This blog has no real theme. I'll just post here anything that interests me. Themes may include technology, literature, politics, religion, peace initiatives, personal rants, and many other things. Read if you wish, but be careful - my skills as a "Moonie" may bring me to brainwash you.
Now, here's MoveOn's message which contains a few other links to other organizations which are helping out in Haiti.
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Justin Ruben, MoveOn.org Political Action<moveon-help@list.moveon.org> Date: Thu, Jan 14, 2010 at 7:43 PM Subject: Haiti To: "Christopher D. Osborn"
Dear MoveOn member,
The news coming out of Haiti is almost too terrible to imagine.
Three million people have been affected by Tuesday's earthquake, and the Red Cross estimates as many as 50,000 may be dead. Survivors are digging through the rubble with their hands in a desperate attempt to rescue those who are trapped.
With water and medical supplies in short supply, and the Haitian government paralyzed, international aid efforts in the next few days will be critical to prevent more human suffering.
These three charities, and many others, are providing care. If you can contribute to help fund their emergency efforts, please do.
PAID FOR BY MOVEON.ORG POLITICAL ACTION, http://pol.moveon.org/. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee. This email was sent to Christopher D. Osborn on January 14, 2010. To change your email address or update your contact info, click here. To remove yourself from this list, click here.
Just so you know, I've never donated a dime to MoveOn.org and I doubt I ever will. I get their emails chiefly to counteract the political work that they do. However, once in a while they do something I agree with, and this is one of them.
Alright, so you might heard me mention it before, but now I'm going to tell you a bit more about it.
The Global Peace Festival is a festival to celebrate the progress towards peace we've already made and the plans we have for the future. However, the biggest thing it is I think, is a call to arms, so to speak. We are calling out to the world that enough is enough, and that if we could all just put the barriers of our race, religion, and nationality behind us we could really have a wonderful place to live here on earth for everyone. Finally, it's also an awareness campaign, to make people aware of the root causes of war and poverty.
There are many reasons for war and poverty in the world. Disease, past colonial oppression, lack of freedom, lack of control, not enough water, not enough infrastructure, misunderstandings and/or stubbornness between people and nations. We at the Universal Peace Federation believe that the key to it all is the family.
The family is the place every one of us starts out life. If we don't learn respect and responsibility within our family, how can we be expected to respect others outside our family or take responsibility outside our family? If we don't have peace and a sense of oneness within our family, how can we be at peace with the world? How can we love our neighbor if we cannot love our brother? How can we care for the people of another nation if we do not care for the ones within out own?
This is why the theme of the Global Peace Festival is One Family Under God. First we have to make individual families which are full of love, respect and a sense responsibility and interdependence, and we believe the best way to do this is through the basic tenants that all different religions teach. From there, we can work towards making whole villages, cities, countries, and the whole world act as one family under God, where we all fallow the basic tenants of our various religions which all teach just about the same thing and we all teat one another as family. A big part of being able to do this is fostering a culture of service, where people learn to live for the sake of others by their own free will.
That's the gist of it anyway. Below is a video which talks about the GPF some more, and below that is the basic schedule which I will be fallowing next week. This schedule isn't for everyone attending the GPF, just those like myself who are also attending the American Youth Leadership Conference I have another, shorter video at the very bottom of this web page if you would prefer.
My Schedule
·Aug 5thArrival – all participants will arrive in DC, at the Washington D.C. National Cathedral Church (1610 Columbia Rd) and we'll have a short orientation after dinner. I will personally be leaving the Vineyard on the 6 AM boat, to take the 6:55 AM bus to South Station, to take the 11:05 AM train to Washington D.C., finally arriving in D.C. at 6:50 PM
·Aug 6thCommunity-Wide "Peace Through Service" Day – we will join the service efforts of many partners in DC including some celebrities performing for GPF on this project from 10am – 5pm.
·Aug 7thOutreach – we will join the local efforts of youth on this day, to spread the word on the GPF event on the streets of DC.
·Aug 8thSightseeing and Interfaith Prayer for Peace – we'll spend a day to discover DC. and God's hope for America, and close with a prayer on the grounds of the main event, at the Mall in front of the Capital building.
·Aug 9thAmerican Leadership Conference and Global Peace Festival – join this conference in the morning and afternoon and be side by side national and world level Ambassadors for Peace as they forge their commitment to hold America to it's founding creed and build One Family Under God. Join us at the Youth Breakout to discuss long-term vision and strategy for the movement of Young Ambassadors for Peace. In the evening we will all attend the Global Peace Festival main event together. The event starts at 5pm at the Capital West Lawn (Independence Ave. and Constitution Ave, SW). Come early for seats and to check out the GPF Service and Cultural Expo from 2-5 on the National Mall (between 3rd and 4th St. NW). My parents and younger brother will arrive for the main GPF event on a bus rented by our church, and I'll be leaving with them at 9 PM on one of those buses back for Massachusetts.
·Aug 10thYouth Celebration – Join the hundreds of youth who have volunteered their time this summer for the Global Peace Festival as they celebrate this day and build up spirit and enthusiasm for many more events that uphold peace in the semester to come. I will have sadly had to miss this part, and instead will be arriving on the Vineyard with my family so I can get to work on time on Monday, the 11th.
If anyone out there feels inspired to help out, I think the best way is to tell everyone you know about it, and if you can, try to show up for the main GPF event on Saturday, the 9th in Washington D.C. Please go to www.gpfusa.org for more information. If you're not in the United States, or even if you are, you may be interested in going to www.globalpeacefestival.org or www.upf.org for more information about GPF events happening in other parts of the world, and other things the UPF is doing to promote world peace.
If you're feeling particularly inspired, or you know won't be able to attend any GPF or UPF events, another great way to help out other than telling all your friends and family is to donate funds to our cause.
Click here to donate to the GPF-USA. Click here to donate to the Universal Peace Federation, which is the main sponsor of the Global Peace Festival as well as other peace-building initiatives.
I hope you are inspired by what the GPF is doing and join us in truly making the world a better place by taking on the root causes of the worlds biggest problems.
I must speak to you tonight about a serious problem that demands your immediate attention. I need your help.
Today the United States Senate began a rendezvous with history. The threads of our past, present, and future as a nation will soon converge on the single overriding question before that body: Can we at last, after decades of drift, neglect, and excess, put our fiscal house in order? Can we assure a strong and prosperous future for ourselves, our children, and their children by adopting a plan that will compel the Federal Government to end the dangerous addiction to deficit spending and finally live within its means?
Throughout our history, we Americans have been willing to meet great challenges and do what is right when our destiny demanded it. Just 4 years ago this week, I asked your support for our bipartisan recovery program. That was the program the spenders said wouldn't work, and they called it Reaganomics. You might remember April 1981: a time when our defenses were weak, inflation still in double digits, and economic growth almost dead from a government that taxed too much and spent even more than it taxed.
We knew it would take a great effort to turn that around. We knew that letting you keep more of your earnings to get our economy moving again would be resisted by the old guard in Washington. But we also knew the answer to a government that's too fat is to stop feeding its growth. We wanted America to rediscover opportunity. We asked for your help then, and you gave it to us.
You turned America around -- turned around her confidence, turned around her economy, turned around over a decade of one national nightmare after another. We're into our 29th straight month of economic growth, with inflation staying down and more of us working than ever before -- that's 8 million new jobs. Now that our program is working, you may have noticed they're not calling it Reaganomics anymore.
Once again, the United States is the flagship economy for the world. A new generation of entrepreneurs is coming up, pointing us toward a 21st century full of amazing change and vast new opportunities.
We must seize this historic moment to shape America's future -- to completely overhaul our tax code, changing it from a source of confusion and contempt to a model of fairness and simplicity, with strong, new incentives for even greater growth.
So many good things lie ahead for America. And yet all our progress, all the good we've accomplished so far, and all our dreams for the future could be wrecked if we do not overcome our one giant obstacle.
The simple truth is: No matter how hard you work, no matter how strong this economy grows, no matter how much more tax money comes to Washington, it won't amount to a hill of beans if government won't curb its endless appetite to spend. Overspending is the subject we must now address -- how budgets got so far out of balance and, yes, what together we can and must do to correct this.
You know, sometimes the big spenders in Congress talk as if all that money they spend just kind of magically appears on their doorstep, a gift from the Internal Revenue Service. They talk as if spending were all giving and no taking.
Well, there is no magic money machine. Every dollar the government spends comes out of your pockets. Every dollar the government gives to someone has to first be taken away from someone else. So, it's our moral duty to make sure that we can justify every one of your tax dollars, that we spend them wisely and carefully and, just as important, fairly.
Unfortunately, hardly anyone could honestly call Federal budgets wise, careful, or fair. Is it fair to ask one small business to help subsidize its competitors? Is it fair to ask workers in the private economy to pay for civil service pensions that are much more generous than the retirement benefits they receive? Is it fair to ask low-income families to help pay for the college education of children from families with incomes as high as $100,000 a year? Is it fair to ask taxpayers to help pay billions for export subsidies to a handful of America's biggest corporations?
Well, it isn't fair, and you know it. But that's the law of the land right now, just part of the legacy of 50 years of trying to do good things for all by treating your earnings like government property.
The time has come to decide what benefits we can properly expect from the Federal Government for ourselves, our neighbors, and those in need; and what government can take from us in taxes without making everyone worse off, including those who need our help. The one thing we cannot do is stay on the immoral, dead-end course of deficit spending.
...
If we want to continue trying to make these the best years of our lives, if we want to protect our retired and disabled, boost small business, create jobs, strengthen our farm economy, our exports, improve our cities, and help your families send your children to college, there is one sure-fire way to do it: We're all going to have to pitch in together. But if we refuse, if we go back to the old pattern of business as usual, then let there be no mistake: Business as usual will eventually destroy our prosperity and all the blessings it has given us.
My fellow citizens, you remember the words of young John Kennedy, words of challenge to America in 1961: ``Ask not what your country can do for you -- ask what you can do for your country.'' In those days Federal spending was only a fraction of what it is today. Since then government programs have grown to the point where they touch almost half the families in America.
Today his question is more relevant than before. All of us are being challenged again to ask what we can do for our country, challenged to work together -- 237 million strong -- to build a secure and lasting foundation for the American dream.
Even with all our cuts and reforms, our plan still provides $560 billion for nondefense programs next year -- the highest level in history. Congress has before it a budget that doesn't mortgage our future to higher taxes and expanding debt. It is a fair program; it is a balanced program; it will protect the neediest among us; it will stop the worst abuses of overspending; and it not only deserves your support, it must have your support to pass.
So, let me stress as strongly as I can, this shared effort we're asking you to make now will be our best assurance of avoiding painful hardship down the road.
We stand at a crossroads. The hour is late, the task is large, and the stakes are momentous. I ask you to join us in making your voices heard in the Senate this week and later in the House. Please tell your Senators and Representatives by phone, wire, or mailgram that our future hangs in the balance, that this is no time for partisanship, and that our future is too precious to permit this crucial effort to be picked apart piece by piece by the special interest groups. We've got to put the public interest first.
My fellow Americans, I hope history says of us that we were worthy of our past, worthy of our heritage. We can seize the moment; we can do our best for America to keep our future strong, secure, and free. Our children will thank us, and that's all the thanks we'll ever need.
Thank you, God bless you, and good night.
Note: The President spoke at 8 p.m. from the Oval Office at the White House. His address was broadcast live on nationwide radio and television.
Also, a reminder to all FFWPU/HSA-UWC members. True Parents have given the blessing of inheritance to Hyung Jin Nim and Yeon Ah Nim in which they received copies of the Divine Principle, Cheon Seong Gyeong, and Pyungha Hoongyeong (The Peace Messages). We should unite with them and pray sincerely for their success, that they may equal, even surpass True Parents in their connection with God, their accomplishments on earth and in the spirit world, and in their ability to lead our movement.
I encourage all who can to
participate in this Cheon Sung condition, which I imagine is not just for Euorope, it's ju
st different for each region. However, perhaps even more importantly, I think we should all put in prayers for Hyung Jin Nim and Yeon Ah Nim. If they do not succeed, our movement as a whole will fall apart the same way Islam did, and Christianity before them, and Judaism before them.
I am very thankful to True Parents for naming an heir to the throne before they passed on to the spirit world to insure our unity. We should look to the Bahá’í Faith for inspiration, for the Bahá’ís have remained so very united through such terrible strife. Their home nation, Iran, still treats them as second class citizens, yet they are still able to stay united, strong, and close to God all over the world. I pray that we can do the same.
I've been struggling lately with so many things to post about and not knowing what to choose. Then 45 year old Hyo Jin Moon dies, and the decision is made.
Hyo Jin may not have lived an ideal life, but his position as the older brother of the True Family still effected the whole Unification movement to some positive degree. I'll be taking a week off from posting anything here as a sort of moment of silence for him.
I pray with all my heart for him to have a good afterlife, for him to become an even better person and better leader in the spirit world. I also pray for his family, that they can reamain close to him and be strong so they may be relieved of their grief.
SEOUL, March 18 (UPI) -- Hyo Jin Moon, the oldest son of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, founder of the Unification Church, died of a heart attack in Seoul. He was 45.
The younger Moon, who died Monday, was born in South Korea and grew up in the New York area, a church statement said.
He ran Manhattan Center Studios, a New York multimedia facility used by musicians and orchestras for recordings and broadcast events. He was also the founder of MC Korea and MC Japan.
Moon was a musician, performer and multimedia executive producer, producing more than a dozen albums and creating a composition catalog numbering in the thousands. He continued to perform during concerts in Asia each spring up until his death.
Before running Manhattan Center Studios, Moon worked for a decade as first president of the World Collegiate Association for the Research of Principles.
Moon spoke regularly during Sunday meetings in upstate New York, drawing on his experiences for a particular topic. His last speech, "Commitment," was delivered March 9 before he left for South Korea on a business trip.
Moon is survived by his wife, Yun Ah Choi, and four children, and five children from a previous marriage.
In the article below, they mention that the focus of the initiative is to enable microfinance institutions to rise up to serve the poor community. Wikipedia, has a really great article on it.
The basic idea is that poor communities don't have financial institutions in order to get loans or to save money and earn interest, and if they had some they might rise up to be not such poor communities.
A poor farmer with no land could improve his situation, for instance, if he could afford a loan to buy better irrigation equipment or more land. The poor guy might not even have proper title to the land he has because of his messed up government, so commercial financial institutions, in the interest of protecting themselves and their other customers, can't risk giving him the loan. Developing microfinance works to fix this problem, without just giving away money so that people still have their dignity and learn to help themselves better so that they grow not to need any help(or even grow enough to be able to help others, as the UPF would especially hope).
Here's something from Wikipedia that really sums it up well.
Key principles of microfinance
Key principles of microfinance were developed in 2004 by Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP) and endorsed by the Group of Eight leaders at the G8 Summit on June 10th, 2004. Among the key principles, summarizing a century and a half of development practice, are the following:
1. Poor people need a variety of financial services, not just loans.
4. Microfinance can pay for itself, and must do so if it is to reach very large numbers of poor people.
5. Microfinance is about building permanent local financial institutions.
8. The job of government is to enable financial services, not to provide them.
10. The key bottleneck is the shortage of strong institutions and managers.[3]
More generally, the Principles assert that “Microfinance means building financial systems that serve the poor.” Financial systems include strong financial institutions but also much more: more competitive financial markets, better government regulatory services and better complementary services (practitioner education, auditing, etc.)
I hope it all works out, and pray especially that nobody involved in this gets greedy and tries to take advantage of the poor in Nepal.
The Universal Peace Federation has an even more detailed article by Robert Kittel (A UPI Correspondent) on it which can be read here.
He sums it up like this:
The four-party alliance will create a nationwide movement to enable underprivileged sections of the population throughout Nepal to achieve economic self-sufficiency through a combination of micro-financing and in-kind product loans, coupled with basic business training and a grassroots support system.
By A Staff Reporter Kathmandu, Mar. 12: The Universal Peace Federation-Nepal, Healing Touch, Pepsi Co. and The Chaudhary Group Tuesday launched a joint initiative to uplift the existing standard of the poor in Nepal.
The project's aim is to realise the motto of Project Healing Touch: "Make poverty history�. The project envisages micro-level support to increase the income-generating capacity and employment opportunities in areas with high levels of poverty and will be with the support of the both the corporate sector and civil society in India and Nepal.
K.V Rajan, the former Indian Ambassador to Nepal, chairing the programme said that accumulation of wealth without being guided by social responsibility would not be justifiable.
Nirvana Chaudhary, executive director of Chaudhary Group said that micro-finance was the most effective tool to alleviate poverty.
The project aims at enabling those in the most vulnerable sections of society to earn a respectable living, be self- supporting, make a contribution to society, and live in dignity inspired by three of the fundamental pillars in the UPF philosophy as-that sustainable peace can only be built on the principle of living for the sake of others, that irrespective of religion, language, cultural or ethnic background we are essentially "One Family Under God,� and UPF's wholehearted support to fulfill the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals.
The project will initially focus on families that have suffered as a result of conflict over the past decade. It will purposely select families that have been victims of violence from both sides of the conflict. It has been agreed that pilot projects would be immediately developed in Kathmandu, Biratnagar and Gorkha, and then expanded as quickly as possible to the entire nation.
To ensure the success of the project, Pepsi Nepal said it would oversee commercial viability, monitor the projects, conduct on-site training, and further develop the corporate social responsibility concept in Nepal.
Another, entirely unrelated thing I wanted to mention, was sex. Basically, there's an article by Alan Farnham of Forbes describing how healthy it is to make love. For me, it really shows how important our sexual organs were to God when he designed them, and it seems to me that we were designed so well to make love to our spouse often and throughout our married lives.
Those poor Catholics (as well as others) are not only inciting their priests towards child molestation by not allowing them to marry, and not only are they simply and truly preventing God's plan from taking effect, but they are going against keeping their priests and nuns healthy.
Here's the article, which is not religious at all. Goodnight. I hope that, for your spiritual and physical health, you're lucky enough to have your spouse beside you tonight, or even during the day. Goodnight.
