The CASA 12-Steps Program Blog advocates a Christian-based progressive recovery and stands against all evils related to substance addiction. We preach and practice a true Christian spiritual conversion in order to stay sane and sober!!
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Definitely Emmet Fox had an influence on early A.A. and no one subscribes to him any Sermon on the Mount. We know it was attributed to Jesus Christ. I recently ordered his book and it is a good one. It expands the basic teachings of the Sermon on the Mount. The teachings of Emmet Fox helped to expand humane consciousness among many. The same as so-called New Age teachings do so now. We should take things for what they are worth and not rush to judgment.
The surprise news is that Emmet Fox did not deliver the "Sermon on the Mount." And AAs did not read Emmet Fox to learn what Jesus said and taught. They read Matthew 5-7 of the King James Version to learn what Jesus taught those gathered to hear.As far as we know, Emmet Fox was born some 2000 years later. He was not present at the mount. He did not deliver the Sermon. So, just as early AAs did, the first place for anyone to look for the message of the Sermon is in God's Word—the Bible.
Before, during, and after the founding of A.A., Christians and others were looking to the Bible for the essentials of their recovery. They particularly stressed the Book of James, Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, and 1 Corinthians 13.
And, yes, they read many commentaries by many different authors on Jesus, his life, and his Sermon. The authors included Oswald Chambers, E. Stanley Jones, Toyohiko Kagawa, Henry Drummond, Robert E. Speer, Dwight L. Moody, F. B. Meyer, Amos Wells, Glenn Clark, James Stalker, Emmet Fox, Harry Emerson Fosdick, Rev. Samuel M. Shoemaker, Jr., Francis Clark, George Barton, Geoffrey Allen, T.R. Glover, those who wrote YMCA literature, Christian Endeavor Literature, The Runner's Bible, The Upper Room, The Imitation of Christ, and many more books you can find in my title The Books Early AAs Read for Spiritual Growth, 7th ed.
As a matter of fact, it was Mrs. Julia Harris, wife of Rev. W. Irving Harris (Rev. Sam Shoemaker's assistant minister), who told me that the folks at CalvaryChurch in New York "weren't even sure Fox was a Christian." Hence you will not find his name among the many authors whose books were recommended by Rev. Samuel M. Shoemaker, Jr.. And when it came to the Big Book and the Twelve Steps, it was Rev. Sam Shoemaker, Rector of Calvary Episcopal Church in New York who was asked to write the Twelve Steps; and, even though Sam declined, Bill still pointed to Shoemaker as the principal source of the Step teachings—resulting in Bill's calling Shoemaker a "Cofounder of A.A."See my title New Light on Alcoholism: God, Sam Shoemaker, and A.A., 2d ed., 1999.
And just to complete the surprising news story that AAs studied the Bible and what Jesus taught as recorded in the Bible and did not incorporate the theology of Emmet Fox in their basic writings, here is what Bill W. and Dr. Bob had to say about the real Sermon on the Mount—found in Matthew, Chapters 5, 6, and 7 of the Bible:
"He [Dr. Bob] cited the Sermon on the Mount as containing the underlying spiritual philosophy of A.A." [DR. BOB and the Good Oldtimers (NY: Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc., 1980), p. 228]
See also Dick B., The Good Book and the Big Book: A.A.'s Roots in the Bible, 2d ed. (Kihei, HI: Paradise Research Publications, Inc., 1997), where the author specifically states at page four in footnote 12: "A.A. historian Mel B. informed the author in a telephone interview that Bill Wilson had given the same accreditation to the Sermon on the Mount as Dr. Bob had. Mel stated Bill had made the remarks to him [Mel B.] on at least two occasions."
Emmet Fox and his New Thought writings have occasionally been said to have imposed a heavy New Thought doctrine on the early A.A. Christian Fellowship members. But such contentions necessarily ignore and seem to reject the mounds and mounds of chapters and verses that early AAs studied and quoted from the Bible and the Bible devotionals they read each day. See my books, The Good Book and The Big Book: A.A.'s Roots in the Bible, and The James Club and the Original A.A. Program's Absolute Essentials.
A.A. Cofounder Dr..Bob was frequently recorded as standing up in front of early A. A. Christian fellowship meetings, with the Bible in his hand, and reading out of that Bible from Chapters 5, 6, and 7 of Matthew. As a matter of fact, he told a meeting in Youngstown, Ohio, that most AAs started their day by reading the Sermon or the Book of James or 1 Corinthians. And, since all early AAs were required to profess their belief in God and declare Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, they would have found little to help them in their submission, by relying on books by Emmet Fox who denounced salvation as a myth.
Why Subtle Action Is a Powerful Tool to Change Your Energy
By Deepak Chopra
Photo: Jeremiah Sullivan
Subtle action is the most powerful tool we have to change our energy. Deepak Chopra explains how we can change the energy in our daily lives by viewing our bodies as a flowing process guided by energy.
Recently I've been discussing how to change your energy. Many problems—physical and mental—seem to come down to a person's beliefs, habits, lifestyle, moods and emotions. We use the words "positive" and "negative" to describe people we know, yet modern medicine hasn't been able to find the source of these factors. There's plenty of data to prove that people who undergo traumatic events, such as being widowed or losing a job without warning, suffer from lowered immune response. There are countless studies linking stress and poor health.
In my book Reinventing the Body, Resurrecting the Soul, I suggest that the missing link is energy—a term that appears everywhere in Eastern medicine, from the life energy called Chi in Chinese medicine to Prana in Ayurvedic medicine from India. The important thing, however, is to find out for yourself if you can change your energy. In fact, there are ways that do not depend on esoteric beliefs or aligning yourself with Eastern medicine.
The most powerful tool for changing your energy is subtle action. This is nothing more than having an intention that your body can respond to. When you lift your arm, your body is responding to an intention. We're used to that kind of mind-body link, yet subtle action goes much deeper. Experiments with Tibetan monks who have meditated on the value of compassion have proved that their brains actually change. The area of the prefrontal cortex associated with higher functions, like compassion, light up stronger in these monks than in any other tested subjects.
In daily life, feeling love and sending it to others is a subtle action. Experimenters at Harvard have shown the immediate effect of love on the body. Subjects sat in a room to watch a film of Mother Teresa and her work with abandoned children in Calcutta. The images were deeply moving, and clearly the audience was touched. At the same time, their breathing rates and blood chemistry changed, revealing greater calm and less stress. All these responses are controlled by the brain.
If even a brief exposure to love creates a new brain response, what about love in the long run? Older couples who enjoy good marriages have been studied, and they report that they love each other more after 30 or 40 years than when they first fell in love. But they also report that it's a different kind of love—not the overwhelming infatuation that poets compare to madness, but a steadier, more constant, deeper love. This suggests that like the Tibetan monks, the happily married are experiencing a change in their brains. I am not aware if this phenomenon has been measured with MRIs, but there are striking resemblances between the two groups. The monks expose their minds to a state of calmness, openness, peace and "non-doing," to use a common Buddhist phrase. The brain got used to that unbounded state, and thus it escaped from its own conditioning. Old lovers also experience calm, peace and openness around each other. Exposure to each other has done the work of meditation.
Thursday Morning ~ Gracias Sister Libby ~ Fall is here and it gets cold at night outside. I appreciate my blessings being safe at home in my sanctuary and pray for my people less fortunate outside in the streets.
From: Sister Libby <srlibby@sacloaves.org> To: "Sister Libby Fernandez, RSM" <srlibby@sacloaves.org> Sent: Thu, November 12, 2009 7:30:34 AM Subject: FW: Your story is airing:)
From: Rob Stewart [mailto:rstewart@kvie.org] Sent: Monday, November 09, 2009 10:15 AM To: srlibby@sacloaves.org Subject: Your story is airing:)
Hi Sister Libby,
I am so happy to tell you that your story has begun airing in heavy rotation – that means it will air a total of 200 times over the next 6 months.
Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail.
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++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Gracias Cougar ~ I agree that the treatment of so-called mental illness has decayed into another money-making profit-motivated industry that helps the sick get sicker. I subscribe to spiritual solutions that involve taking care of your health, consciousness a raising and working a progressive 12-Steps Program for character development, personal empowerment and to boost self-esteem in general.
From: Cougar Den <cougarden@msn.com> To: 1cat3eye <cat3eye@yahoogroups.com>; 1democratgroup <democratgroup@yahoogroups.com>; 1humane-rights-agenda <humane-rights-agenda@yahoogroups.com>; 1pictures_cartoons <pictures_cartoons@yahoogroups.com>; 1pumaclaws <pumaclaws@yahoogroups.com>; 1rez_life <rez_life@yahoogroups.com>; 1talking-circle <talking-circle@yahoogroups.com>; 1wendyswords <wendyswords@yahoogroups.com> Sent: Tue, November 10, 2009 4:48:17 AM Subject: Humane-Rights-Agenda Excerpts from Robert Whitakers Anatomy of an Epidemic: Psychiatric Drugs
Excerpts from Robert Whitaker's Anatomy of an Epidemic: Psychiatric Drugs and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America
October 30th, 2009 4:46 AM
Gary G. Kohls, MD
The percentage of Americans disabled by mental illness has increased fivefold since 1955, when Thorazine – remembered today as psychiatry's first "wonder" drug – was introduced into the market.
There are now nearly 6 million Americans disabled by mental illness, and this number increases by more than 400 people each day. A review of the scientific literature reveals that it is our drug-based paradigm of care that is fueling this epidemic. The drugs increase the likelihood that a person will become chronically ill, and induce new and more severe psychiatric symptoms in a significant percentage of patients.
E. Fuller Torrey, in his 2001 book The Invisible Plague, concluded that insanity had risen to the level of an epidemic. This epidemic has unfolded in lockstep with the ever-increasing use of psychiatric drugs.
The number of disabled mentally ill has increased nearly six-fold since Thorazine was introduced.
The number of disabled mentally ill has also increased dramatically since 1987, the year Prozac was introduced.
Anti-psychotics, antidepressants, and anti-anxiety drugs create perturbations in neurotransmitter functions. In response, the brain goes through a series of compensatory adaptations. Neurons both release less serotonin and down-regulate (or decrease) their number of serotonin receptors. The density of serotonin receptors in the brain may decrease by 50% or more. After a few weeks, the patient's brain is functioning in a manner that is qualitatively as well as quantitatively different from the normal state.
Conditions that disrupt brain chemistry may cause delusions, hallucinations, disordered thinking, and mood swings – the symptoms of insanity. Infectious agents, tumors, metabolic and toxic disorders and various diseases could all affect the brain in this manner. Psychiatric medications also disrupt brain chemistry. Psychotropic drugs increase the likelihood that a person will become chronically ill, and they cause a significant percentage of patients to become ill in new and more severe ways.
TURNING PATIENTS CHRONICALLY ILL
Neuroleptics (= Anti-psychotics = Anti-schizophrenics = Major Tranquilizers)
In an NIMH (National Institute of Mental Health) study, short-term (6 weeks) anti-psychotic drug-treated patients were much improved compared to placebo (75% vs. 23%). However patients who received placebo treatment were less likely to be re-hospitalized over the next 3 years than were those who received any of the three active phenothiazines.
Relapse was found to be significantly related to the dose of the tranquilizing medication the patient was receiving before he was put on placebo – the higher the dose, the greater the probability of relapse.
Neuroleptics increased the patients' biological vulnerability to psychosis. A retrospective study by Bockoven also indicated that the drugs were making patients chronically ill.
There were three NIMH-funded studies conducted during the 1970s that examined this possibility (whether first-episode psychotic episodes could be treated without medications) , and in each instance, the newly admitted patients treated without drugs did better than those treated in a conventional manner (i.e. with anti-psychotic drugs).
Patients who were treated without neuroleptics in an experimental home staffed by nonprofessionals had lower relapse rates over a 2-year period than a control group treated with drugs in a hospital. Patients treated without drugs were the better functioning group as well.
The brain responds to neuroleptics – which block 70% to 90% of all D2 dopamine receptors in the brain – as though they are a pathological insult. To compensate, dopaminergic brain cells increase the density of their D2 receptors by 30% or more. The brain is now supersensitive to dopamine and becomes more biologically vulnerable to psychosis and is at particularly high risk of severe relapse should he or she abruptly quit taking the drugs.
Neuroleptics can produce a dopamine supersensitivity that leads to both dyskinetic and psychotic symptoms. An implication is that the tendency toward psychotic relapse in a patient who had developed such a supersensitivity is determined by more that just the normal course of the illness.
With minimal or no exposure to neuroleptics, at least 40% of people who suffered a psychotic break and were diagnosed with schizophrenia would not relapse after leaving the hospital, and perhaps as many as 65% would function fairly well over the long term. However, once first-episode patients were treated with neuroleptics, a different fate awaited them. Their brains would undergo drug-induced changes that would increase their biological vulnerability to psychosis, and this would increase the likelihood that they would become chronically ill (and thus permanently disabled).
In the mid 1990s, several research teams reported that the drugs cause atrophy of the cerebral cortex and an enlargement of the basal ganglia. The drugs were causing structural changes in the brain. The drug-induced enlargement of the basal ganglia was associated with greater severity of both negative and "positive" (schizophrenic) symptoms. Over the long term the drugs cause changes in the brain associated with a worsening of the very symptoms the drugs are supposed to alleviate.
Antidepressants
The story of antidepressants is a bit subtler, and it leads to the same conclusion that these drugs increase chronic illness over time. Well-designed studies, the differences between the effectiveness of antidepressant drugs and placebo are not impressive. About 61% of the drug-treated patients improved, versus 46% of the placebo patients, producing a net drug benefit of only 15%.
At the end of 16 weeks (in a study comparing cognitive behavior therapy, interpersonal therapy, the tricyclic antidepressant imipramine and placebo) there were no significant differences among treatments, including placebo plus clinical management, for the less severely depressed and functionally impaired patients. Only the severely depressed patients fared better on a tricyclic than on placebo. However, at the end of 18 months, even this minimal benefit disappeared. Stay-well rates were best for the cognitive behavior group (30%) and poorest for the imipramine group (19%).
Antidepressants were making people chronically ill, just like the anti-psychotics were. In 1985, a U.K. group reported that in a 2-year study comparing drug therapy to cognitive therapy, relapse was significantly higher in the pharmacotherapy group. Long-term use of antidepressants may increase the patient's biochemical vulnerability to depression and thus worsen the course of affective disorders. An analysis of 27 studies showed that whether one treats a depressed patient for 3 months of 3 years, it does not matter when one stops the drugs. The longer the drug treatment, the higher the likelihood of relapse.
Benzodiazepines
Xanax (a benzodiazepine class "minor" tranquilizer) patients got better during the first four weeks of treatment; they did not improve any more in weeks 4 to 8, and their symptoms began to worsen after that. A high percentage relapsed and by the end of 23 weeks, they were worse off than patients treated without drugs on five different outcomes measures. Patients tapered off Xanax suffered nearly 4 times as many panic attacks as the non-drug patients and 25% of the Xanax patients suffered from rebound anxiety more severe than when they began the study.
Then and Now
Today's drug-treated patients spend much more time in hospital beds and are far more likely to die from their mental illness than they were in 1896. Modern treatments have set up a revolving door and appear to be a leading cause of injury and death.
MANUFACTURING MENTAL ILLNESS
It is well-known that all of the major classes of psychiatric drugs – anti-psychotics, anti-depressants, benzodiazepines, and stimulants for ADHD – can trigger new and more severe psychiatric symptoms in a significant percentage of patients. It is easy to see this epidemic-creating factor at work with Prozac and the other SSRIs.
Prozac quickly took up the top position as America's most complained about drug. By 1997, 39,000 adverse-event reports about it had been sent to Medwatch. These reports are thought to represent only 1% of the actual number of such events, suggesting that nearly 4 million people in the US had suffered such problems, which included mania, psychotic depression, nervousness, anxiety, agitation, hostility, hallucinations, memory loss, tremors, impotence, convulsions, insomnia and nausea.
The propensity of Prozac and other SSRIs to trigger mania or psychosis is undoubtedly the biggest problem with these drugs. The American Psychiatric Association warns that manic or hypomanic episodes are estimated to occur in 8% to 20 % of patients treated with anti-depressants.
Anti-depressant- induced mania is not simply a temporary and reversible phenomenon, but a complex biochemical mechanism of illness deterioration. Yale researchers reported that 8.1% of all admissions to a psychiatric hospital they studied were due to SSRI-induced mania or psychosis.
Thus the SSRI path to a disabling mental illness can be easily seen. A depressed patient treated with an anti-depressant suffers a manic or psychotic episode, at which time his or her diagnosis is changed to bipolar disorder. At that point, the person is prescribed an anti-psychotic to go along with the anti-depressant, and, once on a drug cocktail, the person is well along on the road to permanent disability.
CONCLUSION
There is an outside agent fueling this epidemic of mental illness, only it is to be found in the medicine cabinet. Psychiatric drugs perturb normal neurotransmitter function, and while that perturbation may curb symptoms over a short term, over the long run it increases the likelihood that a person will become chronically ill, or ill with new or more severe symptoms. A review of the scientific literature shows quite clearly that it is our drug-based paradigm of care that is fueling this modern-day plague.
-###-
Excerpted, with minimal editing, by Preventive Psychiatry E-Newsletter Editor - Gary G. Kohls, MD, Duluth, MN
Preventive Psychiatry E-Newsletter # 224 Ethical Human Psychology and Psychiatry, Vol. 7, Number 1, Spring 2005
NOTE: Robert Whitaker wrote the ground-breaking book, Mad In America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine and the Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill, a book that should be required reading for everybody, check out www.madinamerica. com.
"The purpose of the Preventive Psychiatry E-Newsletter (PPEN) is to disseminate critical information that concerns mental health, especially that which pertains to the root causes of mental ill health and its prevention, information that is often not readily available in the mainstream media. Most of the items that I pass on via the PPEN are derived from other sources, which I believe to be accurate, but cannot guarantee, and I do not accept responsibility for any errors or omissions. I strive to provide references so that the reader can independently evaluate the validity of the information in each issue." - Gary G. Kohls
Many of the patients who fill the day are bereft, angry, broken. Their experiences are gruesome, their distress lasting and the process of recovery exhausting. The repeated stories of battle and loss can leave the most professional therapist numb or angry. And hanging over it all, for psychiatrists and psychologists in today's military, is the prospect of their own deployment — of working under fire in Iraq or Afghanistan, where the Pentagon has assigned more therapists to combat units than in previous wars.
Prayer for Spiritual Healing: by ~Peta-de-Aztlan~ Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Oh great Cosmic Creator, help heal my ancient wounded spirit Let me bathe in the bright light of pure love when I am near it.
Heal my aching heart that still longs for past loves forever lost As I took for granted sweet blessings without appreciating the high cost.
Heal my aching bones battered by battles won then lost When I grew weary and dropped down my own heavy cross.
Heal me of my guilt, my shame and all held under a false name. Let me take full response ability and accept my fair share of blame:
For broken promises, forgotten dreams and sick schemes For not having faith when foolish fear made me falter and fall. For not standing tall and not answering the clarion call for justice.
Let me bear my burdens with grace, dignity and pride Not pretend to hide from all the truth I know deep inside.
Heal me of my character defects that caused so many wrecks. Forgive my personal shortcomings and help me forgive myself. Release me of all inner demons stalking about in the shadow of my soul, That I myself first fed and devised, then disguised.
Heal us all of our spiritual sickness, our dark demented disease. Heal us so we can do as Thy Divine Will would please. Exalt us as we beg for Your mercy upon our knees!
Afghan President Hamid Karzai shares a whisper with U.S. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., at a news conference in Kabul last month.
Posted on Nov 2, 2009
The warlords we champion in Afghanistan are as venal, as opposed to the rights of women and basic democratic freedoms, and as heavily involved in opium trafficking as the Taliban. The moral lines we draw between us and our adversaries are fictional. The uplifting narratives used to justify the war in Afghanistan are pathetic attempts to redeem acts of senseless brutality. War cannot be waged to instill any virtue, including democracy or the liberation of women. War always empowers those who have a penchant for violence and access to weapons. War turns the moral order upside down and abolishes all discussions of human rights. War banishes the just and the decent to the margins of society. And the weapons of war do not separate the innocent and the damned. An aerial drone is our version of an improvised explosive device. An iron fragmentation bomb is our answer to a suicide bomb. A burst from a belt-fed machine gun causes the same terror and bloodshed among civilians no matter who pulls the trigger.
"We need to tear the mask off of the fundamentalist warlords who after the tragedy of 9/11 replaced the Taliban," Malalai Joya, who was expelled from the Afghan parliament two years ago for denouncing government corruption and the Western occupation, told me during her visit to New York last week. "They used the mask of democracy to take power. They continue this deception. These warlords are mentally the same as the Taliban. The only change is physical. These warlords during the civil war in Afghanistan from 1992 to 1996 killed 65,000 innocent people. They have committed human rights violations, like the Taliban, against women and many others."
"In eight years less than 2,000 Talib have been killed and more than 8,000 innocent civilians has been killed," she went on. "We believe that this is not war on terror. This is war on innocent civilians. Look at the massacres carried out by NATO forces in Afghanistan. Look what they did in May in the Farah province, where more than 150 civilians were killed, most of them women and children. They used white phosphorus and cluster bombs. There were 200 civilians on 9th of September killed in the Kunduz province, again most of them women and children. You can see the Web site of professor Marc Herold, this democratic man, to know better the war crimes in Afghanistan imposed on our people. The United States and NATO eight years ago occupied my country under the banner of woman's rights and democracy. But they have only pushed us from the frying pan into the fire. They put into power men who are photocopies of the Taliban."
Afghanistan's boom in the trade in opium, used to produce heroin, over the past eight years of occupation has funneled hundreds of millions of dollars to the Taliban, al-Qaida, local warlords, criminal gangs, kidnappers, private armies, drug traffickers and many of the senior figures in the government of Hamid Karzai. The New York Times reported that the brother of President Karzai, Ahmed Wali Karzai, has been collecting money from the CIA although he is a major player in the illegal opium business. Afghanistan produces 92 percent of the world's opium in a trade that is worth some $65 billion, the United Nations estimates. This opium feeds some 15 million addicts worldwide and kills around 100,000 people annually. These fatalities should be added to the rolls of war dead.
Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), said that the drug trade has permitted the Taliban to thrive and expand despite the presence of 100,000 NATO troops.
"The Taliban's direct involvement in the opium trade allows them to fund a war machine that is becoming technologically more complex and increasingly widespread," said Costa.
The UNODC estimates the Taliban earned $90 million to $160 million a year from taxing the production and smuggling of opium and heroin between 2005 and 2009, as much as double the amount it earned annually while it was in power nearly a decade ago. And Costa described the Afghan-Pakistani border as "the world's largest free trade zone in anything and everything that is illicit," an area blighted by drugs, weapons and illegal immigration. The "perfect storm of drugs and terrorism" may be on the move along drug trafficking routes through Central Asia, he warned. Profits made from opium are being pumped into militant groups in Central Asia and "a big part of the region could be engulfed in large-scale terrorism, endangering its massive energy resources," Costa said.
"Afghanistan, after eight years of occupation, has become a world center for drugs," Joya told me. "The drug lords are the only ones with power. How can you expect these people to stop the planting of opium and halt the drug trade? How is it that the Taliban when they were in power destroyed the opium production and a superpower not only cannot destroy the opium production but allows it to increase? And while all this goes on, those who support the war talk to you about women's rights. We do not have human rights now in most provinces. It is as easy to kill a woman in my country as it is to kill a bird. In some big cities like Kabul, some women have access to jobs and education, but in most of the country the situation for women is hell. Rape, kidnapping and domestic violence are increasing. These fundamentalists during the so-called free elections made a misogynist law against Shia women in Afghanistan. This law has even been signed by Hamid Karzai. All these crimes are happening under the name of democracy."
Thousands of Afghan civilians have died from insurgent and foreign military violence. And American and NATO forces are responsible for almost half the civilian deaths in Afghanistan. Tens of thousands of Afghan civilians have also died from displacement, starvation, disease, exposure, lack of medical treatment, crime and lawlessness resulting from the war.
Joya argues that Karzai and his rival Abdullah Abdullah, who has withdrawn from the Nov. 7 runoff election, will do nothing to halt the transformation of Afghanistan into a narco-state. She said that NATO, by choosing sides in a battle between two corrupt and brutal opponents, has lost all its legitimacy in the country.
The recent resignation of a high-level U.S. diplomat in Afghanistan, Matthew Hoh, was in part tied to the drug problem. Hoh wrote in his resignation letter that Karzi's government is filled with "glaring corruption and unabashed graft." Karzi, he wrote, is a president "whose confidants and chief advisers comprise drug lords and war crimes villains who mock our own rule of law and counter-narcotics effort."
Joya said, "Where do you think the $36 billion of money poured into country by the international community have gone? This money went into the pockets of the drug lords and the warlords. There are 18 million people in Afghanistan who live on less than $2 a day while these warlords get rich. The Taliban and warlords together contribute to this fascism while the occupation forces are bombing and killing innocent civilians. When we do not have security how can we even talk about human rights or women's rights?"
"This election under the shade of Afghan war-lordism, drug-lordism, corruption and occupation forces has no legitimacy at all," she said. "The result will be like the same donkey but with new saddles. It is not important who is voting. It is important who is counting. And this is our problem. Many of those who go with the Taliban do not support the Taliban, but they are fed up with these warlords and this injustice, and they go with the Taliban to take revenge. I do not agree with them, but I understand them. Most of my people are against the Taliban and the warlords, which is why millions did not take part in this tragic drama of an election."
"The U.S. wastes taxpayers' money and the blood of their soldiers by supporting such a mafia corrupt system of Hamid Karzai," said Joya, who changes houses in Kabul frequently because of the numerous death threats made against her. "Eight years is long enough to learn about Karzai and Abdullah. They chained my country to the center of drugs. If Obama was really honest he would support the democratic-minded people of my country. We have a lot [of those people]. But he does not support the democratic-minded people of my country. He is going to start war in Pakistan by attacking in the border area of Pakistan. More civilians have been killed in the Obama period than even during the criminal Bush."
"My people are sandwiched between two powerful enemies," she lamented.
"The occupation forces from the sky bomb and kill innocent civilians. On the ground, Taliban and these warlords deliver fascism. As NATO kills more civilians, the resistance to the foreign troops increases. If the U.S. government and NATO do not leave voluntarily, my people will give to them the same lesson they gave to Russia and to the English who three times tried to occupy Afghanistan. It is easier for us to fight against one enemy rather than two."
Chris Hedges, whose column is published on Truthdig every Monday, spent two decades as a foreign reporter covering wars in Latin America, Africa, Europe and the Middle East. He has written nine books, including "Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle" (2009) and "War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning" (2003).
When spiritualist and best-selling author Deepak Chopra talks health care reform, he doesn't use Washington words like "public option" and "pre-existing condition."
Instead he shows concern for unnecessary surgeries and prescription drug addiction, something that plagued his close friend, fallen pop star Michael Jackson.
"I guess in Washington one of the hardest topics of discussion is health care reform," Chopra said Monday night. "And nobody is actually talking about health care reform, we are talking about health care insurance reform."
Chopra spent Monday at an intimate dinner at K Street favorite Teatro Goldoni with journalists -- including Posties Ben Bradlee and Sally Quinn -- where he shared lessons learned from his 59th book, "Reinventing the Body, Resurrecting the Soul: How To Create a New You." And because this is Washington, he also gave his prescription on how the government could help improve the medical community.
"I think we need to have physicians that are employed by the government who are ethical, who know the facts and who can police the medical profession," Chopra said. "Unless that's done from within the medical profession, it won't happen," he added.
Chopra came to hold this view, in part, because he was deeply disturbed by what happened to Jackson. He condemned enabling doctors in Hollywood who write prescriptions for stars using various pseudonyms. But he said the problem stretched far outside Los Angeles.
"The No. 1 source of drug addiction in the world is not street drugs, but medical prescriptions," he told Yeas & Nays. That's where he said he envisioned the feds stepping in.
"They already have drug enforcement departments, right?" Chopra asked.
And though Chopra was skeptical of the content of the current health care conversation, he still gave President Obama a thumbs-up.
"I think President Obama is doing the best he can, given the so many special interest groups in Washington," Chopra said. "I think President Obama didn't realize he would be surrounded by mafia."
Halloween's origins date back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain (pronounced sow-in).
The Celts, who lived 2,000 years ago in the area that is now Ireland, the United Kingdom, and northern France, celebrated their new year on November 1. This day marked the end of summer and the harvest and the beginning of the dark, cold winter, a time of year that was often associated with human death. Celts believed that on the night before the new year, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred. On the night of October 31, they celebrated Samhain, when it was believed that the ghosts of the dead returned to earth. In addition to causing trouble and damaging crops, Celts thought that the presence of the otherworldly spirits made it easier for the Druids, or Celtic priests, to make predictions about the future. For a people entirely dependent on the volatile natural world, these prophecies were an important source of comfort and direction during the long, dark winter.
To commemorate the event, Druids built huge sacred bonfires, where the
people gathered to burn crops and animals as sacrifices to the Celtic deities.
During the celebration, the Celts wore costumes, typically consisting of animal heads and skins, and attempted to tell each other's fortunes. When the celebration was over, they re-lit their hearth fires, which they had extinguished earlier that evening, from the sacred bonfire to help protect them during the coming winter.
By A.D. 43, Romans had conquered the majority of Celtic territory. In the course of the four hundred years that they ruled the Celtic lands, two festivals of Roman origin were combined with the traditional Celtic celebration of Samhain.
The first was Feralia, a day in late October when the Romans traditionally commemorated the passing of the dead. The second was a day to honor Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit and trees. The symbol of Pomona is the apple and the incorporation of this celebration into Samhain probably explains the tradition of "bobbing" for apples that is practiced today on Halloween.
By the 800s, the influence of Christianity had spread into Celtic lands. In the seventh century, Pope Boniface IV designated November 1 All Saints' Day, a time to honor saints and martyrs. It is widely believed today that the pope was attempting to replace the Celtic festival of the dead with a related, but church-sanctioned holiday. The celebration was also called All-hallows or All-hallowmas (from Middle English Alholowmesse meaning All Saints' Day) and the night before it, the night of Samhain, began to be called All-hallows Eve and, eventually, Halloween. Even later, in A.D. 1000, the church would make November 2 All Souls' Day, a day to honor the dead. It was celebrated similarly to Samhain, with big bonfires, parades, and dressing up in costumes as saints, angels, and devils. Together, the three celebrations, the eve of All Saints', All Saints', and All Souls', were called Hallowmas.
