Gauracandra

I was thinking about devotee self-sufficiency and was considering the question of clothing. I was thinking about the idea of raising sheep for wool and hand spinning yarn. Then I thought about Angora rabbits. So I did a quick search and came up with this site: http://www.joyofhandspinning.com/wooly-wabbit.html This was the first site I looked at and her four rabbits are named: Burfi Laddu Jaleebi Halava

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These are all paintings on a FLAT surface. Pretty weird.

I came across this speech by Teddy Roosevelt and found it absolutely hilarious. I never knew of this story. For those who aren't American Teddy Roosevelt was a U.S. President, who later formed a third party called the Bull Moose party. Just read this speach. Its passionate. You can hear it in his voice. But what got me was he is giving this speech with a bullet still lodged in him from an assassin. I can't even imagine... I'm just posting it because I found it hilarious and fascinating. "It Takes More Than That to Kill a Bull Moose": * Address at Milwaukee, Wis., October, 14, 1912. Just before entering the auditorium at Milwaukee, an attempt was made on Colonel Roosevelt's life. The above speech is from a stenographic report, differing considerably from the prepared manuscript. [TR was shot in an assasination attempt by John Schrank, who had been having disturbing dreams about TR's predecessor, William McKinley and also thought that no president should serve more than two terms. Schrank spent the rest of his life in a mental institution. No one came to visit him. He died shortly after Franklin Delano Roosevelt, TR's fifth cousin, was elected to a third term. Schrank had stalked TR for thousands of miles before getting a clear shot at him in Milwaukee. Schrank was caught on the spot.] Friends, I shall ask you to be as quiet as possible. I don't know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot; but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose. But fortunately I had my manuscript, so you see I was going to make a long speech, and there is a bullet - there is where the bullet went through - and it probably saved me from it going into my heart. The bullet is in me now, so that I cannot make a very long speech, but I will try my best. And now, friends, I want to take advantage of this incident to say a word of solemn warning to my fellow countrymen. First of all, I want to say this about myself: I have altogether too important things to think of to feel any concern over my own death; and now I cannot speak to you insincerely within five minutes of being shot. I am telling you the literal truth when I say that my concern is for many other things. It is not in the least for my own life. I want you to understand that I am ahead of the game, anyway. No man has had a happier life than I have led; a happier life in every way. I have been able to do certain things that I greatly wished to do, and I am interested in doing other things. I can tell you with absolute truthfulness that I am very much uninterested in whether I am shot or not. It was just as when I was colonel of my regiment. I always felt that a private was to be excused for feeling at times some pangs of anxiety about his personal safety, but I cannot understand a man fit to be a colonel who can pay any heed to his personal safety when he is occupied as he ought to be with the absorbing desire to do his duty. I am in this cause with my whole heart and soul. I believe that the Progressive movement is making life a little easier for all our people; a movement to try to take the burdens off the men and especially the women and children of this country. I am absorbed in the success of that movement. Friends, I ask you now this evening to accept what I am saying as absolutely true, when I tell you I am not thinking of my own success. I am not thinking of my life or of anything connected with me personally. I am thinking of the movement. I say this by way of introduction, because I want to say something very serious to our people and especially to the newspapers. I don't know anything about who the man was who shot me to-night. He was seized at once by one of the stenographers in my party, Mr. Martin, and I suppose is now in the hands of the police. He shot to kill. He shot - the shot, the bullet went in here - I will show you. I am going to ask you to be as quiet as possible for I am not able to give to challenge of the bull moose quite as loudly. Now, I do not know who he was or what he represented. He was a coward. He stood in the darkness in the crowd around the automobile and when they cheered me, and I got up to bow, he stepped forward and shot me in the darkness. Now, friends, of course, I do not know, as I say, anything about him; but it is a very natural thing that weak and vicious minds should be inflamed to acts of violence by the kind of awful mendacity and abuse that have been heaped upon me for the last three months by the papers in the interest of not only Mr. Debs but of Mr. Wilson and Mr. Taft. Friends, I will disown and repudiate any man of my party who attacks with such foul slander and abuse any opponent of any other party; and now I wish to say seriously to all the daily newspapers, to the Republicans, the Democrat, and Socialist parties, that they cannot, month in month out and year in and year out, make the kind of untruthful, of bitter assault that they have made and not expect that brutal, violent natures, or brutal and violent characters, especially when the brutality is accompanied by a not very strong mind; they cannot expect that such natures will be unaffected by it. Now, friends, I am not speaking for myself at all, I give you my word, I do not care a rap about being shot; not a rap. I have had a good many experiences in my time and this is one of them. What I care for is my country. I wish I were able to impress upon my people -- our people, the duty to feel strongly but to speak the truth of their opponents. I say now, I have never said one word one the stump against any opponent that I cannot defend. I have said nothing that I could not substantiate and nothing that I ought not to have said -- nothing that I -- nothing that, looking back at, I would not say again. Now, friends, it ought not to be too much to ask that our opponents -[speaking to some one on the stage]-I am not sick at all. I am all right. I cannot tell you of what infinitesimal importance I regard this incident as compared with the great issues at stake in this campaign, and I ask it not for my sake, not the least in the world, but for the sake of common country, that they make up their minds to speak only the truth, and not use that kind of slander and mendacity which if taken seriously must incite weak and violent natures to crimes of violence. Don't you make any mistake. Don't you pity me. I am all right. I am all right and you cannot escape listening to the speech either. And now, friends, this incident that has just occurred - this effort to assassinate me- emphasizes to a peculiar degree the need of the Progressive movement. Friends, every good citizen ought to do everything in his or her power to prevent the coming of the day when we shall see in this country two recognized creeds fighting one another, when we shall see the creed of the "Havenots" arraigned against the creed of the "Haves." When that day comes then such incidents as this to-night will be commonplace in our history. When you make poor men - when you permit the conditions to grow such that the poor man as such will be swayed by his sense of injury against the men who try to hold what they improperly have won, when that day comes, the most awful passions will be let loose and it will be an ill day for our country. Now, friends, what we who are in this movement are endeavoring to do is forestall any such movement for justice now - a movement in which we ask all just men of generous hearts to join with the men who feel in their souls that lift upward which bids them refuse to be satisfied themselves while their countrymen and countrywomen suffer from avoidable misery. Now, friends, what we Progressives are trying to do is to enroll rich or poor, whatever their social or industrial position, to stand together for the most elementary rights of good citizenship, those elementary rights which are the foundation of good citizenship in this great Republic of ours. (At this point a renewed effort was made to persuade Mr. Roosevelt to conclude his speech.) My friends are a little more nervous than I am. Don't you waste any sympathy on me. I have had an A-1 time in life and I am having it now. I never in my life was in any movement in which I was able to serve with such whole-hearted devotion as in this; in which I was able to feel as I do in this that common weal. I have fought for the good of our common country. And now, friends, I shall have to cut short much of that speech that I meant to give you, but I want to touch on just two or three points. In the first place, speaking to you here in Milwaukee, I wish to say that the Progressive party is making its appeals to all our fellow citizens without any regard to their creed or to their birthplace. We do not regard as essential the way in which a man worships his God or as being affected by where he was born. We regard it as a matter of spirit and purpose. In New York, while I was police commissioner, the two men from whom I got the most assistance were Jacob Riis, who was born in Denmark, and Arthur von Briesen, who was born in Germany - both of them as fine examples of the best and highest American citizenship as you could find in any part of this country. I have just been introduced by one of your own men here - Henry Cochems. His grandfather, his father, and that father's seven brothers, all served in the United States army, and they entered it four years after they had come to this country from Germany. Two of them left their lives, spent their lives, on the field of battle. I am all right - I am a little sore. Anybody has a right to be sore with a bullet in him. You would find that if I was in battle now I would be leading my men just the same. Just the same way I am going to make this speech. At one time I promoted five men for gallantry on the field of battle. Afterward in making some inquiries about them I found that two of them were Protestants, two Catholic, and one a Jew. One Protestant came from Germany and one was born in Ireland. I did not promote them because of their religion. It just happened that way. If all five of them had been Jews I would have promoted them, or if all five of them had been Protestants I would have promoted them; or if they had been Catholics. In that regiment I had a man born in Italy who distinguished himself by gallantry; there was another young fellow, a son of Polish parents, and another who came here when he was a child from Bohemia, who likewise distinguished themselves; and friends, I assure you, that I was incapable of considering any question whatever, but the worth of each individual as a fighting man. If he was a good fighting man, then I saw that Uncle Sam got the benefit of it. That is all. I make the same appeal to our citizenship. I ask in our civic life that we in the same way pay heed only to the man's quality of citizenship, to repudiate as the worst enemy that we can have whoever tries to get us to discriminate for or against any man because of his creed or birthplace. Now, friends, in the same way I want out people to stand by one another without regard to differences or class or occupation. I have always stood by labor-unions. I am going to make one omission to-night. I have prepared my speech because Mr. Wilson had seen fit to attack me by showing up his record in comparison with mine. But I am not going to do that to-night. I am going to simply speak of what I myself have done and what I think ought to be done in this country of ours. It is essential that here should be organizations of labor. This is an era of organization. Capital organizes and therefore labor must organize. My appeal for organized labor is two-fold; to the outsider and the capitalist I make my appeal to treat the laborer fairly, to recognize the fact that he must organize that there must be such organization, that the laboring man must organize for his own protection, and that it is the duty of the rest of is to help him and not hinder him in organizing. That is one-half appeal that I make. Now, the other half is to the labor man himself. My appeal to him is to remember that as he wants justice, so he must do justice. I want every labor man, every labor leader, every organized union man, to take the lead in denouncing disorder and in denouncing the inciting of riot; that in this country we shall proceed under the protection of our laws and with all respect to the laws, I want the labor men to feel in their turn that exactly as justice must be done them so they must do justice. They must bear their duty as citizens, their duty to this great country of ours, and that they must not rest content unless they do that duty to the fullest degree. I know these doctors, when they get hold of me, will never let me go back, and there are just a few more things that I want to say to you. And here I have got to make one comparison between Mr. Wilson and myself, simply because he has invited it and I cannot shrink from it. Mr. Wilson has seen fit to attack me, to say that I did not do much against the trusts when I was President. I have got two answers to make to that. In the first place what I did, and then I want to compare what I did when I was President with what Mr. Wilson did not do when he was governor. When I took the office the antitrust law was practically a dead letter and the interstate commerce law in as poor a condition. I had to revive both laws. I did. I enforced both. It will be easy enough to do now what I did then, but the reason that it is easy now is because I did it when it was hard. Nobody was doing anything. I found speedily that the interstate commerce law by being made perfect could be made a most useful instrument for helping solve some of our industrial problems. So with the antitrust law. I speedily found out that almost the only positive good achieved by such a successful lawsuit as the Northern Securities suit, for instance, was in establishing the principle that the government was supreme over the big corporation, but by itself that the law did not accomplish any of the things that we ought to have accomplished; and so I began to fight for the amendment of the law along the lines of the interstate commerce law, and now we propose, we Progressives, to establish and interstate commission having the same power over industrial concerns that the Interstate Commerce Commission has over railroads, so that whenever there is in the future a decision rendered in such important matters as the recent suits against the Standard Oil, the Sugar - no, not that - Tobacco - Tobacco Trust - we will have a commission which will see that the decree of the court is really made effective; that it is not made a merely nominal decree. Our opponents have said that we intend to legalize monopoly. Nonsense. They have legalized monopoly. At this moment the Standard Oil and Tobacco Trust monopolies are legalized; they are being carried on under the decree of the Supreme Court. Our proposal is really to break up monopoly. Our proposal is to lay down certain requirements, and then to require the commerce commission - the industrial commission - to see that the trusts live up to those requirements. Our opponents have spoken as if we were going to let the commission declare what those requirements should be. Not at all. We are going to put the requirements in the law and then see that the commission requires them to obey that law. And now, friends, as Mr. Wilson has invited the comparison, I only want to say this: Mr. Wilson has said that the States are the proper authorities to deal with the trusts. Well, about eighty percent of the trusts are organized in New Jersey. The Standard Oil, the Tobacco, the Sugar, the Beef, all those trusts are organized in the state of New Jersey and the laws of New Jersey say that their charters can at any time be amended or repealed if they misbehave themselves and give the government ample power to act about those laws, and Mr. Wilson has been governor a year and nine months and he has not opened his lips. The chapter describing what Mr. Wilson has done about trusts in New Jersey would read precisely like a chapter describing snakes in Ireland, which ran: "There are no snakes in Ireland." Mr. Wilson has done precisely and exactly nothing about the trusts. I tell you, and I told you at the beginning, I do not say anything on the stump that I do not believe. I do not say anything I do not know. Let any of Mr. Wilson's friends on Tuesday point out one thing or let Mr. Wilson point out one thing that he has done about the trusts as governor of New Jersey. And now, friends, there is one thing I want to say especially to you people here in Wisconsin. All that I have said so far is what I would say in any part of the Union. I have a peculiar right to ask that in this great contest you men and women of Wisconsin shall stand with us. You have taken the lead in progressive movements here in Wisconsin. You have taught the rest of us to look to you for inspiration and leadership. Now, friends, you have made that movement here locally. You will being doing a dreadful injustice to yourselves; you will be doing a dreadful injustice to the rest of us throughout the Union, if you fail to stand with us now that we are making this national movement. What I am about to say now I want yo to understand. If I speak of Mr. Wilson I speak with no mind of bitterness. I merely want to discuss the difference of policy between the Progressive and the Democratic party and to ask you to think for yourselves which party you will follow. I will say that, friends, because the Republican party is beaten. Nobody needs to have any idea that anything can be done with the Republican party. When the Republican party - not the Republican party - when the bosses in control of the Republican party, the Barneses and Penroses, last June stole the nomination and wrecked the Republican party for good and all - I want to point out to you that nominally they stole that nomination from me, but it was really from you. They did not like me, and the longer they live the less cause they will have to like me. But while they don't like me, they dread you. You are the people that they dread. They dread the people themselves, and those bosses and the big special interests behind them made up their mind that they would rather see the Republican party wrecked than see it come under the control of the people themselves. So I am not dealing with the Republican party. There are only two ways you can vote this year. You can be progressive or reactionary. Whether you vote Republican or Democratic it does not make a difference, you are voting reactionary. Now, the Democratic party in its platform and through the utterances of Mr. Wilson has distinctly committed itself to the old flintlock, muzzle-loaded doctrine of States' rights, and I have said distinctly we are for people's rights. We are for the rights of the people. If they can be obtained best through National Government, then we are for national rights. We are for people's rights however it is necessary to secure them. Mr. Wilson has made a long essay against Senator Beveridge's bill to abolish child labor. It is the same kind of argument that would be made against our bill to prohibit women from working more than eight hours a day in industry. It is the same kind of argument that would have to be made; if it is true, it would apply equally against our proposal to insist that in continuous industries there shall be by law one day's rest in seven and three-shift eight-hour day. You have labor laws here in Wisconsin, and chamber of commerce will tell you that because of that fact there are industries that will not come to Wisconsin. They prefer to stay outside where they can work children of tender years, where they can work women fourteen and sixteen hours a day, where if it is a continuous industry, they can work men twelve hours a day and seven days a week. Now, friends, I know that you of Wisconsin would never repeal those laws even if they are at your commercial hurt, just as I am trying to get New York to adopt such laws even though it will be to the New York's commercial hurt. But if possible I want to arrange it so that we can have justice without commercial hurt, and you can only get that if you have justice enforced nationally. You won't be burdened in Wisconsin with industries not coming to the State if the same good laws are extended all over the other States. Do you see what I mean? The States all compete in a common market; and it is not justice to the employers of a State that has enforced just and proper laws to have them exposed to the competition of another State where no such laws are enforced. Now, the Democratic platform, and their speakers declare we shall not have such laws. Mr. Wilson has distinctly declared that we shall not have a national law to prohibit the labor of children, to prohibit child labor. He has distinctly declared that we shall not have a law to establish a minimum wage for women. I ask you to look at our declaration and hear and read our platform about social and industrial justice and then, friends, vote for the Progressive ticket without regard to me, without regard to my personality, for only by voting for that platform can you be true to the cause of progress throughout this Union.

Hilaire Belloc was certainly a partisan. He believed in the Catholic church and believed the Reformation broke Christian unity which lead to fracturing and regional competition. However, in all of his arguments he doesn't come off as unfair. In other words, he expresses his ideas in an intelligent manner even if he ultimately does take the side of the Catholic church. For instance, he spends much time detailing the abuses of the Catholic heirarchy which assisted in the revolt. However, he does point a strong finger at John Calvin. To him John Calvin was very dangerous precisely because he wasn't a crack or a sentimentalist. Calvin created an entirely complete theology that rivaled Catholicism. The fact that it was a heresy and false did not mean it was unintelligent or poorly conceived. It was so perfectly conceived that it could legitimately challenge the old theology. Now Belloc points out that the way economic and political change occurs is first there is an idea that takes root and from there society changes its economy and politics. Rarely (if ever) does the economic/political system change and then people accept the ideas (there must be some catalyst). Now I don't fully comprehend the Calvinist theology. From what I gather this is the core of it. Essentially Catholic doctrine always accepted that there were two wills. There was God's will and man's will. Man therefore had independence. Calvin said there was only one will - God's will. God knew the future and thus man had no freedom of a separate will. There wasn't even a chance for man to be saved. God had already decided who would and who wouldn't be saved. Now the problem with this idea of predestination and non-existence of the will of man is it results in a sort of glorification of success. A man is successful because he was predestined to succeed. It is God's will that the rich man is rich. It is God's will that the poor man is poor. Money becomes an objective measurement of "the will of God." After all he wouldn't will you to have it if he didn't want you to have it. But the problem is if there is a separate will from God (man's will), then man can choose to be successful and yet violate God's will. He can engage in wordly activities and act contrary to proper principles, but because he is successful we should idolize him. Now this no doubt was not the intended consequence of Calvin's philosophy, but it was the final result. We became a culture that worshipped success (instead of God, or I should say as a sign of God). The old Catholic theology would say that a successful man is not necessarily someone we should emulate. He could just as easily be contrary to God, while the poor man could be abiding by God's will. Again, I haven't studied Calvin's philosophy, but this is what I was able to gather. It was this idea that lead to the economic and political changes in Christian Europe.

At this moment I'm just finishing reading a book titled "The Crisis of Civilization" written by Hilaire Belloc. Belloc, a Frenchman educated in England, was very close friends with G.K. Chesterton and in the early 1900s the two of them developed an economic philosophy called Distributism. The book itself is an introduction to Distributism but they have expanded on the idea in other writings. The book for about two-thirds deals with how modern capitalism came about. Belloc was Catholic and shows how the Reformation especially the philosophy of John Calvin was the starting point of modern competitive capitalism. This confirms something I've noticed. Protestants almost always vote Republican, while Catholics vote Democratic. It always seemed odd, but if you understand that Protestantism lead to modern capitalism it makes more sense. Its not a perfect correlation, but there is definitely a pattern. Anyways, the ideas behind Distributism are essentially small 'c' Capitalism. In fact many of the ideas sound much like Srila Prabhupada's view of Varnashram. The basic pillars are as follows: 1) A better distribution of physical property. There was a point in time when the individual was truly a free man because he produced his own job. Certainly some people worked for others, but there were in fact many small farm communities and trades. Belloc points to Medieval Europe as being the peak of civilization in which there was steady progress but also social stability and unity. He does not pretend that there is no progress today, simply that while we have had more material progress it is top-heavy and can't support itself. 2) The elimination of usury, or atleast its restrictions. The idea being that people should invest in future profits of an enterprise if they wish to loan money, but not simply to receive payment with or without some physical backing. That is usury (lending money at interest) leads to a consumer, rather than a producer, driven economy. It causes gambling with the creation of instant wealth and instant poverty. It also enslaves the undisciplined who borrow and become indebted thus losing their economic freedom. This is something I believe in a general sense. I hate debt. If I can't control myself to save up my money before buying something with cash, then I don't buy it. 3) Laws that prevent large owners from swallowing up small owners. Essentially he wants many small businesses. Life should be mostly village life in which people work from home with a skill they contribute to the community. However, at one point there were millions of farmers. Now we have Agribusiness, with huge companies who ran out the small farmers out of business. Yes it is more efficient. However, that efficiency has turn a private owner, a man who was his own boss (the small farmer), into a dependent worker, who works for someone else. Another example is department stores. Today the richest Americans are like the 5 Walton siblings (from Walmart). Each is worth like $30 billion, or in total their family is worth like $100 - $150 billion. How did this happen? Well, the company kept putting out of business small town stores. What this means is once upon a time there were many independent business men, who were their own boss in their own community. Lets say they were each worth half a million. This would suggest that perhaps close to 300,000 small owners were put out of business, in order that that wealth be transfered to the 5 Walton siblings who live in Arkansas (in fact its more, since the Walton family don't won all of Walmart). That is before your community had some respectable families that owned a few small stores IN YOUR COMMUNITY. Their kids went to YOUR schools. They voted in YOUR town hall. They went to YOUR same church. Now they are employees not owners. Walmart didn't do anything illegal. However, it is the nature of big 'C' capitalism to ruin the small guy. They were against big 'C' capitalism because it put wealth in the hands of few individuals. They were against Socialism because it put the wealth into the hands of even fewer individuals (government bureaucrats). The only balance between political freedom and economic freedom they saw was to create an ownership driven society. A society of small owners. They give the example that the institution of property no more should allow a man to have unlimited property than the institution of marriage allows one to have more than one spouse. Limits should be set. 4) Natural monopolies should be highly regulated for the publics benefit. 5) There must be a reintroduction of Guilds. A guild set rules for their members and made sure that while there was competition, no member would seek the ruin of a fellow guild member. Each should be able to earn a living. The guild would facilitate training, set standards of work, etc.... Anyways, this is a general outline. Free trade has not necessarily benefited the American consumer. Consider this. Take Nike for instance. Go to the store and your shoes still cost $50 to $150. Yet once there were plants in the U.S. paying Americans good wages to make shoes. Now those plants are in Malaysia where they pay a few dollars per day. Have your prices come down? No. But the company's profit margins have increased. You may think you are getting less expensive products but you aren't. The cost is just transferred. How? How about welfare payments to the unemployed? How about inner cities with unemployment among certain populations of 20%? Because they are unemployed they more likely fall into crime and social disruption. So then we raise taxes to build more prisons. Maybe your T-shirt costs less (and thats a small maybe), but the costs are made up elsewhere. While I don't fully agree with Belloc, he does make a number of good points. The book seems a bit anachronistic in the sense that he was writing this in the great depression. However, everything he wrote then is happening to a greater extent now. His view is the system is top heavy and can't support itself. With a proper diffusion of ownership to the individual level, with people being their own bosses, then society will be more stable. There should be local control, village life, low taxes, and small private ownership. There will never be paradise, not everyone will be a owner (some will work for others), but there will be a greater sense of self-determination, rather than the lack of self-assurance from being a wage earner.

"How powerful? By some estimates, it was equal to detonating a million atomic bombs. Sieh and other scientists said it probably jolted the planet's rotation. "It causes the planet to wobble a little bit, but it's not going to turn Earth upside down," Sieh said." http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/science/12/27/quake.seismic.ap/index.html Very sad whats happening now. Hopefully relief can get there quick. Unfortunately now millions of people who's lives depend on tourism are in even worse straits.

I said that we could probably build up the physical infrastructure in 5 or 6 years. This would be for a single region (say the south east - Alachua). The program would continue indefinitely, so every 5 or 6 years simply by using our existing kitchen equipment as a one item devotee store, you could keep raising funds to establish independent milk production in other regions. First buy some land, then equipment, then some cows etc... steadily you could use these funds to create a real cow protection program with no cost to the devotee community. We'd just buy from our temple rather than the corner store. Is it perfect? No. But it is a step towards independence.

Theist, You wrote: Now, I'm not sure I understand this proposal correctly. But reading this made me think. Why can't Iskcon, with all of it's kitchens throughout the world, purchase commerical dairy milk wholesale. That is, a local temple will buy commercial milk, just like your corner store, store the gallons of milk in a kitchen refridgerator. And then sell back to the devotees at a slight profit at the same price as stores sell it. Maybe you make $1 per gallon. Every Sundays devotees come. They buy their gallon of milk from the temple and take it back home. They were going to buy the milk anyways. Now however the temple takes that $1 per gallon say, and puts it into a cow protection fund. Then even a temple with only 80 devotees could generate $80 every month. If this was done in all temples in the U.S. you could probably raise $3000 per month, or perhaps around $40K per year. This would not be spent, but rather accumulated to build up the physical infrastructure needed for our own private milk industry. I could see for instance the cost of a bottling system being maybe $50k, the cost for a pasteurization system being another $50K, and the cost for a refridgeration system being a further $50K. Lets say to create a simple milk processing system you need to invest $150K just in equipment. No one wants to cough up that kind of dough. But if all Iskcon temples work with their congregation in the above manner, we could probably raise that in 5 or 6 years. In this way our commercial purchasing would work to establish some independence. The best place would be to put this equipment in Alachua to create this private milk industry. I think this is an entirely workable solution.

Let me come to Theist's defense. He is holding up well, but is pretty alone in this debate. Here is the thing, and I say this as a milk drinker, Srila Prabhupada certainly did allow the use of milk. But an allowance should not be construed as an excuse. It is clear from all of his instructions that he wanted an independent cow protection system. It has now been over 25 years since his disappearance and no such system is in place. I can easily see in 200 years the same argument being used. "We don't have a cow protection program but thats ok because Srila Prabhupada allowed us to drink commercial milk." This certainly would not be what Prabhupada would want. In other words we keep kicking the can down the road. Imagine for a moment that the whole managerial and spiritual leadership of Iskcon said to is members "We are no longer going to allow drinking commercial milk, we'll consider it a breaking of the principles." I mean I've seen devotees who get on other devotees cases for drinking coffee or tea (which cause no harm to others and very little to oneself), but never milk. In other words we need to bring this to a point and I think Theist is trying to do that. A point is something good because it is the only way to break out of a pattern of complacency. If we bring it philosophically to the forefront, this is the first step to actually getting it done and stop kicking the can to some undefined future date. Its about changing our mindset. I'm just as much at fault, but I can see Theist's frustration.

I didn't want to get too much into this thread, but figured I'd add my two cents worth. I do drink a little bit of milk, though not much, and I could probably turn vegan relatively easily. I do think Iskcon should be able to have a form of dairy industry, though it wouldn't be perfect. From what I've read a milk cow can produce about 6 to 8 gallons of milk per day. This means about 180 - 240 gallons per month. In addition they produce like 100 pounds of manure per day. This is just for 1 cow. So while it might not be perfect, it could be used in the larger communities. Certainly Alachua, which does have cows (though I'm not sure they are milked) should be able to handle their community needs. My understanding is they have about 400 - 500 families, which would equate lets say to about 750 devotees. If you say a family uses 1 gallon per month, then certainly with 2 cows you could create enough milk to satisfy the needs of that community. The problem as I've said before is one of concentration. Too many devotee communities are too small. Maybe you have 80 people in a congregation. This is a bit difficult to create a good milk program. One solution might be to network various other communities outside of just Iskcon. That is work to establish an Ahimsa farm. Then work with other Indian temples outside of the immediate vicinity, and get their members to sign up for a monthly gallon of milk delivered every two weeks to their nearest temple. Or how about other groups like Shivananda, or Yogi Bhajan folks etc... You might be able to create a pan-religious ahimsa milk industry. It would be more expensive but worth it. But truthfully if it was successful then greed would cause others to want to take it over, thus fracturing the project. If I could buy 1 gallon of ahimsa milk per month, and it cost me $8, I'd do it. $8 isn't a whole lot. But the problem is we don't have enough people to do proper go of it. Just the equipment for pasteurization would be fairly expensive, not to count having a full time devotee milking the cows. This is why I've said before that we need more devotee concentration. Its good having all these centers, don't misunderstand me, but if we had say 5000 devotees living in a single area, then easily you could have say 10 milk cows, capable of providing a decent income to one or two cowherds. Just my thoughts. I think density will come in time, these are just the bumpy initial roads.

He was the host of this Nova program. I actually am considering buying it. Its a two part series. It was really good, and while they tried to make it sensible to the average joe (for instance, explaining that various layers of membranes are like slices of the same bread), I didn't quite follow it all the time. However, what I did conclude was this world is crazier than we ever imagined. And even after all this craziness they still can't explain how in the world it all came to be anyways. Now, if someone says "I don't believe in angels because I can't see them." my response might be something like "Well I don't believe in 11 different dimensions predicted by string theory because I can't see them...." It seems to me 11 dimensions (there might be more as this is a relatively new theory likely to change) is pretty damn strange.... stranger than believing that an entity greater than man exists. So if there are multiple dimensions all around us (with entities who could literally could be millimeters away), who is to say there isn't a higher dimensional being able to see all of our activities and drop in on occasion. It doesn't sound that remote if you think about it. And I also had the same response his brother gave him. Multiple universes? Extra dimensions? Has anyone read the Bhagavatam? They are discovering this within the last few hundred years, and string theory within the last 25 years, and yet there are many examples of multiple dimensions in Vaisnava theology. So show this program in a high school class and then ask the kids "Was this all by accident?" The deeper you go the stranger it gets. Its like magic.

A key problem with education is that it creates a sort of religious atmosphere - as if it is giving ultimate answers. Materialism is just as much a religion as spiritualism. If by this you mean it has certain ethics, symbols, and ideas. So the modern educational set up (initially proposed by the clergy) makes it seem like Darwin's ethics are the meaning for life. And what were Darwin's ultimate ideas? That we are animals. Thats a powerful idea. A negative idea but powerful. It was the idea behind Hitler's genocide. The strong survive the weak perish. At least the Christian idea is that we are created in God's image, which if it were false would atleast be a positive idea. But we are animals and do animals have mercy? No. The ideas of Darwin lead to abortion, eugenics, and a sort of cold heartlessness towards others (just as animals treat one another). Now I think an important thing could be added to the curriculum. The problem with materialists is they only look so deep into the world and then stop. Thus they think they understand the world. But the world is truly bizarre and inexplicable. The further down you look into it the more miraculous it is. So for instance I think a book called Darwin's Black Box is a good start. The more you look into it the more you realize that for Darwinian evolution to occur the odds are like one in several trillion if even that. After all most mutations are bad, not good. The book really goes into details about how inexplicable life is. Another instance was a program last night on Nova. Now I'm not saying physicists believe in angels, but I don't think it would be something they would (or should) say couldn't be. They went into 'String Theory' and basically said there are worlds all around us that we can't see, there are multiple layers and dimensions, each of varying orders. It was a fascinating program. They pointed out that they could never prove it or test it, so some physicists didn't like it calling it more a philosophy than a science. But suppose you showed in class what is true - that if the atomic weight of particles were off even slightly the universe couldn't exist. Show the odds of Darwin's idea, show the ideas behind String Theory and their implications, show how perfectly balanced the universe is. And then say simply "Did this happen by chance?" I think most kids would be very unsure that it did happen by chance. The problem is right now most kids are intimidated in class. Most teachers know more than they do. They are being graded. So what can they say but to write the "correct" answer on their essay. But if you created videos that showed the inexplicableness of creation you would undermine the materialists argument. That is, don't let them only go a few feet down, but make them keep digging deeper until they realize the world does not explain itself.

This world is full of suffering. The only thing we must decide to do is to suffer well or suffer poorly. It is easy enough to say theoretically, but the problem with saying it is that we might ultimately have to live it. There are two sides to suffering. When we suffer we should suffer well. What do I mean? If some pain befalls me I have two options. I can react with greater negativity, or I can react with greater positivity. Perhaps this is the meaning of 'turn the other cheek'. You can turn a great evil into a great good. The other side to suffering is seeing another person suffer. They too have to decide to suffer well or suffer poorly. Our job should be to help them suffer well by not suffering but through comforting. What does this mean to your question? A woman is raped and becomes pregnant. She can kill the unborn and not suffer. But there are things worse than not suffering. We may not realize it unless we choose the other course. Until we see a new born child born with all potential to do good. A woman who decides to turn evil into good has truly conquered evil. And those who would like to see this happen should help her suffer well by not suffering.

I saw a quick advertisement for a special on Fox News called Eurabia. I think its on tonight (not positive) and starts at 7 p.m. and will look at the emergence of Islam in Europe.

I remember a few years ago there was one really weird abortion controversy. Here is how I recall it. Basically the left wanted to exclude any hospital from receiving government reimbursement for medical services if they did not allow abortions. In other words, you are a Catholic hospital and you have made the decision not to perform abortion. Now someone comes in with government funded health care and needs eye surgery. You can't receive funding unless you submit to performing abortions at your hospital. I believe this is how it went. In addition, there was a major push to require ALL surgeons to learn abortion proceedures or else they wouldn't get accredited by some body like the AMA (American Medical Association). The theory was "If there was an emergency a doctor should know how to perform an abortion. If they don't learn this training we can't certify they are competent to be doctors." It was such undeniable garbage. These abortion people really have a radical agenda.

I list these items for a reason. If I were to say “Arabic script is visually interesting”, it carries more weight, though very little weight none the less, than if I had said “Mohammed is the last prophet.” It is simply my opinion or perhaps a sense of aesthetics. This is why I said that I can not judge the miracles of Mohammed. However, if I were to say Alexander Fleming discovered Penicillin and this has saved millions of lives, this is wholly different. It is no longer my opinion, but rather objective fact. This is a fundamental question. We may say we should mend Christianity to make it better, and this I can accept. But if one says they seek to end Christianity, as Islam has tried to do for centuries in Europe, then it is fundamental to ask what has Islam done that deserves to replace Christianity. List objectively everything the Islamic world has created. Set this side by side with everything the Christian world has created. Then look at the two. There is no doubt in my mind that the accomplishments of the Christian world will dwarf those of the Islamic world. If Islam is to replace Christianity in Europe it should do so for a reason – that its ideas are better. And these ideas must be put into form for anyone can claim their idea is the best until it is tried, tested, and failed.

My concern does not center on the relationship between the United States and Europe. The United States is after all based on European Christian culture. My concern is the influence Islam will have within Europe which will fundamentally undermine it. I cannot judge the miracles of Mohammed. Yet I can show you something which is quite miraculous and we can judge that separately. It is only in the Christian world that you will find automobiles, refrigerators, bicycles, light bulbs, telephones, television, radios, electrical grids, and computers. I say this for effect to cause you to realize all the things the Islamic world does in fact have today, but which they only have because of the Christian world. And this is barely a start. In 2000 years the Christian world has flourished (in science, medicine, art, exploration, invention, economics), and yet Islam for the last thousand years has stagnated (and it has only been around 1300 years). Put another way, if Christianity had been supplanted by Islam, as it was under threat many times to be, today Europe would be as the Islamic world is – lacking in democracy, lacking in innovation, lacking in progress. That sounds harsh, but I think it is very accurate. It is easy to assume these creations which have revolutionized the world were an inevitability. First, let us assume they were inevitable. Inevitable would suggest that regardless of the civilization, randomly people would have made these discoveries. That is, had Islam usurped Christianity, Islam would have also discovered and made all these innovations – they are after all inevitable. If they were in fact inevitable, then it is miraculous, that randomly they were all inevitably discovered only by a specific civilization and not another. Muslims had the last 1000 years to inevitably discover the sewing machine as did Elias Howe. Muslims had the last 1000 years to inevitably discover the refrigerator as did Oliver Evans. But they didn’t discover the sewing machine and they didn’t discover the refrigerator. But what if these things are not inevitable. What if certain views of the world are more likely to lead to progress in the world, and certain views of the world are more likely to lead to stagnation in the world. If things are not inevitable, but rather are more likely to appear in those societies that have a certain view of creation, then this suggests another sort of miracle. It would suggest that something in Christian Civilization, something apart from Islamic Civilization, is at the heart of this progress. And again, something in Islamic Civilization, something apart from Christian Civilization, is at the heart of stagnation. So my concern is that Europe will cease being European. Islam has tried for over 1000 years to conquer Europe, and they may win in the end, but not based on ideas and innovation, but based on birthrate. European birthrate is not even at parity (I’ve discussed this before in these forums). They are in fact losing their population at an alarming rate. At the same time the population is aging. Combined with a huge welfare state, they are in need of more bodies. The U.S. also has a similar, though less acute problem. The difference however is in the solution. In the U.S. we are having massive Latin American immigration. In Europe they are having massive Islamic immigration. In the U.S. this means we will likely become more Catholic. In Europe it means they will become increasingly Islamic. Imagine when they allow Turkey into the European Union. There are 70 million Muslims in Turkey, with borders all along the Islamic region, that will flood throughout Europe. As I stated, we often like to criticize Christian civilization without considering what will replace it. If it is replaced with Islam I think we are in a far worse state. We often hear someone say “That is very un-Christian of you.” But we never hear someone say “That is very un-Islamic of you.” Case in point, the Abu Graib prison scandal. It is a scandal. And we should be ashamed. But what of the Islamists that are cutting off people’s heads. No one says “That is very un-Mohammedan of them.” In fact, it is very Mohammedan of them for Mohammed raised his sword and slaughtered tens of thousands. It is precisely Mohammedan to cut off the head of a person and this is why no one condemns it – because it is not unexpected. But it is un-Christian to strip someone naked, precisely because Christ said to clothe the naked. Christians are often hypocrites because they have ideals that they don’t live up to and as such do and should feel ashamed when they fail. What is worse, having an ideal model and failing to live to his standards, or not having the model to begin with?

If you are looking for a very good sci-fi book that relates science and religion I would suggest 'A Canticle For Liebowitz'. I came across it quite by accident. Every so often I'd hear of this book, and it was always said to be great. Then I started researching a bit and found many "serious" sci-fi readers considered it one of the greatest, but least read sci-fi books. In fact, apparently there have been college courses taught on this book. So I picked it up and wasn't disappointed. Its a slow book that builds. But it is never flashy. It takes place after the world has destroyed itself in a nuclear war. Then from that point it looks at the rise of civilization over 3 chapters, each takes place 600 years apart. First there is 'Fiat Homo' - "Let there be man". Then the next chapter is titled 'Fiat Lux' - "Let there be light". And finally 'Fiat Voluntuas Tua' - Thy Will Be Done. Its interesting for several reasons. First because it takes religion seriously and in fact shows the role religion has played in science and the creation of the modern world. I'm not real knowledgeable about the histories of the world - but apparently the book basically mirrors real events from the Dark Ages forward, and if you know what those events are you will understand it further (thus the college courses I suppose). Second, because it gives a great look at what monastic life is like and how it has survived (it follows a single order of Monks over those 1800 years). Finally, because it perfectly incorporates philosophy with storytelling without being preachy. So if you are looking for a good read I'd suggest picking it up.

I wouldn’t say that most religions are confused. Many have quite a bit of symmetry even as they’ve changed over the centuries. Hinduism is quit different for a number of reasons. Partly because it has not resolved whether it is a philosophy of form or formlessness. If it is a philosophy of form, it can have shape, if it has shape it can have symmetry. If it has symmetry then the ideas do not step on top of one another. Buddhism is a philosophy of no form, and thus while it has no shape it does have a certain symmetry, even if that means nothingness or emptiness. This is one reason why I think there has been a struggle between Mayavadis and Vaisnavas. They are trying to resolve this difference once and for all to move forward. Yes there are differences in Christianity, but the differences between a Seventh Day Adventist, and a Presbyterian are really quite small, especially when viewed between the differences found in Hinduism. Secondly, there is the issue of structure (again, it is an issue of form). A person founds a school and has 50 disciples. When he passes those 50 disciples go out and have their own disciples. Some will remain pure and follow those teachings, others will start to deviate according to their own mind. A teacher will create “The International Society for Krishna Consciousness” and teach to chant “Hare Krsna”, and 30 years later someone will decide to create “Govindaianity” and say what he really meant to teach, if he only had time to say so, was to chant “Hare Govinda”. Of course that is just the beginning. Project out another 10 generations and you’ll have something called “Omega Govindism” the future of Enlightenment where you chant “Om Ega Govinda”. We’ll be told that since Omega means the end, this means Omega Govinda is the ends to reach Govinda. This is what the teacher really meant, if only he had the time to say so. Add 1 billion people, let simmer for a few thousand years, and see how many new, strange, and contradictory ideas all grow and develop.

I don't believe in cultural equality. Some are higher than others, some are lower. This doesn't mean that various cultures don't have good or many redeemable qualities. So with that in mind here are my thoughts on various religions: Judaism - Lots of practical advice though very ritualistic. It obviously has given the strength to the Jewish people to survive, though I don't think it has any desire to see a greater good outside its own community. Working to support your own community is good and this is what Jews have always done. Though I'm unaware of any charities, soup kitchens, or programs that are expressly Jewish that are meant to help non-Jews. Christianity - It took a lot of the practical advice about how to live a good life from Judaism, but made a religion that was meant to outreach to others. Thus you do find Christians who actively work for the betterment of others. It is a lot less ritualistic than Judaism. Islam - I think this religion is best for those in the modes of passion and ignorance. It is a militant religion that appeals to those who need major discipline. I think this is why many in the inner city of America, who see drug addicts, and crime run rampant turn to Islam. To them Christianity has failed because it isn't militant enough. In this sense it can have some positive value. Buddhism - This is a religion in the mode of goodness. However, its ultimate goal is the extinguishing of desire and the self. On a practical level what does this do for society. So it says that ultimately life is meant to amount to nothing. Its not exactly an inspiring message to bring about creative development of life. War is meaningless but so too is love. Hinduism - Many good ideas drowned out in confusion. Too many sects, too many gurus, too many scriptures, too many everything. Hinduism doesn't mean a whole lot as there are so many contradictory schools caught up in that label. There are meat eating Hindus, and caste conscious Hindus, there are Hindus who believe in 1 God, and Hindus who believe in unlimited number of Gods, and Hindus who don't believe in any God. Myself, I would say I'm a Vaisnava. I think there are many good ideas, though often misconstrued. Like Karma. If we look at karma as a proactive way of understanding how our actions ripple through the world, this can give us a long-term view and we and society will benefit from such introspection. However, if we think karma means that successful people are good (or "were good") then we might mistake the symptoms for the cause. This results in people thinking that someone who is beautiful is better than someone who is ugly, or someone who is rich is better than someone who is poor, or someone who is born in a high caste is better than someone born in a low caste. We praise success as if it was the cause of goodness, rather than praising goodness which would result in success. So there are many high ideals, but many pitfalls as well. So those are my views. Can't say any of them have shown themselvse to be perfect. But we can't fault just because the world isn't made up of perfect people.