Needed words from my heart…an update

WOW!  Indeed! How things slip up on us! Some incredible things happened today which pointed out many feelings about life to me. 

First, I got an email from a friend in the SF Bay Area who is traveling to SE Asia for 2 months come January, and it was exciting to see how he felt about the adventures he is about to depart upon.  As I was reading his itinerary I could feel the joy I remembered when I set out upon a similar adventure after losing my 2nd high-tech job in 2 years back in 2002. I almost could relive the excitement through his thoughts.

Second, I got a message on MySpace.com from a teenage friend I’ve not heard from in 20 years. Our lives were intertwined for many years from 1975 until 1982, and BOY did those years suffer much pain for both of us. My jaw was sitting on the floor as I read who this message was from.  Him writing me on MySpace.com was the 3rd shocking event I had from being a member on this incredible website.  Now after so many years I am reunited with a great person in time.

Thirdly, I went to teach class with 1st year students, and as I looked into many of their eyes I could see ambition, happiness, youthful carelessness, and desires to be something that people respected in life. At times it made me feel old, and yet at the same time I was able to see my own incredible accomplishments through life. It’s these same accomplishments which have led me to desire sharing with those who want to better their young lives. While it is many times difficult because these youthful kids don’t have the experience of life’s understandings, it is at the same time enlightening for me to see the ‘light’ that shines in their eyes about where their lives are headed. It’s not only a gift, but a responsibility to be a teacher. I am always humbled by my current chosen career path.

Lastly, I was watching a movie channel which aired “The Two Of Us”; a film by Rob Reiner, staring Michelle Pfifer, Bruce Willis, Betty White, Red Buttons, and many more. It was a story about 2 people who had been married for 15 years and were finding that they had more in common with fighting than about being loving partners. It reminded me so much about how often we let little things get in the way of seeing the truth about life. “I can’t see the forest because of all the TREES!!”  Yes, it reminded me of how I have been unsuccessful at relationship in my life. DANG! To be 45 and never have experienced the ability to open myself to another.  Now it’s all behind me.  Sometimes I feel sad over this reality, but more often than not I see the reality of this existence, and it gives me strength to learn more about my path, and hopefully be the knowledge and guiding light to assist others who might have misgivings about their own situations.

After about 15 minutes of watching this movie I began to realize that the choices I’ve made in my life had led me to be alone. While in itself being alone is not a bad thing, it’s the fact that I feel life is written out before me, so much so that it will not include being with another person in an intimate sense. Hmmm… I’ve become my mother, father, grandmother (on my father’s side), and my sister. Interesting how it seems that many people’s lives are known long before they are even born.

In closing this update, it is important that I note life is incredibly dynamic, and every turn I make around every corner shows me a path of roses.  I could choose to see the stony path, or the thorns each rose stem carries, but when I smell those sweet smelling flowers along the way, every other unappealing aspect seems to disappear.  I guess what I’m saying is that my life feels like I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth.  So many people in my history (and family) became the kind of people you see in either horror movies, or sad stories where they end up in prison or homeless, and I can’t help but feel that the goose with the golden eggs wound up in my barn. Now how to share that wealth with the rest of the world?

I love y’all more than words will ever say, and certainly more than I can ever let you know without being absurd or mushy.   Thanks for your loving friendship, and I will always feel humbled by the life y’all have helped me to live.  I couldn’t be happier!

– Cole
    ”Life is a journey. Enjoy the trip.”

The Hunger Site

The Child Health Site

2nd Semester Begins…

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The Child Health Site

WOW! Here it is! Already the 2nd semester of academic year 2006 is starting. Where did the FIRST semester go?!

Well, be that as it may, it was a great 1st semester where we had lots of fun, and also lots of work. This past semester found me being invited to work at many off-campus opportunities which has allowed me to build up a tasty savings so I can make a long over-due visit to my family and friends in the states. As of New Year’s Day it will be 2 full years since my last trip overseas, and I find myself drooling over some Taco Bell yummies, and Whataburgers, and Casa Ole Mexican Food plates. Of course all of that MUST be topped off with some Homemade Blue Bell Ice Cream! WHOO!!HOO!! Hopefully I’ll get to enjoy a tasty prime rib and cheese cake in the SF Bay Area, and who KNOWS what other goodies will be found. :=)

The current plan is slated to take off with my friend Marty coming to Thailand for a 2 or 3 week visit where he’ll do some exploring on his own, then to meet up with me at some predetermined location where we’ll then explore previously unseen wonders. When those adventures are complete I’ll be flying back with him to the San Francisco area where I’ll spend a week or so with visiting dearest friends of my adult life. Then it’s on to Houston Texas to visit family and dearest friends of my younger life. It’s sure to be LOADS of fun, and I find myself feeling anxious every time I think about it.

But that’s still 6 months away, and deeply in the planning stages. Many changes will occur I’m certain. In the meantime, our new semester begins Monday the 30th of October. It looks to be another productive and enjoyable teaching period. Especially since I was contacted by a special person asking if I would take a job teaching English to Monks in a temple of Nakhon Sawan. If this job does come through, it will be another life-goal reached (one of many achieved in my blessed, if not completely crazy, life.) My studies in Buddhism have led me to have a completely new vision of mankind, and how we are all responsible to bring Love and Peace to all life on this wonderful planet. While this achievement is extremely difficult, we all know that anything worth acquiring in life is most certainly worth working for. "Easy street is a dead end!" Now if we can only get those republicans out of congress and let Peace have a chance!

Guess this is enough for my quarterly update. Please be sure to check out my new videos I’ve uploaded. I’ll be adding more from my trip to Tak province and Bangkok this weekend. It’s my last chance to get away for some fun and relaxing since I’ll be busting humps 6 days a week for 3 full months. WHEW!! I’ll NEED that summer break to the states in April/May. LOL

Here’s a link to MySpace.com videos:

Cole’s Videos on MySpace.com

May Light, Life, and Love surround each and every one of you, and may happiness lighten every step you take.

Namaste

The Coup…

Well, it is now day 3 of the military regime takeover of Thailand, and there is no direct notice of anything being different.  Yesterday was declared a Nation Holiday and all government facilities were closed, including banks and universities.  Today it’s back to Business As Usual and our classes at NU continue.

I’ve been watching CNN and BBC World since awaking this morning and have seen no censorship as I did yesterday.  There was a tickertape update at the bottom which read that the military coup leaders report that the coup is complete.  This would mean that all threats to the takeover by Thaksin supporters are eliminated.  This is a good thing.  They also reported that Thai TV has shown His Majesty King Bhumipol Adulyadej saying he supports the coup.  I have yet to confirm this, but will discuss with both my students and Thai colleagues during work today.

All-in-all things are quiet and continuing as if nothing has happened.  Us foreign teachers should be receiving our university contracts as expected with our journey to Thai Immigration next week to renew our visas.  I’ll keep you all updated as things go. For now there is nothing to worry about or even have concern.

Here is a weblink to a blogger in Bangkok that Catherine Roth sent to me. It’s really interesting and has come good information.  Thanks for sending this Catherine.

http://www.jotman.com

Also, thanks to all of you who have either written or called me to see how I was doing.  You are all special and as I have said before, I am blessed to be called your friend.

Love and hugs to you all.

– Cole

    ”Life is a journey. Enjoy the trip.”

http://www.thehungersite.com

http://www.thechildhealthsite.com

What if 9/11 never happened???

ANALYSIS / FIFTH ANNIVERSARY OF SEPT 11 ATTACKS

What if 9/11 had never happened?

World is probably pretty much the same place it would be if the bungling hijackers had not succeeded

By GWYNNE DYER

Five years since 9/11, and we are still being told that the world has changed forever. But the terrorist attack on the United States on Sept 11, 2001 was a low-probability event that could just as easily not have happened. The often careless and sometimes incompetent hijackers might have been caught before boarding those planes, and there were not 10 other plots of similar magnitude stacked up behind them. Would the world really be all that different now if there had been no 9/11?

There would have been no invasion of Afghanistan, and probably no second term for President George W. Bush, whose main political asset for the past five years has been his claim to be leading the United States in a Global War on Terror. Deprived of the opportunity to posture as a heroic war leader in the mould of Winston Churchill or Franklin D. Roosevelt, Mr Bush would have had great difficulty persuading the American public that his first-term achievements merited a second kick at the can.

Would Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz & Co have succeeded in invading Iraq anyway? That was high on their agenda from the moment they took office, but without the 9/11 attacks eight months later they would have had great difficulty in persuading the American public that invading Iraq, a country on the other side of the world that posed no threat to the United States, was a good idea. Whereas after 9/11, it was easy to sell the project to geographically challenged Americans: maybe no Iraqis were involved in 9/11, but they’re all Arabs, aren’t they?

So no Afghanistan, no Iraq _ and probably no Israeli attack on Lebanon either, because that was pre-planned in concert with the United States. Hizbollah’s kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers and the killing of three others in a cross-border raid in late June was a major provocation, but the Bush administration had already signed off on an all-out Israeli air assault to destroy Hizbollah months before. All they needed was a suitable excuse, which Hizbollah duly provided. But assume no Bush second term, and that also doesn’t happen.

Without 9/11, there would still be a "terrorist threat", of course, because there is always some terrorism. It’s rarely a big enough threat to justify expanding police powers, let alone launching a "global war" against it, but the fluke success of the 9/11 attacks (which has not been duplicated once in the subsequent five years) created the illusion that terrorism was a major problem. Various special interests climbed aboard the band-wagon, and off we all went.

That is a pity, because without 9/11 there would have been no governments justifying torture in the name of fighting terrorism, no "special renditions", no camps like Guantanamo. Tens of thousands of people killed in the various invasions of the past five years would still be alive, and Western countries with large Muslim minorities would not now face a potential terrorist backlash at home from their own disaffected young Muslims. The United States would not be seen by most of the world as a rogue state. But that’s as far as the damage goes.

Current US policy and the hostility it arouses elsewhere in the world are both transient things. The Sunni Muslim extremists _ they would call themselves Salafis _ who were responsible for 9/11 have not seized power in a single country since then, despite the boost they were given by the flailing US response to that attack. The world is actually much the same as it would have been if 9/11 had never happened.

Economically, 9/11 and its aftermath have had almost no discernible long-term impact: even the soaring price of oil is mostly due to rising demand in Asia, not to military events in the Middle East. The lack of decisive action on climate change is largely due to Bush policies that were already in place before 9/11. And strategically, the relations between the great powers have not yet been gravely damaged by the US response to 9/11.

There may even be a hidden benefit in the concept of a "war on terror".

It is a profoundly dishonest concept, since it is actually directed mainly against Muslim groups that have grievances against the various great powers: Chechens against Russia, Muslim Uyghurs against China, Kashmiri Muslims and their Pakistani cousins against India, practically everybody in the Arab world and Iran against the US and Britain. The terrorists’ methods are reprehensible, but their grievances are often real.

However, the determination of the great powers to oppose not only their methods but their goals is also real. That gives them a common enemy and a shared strategy.

The main risk at this point in history is that the great powers will drift back into some kind of alliance confrontation. Key resources are getting scarcer, the climate is changing, and the rise of China and India means that the pecking order of the great powers is due to change again in the relatively near future. Any strategic analyst worth his salt, given those preconditions, could draw you up a dozen different scenarios of disaster by lunchtime.

Avoiding that disaster at the expense of the world’s much abused Muslims is not an acceptable option, but it appears to be the preferred solution of the moment. And that, five years on, is the principal legacy of 9/11.

Gwynne Dyer is a London-based independent journalist.

Five Years On…

Today marks half a decade since the world-changing 9/11 event. Many people died on this day 5 years ago, and those people on flight 93 were the 1st true heroes and combatants in the “new” War On Terror. Those brave and courageous people fought and won the very first battle against the tiny-brained mongoloids who feel it is a great calling to slaughter innocent people.

While I feel that America is ultimately responsible for the attack upon its soil because of its many years of middle-east meddling, that is no justification to murder innocent children, women, and men who have very little say over what their government does.

To honor these heroes it is up to each and every one of us to do our part to change the American policies which has led to a war of greed, power, and religious arm-wrestling with other countries. If these policies are allowed to continue, it is entirely possible that the whole world will suffer a disaster greater than any biblical writing could fathom.  As mid-term elections approach in the next 2 months, please PLEASE vote these horrid warmongers out of office, and get some real people of Peace into our congress. Help make a difference in this world, and by casting your vote for Peace in November you will help to honor those heroes who’ve given their lives for what they believed in.

May today be a memory of all brave souls who’ve fought throughout history for Peace.

Visualize World Love and Peace! It really works!
– Cole

    ”Life is a journey. Enjoy the trip.”

http://www.thehungersite.com

http://www.thechildhealthsite.com

Something to think about…

The Hunger Site

Who benefits from new hysteria about security?

"I used to
know when I was being deeply cynical and when I wasn’t," said a friend
who just made it into London before they closed Heathrow airport for
the terrorist scare. "Now, I don’t."

Back in February 2003, when
Prime Minister Tony Blair was trying to persuade a reluctant Britain
that invading Iraq alongside the United States was a really neat idea,
tanks suddenly appeared on the perimeter road around Heathrow to guard
against an impending terrorist attack.

It wasn’t clear what they
were supposed to do – crush the terrorists under their treads? – and no
actual terrorists ever showed up, but it helped to shape public
opinion. So how different is it this time?

Hundreds of flights
delayed or cancelled. Twenty-four alleged conspirators arrested in East
London, Thames Valley towns and Birmingham, many of them described by
neighbours as bearded Muslims wearing traditional dress. Shocking
revelations that they had a new technique for blowing up to 10 aircraft
on the heavily travelled London-US routes out of the sky simultaneously
by smuggling explosive liquids aboard. All cabin baggage banned on
flights out of Britain. And in a classic case of panic envy, the US
Department of Homeland Security declares a red alert in the United
States, too.

That should scare the public into supporting the
"war on terror" a bit longer, even if the real wars are about something
else, and are going seriously wrong: Iraq sliding into civil war, the
Taliban coming back in Afghanistan, Israel flattening Lebanon without
making any significant dent in Hezbollah’s capabilities. Most people
will assume that with all that smoke, there must be some fire.

Of course there’s some fire.

Terrorists
of various sorts have been in business for about 40 years, and the
present crop of Islamist terrorists are especially dangerous since they
are willing to kill themselves along with their victims. But in the
United States more people die on the roads every single month than
Islamist terrorists have killed since the year 2000, and in Britain
it’s more people every week. Yet neither country has tried to restrict
access to cars.

Maybe it’s cynical, but there are strong grounds
for suspecting that this is all a charade. If they infiltrated these
terrorist cells many months ago and have now have arrested most of the
members, then why would they institute drastic new security measures on
flights at this point? And did they really only realise in the past few
days that explosives come in liquid form as well?

After the
arrests in Britain on the night of August 9-10, Peter Clarke, head of
Scotland Yard’s anti-terrorist branch, assured the media that "during
the investigation an unprecedented level of surveillance has been
undertaken . . . We have been looking at meetings, movement, travel,
spending and the aspirations of a large group of people . . .The
investigation reached a critical point last night when the decision was
made to take urgent action in order to disrupt what we believe was
being planned."

Fair enough, although this is the same
organisation that took "urgent action" to kill an innocent Brazilian
called Jean Charles de Menezes in July 2005 "in order to disrupt what
we believe was being planned", and earlier this year shot and wounded
another innocent person in London in the course of a raid on a Muslim
family in east London based on manifestly unreliable information.

So
maybe 24 terrorist plotters have been arrested in Britain, or maybe 24
innocent British Muslims with full beards, or more likely some
combination of the two. But whatever the truth of that, why the panic?

British
Home Secretary John Reid boldly asserted that the "main players" had
been accounted for, and Scotland Yard Deputy Commissioner Paul
Stephenson proudly announced that "we are confident that we have
disrupted a plan by terrorists to cause untold death and destruction
and commit mass murder".

Well done, lads – but if you have them
all locked up, why are you closing the airports and bringing in all
these draconian security measures now? A couple of months ago, when you
first uncovered this plot but didn’t know all the "main players", I
could understand such drastic precautions, but why now?

Maybe it
was those explosive "liquid chemicals" they were planning to smuggle
aboard the planes. After all, it’s only 160 years since nitroglycerine
was invented. It’s a mere 11 years since al-Qaeda associate Ramzi
Yousef plotted to blow up 12 airliners flying across the Pacific at the
same time with nitro carried aboard in contact lens solution bottles.
Who could have foreseen this? Quick! Bring in new security measures!

They
really aren’t that stupid. They have been checking liquids that people
want to carry aboard flights at airport security checkpoints for years.
There would be no need for drastic new security measures, even if the
alleged British terrorist ring were still on the loose.

This is
all hype, designed to frighten the British and American publics into
supporting the wars of their deeply unpopular governments (and the war
of their Israeli ally as well).

Or am I being too cynical? Maybe they’re just stupid. I really don’t know any more.

Gwynne Dyer is a London-based independent journalist.

What book should everyone read once in their life?

Hmmm….  Well, I can’t think of one single book that everyone should read at least once in their life, but I believe everyone should read something that challenges their beliefs.  Less than 5% of all humans ever question their beliefs which means they go through their lives reacting to events without truly knowing WHY they are reacting.

Additionally, by never questioning our beliefs we build a wall of prejudice that we always live behind, and we will protect that wall almost with our lives  We don’t know why we are willing to die for that wall because we’ve never questioned why that wall is even there, just that it needs protecting.

So when you feel like you are right and the other person(s), be it in conversations, readings, chats, etc., are wrong, ask yourself, “What if they are right, and why do I feel I am right?”, a door will open that can free your mind, therefore you’ll be taking a step closer to true understanding.

The above questions were paramount in changing the way I saw myself and life, and right now I’m virtually the happiest with life than I’ve ever been.

These are some of my thoughts for reading.

– Cole

    ”Life is a journey. Enjoy the trip.”

The Hunger Site