://universalcalendar.eu5.org/)

[Orig. Post: http://meowdate.dreamwidth.org/11854.html …]

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Martin Luther King -Rabbinical Commentary poster inspired a Novel

MLK3speechHillelCommentaryStudy

This speech, treated as a sacred text, inspired me to write my first practice Novel RealDraft6Creator Friend or Foe Beginnings

ShiraDestinie

Today’s ‘normal’ date is: Satur, December 20, 2014
Today’s U.N. Date is: Wednesday, December 20, 12014 H.E. (Holocene Era)

orignal post with both files at
: http://shiradest.wordpress.com/2014/12/20/martin-luther-king-rabbinical-commentary-poster-inspired-a-novel/
http://meowdate.dreamwidth.org/11153.html

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“I Refuse” = the 2 most powerful words in the English language

Nov. 21st, 2014 09:34 am
Original: (http://meowdate.dreamwidth.org/10876.html)

We are taught to avoid strangers, which is important, or vigilance, rather, is important, but taught to trust those in authority and close to our families, which may not be the best for out health. Girls, especially, are often penalized for saying No, or for refusing what can turn out to be Grooming on the part of family or friends of family/babysitters/authority figures, and pressured to keep the secrets of those known the the victim. I believe that the “I Refuse” principle taught by Gandhi could help prevent some of these sexual abuse cases, if children are taught to respect their own judgement and to refuse to remain silent when touched.
Peace,
ShiraDestinie “Community Cooperation”
[ Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? ]

Today’s ‘normal’ date is: Fri, November 21, 2014
Today’s U.N. Date is: Tuesday, November 21, 12014 H.E. (Holocene/Human Era)

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How Democratic is our Money (System)?

I am grateful for the discussions on alternative currencies, but prefer to consider the democratic processes involved in our monetary systems. I have not got much time, but would like to share my work on Shared Monetary Governance, which was a cross-currency study on the democratic processes used by various currency institutions, including Time Banks, Ithaca Hours (and all I. Hours based currencies), LETS, private issue and national monetary institutions. It is a bit technical, but the upshot is that opennes, transparency, and participartory processes are the key to an inclusive currency. In terms of viability, I looked at scale, which seems to show that with more than 120-150 people, the Free Rider problems leads to hyper-inflation. There is more to it, of course, depending on individual circumstances, but I salut your work, and thank you for opening these dialogues.
ShiraDestinie Jones Landrac, MPhil
Today’s ‘normal’ date is: Saturday November 8, 2014
Today’s U.N. Date is: Wednesday, November 8, 12014 H.E. (Holocene Era)

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signal boost for Sustainable and Equitable Urban Planning conference

Judith Eversley, a colleague from Bath CND, is planning an upcoming conference (5-7 November):

“Equality in the City: Making Cities Socially Cohesive”

or

http://lnkd.in/dM9QZPR

Peace, ShiraDestinie, 26.10.12014 HE

Universal Date: Thursday, 26 October, 12014 H.E. (Holocene/Human Era)

orig: http://meowdate.dreamwidth.org/10407.html

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The War on Drugs -What happened to The War on Poverty?

Change has to come. But it does not have to be bloody. Yes, local elections, won in large numbers, can change things if the Federal government allows the change. But at the same time, I am convinced, we must have cultural change in order for the practical changes to take hold. Otherwise there will be no understanding of the importance of the changes, and no will to make the sacrifices needed for the changes to come about.
1. Get people thinking in terms of cooperation -I am my Brother’s (and Sister’s) Keeper
2. Get people thinking in terms of humanity rather than indivuals:
1.) start using the Human Era (Holocene Calendar) (2014 AD = 12014 HE)
2.) start encouraging workers cooperatives, food coops, consumer coops, and babysitting coops
3.) teach everyone why Voluntary Simplicity is important, and walk together.
4.) share the facts that water can make you healthier, and share brown rice together at meals -Oh, yes: Share Meals together with neighbors and friends!

3. Petitions, letters and walking, of course. Walking to the library, coop, or work, and walking in peaceful demonstrations as well as walking to the offices of lawmakers.

Many more suggesions have obviously been made at the policy level by many people, such as stregthening the Public Library system and a single payer Universal Health Care System with housing reform that ensures we all have housing. This is all local level or State level implementation that winning local elections would help with, but education and cultural change cements. Even just starting to talk and think in different ways is a possible start.
Be well, everyone,
ShiraDestinie,
Today’s ‘normal’ date is: Wed Oct 22 2014
Today’s U.N. Date is: Sunday, October 22. 12014 H.E. (Holocene/Human Era)
http://universalcalendar.eu5.org/
Orig. Post here:
http://meowdate.dreamwidth.org/10019.html

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Avant-d’être-Adulte, les Adultes, et les Rites de Passage

ENGLISH 

Chers Amis voici une autre idée pour vous :

Un nouveau rite de passage .

On a besoin d’un nouveau rite de

passage dont chaque adolescent doit a son plein gré

enseigner quelqu’un, de zéro, une habilité utile et important .

Il doit être une habilité dont la personne a besoin dans le

monde réale, par exemple d’alphabet jusque au lire les livres

simples, ou d’énumérer jusque aux tables de multiplication ,

ou d’écrire un sentence jusque au un essai, ou de pas de

anglais jusque au l’anglais passable dans les états-Unis.

Ce

projet doit exiger un investissement sérieux de temps (de

préférence deux ou trois heures par jour) pour au moins an

ans . Ainsi le jeune peut être fier d’un accomplissement dur

réclame son statut mérité d’adulte. Au même temps, plusieurs

problèmes dans notre société peut être résolu :

-Le faut augmentant de l’auto-discipline, courtoise et respect

pour la connaissance parmi les jeunes.

-Le faut de enseignants et les déficits de budget dans le

plupart des états seront un peu mitigé un augmentant le tas

de étudiants qui ont besoin de terminer leur “Projet d’être-

Adulte” au numéro des aides de salle et des bénévoles.

-Le

besoin pour les défis et pour se prouver pendant l’étage

adolescent de la vie est laissé irréalisée par la définition

excessivement arbitraire d’être une « adulte » de la société

moderne.

Je propose que le mise en route de tel idée doive

commencer par l’engagement de la communauté local.
D’abord, l’adolescent (ou s’il a 20 ans ou plus, le “pre-adulte”)

doive présenter une personne qui doive connaître la

communauté pour montre le cap du processus de l’

apprentissage. Après avoir atteindre l’objective à apprendre,

l’ado/ « pre-adulte » et l’apprentie retordront revoir la

communauté pour évaluer l’efficacité des efforts et pour

donner au « pre-adulte » son statut d’Adulte, avec touts les

droits et responsabilités attendu d’un adulte, compris tel

normes culturelles comme la civilité, courtoisie, et même la

gracieuseté.

Ainsi irions d’une société ou la impolitesse est la

norme vers une dont la gracieuseté est valorisé. Par exemple,

une amie raconte un incident dont un chien lui grogné, et la

propriétaire ç’avait excusé tout de suit, qui c’était la chose

civil à faire, et en suite même avait offrait de l’appeler un taxi,

qui c’était la chose gracieuse à faire. Une société ou la

gracieuseté est valorisé serait tant d’une société plus

compatissante que d’une plus créative. Je laisse ces pensées

pour contemplation, débâte, et action.

À l’amour, la Paix, et … la Coopération Communautaire !!!

Shira Destinie

Date « usuelle » : samedi, 18 octobre 2014 AD

Date Universelle: mercredi, 18 octobre

12014 ÈH (Ère Holocène)
(mise en ligne en anglais :
 Date usuelle : jeudi , 17 avril 2014
Date MEOW : lundi, 16 avril 12014 èH (ère Holocène) 
Remarque : la « Date MEOW » qu’honore William James essai

de 1907 «  l’équivalent moral de la guerre » venait de l’anglais

« Moral Equivalent of War » )

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How Books (& thus Public Libraries) Save Lives: Class Diffs, People Potential

From: http://meowdate.dreamwidth.org/9671.html

Jeanne Benameur’s Les Insurrections Singulières shows a young working class man grow through daring to leave his home -with an elderly lover of books as his guide.

Short of the Basic Income and Universal Health Care (as a Single Payer System), the single most helpful institution for allowing all members of society to contribute to their unique and fulles capacity may be the Public Library system.

Peace and Full Potential for All,
Shira Destinie Jones Landrac, of The MEOW CC Blog

Gregorian Date: Sunday, October 12 2014
TellYourStory Date : Thursday, October 12, 12014 H.E. (Holocene Era, aka Human Era)

Posted in Economic Democracy | 1 Comment

Est-ce que je suis une adulte ? Partie 1 : La Définition

( ENGLISH : )

Mes critères pour être adulte sont au nombre de six :
D’abord, chaque enfant doit être capable

1. de nager, autant que faire se peut
2. de se défendre (émotionnellement et physiquement), autant que faire se peut
3. de penser et bâtir des arguments
4. de comprendre des statistiques
5. de conduire les voiture à boîte de vitesses manuelle (ou monter à vélo, à cheval, naviguer…)
6. (Tout ça implique :) la responsabilité de réfléchir et d’accepter des responsabilités pour ses actes.

J’ai passé assez de temps en étudiant toutes ces choses et aussi en pensant sûr mes propres principes.

En terminant, je crois que la dernière preuve pour être reconnu-e comme adulte est le fait d’enseigner à une personne une habilité critique. Par exemple, nager ou écrire. Réfléchir fait aussi partie des points 3 et 6 , comme disait Dr. Viktor Frankl. Cette épreuve ferait partie du Défi pour être Adulte (https://network23.org/communitycoop/2014/04/17/pre-adulthood-adults-and-rites-of-passage/).

À suivre : Est-ce que je suis adulte ? Partie 2 : Moi…

Date « usuelle » : mercredi, 8 octobre 2014 AD
Date Universelle: dimanche, 8 octobre 12014 ÈH (Ère Holocène)

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Imposed calendar, religion, language and ‘civilization’ led to loss for All women

Voices of Cherokee Women is a well-written chronicle, from pre-contact to modern times, of how Cherokee women went from respected voices in the community to silence, and back again. Telling many stories again from another perspective (particularly Mooney and Lt. Timberlake, whose accounts look different when viewed through the lense of women’s history), this book shows another side of the story. Our story.

Acceptance of the Gregorian system of time-measurement, which came with more quickly produced (manufactured) goods, led to rejection of a more feminine calendar, and thus eventually to acceptance of European religion (at the point of trader debt and guns, admittedly), loss of the Tsalagi language in favor of English, and a forced acceptance of the ‘Civilizing’ program: an attempt to replace the Cherokee way of thinking, respect for mothers and honored women, with the domestication of obedient ladies: a European way of thinking.

These essays show more than just how Cherokee women went from equality to inequality and back again. They show how the imposition of calendar, religion, language and ‘civilization’ led to the loss of a more open and flexible way of thinking.

Peace,

Gregorian Date: Wednesday, 24 September 2014
Universal Date (aka MEOW Community Cooperation Date) : Sunday, 24 September, 12014 H.E. (Holocene Era, aka Human Era)

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Marcus Aurelius would agree: “beware the dangers of Groupthink!”

Ancient:
“If it be right and honest to be spoken or done, undervalue not thyself so much, as to be discouraged from it.” from The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius

Modern:
“… beware the dangers of Groupthink! Just because all your mates think it’s a good idea is not a good reason for agreeing something – co-operatives need assertive members who think for themselves and share their opinions including fears and reservations.” from: Cooperantics

Cooperatives are actually the anti-thesis of the accusation that we of “communitarian ideology” do not think critically and scientifically. To the contrary -principled critical thinking is essential to real cooperation.

Peace and Full Potential for All,
Shira Destinie Jones Landrac, of The MEOW CC Blog

Gregorian Date: Friday, 12 September 2014
MEOW Date : Tuesday, 12 September, 12014 H.E. (Holocene Era, aka Human Era)

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Art helped free individuals who were property, by acting in community

Art helped free individuals who were property, by acting in community (thanks to Milagros Philips for her reply to this on her Racial Healing site…)

Tracy Chevalier’s show’s how quilting quilting helped free enslaved people. She portrays the self-discipline and quiet determination of a young Quaker girl, in difficult times, working to be part of a helping community while caught in an individualistic household.

I often wonder how individualists are formed, and how one comes to be a communitarian in the midst of an individualistic society. There are myriad ways that a person can come to value community, myriad motivations, religious, secular, pragmatic, but that one values community over individual priorities, no matter what that valuing stems from, means that one will sacrifice personal desires for the good of the community. This is a value which experience shows me is little understood in American society today, particularly in the younger segments of our society. How do we come back to living the values of Duty, Honor, and Loyalty, and helping one another to live out a sense of honor in the tradition of Gandhi, Dr. King, Rabbi Hillel, the Sufi mystics, all of those who valued loving and inclusive community, from La Convivencia to Communes, but in a healthy and fully inclusive way that can stretch to encompass all of society, rather than a small group. How do we open the door to real and full, safe, secure yet honest dialogue?

A fellow bloger shows how art can build community and change economies today:

http://theloniouslegend.blogspot.fr/2014/09/interview-with-reggie-r-bythewood.html#gpluscomments

We who build community look to the Constitution to find ways, in keeping with the property system, to ensure that every person in this country has a safe home, however small, in which to live.

Shira Destinie
Gregorian Date: Thursday, 4 September, 2014
MEOW Date : Monday, 4 September, 12014 H.E. (Holocene Era, aka Human Era)

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Shared Political Governance and Shared Monetary Governance: Two Sides of the Same Coin needing Campaign and Monetary Finance Reform?

Do shared political governance and Shared Monetary Governance require Campaign and Monetary Finance Reform?

Sharing Economic Decision-making power is as important as sharing real political power. That was the premise behind my book Shared Monetary Governance. I re-summarize the summary, as I now understand that economic and political power are interconnected, and require equal measures of accessibility.

Thus:

1st Half = Campaign Finance Reform, to help spread real inclusion in the political process.

2nd Half: Shared Monetary Governance can help create greater economic inclusion:

Local currencies, supplemental forms of money which circulate in local communities, 1.) create more social and financial capital in local communities, 2.) keep local resources in communities, and 3.) grow monetary decision-making access in communities while facilitating the revaluing of unpaid work. Time Banks ensure that value held locally will remain a Store of Value (SoV) in the local community over a long period of time. Scrip currencies like Ithaca Hours fill the Medium of Exchange (MoE) function, to be discussed later.

Governance of Money (SoV) vs. Economic Benefit of Money (SoV)

Each Time Bank member can choose to create new money in the local economy, when he or she decides to donate time to another member of the Time Bank. Each hour donated to a Time Bank adds to the overall amount of money stored for the long term in a local community, creating new resources in that community.

Time Banks encourage community members to attend Time Bank decision-making meetings, keeping and increasing locally decided economic priority-setting participation by all members as part of the community.

Hours stay in the local community, keeping more resources in the community, thus they stop the draining of local resources to distant areas (so the wealth is no longer accessible to the community).

Storing value locally gives citizens a greater stake in
community institutions, encouraging a growing level of
transparency and accountability in all its projects.
Since an hour never loses its value as an hour, storing their value as time in the local community encourages long term local economic growth.

Supplemental SoV currencies like Time Banks and Local MoE Currencies such as Anacostia Hours allow greater levels of inclusion to members of the community in local economic decision-making processes. This is an example which the US Dollar, with far more closed (non-inclusive), less transparent and less publicly accountable decision-making processes, can learn from and emulate. Inclusion gives direct stakeholders of governance a voice in money and in politics, which vitally affect all of our lives.

K. Dittmer’s original review of Shared Monetary Governance, in the IJCCR, can also be found here:

http://ijccr.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/ijccr-2012-book-reviews.pdf

Peace and Full Potential for All,
Shira Destinie Jones Landrac, of The MEOW CC Blog

Gregorian Date: Wednesday, 10 September 2014
MEOW Date : Sunday, 10 September, 12014 H.E. (Holocene Era, aka Human Era)

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The MEOW Vision: A bit like Herland, but more equal

The ground-breaking novella Herland was a good start, but lacked a vision of fully inclusive equality. The MEOW Vision builds on Gilman’s ideas, with the aim of Fully Inclusive Equality.

The Goals (allowing each person to contribute fully):

1. Each person, as a child, must learn to swim
2. Each child must learn self-defense (emotional and physical)
3. Each child, at birth, receives half a hectare of land, non-alienable. He or she may rent, lend or swap the land, but always remains the owner. Where ever the location, it should have a well and be arable.
4. Fresh water for ever person (free!)
5. Each family should have a book in the local public library, containing the autobiography of every adult in the family (which means that each person needs free time and the means to write his or her autobiography).

(the same Goals in Spanish:)
—-
Un programa de Igualdad y Salud para Todos

Las Metas (para que todos pueden contribuir lo mejor):

1. Cada quien, de niño, debe aprender nadar
2. Que cada quien de niño aprende defenderse
3. Que cada bebe, al nacer, recibe .5 hectarios de terreno, que nunca se puede desprender. Se lo puede alquilar o prestar, pero siempre sigue esta persona como dueño o dueña del terreno. Que sea donde sea, será con un poso de agua y capaz de agricolar.
4. Agua potable para cada persona
5. Que cada familia tenga un libro en la biblioteca publica, con resumen del autobiografía de cada persona de la familia (eso quiere decir que cada quien tenga el tiempo libre y los recursos para escribir su autobiografia)

Peace,

Gregorian Date: Tuesday, 9 September 2014
MEOW Date : Saturday, 9 September, 12014 H.E. (Holocene Era, aka Human Era)

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Marriage and community: Dr. King showed us how marriage for all can keep us safe.

Marriage and community: how marriage for all keeps us safe: an interpretation of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr’s call for a Basic Income…

If society exists to facilitate the maximization of potential of each member of society, and if a couple gives more to society together than as two individuals, then it behooves the community to support and encourage every couple to stay together and contribute as a stable couple to society.

That allows a synergistic relationship to form where the couple gives more to the community, and is in turn reinforced by the community, enabling them to be more effective both as a couple and as members of the community. Both members of the couple and the community are able to accomplish more through this mutually beneficial relationship. That is one social dynamic which would keep us all safer.

Lasting social stability, which as Dr. King pointed out is the only true means of riot prevention , requires a high level of cooperation. Marriage, with or without
procreation, encourages life-long committment, cooperative thinking, and a reduced Carbon Footprint. These can help stabilize society and build further cooperation.

Preventing torture and sensless killings, such as that of Travon Williams, depends on the existence and maintainance of respect and trust within and between communities so that they can then cooperate effectively to prevent the dehumanization and hate crimes which ultimately result from lack of understanding and cooperative interaction between indivuduals and communities. Part of this, as Dr. King pointed out, involves having food, shelter and clothing. A Basic or Citizen’s Income would provide that. Social supports and minimum livable economic supports build a society that can then become fully democratic, free, equal, and harmonious.

Peace through Community Cooperation,
ShiraDestinie of The MEOW CC Blog

Gregorian Date: Thursday, 12 April 2012
MEOW Date : Thursday, 12 April, 12012 H.E. (Holocene Era, aka Human Era)

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Segregation then, modern mercantile colonialism now

As many reports showed the economic damage that segregation did previously, so do modern reports show the damage done by big box capitalism, which is essentially a modern form of mercantile colonialism. Fair Trade or Equal Exchange and local economic development are good starting places. Where do we go from there to allow each person to develop his or her full potential as a human being?

Inequality from 1947 to Developing mkts today
P. 142/3:

http://www.trumanlibrary.org/civilrights/srights4.htm#139
“The Economic Reason
One of the principal economic problems facing us and the rest

of the world is achieving maximum production and continued

prosperity. The loss of a huge, potential market for goods is a

direct result of the economic discrimination which is practiced

against many of our minority groups. A sort of vicious circle is

produced. Discrimination depresses the wages and income of

minority groups. As a result, their purchasing power is

curtailed and markets are reduced. Reduced markets result in

reduced production. This cuts down employment, which of

course means lower wages and still fewer job opportunities.

Rising fear, prejudice, and insecurity aggravate the very

discrimination in employment which sets the vicious circle in

motion.

Minority groups are not the sole victims of this economic

waste; its impact is inevitably felt by the entire population.”

These explanations of how segregation impacted the US

economy apply equally to how resource drain from Developing

(fka Third World) economies impacts the world economy toay.

This is the chief Economic reason that we need Fair Trade and

equal exchange laws. All the world suffers when part of the

world is denied equality, via policy or path dependent history,

as the case may be, we urgently need to cooperate and share

with the entire world our technologies and our resources

because unless we do so, we are all limited.
Peace,
Shira

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Man’s Search for Meaning -include community

I will (re?) read this book, as I recall reading at least two books by V. Frankl, but having stumbled across this wonderful blog with quotes, now I must read more.

From
http://stuff.mit.edu/people/gkrasko/Frankl.html

“In my view, that Frankl’s book – at least those one hundred pages of the concentration camp chapter – must be read by everyone who is trying to understand the why of our so comfortable and safe life. In a new school curriculum, I would recommend this book for our teenagers as one of the most important textbooks.

…A long column of inmates, the walking skeletons, suffering from hunger, exhaustion, and, on the top of everything, edema of their legs and feet. Some do not have socks – their frostbitten and chilblain feet are so swollen, that there is no space for socks, even if they had them… Suddenly, the man marching next to Frankl whisper: “If our wives could see us now! I do hope they are better off in their camps and don’t know what is happening to us.” Frankl continues: “And as we stumbled on for miles, slipping on icy spots, supporting each other time and again, dragging one another up and onward, nothing was said, but we both knew: each of us was thinking of his wife” (p. 56).

Thoughts of their loved ones were an important component of that will to meaning that enabled people to survive. .îFor the first time in my life I saw the truth, as it is set into songs by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth is that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love. I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world still may know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved.”(p. 57; italics by Frankl). In that marching column, and on hundreds of other occasions when Frankl and his comrades were uniting in thoughts with those they loved, they did not even know if they were alive. “I knew only one thing – which I have learned well by now: Love goes very far beyond the physical person of the beloved.”(p. 58).”

“to find meaning in life”

Genrich L. Krasko is a retired physicist still affiliated with Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA. He lives in Peabody, MA with his wife Zeya. ”
Peace, Meaning and Community,
ShiraDestinie
MEOW Date: 8 September 12014 H.E.

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Intergenerational committment to shared ideals outweighs, but is affected by, historical differences.

The Girl, a hybrid from the poorest district in India, begins and ends very well. In between, she tells us how intergenerational committment to shared ideals outweighs, but is affected by, historical differences. Opposing communities use open communication (telephathy helps force the issue), positive action, and common ideals to confront oppression.

While there are areas where the writing is a bit confusing, the ideas ring true, and the reader is drawn into a conflict where a young woman must find herself, and lead others in the fight. A refreshing turnabout. I look forward to reading the sequel, which is the next book on The Diversity Book Tour.

ShiraDestinie
Gregorian Date: Sunday, 7 September, 2012
MEOW Date : Thursday, 7 September, 12014 H.E. (Holocene Era, aka Human Era)

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DC Social Forum consensus: Public Banks, Time Banks and small groups build Cooperative Society

At the 2012 DC Social Forum, we came to a consensus: Public Banks, Time Banks and small groups build Cooperative Society.

The joint presentations at the DC Social Forum, which was held in the DC Friend’s Meeting House, a wonderful historical building, were fascinating. And disturbing.

Fascinating because they all centered around the need to move from our consumerist and big box model of capitalism toward one which includes all of the people in the governance process.

Disturbing because everyone also agreed on the need for us to have a societal culture of cooperation and egalitarianism, or a willingness to cooperate to create and use a level playing field for all people. Then everyone agreed that getting there from here would take a very long time.

One of the tools mentioned included Public Banks, such as the one in North Dakota, and currently being considered by the Mayor in DC, apparently. This is something to look into for the immediate future as a completely doable step which has in fact already been implemented in many places, according to the presenter.

Another tool is Time Banking and the creation and use of various complementary or community currencies, such as Ithaca Hours, or Anacostia Hours here in DC alongside the local time bank, DC Time Bank.org. Time Banks in particular create and build trust and cooperation in an egalitarian mode within the community.

A further tool was the use of non-hierarchical methods and clarity on the point that groups must be set up with no more than 150 members in order to avoid creation of hierarchy, with lessons being drawn from the Cuban revoluntion of 1959 by a Hungarian professor presenting.

A final vision was one in which society is entirely cooperative, resulting in the contributions of all members being valued. Cultural change toward a valuing of equal participation, voice, and cooperation was espoused, along with the understanding that this does not happen overnight. With consistent work and faith in our evolving ability to cooperate, we continue forward.

Peace, through Community Cooperation,
ShiraDestinie
Gregorian Date: Thursday, 12 April 2012
MEOW Date : Thursday, 12 April, 12014 H.E. (Holocene Era, aka Human Era)

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Don’t Step on a Crack, use the Marriage Cooperative instead

Don’t Step on a Crack -this thriller is more bones than meat.

In his plot-driven thriller, Patterson at least tries to add meat by starting with two wonderful marriages, alas for the women. Perhaps they might have given the benefit of their experience, had they lived, to an idea that does have meat, if a bit of grisle.Community Match-making, or, The Marriage Cooperative: an idea worth (re-)trying?

My great-grandmother had a potholder that said “Cookin’ Lasts, Kissin’ Don’t” -the idea being that marriage is for life. The idea is that single people looking for spouses form a group and take turns being the match-maker for each other.

That should help committment and companionship , the things that last, guide the decision to marry, rather than a possibly short-lived feeling of love that may evaporate in hard times.

Each single person would find 4 trusted long-term friends/family to form his/her “marriage panel”. That panel would be empowered to look over the match-maker’s possible matches for the single person, and then meet with the marriage panels of the possible dating candidates. (Obviously, the single can always over-ride the panel’s suggestions.) The match-maker and both marriage panels then meet and discuss the match before the two singles are introduced to each other. That way at least 8 people who know the two singles have a chance to agree on whether those two could form a healthy happy marriage. That should reduce the stress for each single person, and there are 9 people guarranteed to support the marriage.

Thoughts?
Shira Destinie
Gregorian Date: Saturday, 6 September, 2014
MEOW Date : Wednesday, 6 September, 12014 H.E. (Holocene Era, aka Human Era)

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Did art help free enslaved individuals?

Art may have helped free individuals who were property, by acting in community

Tracy Chevalier’s The Last Runaway show’s how different interpretations of art, and even sometimes silence, helped free enslaved people. She portrays the self-discipline and quiet determination of a young Quaker girl, in difficult times, working to be part of a helping community while caught in an individualistic household.

I often wonder how individualists are formed, and how one comes to be a communitarian in the midst of an individualistic society. There are myriad ways that a person can come to value community, myriad motivations, religious, secular, pragmatic, but that one values community over individual priorities, no matter what that valuing stems from, means that one will sacrifice personal desires for the good of the community. This is a value which experience shows me is little understood in American society today, particularly in the younger segments of our society. How do we come back to living the values of Duty, Honor, and Loyalty, and helping one another to live out a sense of honor in the tradition of Gandhi, Dr. King, Rabbi Hillel, the Sufi mystics, all of those who valued loving and inclusive community, from La Convivencia to Communes, but in a healthy and fully inclusive way that can stretch to encompass all of society, rather than a small group. How do we open the door to real and full, safe, secure yet honest dialogue?

A fellow bloger shows how art can build community and change economies today:

http://theloniouslegend.blogspot.fr/2014/09/interview-with-reggie-r-bythewood.html#gpluscomments

We who build community look to the Constitution to find ways, in keeping with the property system, to ensure that every person in this country has a safe home, however small, in which to live.

Shira Destinie
Gregorian Date: Friday, 5 September, 2014
MEOW Date : Tuesday, 5 September, 12014 H.E. (Holocene Era, aka Human Era)

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I Had a Dream: Teaching via Hidden Race Riots and Community

After reading the excellent: Snow-Storm in August: The Struggle for American Freedom and Washington’s Race Riot of 1835 on history and community,I was, for some odd reason, facilitating a workshop at the YMCA, which I get the impression was in an upstairs room at the historic 12th Street (aka Anthony Bowen) Y, with a group of kids of color, and they seemed to regard me as an abstract expert in something for they had little interest, with the exception of a few who paid rapt attention. I was called downstairs in the midst of my talk, after I seemed to have placed the teens in work groups to solve some problems, and down in the office I was told that a pair whom I had separated for fighting were the cause of the Police having been called, and met the police lady who was to come upstairs with me. I asked her to wait at the doorway while I introduced her as our Friendly local Police Lady who was there to ask if anyone had any questions about community policing and how she could be of help to them. A pair of boys around 15 years old or so began to fight, a latino and black kid, and I stepped in, breaking it up half in Spanish and half in my childhood DC accent to remind them that I am part of both worlds, and they stepped back and listened to me, surprisingly, as the police lady edged into the room. Maybe it was her gun they were actually listening to, but the kids behaved better, and seemed to enjoy the friendly spin I tried to put on our visitor´s presence. Some girls did go talk with her, to my relief, and it seemed to go well. I wish I could recall what the topic was. I am sure it was not mathematics, but I think it was some amalgamation similar to what I wrote up in 2003 about using historical incidents, like the Snow Riots, to pick a part of the incident to use to teach every different subject, from right angles and shooting
azimuths up 7th Street, to writing an essay on the implications of the unemployed “mechanics” targetting of men of color who were unrelated to the actual trigger of the riots. Different kids seemed drawn to different stations I had set up around the room, but there was a spider web like set of strings connecting each station to the center, where the main topic was outlined in red and blue. There were other colors at different stations, but I do not know why or for what. I love connecting history with writing with mathematics (when my superior teachers were not prohibiting me from assigning math journal homework to my HS students!! Note that this actually earned me praise on my Community College Alebra teaching evaluation, so go figure. I guess I was teaching at the wrong place, or the wrong time -2002 vs. 2011…)

Well, I hope that someone else finds this dream useful or interesting, and perhaps I will work it into one of my writings.
Peace, Love, and Song,
Shira Destinie
Gregorian Date: Monday, 1 September, 2014
MEOW Date : Friday, 1 September, 12014 H.E. (Holocene Era, aka Human Era)

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