Neonovo's World

Growing up: 7, 8, and 9 months.

2006-09-27T00:07:00.000-04:00

Goodbye to the Yellow Man.

2006-06-18T22:49:00.000-04:00

Time for a change.
We didn't know it for sure just yet, but this year's "Bring Your Child to Work" gathering of April 27 was the last one. We suspected it. Later that day I had lunch with my buddy Claudio discussing the eventual closure. The writing had been on the wall, for a long, long time. About a week later, on Tuesday May 9, the doors closed.

The April 2000 book The Lexus and the Olive Tree by Thomas L Friedman quotes a Far Eastern Economic Review(Sept. 2, 1999)article on the Manila call center taking 10-12,000 daily calls, each rep making less each day than a rep state-side can make in an hour. Yet, that overseas rep is still making about 35% above the going wage in Manila.

Reading The Lexus enabled me to handle it even more positively; you would think after a decade, this would be a difficult parting of ways. Management responded to the market, and eased us out with much forethought. We were hand-held through the transistion with a placement company which made it a lot easier to pound the pavement after these ten-plus years. More power to our global counterparts, be it in Manila, India, So. Africa, Mexico, Ireland, or wherver the market calls.

Today, Sunday June 18th, 2006 I read from the Associate Press an article by Ramola Talwar Badam entitled: New Indian curriculum: Speak up, be direct, assertive "They're teaching everybody to talk back and to be aggressive - that's not a piece of Indian culture...Indian workers are polite to a fault." Not me.

Tomorrow, Monday, is the first day of my new job. A global-banking company with close to 1/4 million employees and 110 million customers. Time for a change.

Sophia's First Recital...

2006-04-27T12:00:00.000-04:00

Sophia's First Recital, is a tantalizing, hypnotizing and eloquent affirmation of existence at its purest.

Wouldn't you agree?

Neonovo

2006-04-25T13:48:00.000-04:00

To read gems like the one below, Subscribe to Harper's weekly announcement list. Just send an email to:

join-harpers-weekly@pluto.sparklist.com

TO: Harper's Weekly
FROM: Sara

Did you hear that? The sound of Iranian President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad rattling his sword for the folks at home. His
fundamentalist policies weren't playing so well, poll
numbers were down, so now he just bashes America (his
numbers have since soared). And did you hear that? Bush is
jumping for the bait, knowing that invading a second
Muslim nation will impress his core constituency as
well. This time, he doesn't have to make up stories about
weapons of mass destruction, because his new fight is with
a nuclearized loudmouth who'll do anything to give Bush a
black eye.

Which brings me to that other thing you hear in the
background: World War III, and Bush's core voters singing
their approval. In case you didn't know, they've all been
raised on tales of the world ending any day now, as the
result of a war in the Middle East. Ever stood at a book
stall and thumbed through Tim LaHaye's popular "Left
Behind," or Todd Strandberg's "Are You Rapture Ready?" or
Hal Lindsay's classic "The Late Great Planet Earth"? You
should. According to these Bush-favored texts, nukes rain
on the Arabs, God roasts the Blue-state voters, and
Evangelical Christians float up to heaven just before
things get nasty. Imagine that. Walking around believing
God wants you to start wars, but since you're a favored
person, you'll not have to endure what you've
started. Ever wonder why Bush is so strangely upbeat about
the war in Iraq, despite daily, unrelenting bloodshed? Now
you know. For Bush, the only thing wrong with the battle
is that it's not a firestorm of Biblical proportions. If
we allow him to drag Iran into it, he'll get his wish.

Carbon Monoxide

2006-04-18T15:42:00.000-04:00

Human life (all life actually) has evolved from a few - like 4 or 5 - single celled organisms, which have organized cooperatively to form the human body (along with everything else organic).

This evolutions started around 3 billion years ago. For the first 2.9 Billion years there were only single cell organisms that occupied themselves with making the planet habitable for living things.

Mother Nature nurtured the atmosphere by taking carbon out of it for 2.9 billion years, and replacing it with oxygen. Humans are trying to PUT IT ALL BACK in a few hundred.

Lifted FROM: T. F. Kelley

Iraq's 3rd Anniversary...

2006-03-30T16:14:00.000-04:00

On this, the third anniversary of the launch of Bush's illegal invasion of Iraq by way of whoring the tragedy of Sept. 11 for his cronies' appalling gain, here is what you might not know...

José Asunción Silva's MIDNIGHT DREAMS

2006-03-30T11:44:00.000-04:00

I read MIDNIGHT DREAMS, and the force impelled me to translate it. Its original can be found in many places, like here.

MIDNIGHT DREAMS
José Asunción Silva

Last night, being alone and nearly asleep,
my dreams from yesteryear, enveloped me completely

Dreams of hope, of glory, of happiness
and felicities that never were quite mine

they approached me in processions, so slow
and of the darken bedroom, in every corner settled

a grave silence descended and filled the entire quarter
and in the clock its pendulum, stopped the very moment.

The undecided fragrance of a forgotten smell,
like a phantom appeared, and spoke to me of the past.

faces long ago, absconded, by the tomb
and from the distance voices, heard where? I do no longer know

The dreams came close to me, and they saw me asleep,
and then they took their leave, retreating soundlessly

of the silken threads, tracking none, on the carpet woven
they came undone, into the shadows sinking.

Sophia Andrea

2005-11-29T21:07:00.000-04:00

I had my first birthday yesterday, at one week. Everybody loves me. Click the image for the rest of the story...

The Christian Paradox, posted without permission...

2005-08-02T10:19:00.000-04:00

The Christian Paradox; How a faithful nation gets Jesus wrong
Posted on Wednesday, July 27, 2005. What it means to be Christian in America. An excerpt. Originally from the August 2005 issue of Harpers. By Bill McKibben.

SourcesOnly 40 percent of Americans can name more than four of the Ten Commandments, and a scant half can cite any of the four authors of the Gospels. Twelve percent believe Joan of Arc was Noah’s wife. This failure to recall the specifics of our Christian heritage may be further evidence of our nation’s educational decline, but it probably doesn’t matter all that much in spiritual or political terms. Here is a statistic that does matter: Three quarters of Americans believe the Bible teaches that “God helps those who help themselves.” That is, three out of four Americans believe that this uber-American idea, a notion at the core of our current individualist politics and culture, which was in fact uttered by Ben Franklin, actually appears in Holy Scripture. The thing is, not only is Franklin’s wisdom not biblical; it’s counter-biblical. Few ideas could be further from the gospel message, with its radical summons to love of neighbor. On this essential matter, most Americans—most American Christians—are simply wrong, as if 75 percent of American scientists believed that Newton proved gravity causes apples to fly up.

Asking Christians what Christ taught isn’t a trick. When we say we are a Christian nation—and, overwhelmingly, we do—it means something. People who go to church absorb lessons there and make real decisions based on those lessons; increasingly, these lessons inform their politics. (One poll found that 11 percent of U.S. churchgoers were urged by their clergy to vote in a particular way in the 2004 election, up from 6 percent in 2000.) When George Bush says that Jesus Christ is his favorite philosopher, he may or may not be sincere, but he is reflecting the sincere beliefs of the vast majority of Americans.

And therein is the paradox. America is simultaneously the most professedly Christian of the developed nations and the least Christian in its behavior. That paradox—more important, perhaps, than the much touted ability of French women to stay thin on a diet of chocolate and cheese—illuminates the hollow at the core of our boastful, careening culture.

* * *

Ours is among the most spiritually homogenous rich nations on earth. Depending on which poll you look at and how the question is asked, somewhere around 85 percent of us call ourselves Christian. Israel, by way of comparison, is 77 percent Jewish. It is true that a smaller number of Americans—about 75 percent—claim they actually pray to God on a daily basis, and only 33 percent say they manage to get to church every week. Still, even if that 85 percent overstates actual practice, it clearly represents aspiration. In fact, there is nothing else that unites more than four fifths of America. Every other statistic one can cite about American behavior is essentially also a measure of the behavior of professed Christians. That’s what America is: a place saturated in Christian identity.

But is it Christian? This is not a matter of angels dancing on the heads of pins. Christ was pretty specific about what he had in mind for his followers. What if we chose some simple criterion—say, giving aid to the poorest people—as a reasonable proxy for Christian behavior? After all, in the days before his crucifixion, when Jesus summed up his message for his disciples, he said the way you could tell the righteous from the damned was by whether they’d fed the hungry, slaked the thirsty, clothed the naked, welcomed the stranger, and visited the prisoner. What would we find then?

In 2004, as a share of our economy, we ranked second to last, after Italy, among developed countries in government foreign aid. Per capita we each provide fifteen cents a day in official development assistance to poor countries. And it’s not because we were giving to private charities for relief work instead. Such funding increases our average daily donation by just six pennies, to twenty-one cents. It’s also not because Americans were too busy taking care of their own; nearly 18 percent of American children lived in poverty (compared with, say, 8 percent in Sweden). In fact, by pretty much any measure of caring for the least among us you want to propose—childhood nutrition, infant mortality, access to preschool—we come in nearly last among the rich nations, and often by a wide margin. The point is not just that (as everyone already knows) the American nation trails badly in all these categories; it’s that the overwhelmingly Christian American nation trails badly in all these categories, categories to which Jesus paid particular attention. And it’s not as if the numbers are getting better: the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported last year that the number of households that were “food insecure with hunger” had climbed more than 26 percent between 1999 and 2003.

This Christian nation also tends to make personal, as opposed to political, choices that the Bible would seem to frown upon. Despite the Sixth Commandment, we are, of course, the most violent rich nation on earth, with a murder rate four or five times that of our European peers. We have prison populations greater by a factor of six or seven than other rich nations (which at least should give us plenty of opportunity for visiting the prisoners). Having been told to turn the other cheek, we’re the only Western democracy left that executes its citizens, mostly in those states where Christianity is theoretically strongest. Despite Jesus’ strong declarations against divorce, our marriages break up at a rate—just over half—that compares poorly with the European Union’s average of about four in ten. That average may be held down by the fact that Europeans marry less frequently, and by countries, like Italy, where divorce is difficult; still, compare our success with, say, that of the godless Dutch, whose divorce rate is just over 37 percent. Teenage pregnancy? We’re at the top of the charts. Personal self-discipline—like, say, keeping your weight under control? Buying on credit? Running government deficits? Do you need to ask?

* * *

To read the remainder of this essay, pick up a copy of the August issue of Harper's Magazine, on newsstands near you. Looking for a newsstand?

Today in Colombia...

2005-06-03T21:32:00.000-04:00

The original post is part of a thread in the Poor but Happy Web site which among other things, disusses Colombia. The post was created by Plátano and with his permission, I'm using it here.

Today in Colombia, and elsewhere, there is an increase of a kind of postmodern relative pluralism (there is no absolute truth) which I think must ultimately be transcended to arrive at a worldview more akin to integral universalism (there is both relative and absolute truth). This transition allows for moving beyond the clash of worldviews into a healthier embrace that honors the entire spectrum of human development.

There is no violation of scientific method in this approach and no sacrifice of human reason. On the contrary, human rationality is honored and respected for what it is: a necessary and important stage in human development. I am using a broad view of science that results in knowledge accumulation in various realms.

Here I am in accordance with the epistemological pluralism of Saint Bonaventure (who lived 1221-1274, I really am a traditionalist at heart!) in addressing three aspects of human beings: body, mind, and spirit. This also corresponds to modern theorists such as Aurobindo, Maslow, Baldwin, Assagioli, etc.) who posit human development as going from prepersonal to personal to transpersonal (They all may use slightly different terminology but the idea is the same).

Pure reason (at the personal-egoic stage) is simply incapable of grasping transcendent realities (both Kant and Nagarjuna demonstrated this), and when it tries it only generates dualistic incompatibilities.

This is kind of getting long so I'll try to sum up here. With an epistemological pluralism we can scientifically determine truths in the different data realms: sensibilia, intelligibilia, and transcendelia. Sensibilia is sensory data gathered by using our senses. Intelligibilia is mental data that is grounded in one's present, given, immediate mental experience. Transcendelia involves transcendental data directly perceived or intuited by the eye of contemplation.
So truths exist for each realm. In the lower realms they pertain to somatic processes, instincts, simple sensations. In the intermediate realms they are mental-egoic processes including concrete operational and formal operational thinking (after Piaget). The higher realms involve subtle, psychic, and ultimate unity consciousness (meditation being the method of evolution in that trans-rational realm).

So, I would argue that absolute truth does exist but in a realm beyond mind (what the Zen people call No-Mind). The developing self identifies with an emergent structure, then differentiates and transcends that structure, allowing each suceeding stage to operate on the previous level until the final transformation happens (different traditions use different names for this experience).

This happens for all human beings, including Colombians. And I meet people wherever I go in Colombia who are at these various stages of human development all with their own truths and we all will eventually arrive at the absolute truth. Meanwhile, everyone has some truth. No human mind is capable of 100% error!

Plátano, el banano verde

Biological and chemical warfare in Colombia.

2005-05-24T14:09:00.000-04:00

The Kogis inhabitants of the Sierra in Santa Marta, Colombia, are a wise and magnificent ancient people, gravely impacted by the aerial spraying through which the coca plant is being attacked from the air; bomb 'em plants boys with those chem-bombs. The hell with everyone else, let god sort 'em out !!

Beyond the extreme cost of aerial spraying compared with other manual methods already put to use, aerial spraying does not sit well with the rural population whose hearts and minds the US and Colombian goverments wish to win over in their fight against illegal groups. Long live General Westmorland, the first true winner of the hearts and minds of his foe ! !

More info here

Peace
Neonovo

Dream on; it ain't gonna happen...

2005-05-14T11:59:00.000-04:00

While it is true that the war on terrorism is in full swing, only the strong have a right to decide what or whom a "terrorist" is; anyone we decide on "their" side is a terrorist. No one on "our" side can ever be a terrorist, because we have "god" on our side.

Cuba wants 'terrorist suspect' returned from US

White House appears unsure of how to deal with man accused of masterminding Cuba's '9/11'.

By Tom Regan | csmonitor.com

US President George W. Bush has said on more than one occasion during the war on terrorism that "those who harbor terrorists are as guilty as the terrorists themselves." ABCNews reports that this statement will be put to the test by a case involving Luis Posada Carriles, a Cuban who sneaked into the US recently seeking political asylum.
The New York Times reported Monday that the Cuban government accuses Mr. Posada of being involved with the bombing of a Cuban passenger jet in 1976. Posada has also admitted to "plotting attacks that damaged tourist spots in Havana and killed an Italian visitor there in 1997," and he is also wanted in Venezuela on terrorism charges.

Thirty years ago [ABCNews.com reports] a Cuban plane was blown out of the sky off Barbados. All 73 passengers and crew members aboard Cubana Airlines Flight 455 including Cuba's youthful fencing team died. The terrorist attack shook Cuba as deeply as 9/11 did the United States. The Cubans have never forgotten or forgiven those they hold responsible, including Posada.
But as ABCNews also points out, the case is complicated by Posada's ties to political figures in the US, including his "pre-9/11 ties to Washington" and his allies in Florida's "powerful Cuban-American" community.
The privately run, George Washington University based National Security Archives details Posada's extensive career as a CIA- and FBI-trained operative. The Archives reports that Posada had been imprisoned in Venezuela for the '76 bombing, but escaped in '85, when he went to El Salvador "where he worked, using the alias 'Ramon Medina,' on the illegal contra resupply program being run by Lt. Col. Oliver North in the Reagan National Security Council."

The Archives also reports that although Posada has been in the US for at least six weeks, the FBI has "has indicated it is not actively searching for him." Posada's lawyer continues to say his client denies all involvement with the bombing.

The Miami Herald reports that the National Security Archives' publishing of the CIA documents makes Posada's request for asylum "much more difficult." But it also points out that at least one of the informants who place Posada at the meetings planning the '76 bombing, at another time said he wasn't involved.

The New York Times reported Wednesday that Posada's appearance in the US could "could create tension between the politics of the global war on terrorism and the ghosts of the cold war on communism." It has also put the Bush administration in a difficult position.

If Mr. Posada has indeed illegally entered the United States, the Bush administration has three choices: granting him asylum; jailing him for illegal entry; or granting Venezuela's request for extradition.
A grant of asylum could invite charges that the Bush administration is compromising its principle that no nation should harbor suspected terrorists. But to turn Mr. Posada away could provoke political wrath in the conservative Cuban-American communities of South Florida, deep sources of support and campaign money for President Bush and his brother Jeb, the state's governor.

Perhaps even harder for the Bush administration to stomach, reports the Guardian, is that by handing Posada back to Venezuela to be tried for terrorism, it would be handing "a resounding victory" to two of the leaders in Latin and South American it despises the most: Venezuela's Hugo Chᶥz and Cuba's Fidel Castro.
For his part, President Castro has already said he plans to make Posada's presence in the US a major political issue. The Associated Press reports that President Castro gave a four-hour TV appearance Wednesday going over the documents that proved Posada's connection to the CIA. He also highlighted Posada's connection to Oscar Bosch, a man labelled a terrorist in some US documents that also link him to the '76 bombing.

Bosch was pardoned by President George H.W. Bush in 1990, and denies involvement in the bombing, although on several occasions he has said it was a "legitimate target in the war on Castro."

An editorial in the San Francisco Chronicle argues that the US "should deport Posada immediately," and that not doing so "undercuts worldwide respect and support for the war on terrorism, a worthy cause that shouldn't be misused by the likes of Posada."

The official blindness [to Posada's presence in the US] can be blamed on upside-down political priorities. Washington is paralyzed when it comes to offending the Cuban population in Florida, even in a case as overboard as this one. Posada's career as an anti-Castro militant, dating back to the American-backed Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961, makes him an icon to some. But there can't be safe harbor for an alleged mass killer linked to the jet bombing, as well as to other violent acts and bomb plots.
The New York Times also argues that Posada not be allowed to remain in the US, but says the US government needs to explore other options than sending him back to Cuba or Venezuela, such as sending him to a European country willing to try him, or to the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

How to deal with Posada had already provoked much argument in the Miami area. The Miami Herald reports that the debate is fierce on both sides.

Paz
Neonovo

Plan Colombia and its terrorist element...

2005-05-05T18:05:00.000-04:00

Colombian police said Wednesday that they have detained two U.S. soldiers allegedly involved in an arms-smuggling plot.

Paz
Neonovo

HABEMUS PAPAM

2005-04-22T13:35:00.000-04:00

I see on TV happy crowds, enchanted with the conclave process, and I remember those Italian crowds I've seen in black and white enchanted with Mussolini, or worse, the enchanted german crowd with their own oh, so carismatic leader...friend and confidant of that italian afore mentioned...
A leader for your soul? History for you salvation? Who'll remember this particular conclave next year? Another path would be a personal orientation, one that may result in a spirituality foucused closer to ourselves, not events perceived as great or otherwise...
There is no Easter. All weeks are Easter. The passion, death and resurrection theatrics have been hashed over way to many times already. Gibson's movie, unseen by me, was still the straw that broke my ex-catholic camel's back. You can't be taking that kind of fantasy seriously! Blood letting for the masses! ! I think is high time He got off that cross, and started laughing once again.
There is no redempiton; never was required. There won't be a final judgment. Our consience is our judgment, not final, but constant, total, and only judge. There is no original sin, as there is no trinity. Only human inventions, evolved to the point of achieving stratagem-status designed by those best postioned to exploit them for personal gain, and who, to do so, will adhere to any system, be it patriarch, obsolete, and devoid of common sense.

Slap on your catholic face...

2005-04-21T13:54:00.000-04:00

I read in the Christian Science Monitor (csmonitor.com) a story about the Boston cardinal who was appointed by his cohorts to give the farewell mass for the departed pope at the Vatican.

Some active US catholics took that as a slap in their face, as they have placed responsibility on that very same cardinal, for the impunity with which that Boston priest was able to carry on his evil acts for so many years.

Now the Hopeless are no longer Popeless...

...and the Popefuls waiting in the wings are all Poped out but One.

You may remember the good cardinal saw to it that the pedophile priest be moved from parish to parish as a way to absocond him from any repercussions.

The cardinal's colleagues decided to show solidarity for their Boston counterpart, and annointed him with the privilege of saying that Mass.

While I don't make an effor to remember any names, when I read about catholic shenanigans, as I do not view that organization as a useful venue for human progress, I do admire and remember many individuals who, regardless of their relationship with the catholic church -like Camilo Torres for example- work for peace, and the more so when they have personally evolved above the dogma that dogs most catholics.

This not-so-sublte manner to "rub-it-in" remaninds me of my exwife, a pious catholic, who NEVER failed to attend mass any day it was "required". She also has a very nasty way to "rub-it-in", and took advantage of every opportunity to do so.

Basically, the catholic hierarchy decided to tell American catholics and the world at large, that they are untouchable by such mundane concerns such as child-sexual abuse.

Paz
Neonovo

North Florida's Fort Matanzas and Lighthouse

2005-04-17T12:55:00.000-04:00

In March 2005, we visited the to Fort of Matanzas, in North Florida.

Click the image for more photos...

We also visited the St. Augustine Lighthouse & Museum.

More photos behind the image...
Paz
Neonovo

Live and die in San Andrés and Providencia Islands

2005-04-09T15:44:00.000-04:00

In February 2005, we went to San Andrés and Providencia Islands.

Click the image for more photos...

40 days later, the plane in which they were taking off, the same type and model we flew 40 days earlier, a Check Let-410UVP-E, crashed on take off from the same runway. I was initially under the impression that it was the very same plane, but the picture on page 2 of the one we flew displays another HK registration number. Nonetheless, the accident gave me a lot of food for though.

We went to the island with the idea to conceive a new human being, while on a great-vacation. A plan probably very similar to that of some of the folk on the unlucky plane. A twist of fate can surely change your perspective on life. Emphasize the real important things in life.

Crash details: \ Date: March 26, 2005 \ Time: 10:15
Location: El Embrujo, Providencia Island, Colombia
Operator: West Caribbean Airways AC Type: Let-410UVP-E Reg: HK-4146X \ cn: 902426 Route: Old Providence - San Andres Aboard: 14 \ Fatalities: 8 \ Ground: 0 Details: The small airliner crashed while taking off from the Colombian Caribbean Island of Old Providence. The aircraft climbed to a height of about 100 feet and then lost control and crashed into a hill. The pilot and co-pilot and six passengers were killed.
Paz
Neonovo

Jaime Castro cosigned petition against re-election

2005-03-25T17:17:00.000-04:00

While in Bogotá last montlh, I saw there was much ado about the twelve petitions opposing the Constitutional amendment to suit Uribe's wish for a king's crown, and return to the glorious days of yesteryear, when divine providence betwoed absolute power to the eternal monarchy.

Jaime Castro was a guest of a very cool host whose name escapes me, who introduced Jaime as an "exminister, exdiplomat, exmajor, the only title he lacks -the host went on- is that of expresident."

Jaime is a white-haired, impeccable in dress and word, gentleman, who with candid and precise language inumerated the reason why suberting the constitution in this manner would be a disaster.

Jaime explained very similar circunstances in the past when extremely popular presidents -even more popular than Uribe is now- seeked a very similar contitutional subersion, got it, and ended up being deposed by extremists who lead the country to chaos (Rojas Pinilla, and the other circa 1906).

I was also impressed by the fact that a politician who speaks this candidly about the powers-that-be has not been put to death yet. He must be extremely well connected to be spared "La mano negra" and excluded from "La Lista".

I fell in love with this man, and hope to hear his name more often, hopefully bearing good news.
Paz
Neonovo

40 years ago (almost)...

2005-03-21T17:58:00.000-04:00

I moved to the states at 13, nearly 40 years ago; but when in Colombia, I'm under the impression that most folk won't even notice I was gone for any amount of time just from my accent.
In fact some people think I'm a paisa (I'm from Cali).
However, sometimes I get signaled otherwise, like when I flew into Bogotá on a 2-day jaunt (to meet my futura) last year. I walked off National Terminal, wearing my new clothes from Exito, top to bottom, and get into a Cab...
So where 'ya coming from? asks the cabbie. "Cali..." I say. "Been a while since I've visited Bogotá, though." (30 years, but I didn't let on).
We go on, shooting the breeze while he zig-zagged his way through traffic to get me to my destination. We talked about things prottypical colombians talk about; La violencia, la reina de belleza, el tráfico, etc, etc...until finally, we get there, I get off, and as I start to pull my cashe to pay him, and he, very casually asks: "¿Tenés dollares?" which I in fact did, and I in fact gave him, after a little bargaining...but I was amazed at his degree of observation, 'cuz I know damn well, sometimes a blurt out a gringada -and set off a laughter- when speaking, but this time I never even blinked a clue.

Paz
Neonovo

The separation of church and state...

2005-03-18T16:01:00.000-04:00

I wish I had written this...

Today reading the electronic edition of the Christian Sciense Monitor (csmonitor.com), I read an artícle which I always wanted to write, but didn't know how; The article presents the position of the Founding Fathers in regards to religion.

From my Christian Science Monitor's favorite Blogger: Christian Science Monitor Blog My American Experience Archive March, 2005

Posted March 17, 2005, 'The Handmaid's Tale' and the Founding Fathers
By Tom Regan

The law drives the religious right crazy. As a result, even staunch conservative judges who make rulings that strictly interpret the Constitution as supporting the separation of church and state, are decried as "judicial activists." It's a great case of accusing your opponents of doing the very thing you are doing yourself.
The Founding Fathers, of course, had very strong views about the role of religion. George Washington viewed it very favorably, although historians note that he was careful not to malign or disparage any religious belief, including non-Christian ones.
In Benjamin Franklin, the 'first American,' there was no stronger voice for the importance of "tolerance" toward all religious beliefs. Thomas Jefferson, meanwhile, who had strong religious beliefs of his own bent, nevertheless felt it should basically be kept as far away from government as possible.
Jefferson also felt that the idea of "The Creator" should not be a specifically Christian one. Take, for example, the following quote from his autobiography, in reference to the Virginia Act for Religious Freedom (which Jefferson wrote, and considered one of the greatest achievements of his life), and the basis for the religion clauses in the Constitution's Bill of Rights:
Where the preamble declares, that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed by inserting "Jesus Christ," so that it would read "A departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion;" the insertion was rejected by the great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mohammedan, the Hindoo and Infidel of every denomination.

Paz
Neonovo

Hello Gainesville, at Heather y Pavel's house.

2005-01-17T19:40:00.000-04:00

On the weekend of January 15, 2005, I visited Gainesville, the home of Heather and Pavel

Soon, when flickr reopens my upload quota, I'll have more photos...
Pavel gave me a Russian calendar, which caught Tim's attention, the ex-intelligence dude we hang with sometimes. Then I read in poorbuthappy.com about a Russian musical group that plays Cumbia, one of the great Latin rhythms and Colombia's most popular dance music. But now I can't find the link to put it here.
We partied hardy; but I think I did most of the dancing at the club...so many girls, so little time. We also talked over some aguardiente about years gone by, existence, contemporary dilemmas, people we think we know...
Paz
Neonovo