The World Stands on the Edge of a Precipice of Unimaginable Evil

”The most confusing aspect of this tragedy in my eyes is this: while it's true this part of the world harbors the worst violence and brutality on earth, it is also home to the gentlest, most loving and spiritual women, men and children on earth...”

Uganda, Rwanda, Congo and Kenya, where everything began, much as the Tigris and the Euphrates Rivers in Ur are a flash point of some of the most severe violence on earth. 30,000 years ago human life evolved from the dust of reptilian development to take our places on the evolutionary stage as the most sophisticated, supposedly, form of life on earth. What we have done with this blessing is another matter as evidenced in the cruel, sadistic violence of power and corruption of human life being wrought by marauding armies as they plunder, loot, burn, pillage and subjugate the people in the countryside as slaves and rape and torture both men and women.

International attention must be raised to these people’s welfare and unjust abuse. If you are reading this and are not yet repulsed then listen. A veterinarian was tortured, his leg crushed and subjected to multiple rapes by these marauding armies. The result for men is that they are called, “bush women,” by the people and subjected to abuse, which demeans and destroys the ten percent of those who are assaulted. When they go to seek help they are humiliated. The clinics are already filled with women. The men have no recourse and in many cases die knowing that they have been rendered powerless to continue in any form of their communities.

These despicable practices are not simply being carried out by the army in one place but everywhere across the borders. Juxtapose this violence with the beauty and grace of this area of the world and you will understand how completely bizarre this behavior is on the part of our fellow citizens of the earth. We must not stand for this injustice. It is completely evil.

The Smell of Life

"Our Problems stem from our acceptance of this filthy, rotten system." Dorothy Day stated who lived from 1897 to 1980. She is described as a radical Catholic activist. I suspect that she was a lot more than this would indicate. In 1980 the proverbial degradation and disintegrating of America's poor had not been evident as much as it became by 1987 for the Reagan years and the Bush presidencies dismantled what was possible of the movements of both the Roosevelt and Johnson administrations. Not until now has there been any concerted effort to transform American society to a democratic conversation on poverty, in which government is taking a leading role in creating opportunities for change.

Yesterday the Salvation Army made a sweeping gesture to assist homeless people with a transitional housing program that is in their best interests to create because it will lead to a more economically viable model than sheltering does at the present moment. It is interesting the this model has been adopted by both the Denver Rescue Mission, Crossroads and the Samaritan House, since everyone knows that a transitional housing model does not work unless one has a permanent place to live.

When listening to the conversation with respect to providing this housing no one wants to adopt a model that encompasses the 50,000 and growing number of housing units for the working poor and lowest third of our economy, because such a commitment requires deep subsidies and commitment that puts the lender and finance institution, like CHFA (The Colorado Housing and Finance Authority) and all housing authorities at risk. No section 8 voucher is allowed to go to former inmates with violent and sex offender histories and so we come to the stalemate.

Either we provide housing, as in the housing first or street to home models, or we abandon people in outlying areas like favelas, where people are unable to transform their lives as the Salvation Army proposes. Either way, the trend toward carrot and stick housing for vulnerable people, many of whom are young, is treacherous and fraught with pitfalls that can easily create no escape from poverty for the poor on earth.

The smell of life is simply that when we have not bathed, and our teeth continually fall lout; when we are rambling and disconnected our chances are limited to rebuild our tattered lives. When America rises to the occasion and provides substantial benefits and answers to poverty with case management and wrap around services we have a chance to stem the tide and bring a fresh scent of air home.

Being the President of Sankofa Wholistic Health Care, I have incorporated some basic rules to follow for a successful health and fitness program. I am not a nutritionist or dietitian, but through education and association with qualified health professional I practice what I teach and what I have learned.

Back to Basics

1. Waste Elimination

First and foremost, we need to reduce our intake of harmful foods. If you want to correct a health condition, then you will have to cut out the harmful foods totally. It is not going to be easy, but you cannot continue to feed your body with junks and expect it to heal.
There is no drug in the world that can heal your condition. Your body was made to self-heal so you need to give it a chance to heal by itself. But your body cannot self-heal as long as it is still full of toxins from the harmful foods you have ingested over the years. This is where detox comes in.

There are many ways to detox, but whatever detox program you choose to do, always ensure that the products are safe and natural. You can try juice fasting, or just go on total fast for a few days to let your body rest and detox and heal. When doing a detox program, always drink plenty of water to flush out the toxins.

For extreme cases, one has to consider doing a colonics. A congested colon (constipation is a symptom) may be carrying as much as 10-25 pounds (or more) of dried fecal matter in it. This is the perfect environment for bacteria to breed and they multiply by the millions every day. A congested colon leads to an overall unclean blood that is toxic and harmful to your 100 trillion cells which will quickly dwindle in numbers from damage.

2. Oxygen

One of the basic needs of our cells is oxygen¾clean, fresh air. Proper detox helps clean up your colon and liver that in turn encourages cleaner blood in circulation. One of the functions of our blood cells is to carry oxygen, water and nutrients to our entire body.
We have heard this often enough¾exercise is so important. Exercise enables our heart to pump blood and encourages blood circulation throughout our body. When blood circulates, it stirs up stagnant blood which otherwise would cause a host of health problems.
Deep breathing is also therapeutic. Take a walk outside, early in the morning when the air is still fresh and do deep breathing exercise. This alone does wonders and helps provide energy that can last you for hours.

3. Water

I can't stress enough the importance of drinking enough water. Our dehydrated cells can't talk, but they give signals to our body through pain. When they are dehydrated, they cause pain and when we give them enough water, most of these pains would just go away.
Don't just say that you're drinking plenty of water. We have heard that we need eight 8 ounces of water a day and that's good but may not be enough because of your weight and activity. I also recommend drinking the purest form of water, distilled water (we have a water filter.) Hard water and so-called mineral water will deposit inorganic elements in your body that your body cannot assimilate, thus treated as toxins. And finally ....

4. Nutrients

Once you have done proper detox and eliminating unhealthy food from your diet, taking sufficient water and exercise everyday, then you feed your cells with proper nutrients from live food.

Our body have been deprived of nutrients for most part of our lives because of "modern day diet" that consists of processed foods that are high in fat and low in fiber and nutrition. I have found that juicing is the most effective and fastest way to get the nutrients to our deprived cells.

When we talk about holistic nutrients, they should include:
Vitamins
Minerals and trace minerals
Amino acids
Complex carbohydrates
Phytonutrients
Anti-oxidants
Bio-flavonoids
Chlorophyll
Emzymes
Fiber
Essential fatty acids (EFAs)
Healthy colon flora (friendly bacteria)

We need to ask ourselves, how much of the above do we provide to our 100 trillion cells? I will attempt to make the information available to you as much as possible, in order that you may make the right choice from today onwards. Choose to live healthy.

Lifestyle Fitness Tips By Rudy McClinon Jr., BS, CFT, PT

Check out this blog for advice on how to maintain your strength, improve your posture, balance, hygiene ,sex life and work through your limitations so you will start to focus on the things you can do verses the things you can't. I will motivate and be very encouraging to everyone.

Rudy McClinon Jr. earned a bachelor of science degree in Physical Education, Health and Science from Xavier in Ohio. He is a former professional football player in the NFL –CFL. He has more than 35 years of experience as a Certified Fitness Trainer, and is a personal trainer for the Denver Rocky Mountain News Fitness Challenge, a motivational speaker, and president of Sankofa Wholistic Health Care.

[I thought this poem from Hugh Mann came at an interesting time as I am about to celebrate my 10th year of marriage.]

In the spirit of matrimonial harmony, I offer the following prose poem:

Rx FOR MARRIAGE

Marriage is an unconscious attempt to recreate and repair childhood
traumas. So it's no surprise that marriage frequently ends in a
traumatic divorce. Considering the prevalence and pain of divorce,
people should be married by a lawyer and divorced by a clergyman.
Let's practice prevention and merciful intervention.

Hugh Mann
http://organicMD.org
http://www.organicmd.org/prosepoetry.html#MARRIAGE
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/eletters/317/7172/S3b-7172#207057

What’s Up With Facebook?

FB is a megalomaniacal source of titillation for many of its readers and bloggers. The purpose of the FB is specious at best because it is trivial. Mindlessness and filling the mind with nonsense is a twenty-four hour a day occupation for many users, much as getting high holds the attention of many people.

The problem with using FB in this way is that some of the salient experiences of people with respect to interpersonal relationships, meeting a partner, loving, being able to celebrate a gift, a cause, a moment is also possible within this huge tapestry of moaning and guttural jargon.

The great gift is that there are surprises in the realm of this meandering sea of junk and junkies. Many times I have thought that it would be far better to do what I eventually did with television and shut it down. I felt that it would not be a problem to be banned from FB because then I would study more and write more concertedly about what matters.

What's up is a way of saying that we have to each choose carefully where we place our attention. It is not a matter of simply turning on and tuning out, FB has a real opportunity to guide, cajole, develop and embrace starving spirits. It is without a doubt a real place for many and for that reason has a deep commitment and responsibility in providing the best that there is to offer in communicating.

Hopefully all of us at one point have something that is inspirational and spiritually uplifting to impart from the mundane world of our everyday lives. I certainly have been blessed to be a voyager on this magic carpet ride.

For those who I have tested, kissed, loved and laughed with I salute you.

The Despots: Keeping Them Under Close Watch
Unfortunately there are people who are deviant and who are dangerous, too many. Power is not a sport. It is a concrete means of dominating others and the world. Hitler is one of the most well known archetypes of disorder and dysfunction. We can joust about for eons about how Adolf came to be deviant and vindictive. There are many people throughout history who have led lives of domination and corruption of the morals of youth. The experiment in California using the Nazi youth education models proved that anyone can be changed and manipulated into being a tyrant.

The problem with your thesis is that you are referring to a behavior which is based on a perspective that is evil. There is no other way to describe the attributes of manipulative people but to state that given the chance they would most likely use euthanasia to destroy a culture or people. Slavery evolved into a way of examining people as subhuman. For a short time, thankfully, a pygmy tribe member was brought to the New York Zoo as an exhibition with her child. This was not thought to be cruel and the least bit destructive, that is because white men have held power for many eons in the western industrial world. Charles Dickens spent a life time examining the cruelty and violence that such manipulating of human behavior caused. I do not think we have to think far and wide to realize that people are inherently capable of extreme violence without any remorse. We have countless examples in many other cultures unfortunately and after all I have stated here, slavery is a thriving international business and the violence in modern technology is as rampant as any despot who eliminated a nation from the earth.

All around there are ample examples of the depravity of human nature. What we must do with this awareness is make certain that life is supported, sustained and that human decency thrive. We have to be vigilant that we do not follow this paradigm as either individuals or a species. No matter what transpires we have a responsibility to act as citizens of the earth who are blessed by being here. For those who choose to ignore this possibility the only other solution is to have safe guards as a democratic and judicious nation affords to its inhabitants and to all of those who we touch.

Bless you and your family, and may the road that you travel bear you with grace.

My son called me up and asked me, "What's up?"
I said, "How are you feeling?"
You may believe that I am about to talk about my son struggling with cancer but that is not literally true. My son is fine and yet, he is struggling.

It is painful to listen to his miserable life. He cannot find a reason, and yet we have to dissolve in acceptance of the reality, and move on. There are many painful things in life and whether we fight against the current and get dragged down in the under tow, we still will prevail.

I am the one with cancer and it does not concern me. I know I am going to die and that helps. I was wallowing in self pity with a mentor and he said the trouble that you have is whether you have the power to accept the reality and live with this tension. Whether or not we trust the world and live with the knowledge that we will die is a matter whether we appreciate this time and place.

Here is the only issue instead of thinking ahead to what may be possible we have to dissolve in this and knowing that we will die will help us to appreciate the precious moment that is here.

We have horrendous times ahead. Most of us will suffer and have extreme lack of faith in this mundane and troubling existence. We have to find meaning in the mundane and the present because the rest is superfluous.

The rest is vain coulds, shoulds and woulds. That will not change the reality and in many ways the world that we are struggling is a spiritual vacuum. People obtain more wealth and become fatter when there is suffering. People enjoy their way of life and live in the present but cannot accept this and let the ambiguity and fear dissolve.

They cannot see, as my son does not that this is all there is and in front of us will be the present in its time. Use this time to connect and interconnect and you will be doing all you can for tomorrow. As I hung up from the conversation with my dear son I knew that he was suffering. I wanted to take his burden but there is no reason for that either. You can feel pain, gnawing, unbridled pain and you can be all right. I am fine and I am looking forward to being alive as long as it is within reach.

http://photos-d.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc1/hs149.snc1/5533_1133371167177_1014231207_30395675_5907139_s.jpg

What Do You See Yourself Doing in Five Years?

As we turn the world becomes more limited in natural resources at a time when the prices of real estate are tumbling down and the value of investments are collapsing. Many people still became richer in the last twelve months even as revenues for running the infrastructure of the economy plummeted. The sales tax revenue for Denver has dropped 12% this year, with an expected shortfall of 120 million dollars in the budget. Around the nation there are signs that the gaps between those people who are in poverty and those who benefit from their largesse are growing ever wider. More and more children are being raised in environments that provide no sustainable life and they are becoming less resilient to the changes. If we do not balance the disparities of wealth and poverty the world will be divided into two enclaves: those with nothing and those with enormous security to protect their way of life.

Here in Denver the majority of the felons leaving jails and prisons end up at the Crossroads Shelter of the Salvation Army. This is poised to shut down in a week and be reopened sometime in the future as transitional housing. The impact of this one huge place in the Denargo Market Neighborhood will mean that 100,s of men have nowhere to go this winter and in the foreseeable future. What we do about this crisis will be to rubber band and toothpick the leaking dike. In the long run we will be rid of many of these people as they succumb to the vulnerable situations in which they are living. Life expectancy of homeless people is at least twenty-five years less than the average and many are cut off from adequate health care throughout their lives. Stout Street Clinic's HOP Van is the only viable and possible means of providing health care to 1,000's of citizens.

A news conference will be held to state that the clinic is doubling in size and that the commitment of the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless to health care for the most vulnerable citizens will continue to be a primary priority. The other single highest priority of CCH is to provide housing to the 1,000's of homeless individuals and families. The Colorado Coalition for the Homeless is dedicated to putting 100 new units of housing in operation every year. Through the Renaissance Housing model the Coalition for the Homeless knows full well that housing is the only sustainable means of ending homelessness and debilitating poverty.