Sex and torture in America

How does sex differ from torture?  The one is good and the other bad, might be your immediate reply.  But were I to describe an act of torture, this would be taken as a serious article.  Were I to describe an act of sex, then political publications wouldn't publish it, spam filters wouldn't allow you to receive it, and if you did receive it, you might turn away.  In fact, we have set up numerous mechanisms, external and internal, to protect you from sex that just don't exist for torture and should possibly be considered.  Such as:

1.-The Federal Communications Commission.  Numerous things sex-related are banned from the airwaves for our protection, while discussions of torture and an expanding range of depiction of torture is acceptable.  Police shows and exciting crime dramas depict torture and techniques bordering on torture as noble and good, while either avoiding sex or treating it so grotesquely as to unintentionally turn you off it.

Backbone of Russian spirituality: Mother of God Church Derjevnaya

President, International Association of Educators for World Peace
Dedicated to United Nations Goals of Peace Education,
Environmental Protection, Human Rights & Disarmament
Professor Emeritus, Alabama A&M University

One of the best religious experiences that one can possibly have is through participation in the liturgical function of the Orthodox Mother of God Church Derjevnaya in Russia. It is commonly known by its adherents as the Mother of God Church. This providential and inspirational Church fuses the best of traditional orthodoxy with some of the most meaningful liturgical events in the Roman Catholic Church.

Weekly Spiritual Celebration

Its weekly spiritual celebration injects in participants plenty of energy, dynamism, and enthusiasm, coupled with such virtues as faith, hope, humility, love and dedication to one’s neighbors. In addition to these spiritual benefits, this weekly spiritual celebration enhances great and genuine devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary. In both the Orthodox and Catholic churches, this spiritual event is known as the celebration of the Mass.

Birth of Great Marian Liturgical Movement in Russia

Charles Mercieca, Ph.D.
President, International Association of Educators for World Peace
Dedicated to United Nations Goals of Peace Education,
Environmental Protection, Human Rights & Disarmament
Professor Emeritus, Alabama A&M University

Since the collapse of the communist system, Russia has emerged to become a spiritually oriented nation which has put a special focus on the Virgin Mary. In one of her apparitions to the six children of Medjugorje during the decade of the eighties, the Blessed Mother stated that the east is moving closer to God while the west is distancing itself from Him. All those religious and spiritual organizations that functioned underground during the communist era began to come out into the open to practice visibly and courageously their spirituality.

Church of the Catacombs

Evaluation of American presidential candidates

Charles Mercieca, Ph.D.
President, International Association of Educators for World Peace
Dedicated to United Nations Goals of Peace Education,
Environmental Protection, Human Rights & Disarmament
Professor Emeritus, Alabama A&M University  

One of the greatest problems that the American people seem to have at times lies with their apparent inability to select the best of all possible presidential candidates. This does not stem from the fact that they are incapable of making a good judgment. On the contrary, the American people as a whole do know very well what they want in their nation’s president. However, as the time for elections approaches, the American people tend to become heavily influenced by the news media, which are mostly controlled by big corporations.  

Manipulation by US Big Corporations  

2006 election

I voted at my correct precinct and polling place in May, 2006 without incident.

I received an "official elction mailing" in the mail in Oct. 2006 clearly stating my correct name, address, polling place and precinct.

I erroneously thought this meant I was properly registered to vote in Nov. 2006!

I took this mailing in hand and went to vote in November, 2006. I was told I wasn't registered even though I showed poll workers my mailing and said that I'd voted in May without any incident!!

I was told I needed to complete a provisional ballot. I told the poll workers, I had no faith that my provisional ballot would be counted so I left my polling place without voting.

I made several phone calls. My story was carried by AP and other news sources. One website with my story is located at : http:www.onnnews.com/?sec=&story=sites/onn/content/pool/200611/411468068...

I phoned the following organizations:

1. Election Protection Hotline, 1.866.657.8683

Feith based intelligence

On Newsweek's website you can flip through a short PDF slideshow of a presentation produced by the Pentagon in 2002. The presentation purports to show that Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda were working together and had been for years. Not only was this a presentation of intelligence at odds with what the legitimate intelligence community was saying, but the first slide in the presentation provides reasons why the intelligence community had it wrong. This hardly looks like the product of an office doing only policy work, rather than intelligence.

But that is what the Pentagon is claiming in a 53-page public rebuttal to a classified report by the Pentagon's Inspector General on the work of Doug Feith and the Office of Special Plans.

The sort of work that office did has long been known thanks to numerous sources, including Karen Kwiatkowski.

Military explosions shake sections of Vieques

Today, Friday, February 9, 2007 at 11:15AM, four intense detonations shook several zones of Vieques. The windows in the office of the Committee for the Rescue and Development of Vieques (CRDV) at the Peace and Justice Camp, in front of what used to be the entrance to the naval base here, vibrated as a result of the explosions that frightened tourists at the Sun Bay Public Beach on Vieques south coast. From high points in the Destino sector, a large cloud was seen from the explosion that forms part of the Navy’s “clean up” process.

At the January meeting of the Resotation Advisory Board (RAB) that meets periodically with representatives of government agencies and the company (CHM2Hill) in charge of the clean up, the CRDV and the RAB’s community members unanimously demanded the detonations stop. Despite the demands of the community that for over a year has argued for the cessation of the detonations until an adecuate monitoring system can guarantee that military toxics dispersed into the air from the explosions are not getting to the civilian sector of Vieques.

Governor Anibal Acevedo Vilá ordered the President of the PR Environmental

Overblown threat and Islamophobia

Analysts both in the Muslim and the Western world by and large agree that “fear” and lack of objective dialogue are the root cause of Islamophobia and Anti-Americanism. And while the debate on which one of the two ignited the other is still ongoing, one fact remains irrefutable: more people were victimized as a result of Islamophobia than the other way around.   

A recent public opinion survey conducted by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) indicates that Muslims are still viewed negatively in the U.S. There are estimated 7 million Muslims in America and over 50 thousand in Central Ohio alone- the majority being Somalis.

America’s big chance: turning a crisis into a good opportunity

Charles Mercieca, Ph.D.
President, International Association of Educators for World Peace
Dedicated to United Nations Goals of Peace Education,
Environmental Protection, Human Rights & Disarmament
Professor Emeritus, Alabama A&M University

Since George W. Bush assumed the US presidency in January 2001, numerous articles and books were written that were mostly critical of his foreign policies. Some of the leading American journals referred to Bush’s foreign policy as the cowboy diplomacy. He replaced diplomacy, where healthy dialogues might have served to solve numerous problems, with military action which brought back to our earthly society the rule of the jungle. This is based on the dictum: “Do it my own way or I simply proceed to devastate you.”

Actions Louder than Words

100 Senators quietly vote: majority oppose escalation

This MyDD blog entry and this Politico article describe this PDF showing the results of a poll of all 100 U.S. Senators. It asks how they voted on the war in 2002, whether they regret that vote, whether they support escalating the war, and whether they support ending the war by a certain date. This fairly well cuts through the courageous debate over whether to have a debate over whether to meaninglessly dissent from Bush's escalation plans for a war that most Americans want ended.

The first thing that stands out is that Senators Byrd and Cardin, rather than saying that Yes they support ending the occupation by a certain date, both wrote in the word "Immediate." That's 2 Senators for ending the thing. 98 to go.

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