Sit

Sort Schema Madness:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/health/sc-health-1124-holliday-meditation-20101124,0,4540402.story

Your mind is a muscle you can train; meditation is the tool used to focus it or quiet it down. Every day thousands of thoughts zip through our heads, something Gerlach likens to a jar of dirty water: Keep shaking up the jar — or your head — and it will remain clouded. But "if we set the jar down, letting the dirt particles settle to the bottom, it leaves clarity at the top," she said.

Meditation will not stop your thoughts. It will not empty your mind. Instead, proponents say, it teaches you how to replace the mental chatter in your head with stillness. This ability helps us live more consciously in the present moment.

Work Kills

Do Nothing Buy Nothing:

http://www.ivillage.com/276343/4-a-276343?obref=obnetwork

Compared with men who worked less than 40 hours per week, unfit men who worked 41 to 45 hours a week were 59 percent more likely to die of heart disease, although they were not more likely to die of other causes.

194 Years of Scabs

http://www.counterpunch.org/macaray11192010.html

In truth, European trade unionists are astounded and confused by the free-for-all mentality of the U.S. This bizarre arrangement where a worker’s established role in society can be traded away promiscuously—can be placed on the market and sold to another party like a cheap commodity—blows their minds. 

Clearly, they don’t understand America. They don’t understand our mindset, our deep-seated entrepreneurial impulses, our categorical reverence for the free market, our belief that anything that can, in principle, be bought or sold is, therefore, automatically, for sale. It’s this mentality that created pay toilets at the airport. 

From their perspective, calling a scab a “replacement worker” is as absurd as calling a traitor an “alternative patriot.” No flag-waving American would stand for that kind of verbal legerdemain when it came to defending one’s country; and no one should stand for it when it comes to labor disputes. But we do.

Monday News Wire

Believe the G? It's Worse!:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1331636/1-5-Americans-mentally-ill-joblessness-takes-toll.html

More than 45 million Americans, or 20 per cent of U.S. adults, had some form of mental illness last year, it was revealed this week.

U.S. government research showed that of those 45 million, 11  million had a serious illness.

WBI Forum

Stress Cracks:

http://workplacebullying.org/wbiforum/

This page hosts open discussions about the problem of workplace bullying and solutions for resolving it. Take some time to share your story. Read about the experiences of others. Share ideas and information with people who know exactly what it feels like to be a target. Remember, it takes a great deal of courage to tell one's story. Please be encouraging and supportive of one another.

Another Needless Waste

How Mean We Are:

http://www.sacbee.com/2010/11/15/3184811/cyberbully-suicide-turned.html

Bullying is as ingrained in the fabric of our culture as baseball and apple pie. Telling kids to stop picking on others isn't very effective when they see the adults doing it. For example, many workplaces aren't much different from high school campuses with the harassment, rumor mongering, sabotage, and shunning that goes on. Boorish behavior is encouraged and rewarded in business and government, hence your high school bullies go on to become bully bosses. Until society as a whole takes a zero tolerance approach to bullying, it's futile to tell the kids not to do it.

The Good Professor

http://www.counterpunch.org/

November 11, 2010

On the 11th Hour of the 11th Day of the 11th Month ...

Laying Down Arms

By PETER LINEBAUGH

On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month the Great Powers of the World signed the armistice laying down arms after four years of the bloodiest war in history. That was 1918.

Now, we call it Veteran's Day.

What caused the armistice was the refusal of soldiers to fight. They refused 'to go over the top' anymore. In Russia, France, England, Italy they refused to participate in the slaughter which had begun in 1914.

What we learn from Armistice Day is that the soldier is the front line of the peace movement.

Sailors and soldiers mutinied against the war, turning their arms not on so-called "enemies," namely brother soldiers from across the world: instead, they turned their arms upon the officers who otherwise sent them to the butchery of the trenches or ordered them to a freezing death in battles at sea.

In late October 1918 at Kiel and Wilhelmshaven, the home ports of theGerman fleet, the sailors refused the orders of their officers. Soldiers were brought in to force the sailors to obey. Instead the soldiers embraced their cause, "Frieden und Brot” or Peace and Bread.

One such sailor was a former stoker named Karl Artelt who had shoveled coal into the fires which kept the steam engines of the battleships burning. On a voyage to the Far East he witnessed the Chinese revolution of Sun Yat-sen. Later, perhaps as the engines of the German naval squadron were transformed from coal to oil, he became a skilled metal worker in the engine room. In other words his experiences below decks put him at the central themes of his historical epoch - imperialism and the oil machine - and he used these experiences to overthrow the war mongers. Such men put an end to World War One.

Together soldiers and sailors formed direct democratic councils. On 9th November 1918 a socialist republic was declared in Berlin. Hindenburg and Ludendorf, the German generals, had to agree to an armistice.

So: Honor the soldier who takes direct action for peace. Honor the soldier who thinks. Honor the soldier who brings Empire to its end.

Remember the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month!

Bring the troops home!

Peter Linebaugh teaches history at the University of Toledo. The London Hanged and (with Marcus Rediker) The Many-Headed Hydra: the Hidden History of the Revolutionary Atlantic. His essay on the history of May Day is included in Serpents in the Garden. His latest book is the Magna Carta Manifesto. He can be reached at: plineba@yahoo.com

War Criminals,One And All

Dedicated to his India visit.

Don’t believe the hopes of the ecstatic world,

When you sit on the mighty American throne;

Try to change your country into a sacred place,

Make it shine with piety, as once it shone.

I know you inherit the legacy of a devil,

Whose hands are full of ravages and blood;

Who exulted over the wails and shrieks,

Who ruined the peace like a miserable flood.

Have an intent gaze at Michelle –your wife,

When, of Iraq and Afghan folk, you think;

Tell her 'someone will rape you in front of me',

Imagine her agony, and look at her horrific blink.

Cast an affectionate glance at Malia and Sasha,

Your lovely daughters of 11 and 7 years old;

Tell them ' I will be shot before your eyes',

Then face the truth as a person- brave and bold.

Bring to your mind the images of countless houses,

Which your deadly bombs have reduced to rubble;

The mounting heaps of the dead whose life has gone,

Like a slight breeze breaks a water’s tiny bubble.

Dr. Mustafa Kamal Sherwani, LL.D. Chairman, All India Muslim Forum

Lucknow ,U.P.India

Love Is Kind, Fear, Unkind

World Wide Pain:

http://www.workplacemobbing.com/mobbing.html

Workplace mobbing is a 'virus' or a 'cancer' that spreads through malicious gossip, rumour, hearsay,and unfounded accusations. It is done with deliberate intent to have those targeted 'eliminated' or 'forced out' of their employment. Accusations of unsubstantiated 'bullying' can even be made against the target as the perpetrators realise the benefits of claiming 'victim' status. 

Those targeted are often:Change agents

High achievers (sometimes with public recognition)

Enthusiastic (eg those who volunteer) 

Whistleblowers

Known for their commitment to human rights

Home Run Around*

I awoke this morning with a txt proclaiming the End of the World (as we know it) from a stalwart Green Party activist in SW Chicago. His guy for State Rep, Ochsenfeld, a very decent man got 15%. Locally Greenies clocked in at anywhere from 7 - 15%. The top of the ballot for Governor, Rich Whitney - a very credible presentation to be a candidate in the land of Mutt and Jeff politics - got 3.4%. The showing by Rich Whitey (as the ballots prepared by the Chicago Election Commission printed last week) denies him funding ( correction: 11072010, ews... creates position for GP to gather exorbitant number of petition signatures ) for the next election. The misspelling of his last name blamed on bureaucratic error. I can't get enough of Chicago politics.

You want politics? I'm currently at lunch, enjoying a Hoppy afternoon, watching the San Francisco population elevate to near god-head baseball playing country boys and Latin American especials with the orchestrated pomp and circumstance of Circuses rather than Bread. Always money for fireworks shows or funerals of state proportions for fallen police officers of street death or terrorist fly overs by infernal killing machines. Winning a World (regardless of Japan, Cuba, etc) Series every lifetime deserves mention. It doesn't deserve too much of our time or tax dollars.

The fascist backdrop of the state buildings, the security presence, and Jon Miller introducing Herr Govenator ("come with me if you want to live" a patron comments), spooked me but the crowd roars. He says the Giants "are a machine". Trans Humanism is complete in California....

... all very corporate, owner/slave type speeches from the Brass, I believe "our boys" may have been used. The players sit on the stage as if in a corral and look with the nervous attitude of an alpaca - they know where they are, do you?... thoroughbred horses, some with brains. Does anyone remember Andy Messersmith? or Curt Flood? Ted Lindsay?, hockey fans?...

One ironic observation watching this corporate media feed is the crowd is overwhelmingly white. Very un-diverse, even the camera can find a black face at the Republican National Convention, but not here in the Land of Political Correctness. 

Except for the players, of course...

The manager delivered a very humble speech, as a good leader should do. He said the team felt "the presence" of the fans as they charged their way to (a quarter million dollar extra payday) a championship, but his sincerity was felt. This team has a lot of personality. I watched every pitch. I suppose I'm as distracted in life as the next mook in this great land of ours.

"Let's all say Juan Uribe!" Uooooo..., or did they say "Doo Do"?

So, this morning was spent reliving the crushing defeat of any social legislation, now just rapturously adoring athletes. As selected players came to address the crowd some spoke better than national candidates, some have never spoken before a crowd since high school speech class, some said thanks for the coaches and teachers in their life. Even one or two said, "thank God" (at the same time recognizing the training/medical staff). Rally Thong delivery crushed the Rally Monkey hex, perhaps Cub Fans should roast Sam Sianis (or his goat).

If it was so easy...

As Paris burns, ... reporting from the front lines... holding the barricades

- friend of Leon Berger 11032010

******

http://www.chicagobreakingsports.com/2010/11/cubs-accidentally-damage-harry-caray-statue.html

The statue existed without incident for 11 years at the corner of Addison and Sheffield, except for a couple pranks in which someone hung a dead goat carcass on the statue. That occurred once in 2007, and again before the home opener in 2009.

Blue Monday News

Be Brave, Take The Tour... Viva Le Dickens:

http://www.chinahush.com/2009/10/21/amazing-pictures-pollution-in-china/

*******

Amen, Brother:

LONDON: Alcohol is a more dangerous drug than both crack and heroin when the combined harms to the user and to others are assessed, British scientists said on Monday.

Presenting a new scale of drug harm that rates the damage to users themselves and to wider society, the scientists rated alcohol the most harmful overall and almost three times as harmful as cocaine or tobacco. 

Read more: Alcohol more harmful than heroin, crack cocaine: Study - The Times of India http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/science/Alcohol-more-harmful-than-heroin-crack-cocaine-Study/articleshow/6852482.cms#ixzz142ilbvos

************

Get 'Em Early:

http://preventdisease.com/news/10/102910_adhd_misdiagnosed.shtml

He found that the youngest children were significantly more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD and to be prescribed behavior-modifying stimulants such as Ritalin than their older classmates. He told the press that the "smoking gun" was that the diagnoses depended on the children's age relative to classmates and the teacher's perceptions of whether they had symptoms.

"If a child is behaving poorly, if he's inattentive, if he can't sit still, it may simply be because he's 5 and the other kids are 6."

"There's a big difference between a 5-year-old and a 6-year-old, and teachers and medical practitioners need to take that into account when evaluating whether children have ADHD," he urged.