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A friend sent this to me.  I do not know if it is genuine, actually from the Ise Shrine and oracle, but the sentiments are real and, as with chicken soup, it couldn’t hurt.

A Japanese Monk Sent this Prayer Request

The damage of the earthquake in Japan is devastating. Unable to cool down the reactor, we are facing a possibility of nuclear plant explosion [hydrogen explosions, not nuclear like a bomb]. Please join our prayer. Feel free to forward this prayer request to anyone. It would be great if more people can pray.

Here is a translation of a message/oracle from the Ise Shrine in Japan:

After sunset we need strong power of prayer.

Please let me deliver the message to as many as possible.

We can stop this earthquake with our prayers, but right now the nuclear

plant is in danger.

Please heal the suffering, sadness, anger, worry about nuclear plants.

Please do not think that this accident will bring justice.

Please care for each other.

The energy toward conflict and fight is also fueling the things happening right now.

Please stop the conflict and stop the fight and change the worrying voice to the power of prayer.

Please pray that as many people as possible can be saved.

We will be O.K.

If our hearts start connecting with each other the earth will be healed.

There are the sounds/vibrations that can release the karma of earth.

Anyone who can make a prayer sound, anyone who can do reiki,

anyone who can do long distance healing,

please direct your energy to the center of Japan .

The exact location is above the Hachiro gata, Akita Prefecture .

If you can sing, please sing.

Humming is fine too.

Let the earth listen to the sound.

Please send gratitude to the earth.

If mother earth wakes up, everything will stop.

The word Song/Sing writes in Japanese Kanji – small possibilities

support a big lack.

Please send your prayer to the Earth to wake up the Spirit.

I will be in meditation after the sunset.

I will pray for the light shining in the sky even in the darkness.

May everyone be safe.

Thank you for supporting my heart at this very difficult time.

Gratitude for our life.

Fuma

Continue reading Fukushima: Prayers and Petitions
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Why, after 30 years, are German Greens finding success in regional elections? In a recent article in the Guardian newspaper, Cem Özdemir, one of the  party’s  co-chair has an interesting thesis: the Greens are increasingly recognized as grownups able to address the most pressing issues in a way other parties can not.

In the past, surveys show, people liked the Greens but didn’t vote for them because they feared the party wouldn’t have the brain and muscle to run the country. This perception has changed over the last few years.

Http://bit.ly/g8uSvZ

What has lead to that change in perception?

Continue reading In Germany, Green is for grownup
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Tax reform gets a hearing in Western Mass.

The above is about a forum recently held in Western Mass concerning the budget and options to increase revenue.  I think many people have gotten up to date on the “Act to Invest in our Communities” which is basically a weaker version of the tax fairness proposals Nat, Jill, Scott, Rick, Mark, and the GRP promoted and argued for during the 2010 elections and before.  More on the legislation here.

There are a few points I want to make in regard to the strategy outlined in that article, and I know other have made these points before and perhaps more strongly.

Continue reading Tax reform, the State Legislature, and Practicing Sustainable Rudeness

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From The Daly News blog

Herman Dalyby Herman Daly

There may well be a be a better name than “steady-state economy”, (SSE) but both the classical economists (especially John Stuart Mill) and the past few decades of discussion, not to mention CASSE’s good work, have given considerable currency to “steady-state economy” both as concept and name. Also both the name and concept of  a “steady state” are independently familiar to demographers, population biologists, and physicists. The classical economists used the term “stationary state” but meant by it exactly what we mean by steady-state economy-briefly, a constant population and stock of physical wealth. We have added the condition that these stocks should be maintained constant by a low rate entropic throughput, one that is well within the regenerative and assimilative capacities of the ecosystem. Any new name for this idea should be sufficiently better to compensate for losing the advantages of historical continuity and interdisciplinary familiarity. Also, SSE conveys the recognition of biophysical constraints and the intention to live within them economically-which is exactly why it can’t help evoking some initial negative reaction in a growth-dominated world. There is an honesty and forthright clarity about the term “steady-state economy” that should not be sacrificed to the short-term political appeal of vagueness.

Continue reading Herman Daly: Fitting the Name to the Named
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 Our police, fire & schools lose $141 mill/yr because MA thinks subsidizing the paychecks of mutual fund company executives is a higher priority. This  one giveaway is 10% of the state’s budget deficit this year. The total amount lost each year, when you include all the other desperately needy firms like Raytheon  that get this special deal? More than $300 million/year. remember that, when you see what IS cut in this year’s budget.

Curiously enough, Fidelity claims they have no idea how much they’re saving!

At the hearing on Beacon Hill, Fidelity President Ronald O’Hanley declined to say exactly how much the Boston financial services giant benefited from a tax change in 1996 for the mutual fund industry. The Department of Revenue estimates the mutual fund industry has saved roughly $1.7 billion since the law was changed 15 years ago, including an estimated $142 million this tax year alone.

http://bo.st/fOTEDm

If it matters that little to them, why do we bother?  

Continue reading Rewarding inFidelity
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Contact Gov. Patrick and/or protest & attend State House nuke hearing , Wednesday, April 6 at 2pm. Gardner Auditorium

Governor Patrick met with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission Wednesday March 30th. This is a key moment to call for more oversight and protection in the wake of the nuclear disaster in Japan. Call Governor Patrick at 617.725.4005 and urge his leadership to improve public health and safety protections at the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Plymouth, MA and in MA towns near the border of VT. Yankee.

Specific Issues:

· IMPROVE WASTE STORAGE: Get the spent fuel pools back to original low density design and the rest in hardened, dispersed dry casks on site until an off-site solution becomes available

· EXPAND EMERGENCY PLANNING ZONES to 50 miles –

· DENY LICENSE EXTENSION: Do not allow Pilgrim’s or VT. Yankee additional 20 years of operation until lessons from Fukushima have been learned and appropriate fixes decided upon and put in place.

Continue reading Protest or attend State House nuke hearing Tuesday, April 6
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Geez, I just heard that Joe Bageant–probably my favorite politico-cultural critic, though he’d have hated the hi-falutin’ label–is dead.

This obit does a pretty nice job–others are on Alternet and elsewhere.

I never met him, but had a few e-mail conversations with him. He was always gracious.

What I loved most about him was that, radical progressive that he was, he never forgot his roots. Never looked down on the type of folks too many Democrats take for granted–the kinda people who look with some real interest on the Tea Party, and if you want to understand why, you could do a lot worse than reading his recent book, “Deer Hunting With Jesus.” His real scorn was for the limousine liberals, the holier-than-though progressives, the alleged friends of the working class who wouldn’t be caught dead in a real working class bar–much less hunting, playing poker, enjoying a chaw, watching NASCAR. Essays like “A Feral Dog Howls in Harvard Yard” often helped give me a real sense of balance and perspective.

Damn, and his writing! If we could learn to write like this, we’d actually have an audience.

I’m REALLY gonna miss him.  

You’ll find lots of Joe’s stuff here

Continue reading Joe Bageant: A Great One Gone

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Those tax dollars to Evergreen? sorry, evergone! CEO says MA made a deal. And us taxpayers just got dealt.

The chief executive of Evergreen Solar says his company has no plans to give back $20 million in state corporate incentives, despite its recent decision to close a plant in Devens and lay off 800 workers.

http://ow.ly/4p8WE

Think we’ll ever start paying for panels instead of promises?  

Continue reading CEO says tax dollars given to Evergreen are evergone